[skyhawkrider]

I would love to see a section that shows the Top Downloaded Widgets. It would be really nice to see which are the best widgets on this site, without having to sort through all of the pages.

Comments?

[purvisa]

Apple, of course, does offer this functionality. However, I always wonder about such things. They tend to be self-perpetuating systems. Because something has had a lot of downloads, it makes the list. People see the list and download the popular widgets. Those widgets get still higher download numbers.

Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. I would love to see, if this were implemented, a filtering system. There would be an overall "Top 10" at the head of the Gallery, but each widget type could also have a "Top 10" list. In this way, someone looking for a search tool could see which search tools are the most popular, even if none make the overall list.

If I may ramble one paragraph more, I would like to refer to a thread that came up a month or so ago (I won't track it down right now). Someone suggested a "Widget of the Month" a while back, and Apple does something similar without specifically saying, "This is the best new thing." By highlighting a newer widget, Apple takes widgets that catch the eye of its Dashboard team and set it apart for the public. That might be a good tie-in with this top download idea.

[andrethegiant]

or you could always go to the showcase and organize by downloads...

[purvisa]

That addresses the general issue, but it does not address category downloads. True, one could sort through page upon page of the gallery, but it does little when certain categories generate more downloads than others.