Mac OS X | Widgets | Other Widgets | Yahoo! Widget Engine

Yahoo! Widget Engine - 3.1

(was Konfabulator) engine to run widgets

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(File Size: 22.9M)

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All Time:	(3.9)
Version 3.1:	(3.5)
Selected Version:	3.1
Release Date:	2006-04-11
License:	Freeware
Downloads (version 3.1):	1,575
Downloads (all versions):	166,411

Information Related to Version:

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Product Description:

The Yahoo! Widget Engine (formerly known as Konfabulator) is a JavaScript runtime engine for Windows and Mac OS X that lets you run little files called Widgets that can do pretty much whatever you want them to. Widgets can be alarm clocks, calculators, can tell you your WiFi signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes for your preferred symbols, and even give your current local weather.

What sets Yahoo! Widget Engine apart from other scripting applications is that it takes full advantage of today's advanced graphics. This allows Widgets to blend fluidly into your desktop without the constraints of traditional window borders. Toss in some sliding and fading, and these little guys are right at home in Windows XP and Mac OS X.

The format for these Widgets is completely open and easy to learn so creating your own Widgets is an extremely easy task.

For the "skinning" crowd, Yahoo! Widget Engine is a dream come true. You can easily change the look, feel, layout, even functionality of a Widget so that it matches your lifestyle, your desktop, or the pants or skirt you have on that day.

What's new in this version:

Added support for a new flat file format for Widgets which permits signing or Widget code to enhance security.
Added preference to control whether or not the Widget Engine automatically starts up when your system starts.
Implemented importNode() from the Level 2 DOM spec.
Implemented widget.extractFile( path ) API to allow people with flat file Widgets to extract files for use. For example, we need this internally to play sound files since we can only play sounds that are in files. This API extracts files to the 'widget data' folder. It does not extract folders. Also, this API always overwrites any other file in the widget data folder of the same name. It is up to the caller to deal with this.
Implemented new security block. For yahooLogin() to work now, you must put the APIs you connect to in this block. This will break any existing Widgets that use yahooLogin(), but the fix is simple: add the block. SERVER_NAME_HERE
We now warn if you have multiple preference groups with the same name defined in XML.
Found/fixed a bug where no tags or attributes were ever being reported as unrecognized.
Allow null parameter to be passed to Send() in XMLHttpRequest for compatibility with other browsers.
Fixed bug in replaceChild() where we weren't properly throwing an exception if you attempted to move a node from one document to another.
Fixed crash when calling string() in XPath.
Modified the invalid character exception in the XML Parser to print out the hex value of the bad character to give the caller a clue what it found that it didn't like.
Fixed problem where 'this' was not being set in a context menu's onSelect function.
Fixed issues when garbage collecting where we might try to create objects.
Allow -1 as a valid h/vOffset for an object. If you want true 'auto' behavior, set the offsets to null. Also, if you don't specify a h/vOffset, the Widget will return null, not -1.
Added widget.getLocalizedString().
By popular demand: implemented /clear in the debug window.
Put up an alert if we encounter a Widget with no block to let the user know that the Widget will not be able to connect to Yahoo! feeds.
Added /tracethrow to the debug window to help figure out where exceptions come from.
Added widget.locale to get the current language/locale that a Widget is running in.
Finished up the grand renaming of the product from Konfabulator to Yahoo! Widget Engine. There are a few lingering vestiges but these are mostly for backwards compatibility and will remain.
Preferences for the engine, for Widgets and the Widget data folders are migrated to the new product name.
Fix problem where timers with real functions weren't firing.
Fixed a problem that caused certain cookies to not be returned when a URL.getResponseHeaders("Set-Cookie") was issued.
Implemented auto checking for updates.
Fixed bug that could cause garbage characters to appear at the end of runCommand() output.
Fix problems with scroll bars on frames.
Fixed issue with scrolling partially transparent textareas.
You can now drag all but 5 pixels of the Widget's window off the screen.
The escape key is no longer stolen by textareas (this started in an update to Mac OS X 10.4).
Fixed a crash on reloading a Widget.
Fixed crash when setting contextMenuItems.
Fixed handling of "editSourceFile" preference so it gets the full path to files.
Yahoo! Mail Checker: Handles invalid feed data better.
Day Planner: Fix issue searching for appointments in different locales.
Day Planner: Display location for Outlook, too.
Day Planner: Fix time/location switch for all day events.
Improvements to Yahoo! Login Widget.
Yahoo! Login Widget now supports Japanese logins.
Picture Frame: Added visual indicator while loading photo lists over the network.
Picture Frame: Filtered the Flickr photos a user sees by default.
Picture Frame: Suppress picture update timer when Widget is first run.
Picture Frame: Disable "Refresh Pictures" and "Find Current Image" menu options while Widget displays "choose image source" panel.
Picture Frame: Properly handle Cancel button when dismissing "Everyone's tags" form.
Picture Frame: Use a Widget-generated window for blogging photos.
Picture Frame: Fixed multiple reload of photo list when selecting Yahoo! Photos as a source.
Yahoo! Notepad: Saves notes when it says it will when the Widget is logged out of Yahoo! via the Options menu.
Yahoo! Notepad: Overengineered platform-specific alert button placement code removed.
Yahoo! Notepad: Removed extra "Don't Save" button when saving a single note.
Yahoo! Notepad: Proper saving/notifying of unsaved notes on Widget quit.
Yahoo! Notepad: Widget should correct for expired login cookie.
Yahoo! Notepad: Improvement of sidebar appearance.
Yahoo! Notepad: Update to dragging notes between folders in sidebar.
Yahoo! Notepad: Notes show last modified date/time.
Yahoo! Notepad: Stale cookies should be silently refreshed.
Yahoo! Notepad: Validate length of URL text when doing a Blast.
Yahoo! Notepad: Added "Refresh Notepad" item to the Options menu: reloads full note list from server.
Yahoo! Notepad: A dialog opens to resolve differences when the Widget note is out of sync with the server.
Yahoo! Weather: Usability improvements for the location search box.
Yahoo! Weather: Fixes a bug that occurred when you searched for a city and got multiple results, then submitted another search for a specific location, like, say, a ZIP code.
Yahoo! Weather: Fixes a situation in the location searcher where it would get stuck with old data. An obscure bug, but still easy to reproduce (and fix).
Yahoo! Weather: No longer acts strangely when a city is selected from the context menu while the location searcher is up.
Yahoo! Weather: No longer allows duplicated entries in the recent locations list.
Yahoo! Stock Ticker: Usability improvements for the symbol search box.
Yahoo! Stock Ticker: No longer allows for search criteria to be switched around while a search is being performed.

