Widget are small desktop application which can be used to access wide range of services like weather forecasts, latest new, dictionary or language translation, calendar, map information etc. Widget Engine is a javascript runtime environment for executing widgets (small desktop applications) over Operating System. Popular Widget Engines include Yahoo! Widget Engine, Dashboard Widgets for Apple Machintosh, Google Desktop, Gadgets in Microsoft Vista etc. A Widget Engine interprets XML tag libraries describing various attributes of a widget like image source, window size, title, version, platform, preferences etc. JavaScript is used for defining actions and performing event handling in the widget or in other words JavaScript provides interactivity to Widgets. Since Javascript is very effecient in manipulating XML objects thus rich functionalities could be easily developed in Widgets. Advantages of Widgets1. Easy to Develop - they are developed using Scripting Languages like Javascript. 2. Easy to Customize - they make use of standarized technologies like XML, RSS, Web Service etc. 3. Easy to Use - provides easy access to frequently used functions. 4. Better user experience - they are good for displaying visual information. 5. Provides Multitasking capabilities - multiple Widgets or mutliple instances of a same Widget can run simultaneously. 6. Light weight Technology - does not require large amount of resources and can run on PCs. 7. Easy to Install and Distribute - Widget source consists of text files and resources bundled in ZIP format hence can be easily distributed and installed. 8. Quickly Launched - Widgets are small applications and can be quickly launched. 9. Personalization and Configuration - Using Preference settings in Widgets Personalization and Customizability can be acheived.
