Is it easier to code an Opera widget than to code a Vista/Yahoo/MacOSX widget? (honestly can’t say)

Opera Widgets have the following unique strengths:

1. Uses web development technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Provides XSS-free AJAX support and SVG.

2. Available on all Opera supported platforms.

3. Customizable Widget behavior. Strikes a middle ground between native windowing integration and a dedicated widget layer.

4. The only commercial widget development tools. Provided by a 3rd party (in this case my company http://altmobile.com). Apple will soon release “DashCode”, their own Mac developer tools and we’ll probably extend it to provide Mashup support.

–Zaid

When Konfabulator came out originally, I had a blast downloading widgets. I even wrote a few. But I got tired of having to move windows or close applications or enter the special Widget Mode to get to them. Eventually, I turned them off and never went back. They were never that useful.

I was hoping an Opera engineer would have commented on this issue but it’s important to clarify some of the user interface issues that you mentioned. It’s crucial to understand the human factors related other widget systems and how Opera Widgets differ.

Apple’s Dashboard widgets run in a separate layer. This means that you have to enter “widget view” to view/dismiss the widgets. This would be problematic from a usability perspective except Apple enables quick access to the widget layer through hot spots/corners via the Expose technology. In my case, I’ve mapped Dashboard to the bottom left corner so a quick mouse move and widgets appear. I can glance or interact with my widgets and then move the cursor back into the left corner and the widget layer disappeas. Rapid and efficient. Furthermore, the widget layer is trasparent enabling me to click on an app and the app is activated concurrent with the widget layer disappering. Quick and efficient.

Opera Widgets in beta 2 also had a quick access mechanism to the widget layer via a “Opera Widget” tab that would protrude from the top center of the desktop. It provided access to all the widgets as does the Apple technology and was transparent to the underlying desktop.

During a community vote on the Widget forum, this easy access mechanism was voted off and in its place we have the current implementation.

The current implementation provides a “Widget Manager” which is accessed via the panels as are transfers and links. But the funamental change was that each Widget is self-contained and no longer part of a widget layer. This allows you to use the normal windowing system to cycle through your widgets. For example, with Apple-Tab or ALT-Tab. Each Opera Widget may define its own icon and name which enables an Opera Widget to act just like a normal app. So they act like normal windows but they have special capabilities: an Opera Widget can be float above normal apps or be below them.

Clearly, the Opera engineers are attempting to provide innovations in the user interface. Their current approach to Widget invocation is valid and provides an alternative to Dashboard’s integration with Expose. I believe that the engineers will provide both approaches as well as other integration points such as the system tray. These issues will come to light once Opera Widgets are considered a “core” technology. Once Widgets are marketed and adopted not because they’re “fun” but because they provide crucial “information at a glance”.

It is for this purpose we extended our Web 2.0 Mashup technologies to the world of Opera Widgets. We can extract any chunk of web content– combining it with other pieces if needed– and display it in a Widget. Since the Opera Widgets support JavaScript and AJAX without the constraints of XSS we’ve built support for auto-refresh Widgets and the such.

Make no mistake, Opera Widgets on the desktop have the potential to break into the enterprise as the deployment target for a good number of Web Services reporting apps. For internet users, I belive that Widgets will shine once they’re used by the Web 2.0 crowd to view vertical web data. Or in Web 2.0 speak, customized to a specific social network.

For example, a user would use a web browser to view general information on F1 racing but an Opera Widget customized for each one of the 18/19 tracks. Each Widget therefore has a shelf life of about 2 weeks but during those days, that Widget is always up-to-date and the user will consider it as unubtrusive as one does when checking the clock or your cell phone for new text messages: information at a glance.

–Zaid

[IMGRIGHT=/vladimirg/homes/blog/0_intro.png]В разговорния език използваме джаджа* в общ смисъл за дребен предмет, приспособление или механизъм — обикновено з…

- Does the Opera engine work better than other engines? A first plus is the small installation! A minus is the lag that I sometimes get.
- Is it easier to code an Opera widget than to code a Vista/Yahoo/MacOSX widget? (honestly can’t say)
- Are there enough opera-widgets around? There should be more, but the competition is a good start!
- Marketing

My personal reason to like widgets is the honeycomb snake!

Gotta love sweeping statements on behalf of everyone else…

@(! Experienced Web Programer), generated content can be displayed as a block. See my webpage’s CSS (search for “body:before”):
http://minghong.f2g.net/skin/default/screen.css

Maybe there are some bugs though…

My biggest regret about Opera embracing widgets is that the very under-used panel function in Opera is now going to be even less important. I’m a panel power-user. I have all kinds of online tools resting in panels, from color pickers, to weather, resources for writing and web design and even an internet radio panel of my own devising. Panels provide one-button, inside-the-browser access to very useful tools. Widgets provide inconvenient access to (mostly) fluff.

Widgets are toys, not the precursor to the future of in-browser applications. Only the largest of screens will allow them to co-habitate with your main browser window in any useful or meaningful way. Even on my 21″ monitor I have to minimize my main browser window to interact with most of the widgets I tried. Its just not worth it.

Opera Developers: While you are spending all this time creating cool widgets, take a little extra time to place them in a form so that they can live in panels too!

Still have the problem with the forms being auto-filled in with someone else’s info.

Sorry ReWiz