Simon Thorneycroft and Jonathan Hodgson

Windows Sidebar / Sideshow

The Windows Sidebar technology is back in the latest Vista CTP build, I'm still to be totally convinced with giving up screen real-estate to a sidebar. Bradon LeBlanc has more screenshots in his preview and don't forget the PDC slides on Sidebar development.

Microsoft Research did a project years ago "Designing and deploying an Information Awareness interface", the idea of small updating panels which offer peripheral UI for notifications and quick glance information.

With Google Desktop and Yahoo Widgets already quite established in the desktop space on Windows XP.

Where I think Microsoft could leverage is the combination of dhtml gadgets from www.live.com and hardware auxiliary displays. They have been working on mini-hardware devices since they were announced at the WinHEC 2004 conference. Maybe they could also combine in SPOT technology that hasn't really been mentioned for a while?

The Sideshow design examples look promising, if not unlike an iPod Nano:

However watch this video of Apple Dashboard widget technology and tell me the effects aren't impressive; morphing from icon to full window when dragging onto the desktop with water ripple effects and preferences set by spinning to the 'back side' of the window (very like Sun's 3D Project Looking Glass).

Pity they seem to have dropped Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) gadgets in favour of dhtml ones for the first release of the Sidebar as it could have been a good showground for WinFX.