Product Reviews

When an application is described as 'whatever you want it to be', we tend to be a little suspicious. However, in some ways, Konfabulator's proud boast is true. The application itself is essentially a JavaScript runtime engine that can activate and run various 'widgets' on your Mac's Desktop. Konfabulator takes full advantage of Apple's Quartz rendering, and instead of being contained within standard windows, most widgets blend seamlessly into your Desktop.

When installing and running Konfabulator, you'll discover a number of widgets have been preinstalled into your Documents folder. These vary in usefulness from rather throwaway clocks and iTunes remote controls to more handy items, such as battery and AirPort indicators, a to do list, a calendar and a picture frame that displays the images within your Pictures folder as a slideshow.

Several of the widgets also communicate with online services, enabling you to have weather and stock market information directly on your Desktop.

Because the widget format is open and quite easy to learn, creating your own widgets can be a simple task - especially if you have a thorough knowledge of JavaScript. If so, you should also be able to easily edit the design and functionality of anything in your Widgets folder.

If not, the Konfabulator Web site has dozens of creations available for download. These vary in value, but once you've got used to having VersionTracker and eBay watchers integrated into your Desktop, going

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back to the Web sites seems archaic. Minimal widgets for memory usage and printer status also prove useful after extended use.

Learning curve

If Konfabulator has a downside, it's the inevitable problems that occur when running a number of widgets. Each one has to reopen on restarts of your Mac or the application. If you're running a dozen widgets, this is a tedious process that will lock up your Finder until it's completed. Moreover, your Mac's processor can take a severe hit when several demanding widgets are active, and trial and error is the only way to dictate which ones can't be happily left to run in the background.

The Konfabulator menu item could also be more useful. Rather than just having the option to open a widget, we'd like to see a list of all our installed widgets, removing one step from the process. We'd also like an option within the application to automatically add Konfabulator to our login items at any time, rather than just when the application is first installed.

Hidden treasures

Our final criticism of the application is its price. Equivalents to many of the current widgets are available as freeware, some of which are space-efficient menu items. And if you have a small monitor, the widgets will most likely be hidden by whatever application you're working in, reducing Konfabulator's effectiveness (although running it alongside Gwenhiver.net's Hide from Dock means you can use the Finder's Dock menu to rapidly hide everything bar the Desktop, Finder windows and your widgets).

Despite these concerns, Konfabulator is still a tempting offering. Its elegant nature fits right in with OS X's design ideals, and in some cases the level of convenience and usability it offers is simply unsurpassed. We're sure that only a fraction of its potential has so far been unleashed and that future widgets may well make it an essential addition to your Mac.

For the moment, though, our advice is to download the demo version and a bunch of widgets and see if they become essential to you when working with your Mac.