What the @!#%*$ is a widget??
Moderator: General Moderators
What the @!#%*$ is a widget??
I've been reading the word widget on just about every developer website (especially "web 2.0" articles) out there. I remember the term "widget" from economy class as a generic term for any product. I read the wikipedia entry on what a widget is... but its explanation wasn't very good. What exactly is a widget?
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
- Christopher
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 13596
- Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:54 pm
- Location: New York, NY, US
Well ... start with the original definition which is an unspecific knob, switch, etc. (usually used by technical types) or an unspecificed product of some sort(ususally used by business school types to talk hypothetically about a company's output). If you take that sense of an unspecific control and move it to computing you get things like sliders and buttons that are generic code that (with associated data) can be used for whatever -- a volume control, on/off switch, etc. Usually there are several types packaged together and using common data configuration and interfaces to form a toolkit.
Last edited by Christopher on Mon Nov 13, 2006 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
(#10850)
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
- Maugrim_The_Reaper
- DevNet Master
- Posts: 2704
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:43 am
- Location: Ireland
Examples might help...
Here's one. Since I just wrote a tutorial on something similar. Say you have an online collection of Notes (reminders, tasks, whatever). A *Widget* could be created which grabs these from the online database/webservice (REST/RPC), adds a little XHTML+CSS (or just XSLT) and displays them on your personal website, or even your desktop in a little box.
That's a small widget. It's small, independent of the host environment (mostly), easy to install assuming a Widget manager exists. One place to use this could be a Serendipity Plugin (Widget), or a Wordpress plugin, or some funky Firefox extension. Dozen ways of using it.
Here's one. Since I just wrote a tutorial on something similar. Say you have an online collection of Notes (reminders, tasks, whatever). A *Widget* could be created which grabs these from the online database/webservice (REST/RPC), adds a little XHTML+CSS (or just XSLT) and displays them on your personal website, or even your desktop in a little box.
That's a small widget. It's small, independent of the host environment (mostly), easy to install assuming a Widget manager exists. One place to use this could be a Serendipity Plugin (Widget), or a Wordpress plugin, or some funky Firefox extension. Dozen ways of using it.
- MrPotatoes
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 617
- Joined: Wed May 24, 2006 6:42 am
Wikipedia says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget
- Christopher
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 13596
- Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:54 pm
- Location: New York, NY, US
I am not an expert on .NET, but I believe that the controls in .NET are components such as DataGrids and Editors -- those would be built using WIdgets, but may not be considered Widgets themselves because the provide more functionality that would normally be considered for a Widget (e.g. a DataGrid would use scrollbar and button Widgets)MrPotatoes wrote:but widgets aren't like controls in .NET. controls are components. they should just call it a component. makes more sense
(#10850)
- MrPotatoes
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 617
- Joined: Wed May 24, 2006 6:42 am
yep. i was just ranting about thier dumb naming scheme. component is more like itarborint wrote:I am not an expert on .NET, but I believe that the controls in .NET are components such as DataGrids and Editors -- those would be built using WIdgets, but may not be considered Widgets themselves because the provide more functionality that would normally be considered for a Widget (e.g. a DataGrid would use scrollbar and button Widgets)MrPotatoes wrote:but widgets aren't like controls in .NET. controls are components. they should just call it a component. makes more sense
ANYWAYS.... back on topic ...
- jayshields
- DevNet Resident
- Posts: 1912
- Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2005 12:11 pm
- Location: Leeds/Manchester, England
- AKA Panama Jack
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 878
- Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:21 pm
Here are what Widgets can look like. Opera already supports them and W3C standards seems to be adopting the Opera Widget format. 
http://widgets.opera.com/
http://widgets.opera.com/
- Christopher
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 13596
- Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:54 pm
- Location: New York, NY, US