Good Widget Dashboard Setups

April 13, 2006 4:17 PM

Looking for something for Windows and/or Mac OS X that allow you to invoke or otherwise mark off an area at the side of the screen with only widgets/applets/chiclets/whateverlets in them. It should be different from, say, the OS X dock, in that it should claim its screen real estate fully -- no letting things slide under it or over it, windows that bump up against it should recognize its edge and stop.

See, I like widgets, but I'd like to have small, configurable space at the side of a screen for a few that are best kept visibly running at the edge of visual perception, rather than using a key or mouse shortcut. And it'd be nice if I could find a solution that didn't cause the kind of problems the OS X dock does with window management.

A utility that just marked certain pieces of screen real estate off-limits for all but a handful of applications (or any utility that otherwize prioritizes desktop space by application/window) would probably work best. This way, I could use whichever widgeting solution I like.

But I'm open to other ideas. And in fact, any discussion regarding creating desktop setup and dashboards that help facilitate workflow and the conveyance of information in some way similar to what I've described.

posted by namespan to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell on Flickr. This is where I got some good ideas for desktop real estate planning.

Have you checked out Yahoo's Konfabulator and associated widgets? There may be a possibility to do what you describe using it.
posted by rossination at 4:30 PM on April 13, 2006

Well, the google desktop sidebar can hold various infomational plugins, and does whatever windows trick needs to be done to prevent maximized windows from overlapping it. windows can still end up under it, just as windows can extend partially off screen.
posted by Good Brain at 4:54 PM on April 13, 2006

Hawkeye ShellInit is what yer wanting.

It "Creates any number of margins on the screen that maximized windows wont cover (much like the taskbar). In these margins, you can put applications that you always want visible, for instance Winamp, SysMeter, console, chat window, or whatever."

I've used it with success in the past.
posted by snowgoon at 3:41 AM on April 14, 2006

Awesome.

Anyone know something like that for the Mac?
posted by namespan at 10:06 AM on April 14, 2006