Synopsis
Desktop widgets are the earliest form of customization, creating mini applications and information displays revealed with a hotkey or docked on your desktop sidebar. Our trio of experts represent three different approaches to desktop ornaments, Internet enabled for always-on broadband and utilizing the uniqueness of the desktop experience to their advantage.
The desktop widget environment opens up access to specialized resources including rich UI rendering, access to local files and information, and even command-line access. These unique abilities offer widget developers advanced opportunity for development, matching the look-and-feel of desktop applications and an awareness of user behavior exposed by other local widgets or application information.
Konfabulator is one of the pioneers of desktop widgets, displaying your favorite desktop accessories in a full-screen graphical overlay. Konfabulator's parent company, Pixoria, was acquired by Yahoo! in August 2005 and became the Yahoo! Widget Engine. Yahoo! Widget Engine delivers content from many Yahoo! properties into a desktop environment combined with widgets from outside developers.
Google Desktop is a desktop search application with a sidebar information component. Google software indexes a user's hard drive and keeps track of searches executed, building a unique profile over time. Google index data and user profiling creates custom widgets for each user, displaying news and information influenced by recent online and offline actions.
Windows Sidebar is a component of Microsoft's soon to be released Vista operating system. Sidebar is an operating system component, with access to the rich UI of Windows Presentation Foundation and local software applications.
