Official WWDC 2004 discussion


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I like the old Studio Displays more, just look cooler....anyhow I am really ****ed that apple riped off Konfabulator.

And Konfabulator ripped off other places. This isn't a blatant rip anyway. You've got Core Image integration in Dashboard. Basically, it's a Quartz Extreme generated enviroment. See the two MacRumors movies?

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Dashboard is quite a ripoff but i hope Apple can work with the Konfabulator ppl and make it even better

LOL i noticed the number on the calculator in the dashboard demo too

And Core Image only works on DX9 cards ( yes i know i am using a MS term on a opengl OS)

Supported graphics cards:

* ATI Radeon 9800 XT

* ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

* ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

* ATI Radeon 9600 XT

* ATI Radeon 9600 Pro

* ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

* ATI Mobility Radeon 9600

* NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200

* NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra

:(

I have a Rev. A PB 17inch...

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no actually Hypercard was around long before Konfabulator was, plus Konfabulator was never patented so it's quite hard to rip it off.

Patented or no, that's pretty sad that they made Dashboard almost -exactly- like Konfabulator, and didn't even bother to get in contact with the Konfab developers.

It seems that Apple thinks Konfabulator is pretty cool! Just to clear the air, Apple has not bought Konfabulator, it hasn't hired the developers, it hasn't even talked to us. They just seem to like our product. A lot!

http://www2.konfabulator.com/journal/

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hi...

isn't Dashboard similar to what Microsoft tried to push years ago in Windows 98 with ActiveDesktop ; where you could put applets or webpages on your desktop. then of course this is being brought back in the sidebar in Longhorn, which though clumsy looking may be more useful than either other implementation

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I know man :laugh:

We have to organise some sort of break-in into Apple's manufacturing plant :ninja:

Who's with me!11!1!!! :woot:

Radish?

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isn't Dashboard similar to what Microsoft tried to push years ago in Windows 98 with ActiveDesktop ; where you could put applets or webpages on your desktop. then of course this is being brought back in the sidebar in Longhorn, which though clumsy looking may be more useful than either other implementation

Actually, Dashboard is based off of Konfabulator, which was actually based off of another Apple (I believe) product back in the extremely early days of Mac. The sidebar implementation isn't smart as a matter of fact. It's a space hog that's annoying to pop up and down because it resizes windows. Also, I don't think the Longhorn side-bar has Core Imaging or uses a simple programming language. ;)

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jagedEdge,

Well ActiveDesktop works almost exactly like Dashboard/Konfabulator, along with the close button appearing only when you mouseover the item, except that Microsoft only released a limited number of applets for it. In Windows, Display Properties > Desktop > Customize Desktop > Web . I was immediately reminded of it; though it never became popular and virtually no one uses it.

I think one of the reasons it didn't catch on is because people didnt want to return to the desktop every time to see their stock ticker or calendar,etc. Microsoft allowed it to deprecate, while options like putting the media player controls in the taskbar are more popular. The point of the sidebar in Longhorn is something like that, and also something to be a location for things like you see in IM clients and other apps that you want to stay permanently on the side of your screen. So you dont have to switch to desktop, or to a separate application to see everything you need.

Anyway I agree the sidebar is a spacehog, and looks bad, I hope they do something about that, but as far as I know theres also an auto-hide option so it just slides out over your applications when you move to the side of the screen. Also when its collapsed, the icons in the system tray open individual windows for the sidebar panels (that can be opened other ways), windows like what you have today in IMs. As far as I know, sidebar panels can be programmed easily with XAML/.NET

I believe Microsoft was also trying something like Dashboard with Activity Centers, in 'Neptune', a prototype they were working on for Windows XP; where there would be pages that would show different types of relevant information together. I don't know how much they are working on that concept today.

Edited by brianshapiro
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Well ActiveDesktop works almost exactly like Dashboard/Konfabulator, along with the close button appearing only when you mouseover the item, except that Microsoft only released a limited number of applets for it. In Windows, Display Properties > Desktop > Customize Desktop > Web . I was immediately reminded of it; though it never became popular and virtually no one uses it.

A major difference between Active Desktop and Dashboard/Konfabulator is that Active Desktop virtually rendered the environment as a webpage and then applied applets to it. Moreover, these applets weren't powered by the GPU, they were supported by the CPU. In the OSX environment, Konfabulator runs as its own program which runs its own applets. I am also under the belief that under Active Desktop, applet development was confined to web protocols whereas Java is used in the construction of widgets for Konfabulator.

I think one of the reasons it didn't catch on is because people didnt want to return to the desktop every time to see their stock ticker or calendar,etc. Microsoft allowed it to deprecate, while options like putting the media player controls in the taskbar are more popular. The point of the sidebar in Longhorn is something like that, and also something to be a location for things like you see in IM clients and other apps that you want to stay permanently on the side of your screen. So you dont have to switch to desktop, or to a separate application to see everything you need.
We also have to go to the desktop in order to view "widgets" (unless you set them to "always on top"), what irked people about Active Desktop was that it consumed a lot of system resources which bogged the system down. Furthermore, there were antitrust issues since Microsoft integrated Internet Explorer into Windows in order to make these applets functional.
Anyway I agree the sidebar is a spacehog, and looks bad, I hope they do something about that, but as far as I know theres also an auto-hide option so it just slides out over your applications when you move to the side of the screen. Also when its collapsed, the icons in the system tray open individual windows for the sidebar panels (that can be opened other ways), windows like what you have today in IMs. As far as I know, sidebar panels can be programmed easily with XAML/.NET

The main problem I see in Microsoft is that they percieve success in terms of "quantity", not "quality". Despite the fact that Tiger may not have so many new features, the features that they have implemented will, without a doubt, be very stable and of high quality. As a consumer, I would prefer an OS with fewer, stable features, over an OS with the newest looks and features which only runs half as fast.

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Has everyone noticed that the new iChat demo'ed did not have an AIM icon? I think this is quite a significant statement that people may have overlooked.

Looking at the server edition of Tiger, you can see that Apple has implimented Jabber chat servers into Tiger Server. Any relation? I sure think so.

What do others think about this? Are we going to have a multi-protocol chat program, or are all these new ichat features only available by using Jabber servers/client (meaning different than the ichat/AIM we have now)?

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Has everyone noticed that the new iChat demo'ed did not have an AIM icon? I think this is quite a significant statement that people may have overlooked.

Looking at the server edition of Tiger, you can see that Apple has implimented Jabber chat servers into Tiger Server. Any relation? I sure think so.

What do others think about this? Are we going to have a multi-protocol chat program, or are all these new ichat features only available by using Jabber servers/client (meaning different than the ichat/AIM we have now)?

I noticed it too.. :wacko:

I wonder what it means, if anything.

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I watched it as well, it's really neat but I'm gonna hold off buying a mac till next year probably.

and why is that? They are not likely to have new Pmac G5 introduced anytime soon. If you're buying PowerBook, you should probably wait. But for iBook, it's not possible to ship with any G5 chips yet. But well, the suggestion is to buy what you need.

And I wonder when Motion will be available

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