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
Mac OS X 10.3.9
Mac OS X 10.3

Additional Requirements:

Mac OS X 10.3 or higher

Feedback Summary:

Version 3.1:
Overall Rating:	(3.5)	Features:	(4.0)	Support:	(4.0)
Ease of Use:	(4.5)	Quality / Stability:	(3.0)	Price:	(4.0)

Key to Types of Feedback:

Reviews Reviews Troubleshooting Usage Tips Developer Notes Commentary Featured Reviews

Computer says no. - Version: 4.5, 11/29/2007 05:20PM PST

(3 of 5 users found this comment useful)

mannyloupas

Too much of a CPU hog for me. Yahoo too much like Microbloat in its invasiveness. Next please.

Most Recent Replies: View All 1 Replies

Computer says no.

Bad, Bad, Bad - Version: 4.0.5, 8/2/2007 04:54PM PST

(2 of 2 users found this comment useful)

carsurf

This latest version with the strip consumes 40-50 per cent of my CPU activity continuously and keeps my hard drive spinning 70 per cent of the time. A bad bummer.

Last Nail in the Coffin - Version: 4.0.3, 7/12/2007 11:46AM PST

(11 of 12 users found this comment useful)

Bill Dawson

Yahoo has finally driven the last nail in the coffin for Konfabulator with its new Weather widget.

I have been using Konfabulator since its inception and as Yahoo has "added functionality" it has only succeeded in overloading and bloating the memory footprint. I have slowly stopped using my favorite widgets one by one.

The only widget I had left on my desktop was Weather. And now with the new [unwarented / unwanted] interface I have turned off Yahoo Widget Engine (bad name too) completely and removed it from my startup items.

Why does Yahoo have to ruin everything they touch?