Microsoft Will Support Third-Party Windows 11 Widgets Later This Year (theverge.com) 30
Microsoft is planning to support third-party widgets inside Windows 11 later this year. At its annual Build developer conference today, the software giant says it will open up access to Windows 11 widgets to developers as companions to their win32 or PWA apps. From a report: Currently, the Windows 11 widgets system is restricted to native widgets created by Microsoft, and the selection is rather limited. Microsoft has built widgets for its Outlook and To Do apps, but the rest are largely web-powered ones that present the weather, entertainment feeds, or news in the dedicated widgets panel for Windows 11.
"We're energized by the customer feedback on Widgets to date, people are enjoying the quick access to content most important to them in a way that is seamless without breaking their flow," says Panos Panay, head of devices and Windows. "Beginning later this year you'll be able to start building Widgets as companion experiences for your Win32 and PWA apps on Windows 11, powered by the Adaptive Cards platform."
"We're energized by the customer feedback on Widgets to date, people are enjoying the quick access to content most important to them in a way that is seamless without breaking their flow," says Panos Panay, head of devices and Windows. "Beginning later this year you'll be able to start building Widgets as companion experiences for your Win32 and PWA apps on Windows 11, powered by the Adaptive Cards platform."
Why widgets? (Score:2)
What is the benefit with widgets in general, be it on a phone or desktop?
At least the normal ones that all platforms default to seem totally useless as in no need to see them that often.
Re:Why widgets? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why widgets? (Score:4, Interesting)
Phone widgets can save you from having to open an app interface to do something simple. Weather/clock and media widgets are the ones most commonly used on phones. When it comes to desktop the usual widgets are new mail, media control, and resource monitor. These are all pretty handy things to have open all the time.
Microsoft's former gadget attempts were web technology-based. these ones seem to be real programs from the description. That might make them make more sense.
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I'm unsure why Microsoft thinks that there's actual desktop space that isn't covered by things. It's the same thing with desktop shortcuts. If you can use those, you're not actually using your desktop space efficiently. (Or completely...)
Re: Why widgets? (Score:2)
Multiple monitors though...
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I have quite a bit of crap on my desktop and somewhere around 1/4 of it is still free, I could have stuff over there.
In practice though I usually have multiple apps running and instead of showing the desktop to see a few widgets why not just bring up a whole program to see a whole bunch of widgets? So I'm not sold really, just explaining what I've used them for in the past. I'm not sure it made sense, but I did it :)
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Well, yes I see people have weather widgets and clock on phone, but at least for me the clock is on the lock screen and if I want to know what the weather is I look out the window.
For more complex uses of both, like future weather or multiple time zones, the full app is way better anyway.
The screen estate is way too small anyway, so I do not want more of it taken up by clutter.
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On the phone you can just swipe to get more screen so they arguably make more sense there. On Linux I have experimented with various settings regarding gadgets, like whether they are sticky (across virtual desktops) or not. Sometimes I would have a desktop where I did a lot of CLI stuff where I'd have the performance and network monitor gadgets.
I think that you shouldn't need any special treatment for a program to behave like a gadget. It just needs to be an undecorated window and implement dragging, and bo
Re: Why widgets? (Score:2)
Some people actually use widgets and use them as part of their workflow.
But a story titled "3rd party widgets later this year" falls into the same catagory as "we were able to render a tea pot in 3D".
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Can't speak for everyone but I work with a lot of teams spread across the globe. As such, a widget that shows clocks for the 6 key office locations would be extremely useful.
The best I can currently do is have three different times displayed when I hover my mouse over the time in the system tray.
Re-inventing Windows XP Gadgets? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is Microsoft living up to that old joke that they never get anything right until the 3rd version? /s
* Windows Vista Desktop Gadgets
* Windows 7 Gadgets -- discontinued [microsoft.com]
* Win11 Widgets
Is there a table comparing what widgets are available from the different OSs?
Didn't gadgets like Yahoo Widgets and Google Desktop die out last decade?
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Windows 11 is a phone OS that thinks its a desktop one.
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You skipped Windows 8 and Windows 10 Live Tiles.
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Thanks! I thought I was missing something.
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Boomers are a good market. They have most of the money.
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No MSN News (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care if I can use the greatest third-party widget of all time. If it is forced to be next to the MSN news-rag widget which I currently can't remove, widgets will remain disabled by a group policy.
Why? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, maybe they got the security right this time?
Yes, this. They discontinued desktop gadgets for windows because security was too hard for Microsoft and they were not revenue-generating. These aren't either. But maybe they are just programs like any other programs, and then there's no more or less security risk than running anything else on Windows. Small comfort.
Widgets are fail (Score:2)
Can Wordle be a Widget? (Score:3)
Bam! Finally, a useful widget.
What the hell is a widget? (Score:2)
These alternative words reminds me of this [youtube.com].