I noticed a neat product called Konfabulator which lets you create small desktop "widgets" that get placed on the desktop and display information downloaded from the web (see http://www.konfabulator.com). You can use Konfabulator, for instance, to create a little widget on your desktop that displays the local weather, or a shot of the traffic from a web cam. There a lot like WindowMaker/NextStep tiles, but of arbitrary shape and size. And Konfabulator provides a simple way to make widgets using JavaScript. Each Konfabulator widget uses its own system process that takes up (usually) around 4-8 megabytes of memory.
Are there any takers out there for adding the following to Spoon:
1. Change the VM so that the window displays without a window frame, ala Konfabulator. Allow for transparent portions of the display (also ala konfabulator). 2. Have the ability to display text and images with hotspots. The mvc framework is enough of a UI for allowing the user to alter the applet's preferences.
That's it.
Since it's Spoon, you've got the Flow already built in for downloading images and data. So the technical aspects of this don't seem overly ambitious. Just with the framework above, most Konfabulator widgets would be quite easy to do. An optional FFI-type package could be provided for the class of applets that monitor other programs and system attributes (ie. The ITunes trackers, the wifi reception gauge, etc).
Of course, there's already an app that does all that -- Konfabulator. But by starting with Spoon, you could probably get little applets to run in just a couple megabytes each, beating Konfabulator. Startup and execution speed would be faster. Small devices could be targeted. And Konfabulator costs $25. Of course, the scripting language would be Smalltalk. All good reasons for an applet developer to choose a Spoon-based konfabulator.
There have been all kinds of attempts to jump start parcelling of the image. But it might be a good idea to expend a little bit more energy into approaching things from the other direction, and start small. As I understand it, that's the point of Spoon. This just adds a clearly defined target application (a squeak Konfabulator) which might provide some clarity and impetus for the initial development of packages/modules for Spoon. The developer that wants a simple zip tool would port the zip/archiving classes. The developer that wants a slide-show widget would port the ImageReadWriter classes. Someone might want to replace MVC with a compact and skinnable widget set for deployed apps. You get the idea.
So is it worth trying?
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