widgets
Latest
Widget Watch: xCuts - a Mac OS X shortcut reference
Now here is a widget that everyone can enjoy: more better keyboard shortcuts. xCuts is a reference widget for Mac OS X's keyboard shortcuts, organized by Category, Scope and Object, allowing you more control over which kinds of shortcuts to browse through. You can even live-search the database, and the widget allows you to copy and paste the shortcut text into documents. Nice.
Widget Watch: iStat pro
Here's a widget that nearly any geek would love. iStat pro is a Dashboard widget that keeps tabs on your system, reporting on CPU activity, memory, network status and information, temperature, fan activity, available disk space (on all connected drives) and more. Plus, it looks great while doing it. The interface is customizable and very easy to read. Definitely worth checking out.[Via Resexcellence]
Panic updates Stattoo
Panic's Stattoo helps you keep track of what you need to keep track of. When launched, it "tattoos" a strip of statistical capsules (I hate to say it, but think "widgets") across the bottom of your screen (you can reposition it if you like). You can assign a hotkey or key combination to briefly move it in front all windows, otherwise it simply acts as a part of your desktop picture. Available capsules include a clock, iCal event monitor, Mail monitor (now with Gmail support), weather, disk status, an RSS reader and more. Today, Panic released version 1.5. Changes include: Universal Binary, The mail capsule now supports GMail A new RSS capsule There's more, of course, and you can get the full run-down here. Stattoo costs $12.95 for a single license and requires Mac OS 10.4 or later.
Yahoo! Widgets Engine 3.1 available
Earlier this week, Yahoo! released version 3.1 of the Yahoo! Widgets Engine (formerly Konfabulator). As you may remember, Konfabulator (which was purchased by Yahoo! in December of last year) was the first application to bring "widgets" to our Macs. Changes in version 3.1 include: Added support for a new flat file format for Widgets which permits signing or Widget code to enhance security. Added preference to control whether or not the Widget Engine automatically starts up when your system starts. Implemented importNode() from the Level 2 DOM spec. There's more, of course, and you can get the full run-down here. Yahoo! Widgets Engine (gee, that's cumbersome to type over and over) requires Mac OS 10.3 and is free.
Widget Watch: HBO Widget
I haven't been this impressed with a widget's capabilities in a long time. The HBO widget is highly functional and eye candy-infused, allowing you not only to check the program guides for both HBO and Cinemax channels, but you can browse and view their 'large collection' of teasers right inside the widget. Top that all off with a really slick minimizing ability to get all this intensive content out of your way when you'd rather save the cycles, and I think I've found the latest widget to receive a 'click of my mouse™.'The widget is, of course, free and available from HBO's site.[via Daring Fireball]
Widget Watch: Macgyverisms
I have found a use for Dashboard and its name is Macgyverisms. This pointless widget provides you with one of 200 ideas from MacGyver himself to get out of a sticky situation. The next time I am in the woods with only a rosary and a slingshot, I'll know what to do. Will you?[via Lifehacker]
Widget Watch: Retrograde3
I know what you're going to say already. "The last thing we need is another clock widget!" While I'm inclined to agree, I will say this: Retrograde3 is one cool clock.It's a Yahoo! Widgets Engine widget that displays the time, date and phase of the moon. You can change the clock's color as well as the "reflection" on its face. One word of warning, however: It's BIG (bigger even than the image at right). Those of you with 12" displays have been warned.
Widget Watch: Magnolia Blossom
Magnolia Blossom allows you to watch as people add links to the social bookmarking site, Ma.gnolia. The widget presents the links as snapshots of the website that scroll across the widget in a visually pleasing manner. If you are obsessed about finding cool new websites (there are websites other than TUAW out there?) then this widget might be just what the doctor ordered.[via Infinite Loop]
Widget Watch: BitSticks
VanillaSoap Design, the folks behind the slick Capture Dashboard widget, have released a public beta of BitSticks, their newest widget. BitSticks is a stand alone Bittorrent widget, and it works just as you would expect. Grab a torrent file in the Finder, invoke Dashboard and drop the file onto BitSticks. Next, sit back and relax as your download progresses. It's not a full-featured client, of course, but it gets the job done with those smaller files you simply need to grab.
Widget Watch: CreativeBits Widget 2.0
CreativeBits, a design and OS X-centric creative community, has produced a really slick looking update to their widget that acts as a portal for their site. Users can view the latest articles, forum posts, critiques and links. Clicking on a title in the widget opens the entire article in your browser, while the widget includes its own forward and back navigation if you'd like to simply browse the latest CreativeBits goodies right from the comfort of your Dashboard.
