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Yahoo Widgets
Price:

Features
Number of widgets
Ease of use
Appearence
Overall

Reviewed By: Wayne Williams

This review updated: 10/05/2007
Featured in magazine:
Issue 161
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Yahoo
Web Address: http://widgets.yahoo.com


What we liked:
The Yahoo Widget Engine has been around for a few years now, but the program has only recently been equipped with a sidebar.

The widget dock can be permanently displayed and positioned on any edge of the screen, or it can be tucked away out of sight, sliding into view only when you hover your mouse over it.
Every widget you add to the software appears automatically in the sidebar. The widgets are all the same fixed size, so if you have too many installed the bar will run out of space causing some items to disappear from view. You can scroll the widgets up and down the bar, though, so missing ones can quickly be displayed.

Where Yahoo Widgets really excels, however, is with the vast number of widgets it makes available for use. There are over 4,000 of them, covering everything from application enhancers and webcam viewers, to fun and games and system utilities.

How it can be improved:
The widget dock takes a bit of getting used to. You'd expect to be able to drag and drop items to and from it, but you can't. Launching a widget by clicking on it feels natural enough, but having to right-click on an open item and then select Hide Widget to make it vanish again seems a little convoluted. Some widgets don't display properly in the dock either – they just appear as squares with a default image on them.

Our verdict:
Tons of excellent widgets to choose from and the widget dock is a nice addition, even if the way it works is a little odd.

Reviewed: Issue 161 (10 May 2007 - 23 May 2007)

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