[christor]

From posts here and elsewhere, I think people are missing the point of what Dashboard can be. It's an expos� mode. So imagine you're working away on several documents. Hit the assigned F key or go to the assigned screen corner, the screen is cleared (a la Desktop mode) but all of your Dashboard widgets appear. Up pops a calculator, your addressbook, etc. After looking up an address, changing playlists in itunes, doing a calculation, etc., you go back to your documents. This sounds like a pretty slick solution (if it's sufficiently fast) to keeping separate one's primary workflow from the small tasks one wants to access quickly. I wonder whether any app could be accessible or if only certain "widgets" will be accessible. If the former, then this is really starting to blur into a second desktop.

Of course, it could be fake... but it's a pretty good idea in any event.

[pat++]

I have the bad feeling that this Dashboard thing is real... I can't see why Apple decided to create something that ugly and useless... (will need to wait for tomorrow before taking a final decision about how good/bad it is). Few things are certain though :

1/ This is the most ugly thing I've ever seen. Does not match Aqua at all. Why hell is it so inconsitent?
2/ What you describe is nothing more than a limited virtual desktop. True virtual desktop support would be *way* better.

Fingers crossed that it's actually better than the way it looks

[vertex]

The idea is sound, a way to present regularly needed information, ie. contact list, rss feeds, calender, clock, etc. The problem though, by that screenie, is it loks bad, and loks like konfabulator. Konfab is ok, but if Apple are going to implement something like this, then they should go theextra distance and advance the idea. People might mock it, say it isn't needed, but that's not the rule for everyone. I use konfab, it's great for what it does, but it;s nothing like what we see on Windows via tools like, Dashboard, Desktop Sidebar, etc.

Microsoft though have really got this thing rght with Longhorn's Sidebar, plus it's actually very elegantly done. Those purported screenshots of 10.4's konfab thingy look bad.

[Jerome_69]

when I look at these screenshots I was thinking that it would be nice to create our own "gadgets"...
If you look at Pipeline and mix it with Dashboard THAT would be huge!
AppleScript Studio for Dummies on steroids !

[jessejlt]

The current use of Expose is to bring needed applications to the forefront. Dashboard uses Expose to bring needed applications to the forefront... So I'm not seeing the use of it. I mean, if I want to change the song in iTunes, I use Expose to bring iTunes to the front and then change the song, but with Dashboard I woudl use Expose to bring all the widget apps to the front, and then change the song. What's the reasoning behind it? I could see if it offered some unfound functionality, but it's all crap we already have. And what's the deal with the skins on these things? They look terrible! So XP-ish. Yuck yuck yuck.
jesse ;-)

[cybergoober]

Originally posted by pat++:
... (will need to wait for tomorrow before taking a final decision about how good/bad it is)

Actually, we'll have to wait until the final build. Tomorrow will just be an early developer's build, things could change quite a bit between tomorrow and 10.4 final...

[DVD Plaza]

Dunno, Apple seem to be slowly phasing out the idea of a standard GUI and simply doing a "who gives a stuff" Windows attitude.

This dashboard stuff seems crap to me - virtual desktops would be far more productive plus be another icing on the cake for attracting more *NIX users.

[kman42]

Perhaps, it is virtual desktops with some builtin additional control mechanisms, like a floating dock that pertains just to that desktop, i.e. a dashboard. This would distinguish the real dock that could be on all desktops, from the dashboard that is desktop-specific. The example they have provided is just that, an example of how someone could provide a suite of tools and distribute it as a desktop. Perhaps.

Point being, we always do this before a Stevenote and we are usually happier after we see it in action because we have only seen screenshots and don't understand the full ramifications.

Carry on debating.

kman

[TailsToo]

It's about marketing. Most people on MacNN would be happy with a OS just like Panther that is maybe more stable and faster. Apple just couldn't charge $129 for it, so they must add new crap to make it look like it's worth the cash. Rather sad!

[turtle777]

Originally posted by TailsToo:
It's about marketing. Most people on MacNN would be happy with a OS just like Panther that is maybe more stable and faster. Apple just couldn't charge $129 for it, so they must add new crap to make it look like it's worth the cash. Rather sad!

Actually, many people would be willing to pay $ 129 if they would get Panther more stable and faster...
If they chip in some more features, it's a deal.

-t

[clarkgoble]

I've no idea if the dashboard is real or not, but I can't understand the scorn being heaped on it. It is supposed to be like Expose. Map it to that extra button on your map so that you don't have to find that window or menu with your itune controls. (Well I have an old MS-Office keyboard which I mapped a lot of keys to control iTunes - but still)

I think the iTunes control is great and the calendar is as well. The rest not so much so, but I'm sure there are applications that it fits. i.e. a log monitor rather than those annoying applications that put it on the desktop (which you can never see anyway)

[:haripu:]

Originally posted by vertex:
The problem though, by that screenie, is it loks bad, and looks like konfabulator.

My problem with it is that it looks a lot *worse* than Konfabulator. The standard widgets that come with Kf may not be too useful but they got a hell lot of style. And this is also something Apple is known for. Do you think the Hawai-shirt brigade that gave us the multicolored waiting blob has taken over Apple by force?

I still can't believe these screenshots are supposed to be real. Well, we will see soon anyway.

[Kate]

If this is real, and I fear it is, this is another gadget bubble. And if someone cares about these things, I get the feeling that the long needed overhaul of the system guts were again shifted to the "do-it-later" workbench.

I hope not, but I fear it.

