Widget Engine
The widget model in widget engines is attractive because of ease of development. Most of these widgets can be created with a few images and about 10 to several hundred lines of XML/JavaScript/VBScript source code. A single host software system, such as a web browser, runs all the loaded widgets. This allows several desktop widgets to be built sharing resources and code.
The term widget engine is not to be confused with that of a widget toolkit. Toolkits are used by GUI programmers, who combine several widgets to form a single application. A widget in a toolkit provides a single, low level interaction, and is prepared to communicate with other widgets in the toolkit. On the other hand, widget engines such as desktop widgets and web widgets are intended for end users. Desktop and web widgets are stand-alone, task-oriented applications which can be composed of several related interactions on its own. Each widget serves only a purpose that is usually addressed by the effort of one GUI widget in a full-scale application.
Read more about this topic: Software Widget
Famous quotes containing the word engine:
“The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is perfect, the engineer is nobody. Every new step in improving the engine restricts one more act of the engineer,—unteaches him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)