PingBack from http://www.universityupdate.com/Technology/Windows-Vista/4079978.aspx

So in summary if a customer wants Microsofts attention, you have 7-9 words to attract them to the sticky note.

Seems like a pretty innovative system to keep the higher ups in touch with general customer feedback.

Does this mean that Steves emails are sorted by Microsoft proffessionals (remove spam etc), and then randomly sent to the Dear Steve gadget so that other Microsoft staff on the ground get a feel of what customers want, and are demanding of Steve?  Or does Steve himself pick the gems to share with the staff?

Yeh but so many of the gadgets either look awful or don’t work. Why isn’t Microsoft creating more? Where are the gadgets for Live Messenger, Hotmail, Media Player, Windows (Live) Calendar, Mobile Device Centre, Office, Reliability Monitor, etc etc. And I know there may be 3rd party gadgets for SOME of these, but as I said, they either look awful or don’t work.

Plus I wanna see some Google related gadgets; gtalk, Google Calendar, gmail, etc.

At the very least, like the Ultimate Extras, MS should be putty a lot more effort into this area. I REALLY want to like (use) the Sidebar but you ain’t making it easy!

James

PingBack from http://blog.sebastianfoss.com/2007/07/24/10-things-maximizing-sidebar-gadgets/

There are quite a few great gadgets for the Windows Sidebar. The situation is much better compared to IE 7 Add-Ons.

You can find a list useful gadgets here:

http://www.vista4beginners.com/7-gadgets-for-your-Windows-Sidebar

I too like the gadgets (hailing from the UK I highly recommend the "UK Radio Player" gadget).

However, I would love to see them presented with a better front-end as at the moment their integration into Vista seems slightly chaotic.

1) I'd prefer to see the gadgets available to download presented within the gadgets window rather than opening up a browser session.  It seems a little disjointed and clunky.

2) A better way to uninstall gadgets.  Perhaps even a separate task in the "Programs and Features" control panel applet to allow their removal from there too.

3) Make gadgets shared by users by default with perhaps an option during installation for it ot be only installed to the current user profile.  It's fiddly having to update a gadget across all users.

4) Build an autocheck feature into gadgets to alert you if a new version has been posted to the gadgets website.  Perhaps this might fall to the individual gadget writers?

5) *Minor*  Allow the gadgets window to be resized so that I can see more gadgets without having to use the forward and backward buttons.

Are there any plans to expand upon the gadgets side of Vista in any future updates?

I've seen very few good gadgets and more than a few really bad ones.  One so bad that it pratically crippled my machine in a cavalcade of constant drive access just to check available free space.

There are a few good ones, but most of the gadgets I have seen fit into the "gotta have" for the first 2 minutes, "amusing" for the next 5 minutes and uninstalled the very next second after that.

I have to say, I have a date & clock in the tooltray and I can get cpu and memory meters for the tooltray.  I even have weather in my tooltray and it occupies a lot less space.

I am still waiting for a true killer applet that can be usable at less than 150 pixels wide and high...

Personally I recommend against using the feature at all unless you have at least 2 displays and can afford to waste the space.

Applets that would make a difference.

1)  Outlook sidebar app that alerts you to incoming mail and then lets you open the mail directly from its window.

2)  Liquid weather or near exact duplicate.  Something that lets you get detailed information in its own window without opening a web browser.

3)  Reasonably compact, nice looking, graphical,  combined multi core cpu monitor, ram usage monitor, disk useage monitor and network monitor or separate monitors for those with the same look/theme.

Currently using:  Accuweather, multi-meter (I like it, just needs disk and network or matching gadgets) and network utilization (would be ok if it matched multi-meter).

Hey newscientist2000:  I'm not entirely sure on the email selection process, but I believe your first premise is closer to what actually happens.

Hey BERT:  thanks for the suggestions, I'll be certain to pass them along.  To answer your and jmoo2's questions collectively, we see Windows Sidebar as a tool wherein the real innovation (and value) will come from third-party vendors creating their own apps based users' needs, as opposed to the market relying solely on MS to develop further on the platform.  We'll create more gadgets, to be sure, but most of the creations will come from the external.

Just a quick note, it is not a 'systray'; it is a 'notification area'.

How about shipping an out of band update for the sidebar with Silverlight support? Silverlight seems to be just the perfect thing for Sidebar gadgets. Windows Live Sidebar, MS? for XP too?

