Info on Widgets

A widget in general is a small application with a little bit of code, that does one simple thing. A “Widget Engine”, which is the framework needed to run these micro applications, is needed on the PC. Web applications haves also their own widget, that can run within the browser, like clock, web counter, etc.These applications have existed for a long time now. These were previously called plug-ins, components, extensions and gadgets. Typically, the user can choose to have CNN news, Paris weather, a Flicker photo stream, a clock, etc.

This approach fits particularly well on mobile world, where space on screen is limited and where it’s not easy to switch between applications. The interest of widget is both for users and developers in the following ways. For the user, he can create his own application by choosing and customizing his widget set and for the developer, he can easily develop and deploy to the end user. With advancements world over, widgets are being used to access many of the Rich Site Summary (RSS) contents in an elegant way.