This is a comparison of widget engines . This article is not about widget toolkits that are used in computer programming to build graphical user interfaces.
Engine | Creator | Current Version | License | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|
Adobe AIR | Adobe Systems | 1.5 | Proprietary | Discontinued |
AveDesk | Andreas Verhoeven | 1.3 | Proprietary | Abandoned |
Dashboard | Apple Inc. | 1.8 (July 20, 2011) [±] | Proprietary | Retired |
DesktopX | Stardock | 3.5 | Proprietary | Abandoned |
gDesklets | Martin Grimme and Christian Meyer | 0.36 | GPL | Abandoned |
Google Desktop Gadgets | 5.0.0701.18382 | Proprietary | Discontinued | |
Kapsules | Andrew Powell | 0.9.9 | Proprietary | Abandoned |
KlipFolio | Serence | 5.0D | Proprietary | Active and supported |
Microsoft Gadgets | Microsoft | ? | Proprietary | Discontinued |
NetFront | Access Co. Ltd. | 4.2 | Proprietary | Discontinued |
Netvibes | Netvibes | 1.0 | Proprietary | Active and supported |
Opera | Opera Software | 82.0.4227.43 (December 21, 2021 [1] ) | Proprietary | Discontinued |
Plasma | KDE (Aaron Seigo, main developer) | 4.14.38 (November 7, 2017) [±] [2] | GPL | Active and Supported |
Rainmeter | Kimmo 'Rainy' Pekkola | 4.3.1 - r3321 (September 22, 2019) [±] | GPL | Active and Supported |
Screenlets | Rico Pfaus (AKA RYX) | 0.1.5 | GPL | Abandoned |
Serious Samurize | Gustaf & Oscar Lundh | 1.64 | Proprietary | Abandoned |
SuperKaramba | Hans Karlsson | 0.39 | GPL | Abandoned |
WebKit | Apple Inc. | ? | BSD+LGPL | Active and supported |
WidSets | Nokia | ? | Proprietary | Discontinued |
Yahoo! Widgets | Ed Voas, Michael Galloway, and Sam Magnuson [Note 1] | 4.5.2 | Proprietary | Discontinued |
Engine | Creator | Current Version | License | Status |
Engine | Mac OS X | Windows NT5 (XP) | Windows NT6 (Vista, 7/8/10+) | Linux | Android |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adobe AIR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
AveDesk | No | Yes | Yes | No | ? |
Dashboard | Yes [Note 1] | No | No | No | ? |
DesktopX | No | Yes | Yes | No | ? |
gDesklets | No [Note 2] | No [Note 2] | No [Note 2] | Yes | ? |
Google Desktop Gadgets | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Kapsules | No | Yes | ? | No | ? |
KlipFolio | No | Yes | Yes | No | ? |
Microsoft Gadgets | No | No | Yes | No | ? |
NetFront | No [Note 3] | No [Note 3] | No [Note 3] | No [Note 3] | ? |
Netvibes | Dashboard bridge | Using browser | Using browser | Using browser | ? |
Opera | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Plasma | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Rainmeter | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Screenlets | No | No | No | Yes | ? |
Serious Samurize | No | Yes | Yes [Note 4] | No | ? |
SuperKaramba | No | No | No | Yes | ? |
WebKit | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
WidSets | No [Note 5] | No [Note 5] | No [Note 5] | No [Note 5] | ? |
Yahoo! Widgets | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Engine | Mac OS X | Windows XP (NT5) | Windows (NT6) Vista+ | Linux | Android |
Which programming languages the engines support. Most engines rely upon interpreted languages.
Engine | HTML | XHTML | CSS | XML | JavaScript | Perl | Python | Ruby | C++ | Executable | VBScript |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adobe AIR [Note 1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
AveDesk [Note 2] | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | ? | ? |
Dashboard | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [Note 3] | ? |
DesktopX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | ? |
gDesklets | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | ? |
Google Desktop Gadgets | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | ? |
Kapsules [Note 4] | ? | ? | ? | ? | No | Yes | Yes | No | ? | ? | Yes |
KlipFolio | No | No | Yes [Note 5] | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
Microsoft Gadgets | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes (as ActiveX) | Yes | Yes |
NetFront [Note 6] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
Netvibes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
Opera [Note 6] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
Plasma | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
Rainmeter | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Screenlets | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No | Yes | No | ? | ? | ? |
Serious Samurize [Note 4] [Note 7] | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SuperKaramba | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
WebKit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | ? | ? |
WidSets | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Yahoo! Widgets [Note 8] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No [Note 9] | No |
Engine | HTML | XHTML | CSS | XML | JavaScript | Perl | Python | Ruby | C++ | Executable | VBScript |
Engine | IDE | Widget Container | Widget MIME Type |
---|---|---|---|
Adobe AIR | Flex Builder 3, Flash CS4, Dreamweaver CS4 | ZIP | application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip |
AveDesk | AveScripter | ZIP | ? |
Dashboard | Dashcode | ZIP | application/x-macbinary |
DesktopX | Desktop X Pro | EXE | ? |
gDesklets | No | Tar.gz | ? |
Google Desktop Gadgets | Google Desktop Gadget Designer | ZIP | app/gg |
Kapsules | ? | ZIP | ? |
KlipFolio | No | Proprietary XML Format | ? |
Microsoft Gadgets | No [Note 1] | ZIP | application/x-windows-gadget |
NetFront | No | ZIP | application/x-opera-widgets |
Netvibes | No | Online | ? |
Opera | Opera Dragonfly | ZIP | application/x-opera-widgets |
Plasma | No | ZIP, with plasmoid as extension instead of zip | ? |
Rainmeter | No | ZIP, with rmskin as extension instead of zip | application/vnd.rainmeter.SkinInstaller |
Screenlets | No | Tar.gz | ? |
Serious Samurize | Serious Samurize Config Editor | ZIP | ? |
SuperKaramba | No | Tar.gz | ? |
WebKit | No | ? | ? |
WidSets | ? | ? | ? |
Yahoo! Widgets | No [Note 2] | Proprietary Format, ZIP | application/vnd.yahoo.Widget |
Engine | IDE | Widget Container | Widget MIME Type |
As widgets are largely combinations of HTML or XHTML, CSS, and Javascript in most cases, standard AJAX tools, such as Eclipse ATF, can be used for development. Specialized tools may give access to additional capabilities supplied by frameworks such as Dojo or Openrico.
iCab is a web browser for Mac OS by Alexander Clauss, derived from Crystal Atari Browser (CAB) for Atari TOS compatible computers. It was one of the few browsers still updated for the classic Mac OS prior to that version being discontinued after version 3.0.5 in 2008; Classilla was the last browser that was maintained for that OS but it was discontinued in 2021.
Bluefish is a free software advanced text editor with a variety of tools for programming and website development. It supports coding languages including HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, PHP, C, C++, JavaScript, Java, Go, Vala, Ada, D, SQL, Perl, ColdFusion, JSP, Python, Ruby, and shell. It is available for many platforms, including Linux, macOS and Windows, and can be used via integration with GNOME or run as a standalone application. Designed as a compromise between plain text editors and full programming IDEs, Bluefish is lightweight, fast and easy to learn, while providing many IDE features. It has been translated into 17 languages.
Quanta Plus, originally called Quanta, is a web Integrated development environment (IDE) for HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, PHP and any other XML-based languages or scripting languages. