KlipFolio | The Personal Dashboard and Sidebar for Windows [Review]

KlipFolio claims to be the world’s smallest personal dashboard and sidebar for Windows. I don’t know about being the smallest but it definitely is one of the coolest Windows dashboard and sidebar I’ve come across so far.

[pullquote]In their own words: “With KlipFolio you don’t have to give up your desktop to stay on top of what matters to you. And with over 4000 Klips available for download—all small, resizable, customizable and skinnable—you’re sure to find exactly what you need to stay ahead of, well, everyone.”[/pullquote]

After seeing just a screenshot on the KlipFolio site, I was eager to download it and give it a try. To my surprise, I’m very impressed and satisfied with this desktop tool (lately I haven’t been too impressed with tools I’ve come across).

About the Dashboard

The KlipFolio dashboard is pretty small and all Klips (KlipFolio’s term for widgets) are tiny as well; they can be resized and moved around however you like. The dashboard can be docked to the left, right, top or bottom of your window. If you don’t want it docked, you can just leave it floating in the middle of your window.

There are many different ways to display the dashboard when it’s docked (top, bottom, right, left). You can choose to display it like a regular toolbar or you can pull each Klip out to any height that you like, so that you can still see what’s going on without any additional movements. Either way, you can move your Klips around, resize them and even pull them out from the dashboard.

Skins

KlipFolio has quite a few skins to choose from. If you don’t see a pre-installed one that you like, you can always download more.

Klips

When it comes to the types of Klips that you can download, there’s literally thousands to choose from. Installing a Klip is as easy as installing a Greasemonkey script – only one click necessary (plus a confirmation click of course). Feel free to go here to browse some of the many Klips you have to choose from.

Other Features

• Always up-to-date information flowing into your Klips so you don’t have to go looking for it.
• Built-in RSS support allows you to monitor your favorite RSS feeds on your desktop using Klips.
• You can share things you’ve found in KlipFolio with your friends and colleagues.
• Multi-language full unicode support (over 24 languages) in Klips and KlipFolio’s interface.
• Built-in alerts allow you to set desktop alerts for keywords and new articles in any Klips, so you are notified as soon as changes occur.
• Developer-friendly Klips are smart, easy to build, and fully scriptable. You can write a Klip in as little as 7 lines of XML.

For this review I used KlipFolio 5 Beta D, so it may be much different from the version that you can now currently download.

So, let me know what you think about KlipFolio. Do you prefer it to other Windows desktop gadgets out there? Is it better or not as good?

[tags]klipfolio, klips, dashboard, sidebar, windows, desktop, gadget, widgets[/tags]

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