This may not pingbacks form other place：

such as http://blog.sebastianfoss.com/2007/07/24/10-things-maximizing-sidebar-gadgets/

you can see the post time:This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 1:51 am .

and blog here is Monday, July 23, 2007 6:25 PM .

I use gadgets all the time i think there grea8 things i MOST wish for gagets sidebar to do and i think we can all agree.

Even with a 22 inch monitor i cant fit all me gadgets on the front page thats no problem cause they have a next page button at the top.(I have like 20 lol.)

Options id LOVE to see.

*Scrolling: [] Horizontal  [] Vertical

*If Virtical scrolling: []One by one []Page by page.

*Return to first gadgets page after ____ seconds.

*if the sidebar already has a checkbox to desplay on the left or right side of the screen... why no "Right Align" option in desktop icon sorting (and for that matter the start menu?

* Still forgets "gadget order" oh about every 20 starts.

Theese simple things would make it 10x better.

Im a digital artist first im in the process of learning to make a gadget code wise. Im learning but its not simple. Not to bore u with "apple giberish" but why not a Gadget Maker? Simple program from u with option for making simple link gadgets ext. Too "simple"? well then add support of user scripted addons and let (users) coders make it "advanced". ALMOST sounds like an Windows Ultamate Extra. ALMOST..... kinda lol.

Anyways i love it and use it everyday weather music searches ext its good stuff.

Hey Brytown:  GREAT suggestions, thanks -- I'll bring them to the attention of the Sidebar Team.

My issue with Sidebar right now is that Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing anything interesting with it. I want to see integration with MS apps, for example an Xbox Live Friends List and/or Message Box. Perhaps a miniature Windows Live Messenger applet. Even better would be a Zune "Drag 'n' Sync" panel or a Now Playing thing.

Hey Espiox:  we built the Sidebar with the expectation that much of its extensibility would be realized by the developer community based on customers' specific needs; if you believe strongly that the gadgets you suggest should be created, I'd suggest joining the discussion over at http://microsoftgadgets.com/Forums.

What is that post it notes gadget in the pictures? the one in vista is different, I like this one better? where is it available and under what name?

Hey diabulos:  the post-it-style note is acutally a graphic from an internally developed gadget, as I mention in the post.  I'm afraid it's not available to non-MS employees.

Please take a look at the coolest gadget ever created to Windows Vista Sidebar. It´s called Timedimension and it´s the "First Design of Time", conceived by the worldwide famous designer Hans Donner. It can be downloaded at www.timedimension.net

Nick,

I am ambivalent about sidebar.

Dare I say, I like the Apple widget paradigm better. Generally, the way they manage screen real estate is more powerful than what is in Vista. I would love to be able to use a mouse gesture or F-key to view all my gadgets maximized and then hide them away again. Given that the sidebar is not visible under other windows I see no point in confining them to the side. At the very least, why not implement an "auto-hide" feature like in the Start menu bar, so its always on top but not in the way?

On that note, re the start menu, there is no need to have the little strip to indicate the hidden bar. If I wanted to see it I would not have hidden it. The same goes for the proposed auto-hiding of the sidebar.

I also concur with the recommendations made by "BERT". The way that the gadgets are implemented makes them kind of superfluous to the core user experience as well as a hassle to manage.

I would also like to be able to select a particular maximized gadget to keep on top.

Also, I would like to see more use of animations as a means of managing screen real estate. Apple did not invent the use of zooming /inflating icons as a way to minimize the footprint of GUI elements. I saw examples oif this sort of thing in a thesis paper from MIT's Media Lab years before this was implemented in OSX's dashboard. So I would like to see MS offer similar functionality. By using zoomable elements, it should be possible to integrate the functionality of the sidebar and the start menu in a single dashboard-type UI application without getting in the way.

I know you guys are working on zooming UIs over there in Richmond but it would have been nice to have seen a bit more genuine innovation trickle down into XP's replacement. After all, we have been waiting a long time. (I mean, for once I would like to make the Mac users feel jealous when I whip out my laptop.)

Tell me, did you employ a UI designer (you know, someone who is rigorous and visionary like an Alan Kay or a Edward Tufte) in the development of the sidebar concept or do you only use designers to "pretty up" what your engineers come up with? I am curious to get an explanation of the design process and decisions that lead to Vista's UI. Has anything been published on this?

