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Windows Vista, the update to the operating system due this year, will add a feature called Sidebar. Sidebar is a small panel at the side of the monitor that can be used to view photo slide shows, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds and other small programs, dubbed gadgets.
While DVD movies have popularized wide-screen displays, Windows chief Jim Allchin said there are a lot of uses for the extra pixels.
What's new:
February's preview version of Windows Vista will include all of the OS's planned features, including a panel housing mini-applications.
Bottom line:
The move is Microsoft's pitch to get more visibility on the desktop, among consumers and companies both.
"That's why Sidebar is something important," Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's platform, products and services division, said in an interview last week. "You will be able to put it to the side and just watch it on the periphery, and the wide screen allows this."
Sidebar is one of a number of features that Microsoft has talked about as part of Vista, but has yet to include in external test versions. The next Community Technology Preview (CTP) release, which is planned for February, is slated to include all of Vista's features including Sidebar.
"This CTP that we are doing in this quarter will have all the features that we had planned to put in the product," Allchin said. Other features expected to debut in the February test version include a new migration tool aimed at making it easier for people moving their systems to Vista from Windows XP.
Microsoft is targeting the February test release at businesses, aiming to get early adopter companies to try out the software on a few hundred PCs each. A consumer-oriented test release, planned for the second quarter of this year, will be made available to "hundreds of thousands, maybe millions" of customers, Allchin said. The final version of Vista is slated to arrive in time to be on PCs sold in the 2006 holiday season.
Sidebar was part of the original Longhorn vision as first outlined by Microsoft at a developer conference in October 2003. However, the feature was absent from many test builds, leading to speculation that it had been scrapped. Recently though, it has been featured prominently in discussions of Vista features, including Chairman Bill Gates' keynote speech at last month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The concept of having small programs to handle a variety of tasks is not new, said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg.
"It goes way back to when Borland had a program called sidekick for the PC," Gartenberg said. Apple Computer popularized the concept with the built-in desk accessories that came on a Mac, he said. "It made sense at a time when (one could) only run one program."
What makes it still compelling, even in the age of multiple open programs, is the ability to see information at a glance, without having to stop working in a primary document. That information could be anything from sales data to stock quotes to family photos.
"Keeping it persistently available is a pretty big deal," Gartenberg said. "I can position things so I can be working on my e-mail or word processing and still have the information available."
Although Sidebar is mainly seen as a consumer feature, Microsoft has talked up the tool as a way for workers to have fingertip access to key information such as graphical representations of real-time business data.
In addition, Allchin said it offers a nice way to provide alerts to people. These can be sent, for example, via RSS or gadgets, which are mini-applications that reside on the Sidebar.
"You can have nice--some people might say interruptions, or things that are bothering you," Allchin said. "On the other hand, it's a way to keep noticing what's happening in your business."
The notion of gadgets is similar in concept to the widget idea that Apple uses in the Dashboard feature of Mac OS X and in the Yahoo Widget Engine, which is based on the Konfabulator program Yahoo acquired in July. Google also has a very similar concept, which it also calls Sidebar, that is part of its Google Desktop download.
Microsoft hopes to spur use of gadgets well beyond the sidebar. In Vista, the same small applications can be used on the desktop display itself and also on the secondary display on the lid of some notebooks--a feature Microsoft has dubbed SideShow. Microsoft also wants people to run gadgets on their Windows Live pages.
Like Yahoo and Apple, Microsoft has been courting developers, posting information on a special Web site.
The key is, in all three cases, that such add-ons are relatively easy to program.
"The technology to build these is fairly simple," Gartenberg said. "It doesn't require advanced development techniques."
Allchin said that other technology companies should also start planning for wide-screen monitors to become the norm.
"We think it is going to become standard on pretty much almost all monitors. It is just a matter of time," he said. "Web sites should be updated to be able to expand to take advantage of it, there's only some of them that do that now."
See more CNET content tagged:
Jim Allchin, Microsoft Windows Vista, RSS, display, Apple Computer
different (though probably bound to one XML
dialect rather than have multiple bindings).
the old Konfabulator series with a new version, and new Widgets.
There is also an OS X version so everyone gets to play.
Dock/Dashboard it is.
There are still bugs in XP which existed in Windows 95. There's zero interest to fix them; instead, the focus will be on Vista. And with Vista, I bet we'll see a whole new set of bugs which will never get fixed, rinse lather repeat...
Because
1) Bug fixes usually come in service packs.
2) New features, in new OS versions.
What piece of software do users pay for?
http://tauquil.com/archives/2006/01/06/re-introducing-the-real-windows-vista/
translucent "Gadgets" to be included in Vista ... whenever it gets
released. I cannot fathom how Microsoft became the huge
company they are. They have a long history of taking other
people's concepts, implementing them WORSE than what they are
trying to knock-off, and doing it years behind the curve. We're now
in the 6th cursed year of XP and even the future, in-the-pipe stuff
from M$ is a bigger yawn than what has already been available on
other platforms for years.
Excellent OS. 20 to 30% Expensive to
own.
2) Unix => MultiVendor Expensive Hardware,
Expensive OS. Not easy for a common
user.
3) Linux => Multivendor, many diff processors,
poor games support. Still not easy
and seemless for a common user.
