Kapsules was a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

desktop widget engine for

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. It made use of the Windows Scripting Technology, allowing widget designers to use any scripting language that has an ActiveScript engine. Those widgets were then made available on Kapsules' website. , widgets are available in eight different scripting languages. Kapsules is reliant on the

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

. All versions of Kapsules before and including version 0.9.9.0 have targeted version 1.1 of .NET, and all later versions target version 2.0. As mentioned above, widgets could be written in any language for which there is an ActiveScript engine. Kapsules also supports .NET scripting languages. This flexibility allows widget designers to use and interface with a much larger codebase, enabling them to interface with a wider variety of existing software components. Widgets have been written in

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JScript JScript is Microsoft's legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older. JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Automation applicati ...

, JScript.NET,

VBScript VBScript (''"Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition"'') is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers w ...

VB.NET Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visua ...

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and

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. Kapsules was inspired by Arlo Rose and Perry Clarke's Konfabulator (which has recently been purchased by

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and rebranded as

Yahoo! Widgets Yahoo Widgets is a discontinued free application platform for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, specifically Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. The software was previously called Konfabulator, but after being acquired by computer services company Yah ...

). Both are widget engines with very similar functionality. Konfabulator was originally written for

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and later ported to the Windows environment, while Kapsules was designed to use integral components of Windows. By using a managed framework, Kapsules lets designers choose from one of several scripting languages, while Konfabulator widgets are written exclusively in JavaScript. Also, Kapsules can be installed on a Windows guest account, whereas Konfabulator requires Administrator privileges. On or around November 9, 2006, the Kapsules website was updated with a single page stating that the site had been hacked. It also said that the developers were "busy" working on an updated version of the application and the website. No updates have been made since the announcement. The project website and its domain have since been abandoned.

Kapsules authors

Andrew Powell

External links

Kapsules homepageKapsules Widget Forge

References

Kapsules homepage on November 9, 2006
{{Widget engine Widget engines Utilities for Windows