Konfabulator for Windows - Everything old is new again!

Could we have some decency here.

http://www.desktopx.net
from JoeUser Forums

There's a lot of noise in the news sites (Slashdot.org, News.com and Neowin.net) about the Monday release of Konfabulator for Windows. But to be honest they just make me think that journalists today no longer care to be through and accurate and will chew in everything  that a PR department will send them. I do not personally rant about those kind of things, but this one got me going. Especially one thing Mr Alro said which is cited in about all of the sources:

'When you have a great idea, you want more than 2 percent of the global market to have access to it.'

That's just utter gibberish!

Unless you lived in a glass castle for the last 6 years or never been a part of the desktop customization community you know that there already is a pretty stiff competition in that area on Windows. He sounds as if some Macintosh saviours bring the desktop customization into the abandoned wasteland of Windows.

Hellooo! I have a news for you! DesktopX is at least a few years older than Konfabulator and it has always been a Windows application. And it just began from that. There are multiple desktop customizing apps epart from that, Kapsule and AveDesk to mention just a few of them.

Unfortunately this is not news for Mr Arlo Rose he is pretty aware of it as I've been reading his rhetoric after Apple anounced Dashboard in Tiger and that just makes me all much more astonished about this statement.

skinning
13,789 views 23 replies
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
As I was reading this over on Neowin I couldn't help but think the same thing.

So instead of competing with one program, Dashboard, he wants to compete with, oh what, at least 4 (thinking of Desktop X, Kapsules, Samurize, and Avedesk). I know there has been a lot of talk about whether he is getting screwed by Apple or not. All I know is that it sounds like he is a bit out of touch with the reality of desktop customization, at least on the Windows side of things.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Look at it this way though... he's just had a ton of free advertising. Advertising to people who have not tried DX, Kaps or Ave before, and they will buy this instead.

Even with the increased competition on Windows, he now has access to potentially 10,000x more customers.

The fact is, this will do well. Probably too well, I don't think the Konfab site will stand up to the hammering it will receive Monday.

The Mac community, is small, but vocal (ie never shut up) and it also has a trendy factor, so starting the app with the Mac has done him no end of favours.

With Stardocks user base and Brads interviews in various top end journals etc, I'm suprised their apps haven't been vocalised more in the main stream press where Konfab will get some attention.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Even with the increased competition on Windows, he now has access to potentially 10,000x more customers.


Good observation. Hadn't thought about it that way.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Alas!

Brad has been discussing it already once here

It's just like :

> Mac = cool (after all EVERYTHING GETS INVENTED ON MAC FIRST),
> PC = boring (WE ONLY COPYCAT DIVINE MAC DEVELOPERS)
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Look at it this way though... he's just had a ton of free advertising. Advertising to people who have not tried DX, Kaps or Ave before, and they will buy this instead.


I do not care about moving Konfab on Windows. They did wise moving to Windows. The problem I have with Arlo is with this very statement. he is not bringning any great idea to Windows, this idea was here before it was on a Mac.

So basically by selectively picking facts he is tricking users to assume what you just said. That kind of behaviour has a name. the name is propaganda.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Konfabulator is going to be so cool! It will be just like the first time I used DesktopX! JUST... LIKE...THE... FIRST... TIME.. I...USED... DESKTOPX.
Except that Konfabulator can't do everything DesktopX does...woops!
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Is there anything that Konfabulator does that DesktopX or any other "widget" program can't do?
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
DesktopX is scripted, so it can do pretty much anything you can imagine. In that regard Konfabulator is similar.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
DesktopX can do everything and I mean everything that Konfabulator can do.  Plus it can do a lot more. And it costs less. And it's easier to use (try making a Konfabulator widget).   A DesktopX widget, by contrast is literally a .EXE generated through a 3 step wizard.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Unfortunately for Konfabulator, it's coming out against several already established programs. DesktopX , which I use, has a large library of objects and widgets, and from everything I've heard is very easy to program (wouldn't know myself, I haven't tried). I've also heard good things about Samurize and though fairly new AveDesk is made by AndreasV who wrote many things for DesktopX and is very talented. In my humble opinion they are just relying on the fact somepeople might recognize the name Konfabulator and say Oh Cool! I got to have that!
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Mac people are arrogant snobs and have convinced much of the planet, that despite their 1% marketshare, everything they do is better and smarter.. Its funny though, everything i've seen from MAC try to make it in the PC market gets HAMMERED, and I expect nothing less from this application to be honest.