Widget Watch: Locker
Today's widget is quite simple. Locker is a Dashboard widget that performs a single trick: Double click it, and you're sent to a login window via fast user switching. Enter your password and return to what you were doing, with all your applications still running. Since it takes (slightly) less time than Option-selecting "Log out" I'll keep it, as I walk away from my office frequently during the day.
Widget Watch: Lost (for Dashboard)
The last Lost widget (say that five times fast) we featured was for Konfabulator, but now you Dashboard junkies can get in on the fun of pushing a button every 108 minutes.Am I the only one who doesn't get this whole Lost thing? Isn't it just a spooky version of Gilligan's Island?[via the Uber Geeks]
Widget watch: Reminder
For all those times when adding a quick reminder to iCal is too cumbersome, or you might not be online so the Backpack widget can do its thing, the Reminder widget might be right up your alley. As you can see, the widget has a simple interface allowing you to add some type of a reminder name/message, along with a reminder time. As an added bonus, this widget actually adds events to its own iCal calendar.The Reminder widget is, of course, free and available from DashboardWidgets.com.
Widget Watch: Google Music Video
This Google Music Video widget sounds pretty slick: it pulls song information out of iTunes and searches Google Video for any related videos. I haven't tried it, but with everything that YouTube is able to get away with, I think it'd be a good idea if the author could add support for searching their catalog too.
Widget Watch: Ta-da Lists widget
We TUAW bloggers certainly love Backpack, the super-simple online PIM from 37 Signals, and it's Dashboard widget is pretty slick too. Naturally, I was excited to see a Dashboard widget pop up in endo this morning for Ta-da List, 37 Signals' one-trick-pony todo list manager. The Ta-da Lists Widget allows you to create new todo lists lists and add items to those lists. It's a pretty straight forward widget for a very straight forward service.One catch I ran into while setting the widget up, however, is the way the widget first logs into your account. I flipped the widget over, entered my name and password and then the widget asked me to log into Ta-da Lists first through my browser, specifying that I check the "remember me" box. I use Camino, and for some odd reason the widget couldn't catch that I logged into the service, so it wouldn't allow me to start using my lists. Only when I logged in through Safari did the widget kick into gear and download my information.Aside from the registration hiccup, this widget is really handy. It's fast, slick, and in true 37 Signals form: simple and effective.
Widget Watch: The Daily Grind
If you have one of those jobs that requires to you track just how much time you spend on a given task (or if you're just a compulsive nut), check out The Daily Grind. It's a Dashboard widget that lets you start several individual timers, and give a custom name to each one. Plus, you can copy the results of any timer to the clipboard with a click. Pretty cool.
Google blog posts Mac trivia
Remember when Google released those widgets just for the rest of us? I had heard about it from our sister blog, The Social Software Weblog, but on Google's own blog they actually offered up some pretty unique Apple trivia in their release announcement post. If you consider yourself a fine connoisseur of all things Apple (or if you're just curious), you might want to try your hand at the three questions they presented. As far as I know, the only prize is your own smug sense of self-satisfaction for being a Mac geek ninja.
Learn to love Apple's Calendar widget
When Apple first released Mac OS 10.4.4 with its brand new Dashboard widgets back in January, more than a few of you gave the updated calendar widget a big thumbs down. I don't mind it, but it seems I'm in the minority. This post is for you nay-sayers.Macworld is describing some great tips for quickly navigating the calendar widget. You can use your right and left arrow keys to jump from month to month, and the up and down arrows to move from year to year. To quickly return to the current month, just hit the home key (or fn plus left arrow on a laptop). Now don't you love calendar just a little bit more?
Widget Watch: WeatherBug
Here's a great weather Dashboard widget that makes Apple's Weather look downright anemic. WeatherBug Local Weather by WeatherBug displays your local weather, live radar shots, current news and even alerts and warnings for your area.Click the "Animate" button at the bottom of the screen and you're brought to a web page with the radar animation. It would be cool if this worked within the widget, but it's hardly a deal breaker. Check it out.
Opera to include its own widgets
Forget podcast overload, I'm suffering from widget overload. There are Konfabulator widgets (now called Yahoo! Widgets Engine) and Apple Dashboard widgets. Microsoft will included "gadgets" with Vista, KDE will soon support Dashboard widgets and a soon-to-be-released version of the Opera web browser will feature its own built-in widgets. Phew.The next preview version of Opera to be released (scheduled for some time this week) will include tools that will allow users to view information drawn from certain websites, like sports scores or weather reports, without having to continually revisit those sites. A dozen "demo widgets" will be included. Integrated BitTorrent search and download will also be a part of the Opera preview release.The idea of widgets written and launched directly from a browser is kind of interesting. I'll have to check this out.[Via MacSlash]Update: It's available now.Thanks, James!
