User blog comment:Sannse/Sneak Peek at the New Look - Your Personal Toolbar/@comment-227331-20100908064920

I've been meaning to ask this, but while the widget carousel and the shoutbox are going away, is there going to be support for user created things that fill the same niche? I intend to keep my players up to date with a twitter feed and a google calendar function (if I can find a way to get either of them to work). While I'd like to have them in a set place on all the pages via the sidebar, I understand if that annoys some people and they can turn them off. So far even if the widgets break when I attempt to create something close to what I need, I have that option to place them on the front page or in the side bar depending on what the user wants.

So far I haven't seen anything that replicates this functionality. Making a template with the needed features only goes so far, and you can't embed it in the navigation or sidebar (trust me, I tried). Not only does creating a side column for all the templates you'd use come off as annoying to the user, but it's a terrible idea for a fixed-width layout, especially when you have a template on the right for information pertaining to the subject at hand.

Even though I can get used to the right aligned sidebar, I still feel the compulsive need to turn off the floating footer, even from watching the video. No, really, it does obscure the information and no "off" feature is aggravating. At the very least don't make the entire bar take up the bottom part of the screen. You're using 1/5th of that bar for information. If you have to have it, just make sure it covers only the sidebar.