Why is Konfabulator "Pretty?"

[Marielle Lange]

Hi Bill,

Good to know that you have now reached second stage: acceptance :-).  
Revolution is not Konfabulator.

> So the question is, WHY aren't there more of them for Rev?
> The K. site lists over 1500 "widgets" that do everything from  
> display RSS
> feeds to displaying the current position of the International Space  
> Station.

I believe I have said exactly the same on this list a year ago. I  
agree, K. Widgets are cool. I love the translucent designs.

I started writing widgety stacks for a week or two, when evaluating  
revolution. Like you, expressing the view that revolution would  
attract so much more users with a gallery of widgets the Konfab  
style. I bought a few books on design, photoshop, etc. and I gave it  
a start. Damn, they are not easy to design. You need to have artistic  
talent (like Scott) to achieve that kind of result. But that's not  
really the issue. You can follow tutorials step by step and get there.

My answer to your question is that we don't have galleries with 1500  
widgets because that's TOO simple with revolution. I am a hobbyist,  
with no formal training in computer science and most of them don't  
take more than an hour or two to program. If you want an idea of some  
widgets very easy to reproduce with revolution (in fact easier to  
code with revolution than konfabulator), have a look at:
http://revolution.lexicall.org/listing.php

> - Make a sample RSS displayer that could be tweaked easy with new  
> graphics
> and a different URL.

Did it. Didn't take me more than 2 hours. No fun. See RSS reader at  
the bottom of:
<http://revolution.lexicall.org/listing.php>

> - One of the top Widgets is a Calvin and Hobbes fetcher. A guy  
> called "DMP"
> has something that does this for a site called uComics. (But it  
> doesn't
> work.) Get that thing brushed up, gel-ified, airbrushed.

I did better, shows the matches of a google image search. Did it. No  
more than a few hours. Not difficult enough. See "Viewer for Google  
Image Search" at the bottom of
<http://revolution.lexicall.org/listing.php>

I also get the application to update my blog "Blog Updater" or a  
"Font Utils".

Too easy to keep me going!

But if  you write such widgets, then download the "metafile creator"  
in the education gallery and specify a few information about your  
stack. You can even take a snapshot. If you send me the metadatafile  
by email along with the gif file with the screen capture (and the  
stack if you have no place to host it yourself), then it will be  
promptly added to the gallery. I am ready to add a konfab section  
just for you!

Yes, I fully agree with you, it's a few years behind in terms of UI.  
There are good chances that's one of the improvement we can expect as  
this has been mentioned many times on this list. But man, open the  
bonnet and get to discover the engine. They are not behind there.

> What could you tell people about RunRev if it *REALLY* took an hour  
> for someone to make one of these pretty gizmos???

Yes, some of them toke less than 2 hours. 30 minutes programming, 1h  
playing with photoshop.

Thomas wrote:
> What I think is needed is a set of guidelines or templates like you  
> said. Sort of the way the Revolution Online scripting conference  
> stacks are similarly following a format BUT for the widgets it is  
> the actual look and feel that changes and the template is for the  
> floating and coding and expected behavior of the widgets when  
> deployed.

Thomas, I am very much interested in this approach, but in a more  
"useful" area. See: <http://projects.lexicall.org/exercist/>. I will  
have to think on how to treat common parts of some applications as  
widgets that can easily be moved from one application to another,  
with a skin that can be easily replaced by another. I would love to  
see what you have come up with for your "application profiler" that  
you recently  presented as a case study on this list. If there are  
parts that you can make public, please consider putting me among the  
recipients of the email.

Marielle

PS. Guys, I have been very impressed by the way you acted during the  
flame episode. My hat to you.

> So,
>
> - if someone wants to create a vector-based clock that kind of  
> looks ok in
> Revolution, we have all the tools for it in this thread.
> - if someone wants a really cool looking clock (or really cool looking
> "anything"), they should hire Scott Rossi
> - if someone wants to create an exact replica of the K. clock in  
> Rev, they
> should give up, which is what I did :)
>
> Bill
>

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------
Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguist

Alternative emails: mlange at blueyonder.co.uk, M.Lange at ed.ac.uk
Homepage                                                            
http://homepages.lexicall.org/mlange/
Easy access to lexical databases                    http://lexicall.org
Supporting Education Technologists              http:// 
revolution.lexicall.org/wiki