What is/are 'widgets'. And what are they used for?

Answer 1

Hey Boo Boo,

James in Raleigh -

A widget is a generic term used to refer to a product (usually manufactured). Business classes use them to express examples of productions and to help model a plant's capacity for six-sigma and lean manufacturing problems.

It can also be cute little add on programs through Yahoo and others.

I think you are talking about these kinds of widgets...

"OK then, what are Widgets?
Mini-programs that bring important, live information right to your desktop.
Beautifully designed to brighten up your desktop.
All about you! Customize your Widgets to grab just the information that you want."

Answer 2

A widget is a term used to describe a generic item, usually used in text books to explain a point. A widget is not a tangible item, its only used to make as an example.

Answer 3

from wikipedia

A widget (or control) is an interface component that a computer user interacts with, such as a window or a text box. Widgets are sometimes qualified as virtual to distinguish them from their physical counterparts, e.g. virtual buttons that can be clicked with a mouse cursor, vs. physical buttons that can be pressed with a finger. Widgets are often packaged together in widget toolkits. Programmers use widgets to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

One commonly referred to type of widgets are the Dashboard widgets of Apple Macintosh computer users. Widgets, in this case, are downloadable interactive virtual tools that provide services such as showing the user the latest news, the current weather, a dictionary, a map program, sticky notes, or even a language translator, among other things.

Some say that the word "widget" is derived from the combination of "window" and "gadget". This is unlikely. The earliest known occurrence of the word "widget" is in Beggar on Horseback (1924), a comedy play written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. The hero of this play is a struggling composer who must choose between creating music that stimulates his soul (but earns no money) or earning a living by accepting a soul-deadening job in a factory that makes "widgets". The text of the play intentionally refrains from revealing what "widgets" are; clearly, they represent any purely mercantile commodity that has no artistic or spiritual value.

Answer 4

Widgets is just a catchall phrase when trying to describe how businesses operate.

"If Company A makes widgets at $5 each and sell 100,000 at $10, while Company B makes widgets at $6, but sells 80,000 at $12.50, which is the better company?"

Answer 5

a widget is a small piece of code. Most widgets are made to be so generic they can be used anywhere.

an example for a web app would be a little program that took input and removed any special characters to return clean code that can be used elsewhere without worries.

Answer 6

They are so cool! I have them downloaded, and I really like them. If you download it, you can have a little 'widget', on your desktop. They're used for like weather (it tells you the 5 day forecast, ), if you're doing something else on your computer, they have a yahoo mail checker (if you right click and click check for mail, it will tell you if you have any new messages). They have A LOT more, and theyre really cool. You should try it!

Answer 7

widgets r little applications that run through your web browser that can/be useful if u want them

Answer 8

aren't widgets like mini tootsie rolls?

Answer 9

it's a term to mean some generic product... it's nothing in particular, just to be used for examples and test questions.

Answer 10

they are small little applications that you can pull up fast and put away fast
download for windows http://widgets.yahoo.com/
download for mac http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/
they are also in the new opera opera.com