Konfabulator Beta

Bleh... Why bother? For Windows, we have Desktop X, Sumarize, Sysmetrix. Many products that do the same thing, and more.

Konfabulator looks to blow all those programs outta the water...

..and you base this on what?

Its smaller library? Its fewer features? What?

Or lemme guess, you are basing your gushiness of Konfabulator because the default widgets are really pretty?

Please enlighten us what feature Konfabulator has that will "blow" DesktopX "out of the water".

Yes they do look better, a mojority of the desktop x features work, but look horrendous. And once put in the hands of Windows skinners and code writers, I think it will grow over in popularity

More can be done on Windows as seen with DX2 but I just think that Konfab will become the popular favorite. I mean this in no disrespect to DX2, I use it... But I just htink alot of people will switch over when Windows skinners find ways to make it exremely effective.

And again I ask: Why?

DesktopX already has a large user base. More features. It's cheaper. Object creation is visual and interactive, it has a low memory foot print.

So can you provide a reason why you think Konfabulator would become "the popular favorite?"

I really want to undersatnd this. It's like "Oh, well it was on a Mac but now that it's available to the peasantry it'll take over there too because it was on a Mac."

I have Konfabulator on my Mac. Been using it a long while. But eventually one tires of doing counters and weather widgets.

But again let me ask: Why would someone switch from DesktopX to Konfabulator?

Well just have to see, they are both good programs

I looked over at the Konfab library of objects, and frankly, I was expecting more than that. I'm really not impressed. I mean, the great majority of them are meters, timers or mail checkers.
Sure, the problem with DX is that most skinners here are artists, not programers, so they don't know how to use DX to it's full potential.  I'd actually turn what you said the other way around: once programers start discovering DX is see how much cool stuff they can do with it, there will be no comparison possible. Already we have a few programers and they are taking DX in an interesting route. And that's without mentionning DX Pro's new feature that makes it possible to package an object as an EXE that everybody can use, even without having DX installed.

No, I have no interest in a lesser product.

Cos it has a really goofy name, of course...

'I'm Konfabulating my computer' sounds much more 'trick' than 'I use DX'....

/me runs....

ScoobyWRX STi 04 -yes, Konfabulator is a good program on the Mac. But you are giving it an amazing benefit of the doubt that they're going to have a perfect port.

Tried iTunes? It uses 40 megabytes of RAM when it's not doing anything. I like iTunes but in order to do that cool Mac stuff on the PC they had to create a lot of stuff that doesn't exist on Windows by default. So it ended up quite bloated.

People put up with that for a media player. But they won't for a widget that displays the weather or counts down until the new year. 

So to say Konfabulator is going to be good on the PC is jumping the gun pretty hugely. Konfabulator on the Mac isn't very hard. It's just a Java run time that uses Quartz to do all sorts of neat stuff. Doing the same on the PC may not be easy outside things that are just a bunch of PNG files and the like. And even then it'll probably have to use layered windows.

BTW, DesktopX 2.1 is going to support its own form of widgets. You will be able to export as an .exe and run it as a regular program (though you will need DesktopX still on the system for the runtimes).

And like Paxx mentioned, DesktopX Pro, which comes out next week will let you export as stand-alone programs. Won't even need DesktopX. So that cool weather widget could be exported and sent to anyone.

I see ur point...

Score:

ScoobyWRX STi 04: 0
Frogboy: 1


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And like Paxx mentioned, DesktopX Pro, which comes out next week will let you export as stand-alone programs. Won't even need DesktopX. So that cool weather widget could be exported and sent to anyone.

  That sounds very interesting..........  I can hardly wait to see what pops up.

Well there was one other thing I should also point out:

Konfabulator widgets are in .sit and .dmg.  Mac users don't use .ZIP.

So unless Konfabulator for the PC somehow bundles .sit and .dmg (which adds more overhead) then sharing widgets between the platforms isn't going to be easy.

Even on the Mac it's harder than DesktopX is on Windows. On Windows, I can double click on a .dxpack and it will a) install the object in my object libary and launch the object on my desktop.

By contrast, on the mac, when I download that .dmg file I have to go through a couple of steps to get the widget. Then I have to copy the widget to my documents\konfabulator directory.

And that's on a Mac. On the PC, I'm not sure how they'll resolve the .sit/.dmg issue. But without a cross platform library, then they lose their advantage in being able to have PC users make use of artistic abilities of Mac widget makers.

 

Followup: http://www.computing.net/mac/wwwboard/forum/7694.html

There is no way, that I know of, to open up a .dmg on a PC at present. Which is what most Konfabulator widgets are stored as.

Which means that barring a significant change to the Konfabulator library, those widgets will be Mac only.

Hey Frogboy, I wanted to compliment you on your Camsoft new, may I ask though where do you get the Icon Developer program to make those icons, or is there another one that can be used as well? Id love to make my own suite...

ScoobyWRX STi 04:

From what I have read:

Even STYLE XP is better than Konfabulator.

I have style XP, I use to use it when my Window blinds suites wouldnt work correctly... If im not mistaken, its 2 different programs for 2 totally different purposes... One is visual styles, and konfab is widgets...

OK you have a point. But Konfabulator SUCKS compaired to DX. I am not a big fan of DX but I have tried it recently (because I upgraded to XP a few days ago) and I loved it but I love WB even more.

Apple should keep there programs to themself unless they finally decide to make OS X available to PC's.

he he.. I knew how this thread was gonna go the minute I saw it posted.

Ok, but does anyone know what programs I can use to make these icons ?

how about you make icons with a icon making proggy for iconpacker?

would be a better idea.

What program would that be? Im nub at this

Why do people keep talking about Samurize as if it were even remotely the same kind of program? Are we talking about the same Samurize?

Anyway, Like I said on another string, it ain't just DX and Konfabulator. There are a half dozen apps on PC that I know of that get these jobs done with great success. Beyond the poseur Mac fetishists, I dunno who would be clamoring for another option. Do they make 4k Alienware doorstops that look like a Mac?

Scooby: did you read the news article on Icon Developer on the WC main page? Click on the "visit now" link and it takes you to this page where you can read about it: http://adam.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=990

Just a hint: it's an Object Desktop app.




Edited: Just noticed that you posted in the news article thread on Saturday which was about the new OD app, Icon Developer, and had your answer there and were given a link to the site https://www.stardock.com/products/icondeveloper/ As noted on the news article thread it's a new app and currently is only available on OD. If you read the program's site you'll notice that it will be available for individual download and purchase.

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