8.7.6 - Konfabulator 2.1.1
Konfabulator is — as the manufacturer claims — just about anything you want it to be. For OSX.
Features: Konfabulator can put any one of over a thousand "widgets" on your desktop. These range from simply amusing (the 2001 movie's space station spins by, serving no purpose but being itself) to being most useful — weather maps, system status indicators, stock tracking tools, you name it, it is probably there.
It is impossible to put something with a thousand-plus different "faces" in a box; so I'm not going to try. Instead, I think you'll want to know that the widgets I've tried (about 100) so far have been beautiful, have done what they were supposed to do, have been very reliable (no crashes or lockups), and have added immeasurably to the functionality, and fun level, of my desktop.
Now, looking at Tiger, it almost appears that Konfabulator has made the move to an OS feature. Except Konfabulator's widgets are always visible without having to resort to "developer hack mode", unlike Tiger. Otherwise, there is a striking similarity there.
If you're running Panther, run, don't walk, to go get Konfabulator. If you need any extra convincing, go to the website and browse the widget galleries they have online. Stunningly cool and fun things everywhere you look. How tough is that to deal with?
No, wait, there's more. Not Ginsu carving knives, no, but if you're a programmer-type, you can cobble up your own Konfabulations, or modify many of those that you download. The operations are controlled by Java code and it's just dead-easy to get in there and futz with things. One application, "Picture Frame", that runs a slide show in a frame wasn't doing exactly what I wanted it to, so I went into the package, smacked the Java around a little bit, and wham-bam-ratatat-flam, it was exactly the slide show tool I'd always wanted but was too lazy to write. I did run into one widget that was encrypted, or at least, not immediately accessible. Under the presumption that the author didn't want me to mess with it, I didn't. But that's been the exception, not the rule.
Konfabulator is free.
Five out of five stars.
Link: Konfabulator
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