- betamod

How about a gadget that will kill off the evil Twin?  I'm talking about duplicate programs that lurk in the recesses of our laberynth of programs.  The ones that a impatient use downloads twice for whatever reason. OR, more likely 2 users of the same PC thought would be an asset to their overall operation. ETC.  It would be nice to hit one button to "Eliminate Dupes"! Just a thought, Dave Shupp.

I don't use the gadgets at all as I have other ways of doing everything I've seen available, but David E Shupp's just given me a great idea for a gadget: a Task Manager.  I've found it very frustrating in Vista that I can't access the task manager directly with ctrl+alt+del, but instead have to go through the logon/logoff screen first (It's my own computer, I only have one user, which I require to be an admin).  I use the task manager extensively as I test a lot of software in development (and it breaks!), so a quick access to it would be great.  

Hey jjester,

There is a resource monitor widget called "multi Meter" but it is a huge system hog and I can only imagine that a widget that does the job of Task Manager would be even more of a hog.

My perception is that widgets unduely impact performance in comparison to benafits they provide to my overall user experience and work efficiency. I am not sure if this is the fault of the authors of the widgets or of sidebar.

However, speaking of Vista's Task Manager, am I the only one who's noticed that the CPU column  under the processing tab does not reflect the CPU usage monitor under the Performance tab? I have had situations where the Performance monitor shows 100% CPU usage but I can find no process, or group of processes in the list  with a corresponding CPU usage. It does not add up. I never had this problem in XP.

And while we are at it, I would like to be able to look up information about the process within the monitor or at least be able to click on the process and open up a web page about it. Why must I type name into a search engine to find out what it is?

Then again, why is Task Manager so essential to windows -- why must I constantly monitor windows to make sure that it works? I think an operating system aught to be able to keep from crashing or grinding to a halt on its own. Is this an unreasonable expectation?

Personally, I prefer the Vista sidebar over OS X's widgets. I like it to just be there. If I wanted a key combination to display something, that would be easy enough to do anyway via shortcut keys. I prefer to be able to just glance over and see the status of the various things that my gadgets monitor without having to occassionally press some shortcut that temporarily places stuff all over my desktop. I don't really miss the ~130 pixels as I use 1680x1050 resolution on both of my computers.

The reason you don't see the CPU usage adding up to 100% is probably that you don't have view processes from all users turned on. There is a button below the process list to do this, but it requires elevation.

As for why task manager is so essential, it's the same reason that top and ps are so essential to UNIX environments such as OS X. It's rarely anything related to the OS. It's usually other programs that may have gotten stuck in a loop or some such bug. As jjester said, developers use task manager (or ps as the case may be) to help determine the efficiency of their programs as well as to kill rouge processes when there's a bug in the program.

The reasons that task manager does not have links to view web pages about the processes probably include the following:

1) Many of the processes on an average computer were not from programs written by MS and, therefore, they wouldn't have information on them.

2) Most users don't need to know and don't care what lsass or other such kernel processes are.

3) Should a user really need to know, google's only a click or two away.

Also, the sidebar gadgets do not appear to use a large amount of system resources. I have a 3+ year old laptop and the sidebar only uses 1-2% of the CPU and ~50MB RAM, most of which is probably the background images and state data for the individual gadgets and has nothing to do with MS code. I do use the multi-meter gadget and it does not seem to be using hardly any of my CPU. Perhaps some of the gadgets that you are using have poor coding, though, which could contribute to resource hogging. I suppose how much resources the sidebar uses depends almost entirely on what gadgets you install.

As for auto-hide of the taskbar, I'm fairly certain that the 1-pixel line exists for the purpose of showing the user where the taskbar is, considering it can be placed on any side of any monitor. While the primary user of a system would hopefully remember where they placed the taskbar, another user might have trouble finding it if it were auto-hidden on a side or at the top of the screen. I wouldn't think that the 1 pixel would be that much of a loss.

As for animations, I guess it's a matter of user preference. I would rather a window immediately or almost immediately do what I tell it to, such as minimizing. I don't really want a 2-second animation just to show that it is being minimized. I also find OS X's dock bar to be poorly designed as I cannot choose which window of a specific application to give focus to without holding down a modifier key and clicking twice. I highly prefer 1 click with no modifier keys.

