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10 Things - Maximizing Sidebar Gadgets

Many PC OEMs ship Windows Vista computers with Windows Sidebar enabled, usually only displaying the simple clock, photos and RSS feed gadgets.  You may've found that they install their own home-grown gadgets to show off additional features or apps installed on the PC, or as sales tools for other products.  You may even have turned off the Sidebar because you already have a clock in the systray and you use other ways to check RSS feeds.

If so, you're missing out, as there's a Windows Sidebar gadget for almost anything you might want:  PC utilities, music, messaging, traffic reporting, searching or just a quick game can be yours with a click of the mouse.  If you haven't taken the time to explore gadgets beyond those loaded by default, take a minute to right-click the Sidebar and select 'Add Gadgets.'  From there, click 'Get More Gadgets Online' -- you’ll find over 1000 different gadgets available for download.

There are still other ways to find gadgets:  visit the Microsoft Gadgets Gallery, Windows Live Gallery and Code Project for hundreds more.  In addition, you'll find links to resources for developers and a way to submit your own gadgets for others to use.

This isn't the first time we've mentioned Windows Sidebar and accompanying gadgets:  MS held a contest challenging developers to create new gadgets to do any number of things.  And in January during the consumer market launch of Windows Vista we kept readers updated as to our whereabouts as we toured the East coast of the US in a branded bus.  Brandon even found a gadget that alerts users to changes in targeted airfares on Expedia's site!

We have a gadget we use internally to train employees in fielding and responding to customer feedback; it's called the "Dear Steve" gadget, and it displays anonymized contents of emails our customers have sent directly to Steve Ballmer with their personal product feedback. This is what it looks like on the Sidebar:

Dear Steve2

...and here it is maximized on the desktop:

Dear Steve1 

Windows Sidebar is definitely worth another look.

Comment 

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Comments

  1. newscientist2000
    Posted on: July 23, 2007 at 10:18PM  

    So in summary if a customer wants Microsofts attention, you have 7-9 words to attract them to the sticky note.

    Seems like a pretty innovative system to keep the higher ups in touch with general customer feedback.

    Does this mean that Steves emails are sorted by Microsoft proffessionals (remove spam etc), and then randomly sent to the Dear Steve gadget so that other Microsoft staff on the ground get a feel of what customers want, and are demanding of Steve?  Or does Steve himself pick the gems to share with the staff?

  2. jmoo2
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 1:46AM  

    Yeh but so many of the gadgets either look awful or don’t work. Why isn’t Microsoft creating more? Where are the gadgets for Live Messenger, Hotmail, Media Player, Windows (Live) Calendar, Mobile Device Centre, Office, Reliability Monitor, etc etc. And I know there may be 3rd party gadgets for SOME of these, but as I said, they either look awful or don’t work.

    Plus I wanna see some Google related gadgets; gtalk, Google Calendar, gmail, etc.

    At the very least, like the Ultimate Extras, MS should be putty a lot more effort into this area. I REALLY want to like (use) the Sidebar but you ain’t making it easy!

    James

  3. Sebastian_Foss
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 3:52AM  
  4. carusen
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 6:17AM  

    There are quite a few great gadgets for the Windows Sidebar. The situation is much better compared to IE 7 Add-Ons.

    You can find a list useful gadgets here:

    http://www.vista4beginners.com/7-gadgets-for-your-Windows-Sidebar

  5. BERT
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 6:34AM  

    I too like the gadgets (hailing from the UK I highly recommend the "UK Radio Player" gadget).

    However, I would love to see them presented with a better front-end as at the moment their integration into Vista seems slightly chaotic.

    1) I'd prefer to see the gadgets available to download presented within the gadgets window rather than opening up a browser session.  It seems a little disjointed and clunky.

    2) A better way to uninstall gadgets.  Perhaps even a separate task in the "Programs and Features" control panel applet to allow their removal from there too.

    3) Make gadgets shared by users by default with perhaps an option during installation for it ot be only installed to the current user profile.  It's fiddly having to update a gadget across all users.

    4) Build an autocheck feature into gadgets to alert you if a new version has been posted to the gadgets website.  Perhaps this might fall to the individual gadget writers?

    5) *Minor*  Allow the gadgets window to be resized so that I can see more gadgets without having to use the forward and backward buttons.

    Are there any plans to expand upon the gadgets side of Vista in any future updates?

  6. Xepol
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 7:41AM  

    I've seen very few good gadgets and more than a few really bad ones.  One so bad that it pratically crippled my machine in a cavalcade of constant drive access just to check available free space.

    There are a few good ones, but most of the gadgets I have seen fit into the "gotta have" for the first 2 minutes, "amusing" for the next 5 minutes and uninstalled the very next second after that.

    I have to say, I have a date & clock in the tooltray and I can get cpu and memory meters for the tooltray.  I even have weather in my tooltray and it occupies a lot less space.

    I am still waiting for a true killer applet that can be usable at less than 150 pixels wide and high...

    Personally I recommend against using the feature at all unless you have at least 2 displays and can afford to waste the space.

  7. shollomon
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 10:15AM  

    Applets that would make a difference.

    1)  Outlook sidebar app that alerts you to incoming mail and then lets you open the mail directly from its window.

    2)  Liquid weather or near exact duplicate.  Something that lets you get detailed information in its own window without opening a web browser.

    3)  Reasonably compact, nice looking, graphical,  combined multi core cpu monitor, ram usage monitor, disk useage monitor and network monitor or separate monitors for those with the same look/theme.

    Currently using:  Accuweather, multi-meter (I like it, just needs disk and network or matching gadgets) and network utilization (would be ok if it matched multi-meter).

  8. Nick White
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 12:11PM  

    Hey newscientist2000:  I'm not entirely sure on the email selection process, but I believe your first premise is closer to what actually happens.

  9. Nick White
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 12:16PM  

    Hey BERT:  thanks for the suggestions, I'll be certain to pass them along.  To answer your and jmoo2's questions collectively, we see Windows Sidebar as a tool wherein the real innovation (and value) will come from third-party vendors creating their own apps based users' needs, as opposed to the market relying solely on MS to develop further on the platform.  We'll create more gadgets, to be sure, but most of the creations will come from the external.

  10. TReKiE
    Posted on: July 24, 2007 at 2:55PM  

    Just a quick note, it is not a 'systray'; it is a 'notification area'.

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  1. Posted by: University Update - Windows Vista - 10 Things - Maximizing Sidebar Gadgets on July 23, 2007 at 9:54PM

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