Perhaps Stardock will have a PR person soon to increase its exposure?
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Misinformation is doing Konfab no end of favours that is true.

DesktopX is better. No question. But for a lot of users, its too 'good'. Brad summed it up earlier, people just want a few standard widgets that already exist, which when they are bored they can change the look of. They hardly ever want to change its functionality, and if they do, they'd usually as the developer of the widget. It could be said that DX's potential is so much that users just don't get 'it' (what the app is aiming to achieve I guess)

This is a bonus of say AveDesk. Far more limited in user development potential (only due to its steep coding skill requirements) but the way Andreas designed the widgets to have XML skinning was just brilliant. Somebody with no coding skill at all can make an interactive skin for an existing widget.

I know DX can do this, but it is quite convulted to do, changing each individual object each time. Custon1an has brought a form of skinning to his FTP'Drop widget in that it can be skinned by placing images in a directory and thats it. Which is what DX needs more of.

Konfabulator will have the same problems in this respect, but it has the upper hand that the default widgets are very 'pretty'.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Konfabulator isn't like Avedesk. You can't make skins for its widgets.

Konfabulator for Windows already exists -- Kapsules.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
I have a question, and I think it's on topic with this thread; but does anyone know of a DECENT 3d desktop application for Windows XP?
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Never said Konfab was like AveDesk :) Just said it's default widgets are 'prettier' than the default that come with Kaps and DesktopX.

In my experience, Konfab is the hardest of the lot to skin; I'd say Kaps next, then DX, the AveDesk in ease of skinning.

And yes you are definately right there, Kapsules is a great app and is more powerful than Konfabulator, but just doesn't have the marketing muscle.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well, just to let you know if you haven't tried... Konfab is very very good.

Not in its ingenuity, or tech, but its polish. No denying that I'm afraid.
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
So Septimus, what do you mean by the polish? Are the widgets just better looking? Is it eye candy we are talking about or what?

The site is so slow for me this morning I can't seem to check it out. But the folks over at neowin are drooling like crazy and all talking about ditching Kapsules and Samurize for this (though oddly enough Desktop X never came up in the 6 pages!). Just curious.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think I've got worked out now, and yes its to do with eye candy. I'm trying out Konfabulator (I can't help but say that in a Marvin the Martian voice :P) The widgets I'm using at the moment all look to be to be part of my desktop, while the DX2 equivalents look to sit on-top of my desktop - they don't look a part of it.

I think this could just be down to the Konfabulator widget authors are better at interface design (most of them, not all), things fade and slide smoothly getting 'oohs' and 'ahhhhs' from colleagues.

Don't forget though, the majority of these widgets are just java scripts (rename the *.widgets to *.zip and open up the *.kon files in notepad) and DX2 supports javascript, so I think all of the widgets can be 'ported' with little effort.

My view after using Konfabulator for a day? I'm impressed by the widgets, but not with Konfabulator itself - its not offering me anything new that can't be done already. But the widgets do *look* nice.

This is a very general opinion, as there are DX2 widgets that look part of my desktop (the goggle mini search for example) and there are Konfabulator widgets that make you think "what's that meant to be?"
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
I finally managed to get it to download and played around with it a bit. You are right. The widgets that came with it do, for the most part, look very nice. I particularly like the iTunes remote (man I wish iTunes could get some more DX love!).

However I was dismayed by the memory use. With all the widgets running that it turns on by default it was climbing up there. I haven't had DX get that high, but I also don't use it all that often.

My view after using Konfabulator for a day? I'm impressed by the widgets, but not with Konfabulator itself - its not offering me anything new that can't be done already. But the widgets do *look* nice.


I agree 100%. They widgets looked nice, but I didn't see anything going on that I can't get done with other programs.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
You know, I never heard of ANY of these programs, and I've owned one or more computers since the Timex Sinclair (or was it the 99/4a.... I forget that ancient history).

Maybe he's saying they'd like to market/sell to people BESIDES hardcore geeks?
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think the default widgets of DesktopX 2.2 and beyond look better than the default widgets of Konfabualtor. That's an area we've put a lot of work into this year.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
That's an area we've put a lot of work into this year.


I think it shows as well. I have been very impressed with lots of the widgets coming out in the last little while. They look very nice.