Re: Dashboard Was: Creating Menu Bar Extras

FROM : Erik Ableson
DATE : Sun Apr 10 17:34:52 2005

Le 10 avr. 2005, à 17:11, Andreas Mayer a écrit :
> Am 10. Apr 2005 um 15:30 Uhr schrieb Dale Gillard:

>> It seems to me that Apple have given us Dashboard in Tiger to resolve
>> the problem of third-parties not being able to create Menu Extras. It
>> would seem to address all the drawbacks above, though it's limited to
>> 10.4.

> Huh?
> It does not address *any* of those problems. (*)
> Andreas
> (*) In fact, I don't know *what* problem Dashboard is supposed to
> address ...


The never ending search for a better mousetrap :-)  Basically, it's a
pretty UI on a variety of things that are available via other means. 
Globally it's just Sherlock all over again, only lots prettier, lighter
weight without tying everything into a single window...

And since Sherlock never really responded to any need, (nor
konfabulator) I fail to see what all of the fuss and bother is. 
Widgets ? just a small app - I guess there's a piddly little advantage
in that it won't take up space in the dock, but otherwise, I can't see
any compelling advantage that a widget has over a small app.  I guess
the development cycle is easier, but as far as I've seen that just
means we'll be wading through lots and lots of stuff that's either ugly
or has even less useful value.

A widget space has a built in failure point - if the widgets are truly
useful, then you'll fill the screen with them.  Then when you have room
and have a hard time distinguishing between them, where do you go?  As
far as I can tell, Dashboard and Konfabulator seemed mostly like 
"multi-desktop lite"

That said, I'll load up my Mac with cool looking widgets just to make
the PC users jealous.

I think that for anyone who uses multiple logins the killer app of
Tiger is going to be iSync.  I want to be able to create a new user
account on my computer for testing stuff, but I want to be able to sync
up all of my environment like my exposé settings, keyboard shortcuts,
mail rules, That is going to be very very useful.  Now if there was a
windows iSync client that handled syncing bookmarks with IE or Firefox,
loaded up my Outlook addressbook Apple could sell .Mac account to
Windows users ;-)

Cheers,

Erik Ableson