Widgets on the desktop; some people can be quite snooty about them but there is a reason they are available by default on two of the most popular Operating Systems.
They’re useful!
As users of smartphones become ever more accustomed to having info-at-a-glance ‘widgets’ – from clocks to weather to Facebook – they’re going to look to achieve similar functionality on their desktop.
There are options – Screenlets, gDesklets and Conky are all able to provide such features to a degree but all of them have their drawbacks: gDesklets do not look pretty, Screenlets is no longer maintained and Conky requires a degree in computer engineering.
Okay, so you don’t need a degree in computer engineering to use Conky but, despite new advances, it remains firmly fastened in the realm of ‘geek’ rather than ‘user’.
~Musl1m on DevinatArt thinks Unity has an opportunity there and has mocked up the following example of what Widgets on Unity could look like.
There are tweaks I would make to the mock-up above, not least of which having Widgets, like OS X’s Dashboard, sit on a dedicated ‘place’ overview.
Do you think Widgets can still provide features to the users desktop? How would you like to see it implemented.