Brytown,

   Vista gadgets are small webpages. As such, any web development IDE (particularly Visual Studio) should be capable of designing a gadget. However, the usefulness of gadgets generally lies in the programming behind them, not so much the graphic layout that could be developed in such an editor. They should all be able to place links, etc., though. However, to make a very useful gadget you pretty much have to know JavaScript, so learning JavaScript, HTML, and CSS would probably be the best place to start when learning to make gadgets. Once you have those down, making a gadget is very easy.

rab38505,

I guess it is a matter of personal aesthetics which widget/gadget system you prefer, though not being able to toggle widgets visible and invisible feels like an impediment to me, especially as I do not have abundant screen real estate, especially as I am making graphics and visual clutter distracts me.

I have view processes from all users turned on but I am still seeing a discrepancy. Maybe I am the only one.

I know a lot of Mac users, mostly artists, and it always annoys me that that many of them will not install software themselves. Aside from whetever auto updates they get, literally, many of these folks are running the same software they were running when their computers were first set up for them . . . like I can't even get them to install skype! Like what the F__k???

But that's the thing, annoying as that may seem, they can get away with it on a Mac. And absolutely none of them have to constantly scan a resource usage monitor to make sure that their system do not grind to a halt.

Non OSX Unix and Linux users are not a good example because most of them are IT professionals and/or computer scientists. They love that kind of thing. For everyone else it is a pain in the ass.

True, many users don't run Task manager, but many users also live with systems that are hobbled by viruses and spyware . . . and/or anti-virus software that is almost as much of a resource hog. In short, they don't know how screwed up their computers are and/or they are in no position to fix the problem anyway.

Take for instance my Mom, Dad, brother and sister in law, all of whom are running Windows XP. That's four PCs in total, each of which I or my other brother must service for them at least 3 times per year, per machine. We installed XP and we fix any problems that arise, and they do arise, again and again. And yes, rarely is it the OS, per se, but the fact is that I must make the cost/benefit analysis when next one of these family members asks or advice on upgrading, as my brother did the other day.

What do you think I should tell them, honestly? Should he buy a another PC or a Mac?

This is the reality on the ground. These users are not dumb, they just have other priorities in their lives than to constantly tinker with and tweak their systems.

In regard to looking up the identity of processes, well, in ergonomic terms having to Google a process means, minimally, clicking to open my browser, typing in the name of the process, clicking on the link, scrolling down, etc. That is annoying, especially since we are talking about an OS which requires constant supervision to make sure it runs properly. I mean, design is about making technology work efficiently for people, not making people work efficiently for technology. The mere fact that there are websites devoted to cataloging the myriad windows processes is indication enough that there is a significant need to identify them so it boggles my mind why Microsoft does not enabled me to left click on the process and look up its identity. I can't imagine that I am the only one who finds the present implementation of task manager to be an ongoing annoyance.

In fact, to whom it may concern, here is a suggestion for a new version of Task Manager:

Build a wiki for cataloging processes. Implement a right click option to open a browser window with the corresponding wiki page. Create a user forum where people who are experiencing similar problems with hoggy processes can discuss the matter and where the developers responsible can check to learn that their software is giving people grief. It is in everyone's mutual best interest to have such a resource.

regarding sidebar gadgets and their use of system resources, there are a few that do indeed use a lot of resources. They should not, but they do. However, even more gadgets are simply not very well , feature wise and esthetically speaking, and/or seem buggy. I mean, so far I have not seen any "must-have it, can't live without it" type gadgets.

Re auto-hiding the task bar, again, this is an aesthetic preference, but I am a minimalist and i would prefer not to see it at all wen it is hidden, if possible. But that is not possible. As for non primary users not being able to find it, even when the one pixel bar is visible, users who don't know that the task bar can be hidden tend not to know how to find it anyway, so there is little gained by having it always visible. it seems like a half measure to me. But I could be wrong.

There are annoying aspects to OSX too, don't get me wrong, but I think that generally, Apple provides a more elegant, more ergonomically designed, feature rich, bug free user experience for the average user as well as the graphics oriented power user. In fact, I am starting to see my friends in LA who work for small post production/CG houses switching to Macs, both as their personal computers and in some instances, in the workplace. This reminds me of a similar turnover in the CG industry when I started to see Unix boxes give way to PC clones. Heck, the latest game from id is being developed on a Mac Pro. This is not just because Macs look pretty, though that helps.

In regard to making gadgets, can someone make a gadget by snipping out a live section of web page, like is possible on a Mac? Because my Mom can probably do that, but there is no way in hell she will ever be able to learn JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, ever.

