Yahoo! Widgets 4.0 Build 168

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Yahoo! Widgets are small, specific applications that you can run on your Windows or Mac OS desktop. A Widget can do almost anything from displaying a weather forecast to playing a game. Widgets generally sit on your desktop and don't look like applications as we're used to seeing them in a standard window. Instead, Widgets tend to look like small pictures or animations. Yahoo! Widgets help you save time and stay current by bringing an always-updated, at-a-glance view of your favorite Internet services right to your desktop. The Yahoo! Widget Gallery offers over 4,000 desktop Widgets - the most available anywhere online. Yahoo! Widgets is the only major desktop Widgets platform that works on both Windows and Mac OSes.

Changes in Version 4.0

Performance

    * Implemented image sharing to attempt to reduce memory consumption for some Widgets.
    * When a Window is hidden, we now release all the drawing buffers. Not a huge savings in most cases, but hey.
    * XPath is now substantially faster on large XML DOMs.
    * We now load Win HTTP on-demand.
    * Rewrote COM support to be faster and fixed some issues with event sinks.

Animations

    * Implemented Resize Animation.
    * It is now possible to reuse an animation. Previously, once an animation was complete, it was useless.
    * Changed animations to always call any 'done' function you pass in even if the animation is run with runUntilDone (i.e. synchronously). This only takes effect if your minimumVersion is 4.0 or later.

Filesystem

    * Added filesystem.zip() and filesystem.unzip() as simple utilities to do basic zip/unzip actions.
    * Filesystem.move() now will rename a file (i.e. it should now behave exactly like the unix mv command).
    * Added filesystem.getMD5() to return the MD5 string for a given file.
    * Added optional third parameter to filesystem.writeFile. You can now pass a boolean to tell us whether or not to append to the file instead of merely overwriting the entire file. appendFile( path, content [, append] );
    * Added filesystem.createDirectory() and filesystem.remove(). view full changelog

Operating Systems Supported

    * Windows XP SP2, 2000 SP4
    * Windows Vista
    * Mac OS X 10.3.9 and up

Download: Yahoo! Widgets 4.0 Build 168 freeware

Download: Yahoo! Widgets 4.0 for Mac OS X

View: Version 4.0 Announcement

Link: Yahoo! Widgets Home Page

#1 NightmarE D on 22 Mar 2007 - 12:43

It's nice they added a dock to it, but it doesn't really serve any good purpose.

If you have the dock on screen but no widgets open, all the widgets you have loaded in the dock use a default image like they're turned off or something. Like the calendar shows "Jan 1" if you're not using it, but click on it and it'll open the gadget and then the preview thing on the dock switches to the current date. Same thing with the clock, weather, news and everything else. It doesn't really make any sense because you basically have all your widgets opened twice and it clutters the screen.

#2 sputnik18 on 22 Mar 2007 - 13:01

well you can right click on the real widget and choose to "Hide Widget." Thus the real widget will hide and show itself to the dock. Or you can choose to close the dock and back to the look and feel of the previous versions.

that's not really a big concern to me. However it costs lots of RAM for running this thing, the more widgets, the more memory resources. I'm currently only using the weather and calendar.

anyone knows any other run-alone widgets that's more resource-efficient?

thanks!

(1 reply) #3 officesheep9 on 22 Mar 2007 - 13:07

It's A LOT faster in my experience.

Though I must admit I have gotten used to the Sidebar in Vista now, I like how it keeps all of my gadgets/widgets in one place (it just looks cleaner to me). I will give Yahoo credit though, it dominates Vista Sidebar in number of gadgets/widgets.

#3.1 Vettetech on 22 Mar 2007 - 21:51

I use Weather Watcher. Its free and doesnt take up any memory and you always can see your current temps in your taskbar. I just installed this and its too much for me. Takes up too much memory. Its cool and all but I dont see a purpose for it.

(2 replies) #4 bangbang023 on 22 Mar 2007 - 15:43

Does it still use a separate process for each widget?

#4.1 _MacGyver_ on 22 Mar 2007 - 15:44

Lets hope so

#4.2 +Mephistopheles on 22 Mar 2007 - 16:57

Yes, it does.

#5 _MacGyver_ on 22 Mar 2007 - 15:43

Gotta say, most the 3rd part gadgets out so far aren't that hot though...

#6 godzila on 22 Mar 2007 - 15:54

working properly ok i'm the install and ok well all working good not problem

(3 replies) #7 Tai on 22 Mar 2007 - 15:59

I thought the added dock would be a bit more like the vista sidebar .. which I'm using now, although Microsoft shouldn't be so mean and allow XP users to have it too - which I thought they promised us when they started on the sidebar ...

#7.1 officesheep9 on 22 Mar 2007 - 18:39

They never said that, why would they? There is no reason why they would backport yet another feature to XP...that wouldn't make any sense. You want the sidebar (without hacks) then get Vista, it's simple marketing.

#7.2 Tai on 23 Mar 2007 - 03:19

Quote - (officesheep9 said @ #7.1)

scroll down to the details on sidebar .. Its mentioned on Paul Thurrot's site, and there was a brief discussion on that here awhile ago : http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_xp_apps.asp

#7.3 officesheep9 on 23 Mar 2007 - 16:12

Quote - (Tai said @ #7.2)

I think it's safe to say it won't happen. As I mentioned, it really wouldn't make any sense for them to backport even more "features" from Vista. You have to remember they are trying to convince people to buy Vista for all this stuff ... why would people if they offer the same thing on XP?

(1 reply) #8 wilbert on 22 Mar 2007 - 16:40

My only problem with the Vista side bar is that it does not have an "Auto Hide" feature.

Such a simple thing that would allow me to mouse to the side and view my information when I need it.

#8.1 Jaron on 22 Mar 2007 - 23:19

It did the last time I try it. There's also a keyboard shortcut to bring it to the front at anytime.

#9 AshMan on 22 Mar 2007 - 21:58

Looks cool!

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