I love the idea of MacOS X 10.4’s “Dashboard”, but I don’t love Dashboard itself. In fact, I’m rather disappointed by Dashboard.

Dashboard allows you to use lightweight little applications called “widgets”. Widgets are built using technology similar to web pages - using HTML to represent the appearance of the widget and Javascript to do the computation associated with it. You wouldn’t want to build a big complicated application using HTML and Javascript, but you’d be fine building a flashy little applet.

The main thing I don’t like about Dashboard is the fact that widgets live in their own pane of the display. They don’t coexist with the desktop or the application that’s currently in the foreground.

Mesa Dynamics’ Amnesty Widget Browser changes all that. It lives in the menu bar and offers up access to all your widgets via a drop-down menu. Wigets behave the same way as they do under Dashboard but now live with the rest of your menus.

If you’re a widget-aholic, you can also group widgets in subfolders to clean up the Amnesty menu.

Amnesty is available for $19.95 online, and you can download a free 30 day trial.
[tags]amnesty, dashboard, widgets, macintosh[/tags]

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