Another note to whom it may concern at Microsoft: Why not have a competition and/or commission designers to build you some really cool, kick ass widgets?

While you are at it, why not commission some designer skins and desktop backgrounds for Vista?

I am sure you can afford it.

Oh, and one more thing, why can't widgets be cross platform, running in some kind of stripped down standards complaint web browser instance? Would that really be more processing intensive than the present implementation? Microsoft would have everything to benefit and nothing to loose  were it to be possible to develop widgets with nothing but Ajax or other web standards.

- betamod

Hi, I’m using Windows Vista –Business on my desktop. One of the clock as seen in the screenshot in the article above. The shade implemented on the clock makes the minute hand look smaller and hence confusing.

Unfortunatly if you don thave a widescreen LCD monitor the sidebar really is a clutter.  I have researched some tools to improve your experience in Windows Vista with my TOP 10 free recommended downloads.  Nick, the requirements gathering for Vista's SideBar does not seem that have been influenced by much user feedback, if we look at OS X and how they have handled the dock and their "widgets", it is truly a major gap with what Vista has offered as a substitute.  With what we have now in Vista all is left is to get around and tweak , some install ObjectDock, others get Amnesty Generator (see below).  For this reason I have put together the list of free apps below.

cheers

PCWizKid

visit my blog for details @ http://pcwizkid.blogspot.com/2007/10/top-10-vista-free-downloads-to-tweak.html

1. MZ Vista Force is a system tweaker. Use it to accelerate performance, juice your browsing speed, clean up your hard disk, clear out bandwidth-wasting startup programs, and even fine-tune Windows Media Player and Explorer. Many of the settings here are exceedingly fine-grained. Want to change the speed at which the Start menu search displays? With Mz Vista Force, you can.

2. Vista Boot Logo Generator allows you to change it easily your boot screen with one that you created yourself or with a graphic that you find online. You'll have to create or find the image in two sizes: 1024 by 768 pixels, and 800 by 600 pixels. Both must be in .bmp format, at 24-bit color depth. Once you have them this utility replaces your boot screen with them.

3. EasyBCD is a bootloader modification tool for Windows Vista with many advanced options for beginners and power users alike. It gives the user full control over everything that happens during Vista startup and can boot into Ubuntu (Linux), OS X, BSD, etc!

4. TweakUAC One annoyance I mention in a previous post of mine that Windows Vista has is it's User Account Control (UAC), which nags at you to enter a password or click OK every time you make certain changes or perform certain common actions. You can turn UAC off in Vista if you'd like, but that leaves your system vulnerable. So you might prefer to turn it on at times and off at other times. TweakUAC lets you quickly and easily switch UAC on and off.

5. Amnesty Generator lets you convert almost any online widget or gadget to a Vista-compatible gadget that you can then run on the Sidebar.

6. vLite lets you remove Vista components that are hard to get rid off. It also lets you tweak Vista in various ways, such as turning Aero on even if your hardware says it can't be run. Once you've switched off components and tweaked the operating system to your heart's content, vLite helps you create a Vista installation DVD containing your new stripped-down operating system.

7. Windows Clippings is for capturing screen shots in Vista, unlike the built in vista Snippet Tool , Windows Clippings can save to an array of formats, and it includes a particularly important feature for capturing Vista screens the ability to capture window shadows. To use it, press the Print Screen key, click the window you want to capture, and then double-click. You can instruct the program to prompt you each time to tell it where you want to save a file, or you can designate a specific folder to receive all screen shots. For basic screen captures, the free version works fine.

8. Feed Plus. If you use IE 7 and the RSS blog reader built into it, you will like this enhancement from Microsoft. It enables you to read all of your feeds from a single location, instead of having to read one feed at a time. This is especially useful for people like me who subscribe to dozens of feeds. Rather than wasting precious moments clicking from feed to feed, you'll find them all in a single location.

9. Vista Battery Saver. If you use a laptop with Vista, then you may want to saves battery life on your Windows Vista PC. It automatically deactivates Windows Aero and the Windows Sidebar when your laptop runs on battery power, which the author claims will extend battery life. You can also have the program automatically turn off Aero or the Sidebar when your batter level drops below a limit that you set.

10. CCleaner is one of my favorites which I review here. It combines a system cleaner that removes unused and temporary files from your system and also a fully featured registry cleaner! CCleaner allows Windows to run faster, more efficiently and gives you more hard disk space.