Desklets

Create custom desktop widgets

Remember OS X’s Dashboard? Then you’ll have some idea of what to expect from Desklets.

The app displays the output from shell scripts or HTML, and it comes with a handful of precreated widgets. Among them are date and time, Reminders, events from Calendar, and a weather display. These can all be styled so they suit your desktop and come with optional presets that control the information they display. To move a widget around the desktop, just click and drag it.

Also included in Desklets is a script editor, which allows you to write your own. This aims to make the job of creating scripts as easy as possible, by including various lists of parameters at which you can point and click to add them.

In theory it’s great, and useful. In practice, it’s buggy – and crashed several times in our tests; it’s also difficult to use and deeply frustrating. Most of all, it feels unfinished and not ready for a consumer audience. Shame. Kenny Hemphill

It’s a neat idea, but far too difficult to use for most of us. The app is also let down by a handful of crippling bugs.