#FF00AA

OS X 10.4.2 is upon us, and the new widget management interface (which isn’t even advertised in the release notes) is stupid. Pretty, and true to the screenshots that had been leaked, but stupid. So you have to click the “+” button down there, and then click the “Manage Widgets” button or the nondescript, poorly labeled manager icon.

I can understand that the Dashboard’s developers wouldn’t want to delete the code that makes the widget well appear and the widgets above move around, but when you’re developing an OS (and for Apple, moreover) that’s not a sufficient excuse to add an extra layer of complexity to the interface, instead of simply replacing it with a simple manager. What fundamental reason is there to prevent users from drag-and-dropping widgets straight from the manager to the Dashboard?

P.S. Oh, wait, it’s even worse, because you can actually double-click on a widget icon in the manager to make it appear. Who wants to bet that they did intend to replace the well, but couldn’t find a solution in time for drag-and-drop to work from within a widget?

P.S. The way the update manages adding and upgrading widgets, however, is pretty cool, however.