What would impress me much more than any and all extensions to Expose and the like, is a new Finder and general improvements of multithreading, responsiveness and ease of use. There is so much work left undone, that really needs attention:
Networking needs alterations for the better. Browsing is worse than under 8.5 etc.
I say Finder, Finder, Finder.
Multithreading is generally poor in all System apps, Finder, Mail, Safair, iSuite etc.
What Apple did to the Preview app they should care to try with Quartz in general, and so on....all this would require so much workforce, is there time and effort left for much new gadgetry? Really?

I hope Tiger will not turn out to be a New Beetle type of thing, that puts a new shiny body on old guts and distracts the user with colourful flower vases and other gadgets.....

[vertex]

Originally posted by :haripu::
My problem with it is that it looks a lot *worse* than Konfabulator. The standard widgets that come with Kf may not be too useful but they got a hell lot of style. And this is also something Apple is known for. Do you think the Hawai-shirt brigade that gave us the multicolored waiting blob has taken over Apple by force?

I still can't believe these screenshots are supposed to be real. Well, we will see soon anyway.

Definitely. I reckon that if it is real, then those widgets and their designs are just stand-ins, maybe to highlight the concept but to be replaced by something better.

[ballmann]

Konfabulator 1.7 was released today. new feature: an expose-like feature which makes it possible to have all your konfab-gadets on your desk and nothin else. sorry, but that dashboardthing seems to be a new konfab-feature - and the screens seems fake!

[jasong]

Why do people see 4 screenshots of unknown value and automatically assume that what they are seeing is all Tiger has to offer. Look at 10.3, Expos� was added and the Finder was updated, X-Code was developed and the file system got automatic de-fragmentation and hot file clustering. There were significant under the hood changes made that never showed up in a screenshot. Apple is capable of doing more than one thing to the OS at a time, and I guarantee you, the people working on Dashboard (if it does exist) are not the people you want working on your metadata file system - and thus are not taking any resources away from it. If both metadata and Dashboard are priorities at Apple, they will both be funded.

But yes, go on believing that all Apple is really doing is changing the version number in 10.3.4 to 10.4 and charging you $129. Also go on believing that you have to upgrade whether or not you see a value in it, because yes, as soon as 10.4 is out, your computer running 10.3 (or 10.2) will stop working.



-- Jason

[Kate]

Originally posted by jasong:
Why do people see 4 screenshots of unknown value and automatically assume that what they are seeing is all Tiger has to offer.....

...because Apple does not commit to things published in a roadmap, but tends to play juvenile secrecy games?

No, I hope Tiger is more than a few screenshots, bells and whistles and gagetry.

[robre]

Haven't read through all the post, so I don't know if this has been mentioned, but Dashboard is already a feature in Motion. http://www.apple.com/motion/workflow.html

[xi_hyperon]

I missed the screenshots before they were taken down. Does anyone have a copy of them?

[cszar2001]

Originally posted by kman42:
Perhaps, it is virtual desktops with some builtin additional control mechanisms, like a floating dock that pertains just to that desktop, i.e. a dashboard. This would distinguish the real dock that could be on all desktops, from the dashboard that is desktop-specific. The example they have provided is just that, an example of how someone could provide a suite of tools and distribute it as a desktop. Perhaps.

Point being, we always do this before a Stevenote and we are usually happier after we see it in action because we have only seen screenshots and don't understand the full ramifications.

Carry on debating.

kman

This is the best opinion on the topic so far (and I desperately hope it`s true!).

[galarneau]

The merits of Dashboard aside, anyone else think they should make it zoom out from a point in the center of the screen?

When I watched the movie of it in action, and it was over, the widget zoomed at me, making me kinda want to duck. Very Disconcerting.

[Apfhex]

The more I think about it, the nicer it seems. Things like a calculator and calendar (simple like the demo shows, just so I can look at it to see if June 30th is a Wednesday or something) and especially stickies (I never use stickies, if I'm going to open an app to write a note I just use TextEdit which I keep open most of the time) would be very handy to have at the touch of a button. And look, the return of the jigsaw puzzle!

I just hope that with a PowerBook that doesn't support Core Image, the effects they use won't be too slow.

Makes sense to me to have them fly in from outside the desktop instead of a magical hole in the middle of it. There's probably some sort of user interface theory at work here that someone could describe better than me. Or maybe Apple's just crazy and I'm too far gone to realize it.

[hmurchison2001]

After seeing the video Dashboard is looking alot less like Konfabulator and more like a nifty way to create a set of miniapps that can be popped on and then off screen.

[macaddict0001]

Originally posted by kman42:
Perhaps, it is virtual desktops with some builtin additional control mechanisms, like a floating dock that pertains just to that desktop, i.e. a dashboard. This would distinguish the real dock that could be on all desktops, from the dashboard that is desktop-specific. The example they have provided is just that, an example of how someone could provide a suite of tools and distribute it as a desktop. Perhaps.

Point being, we always do this before a Stevenote and we are usually happier after we see it in action because we have only seen screenshots and don't understand the full ramifications.

Carry on debating.

kman

yeah ive been leaning that way too because you already have some of those things built into the os like the clock among other things and some tight around it like calculater and address book all in all there is not much wholy new except the stock quoter I wonder if you have to subscribe to a site or if apple has its own server that gives it the prices and what if apple decides that it is not worth it to maintain the server as their aren't many tiger users. another thing that bugs me is what happened to fast user switching.

[chabig]

Originally posted by galarneau:
When I watched the movie of it in action, and it was over, the widget zoomed at me, making me kinda want to duck. Very Disconcerting.

That could certainly change by the time Tiger is released. But I ask you...if it zoomed out from the center of the screen, wouldn't you still want to duck?

Chris