4) Windows => Multivendor, cheap hardware, good
game support. Issues with
Virus,spyware and malware. Issues
can be mitigated with keeping up
with the updates. Most users
need to buy os (Redhat or suse).
Cost of these vendor supported
linux is almost same as windows.
Corporations chose multivendor pcs for whatever business reason (may be microsoft marketing or lack of altenatives or even stupidity). For corporations to migrate to any new platform involves spending ton of money and lots of risks. It is a slow process.
Microsoft always provided a consistent support to corporations. Info executives microsoft probably thought 'well I don't like microsoft but, atleast it will not go belly up'. Corporations have also learnt to tame the issues with Windows OS.
Just my two cents.
www.desktopsidebar.com
Freeware
and here they are yet again, they settle for a dumbed down version of apple's ingenious concept. even down to the specifics: widgets that blend with their background becomes "gadgets"(of course it sounds uglier, you didnt expect msft to come up with a good name did u?), they are going to be downloadable, they show on darkened translucent area, they float above your desktop, they are written using javascript, they use png graphics..
and yet, they dont manage to replicate. apple's solution remains much better and more useful and of course, more user friendly. and, apple's dashboard doesnt get in the way of your work.
comon microsoft, put your 100,000 employees and billions of dollars to real use.
In software terms you only steal if you have a patent!!!
If you don't have a patent then you have not stolen it. You just made it popular using someones idea.
When it comes to idea stealing Apple and microsoft are in the same boat!!!
GUI innovation - XEROX
Eternet innovation - XEROX
Networking/internet - DARPA
OS x - BSD unix!! - Darwin Project
PC - Concept - XEROX!!
Apple killed lot of companies that provided niche products to Apple OS (Mac Os etc).
Apple's credit is making it appealing.
of screen real estate (though I realize you don't have to have the
sidebar as the topmost layer). I vastly prefer the OS X Dashboard
implementation to the unimaginative Sidebar.
Having said that, though, Sidebar *does* do one thing that
Dashboard doesn't, and that I wish it would- the ability to move a
"gadget" from the Sidebar and onto the Desktop. I have two
Dashboard widgets I'd like to be able to do that with.
compute cluster from my Linux workstation, so I
do maintain a desktop session that, besides
having handy links to the cluster management
console, a root console for the cluster, and
some other tools, there are a number of monitors
implemented as widgets that report the state of
the cluster environment.
It's nice to have them inconspicuously adorning
the desktop so that I can simply switch to it to
get a quick view of what's happening. Rather
than a dozen applications reporting various
things, its a simple arrangement of desktop
widgets. The task bar is clean, window layout
doesn't take them into account, etc. Mind you,
though, I don't keep it running in my regular
working desktop session.
Linux desktops for several years. it's very
popular.
Some people like their desktops cluttered and
some (like you and I) like them lean and mean.
Frankly I'd like to get the Recycle Bin off the
Windows Desktop too (and put it on the taskbar
(as the "Trash" is in KDE and OSX).
There is no need for any icons on the desktop.
It's really an inefficient place to put them.
Why? Because most of the time you need them, you
have to minimize at least one window to get to
them. They belong on launchers, docks or menus,
not on the desktop.
The sidebar isn't a bad idea, if you really feel
you need it. I don't and I'm sure it will be
optional (or easily turned off anyway).
Seriously, I like OSX, but some you apple fan boys get clouded judgment and do whatever it takes to bash MS.
have designed the titanium powerbooks) who was hired by MS to
make Vista look stylish -- redo the windows, add the alpha effects,
etc. If you're less lazy than I am, you can probably find a the story.
Steve Capps (inner workings of the GUI), Susan Kare (Windows icons)all did the same work for Apple.
What's scary is that Apple has figured out that all those simultaneously multi-tasking "features" really need the genuine multi-threaded, multi-tasking core of Unix, while Windows just keeps on adding this stuff to an already overextended monolithic core.
Our banter, and bickering is a direct result from this type of marketing. Especially when personal computer users have all of these capabilities now, and are using them in other operating systems.
The people who are inflamed by Microsofts ingenious presentations, are those who use these systems daily, and are trying to figure out what the heck is new about Vista.
All of us, and yes, even those of you who are dedicated to Microsoft, dearly want/need them to fix their current problems and quit dumping them on us. We don't even get enough time to develop, and use a Microsoft system long enough before they break something, or replace something with new bugs, then impose more costs on us to keep pace. Which is why I and many others use multiple systems.
While Linux, Unix, MacOS, OSX have had updates as well, they are not as often, nor have such a negative impact as Microsofts constant releases and upgrades have incurred on us. Yeah, simple solution, don't use them. Guess what, it is not that simple, as that would require Corporations, Government agencies, home users, to simultaneously to quit using their products. Nor do I advocate that, as much as I am not a Microsoft fan.
The responsibility is Microsofts to do a better job, as requested by its customers (on a constant basis), and quit being deaf, dumb, and blind to the obvious. With a few less bugs, most of us would simply shut up.
- shorthorn/ windoze visa or vista
- by solarflair February 4, 2006 10:08 PM PST
- What a joke, shorthorn does nothing but steal there ideas from linux and other nix systems. Windows will never be stable because of its poor design. IE7 will be no better than anyother version of MS because they continue to build into there core componets of the kernel. Fedora is a bleeding-edge distro, but I get patches ASAP. SP2 is still a warehouse for viruses, rootkits, spyware and adware.
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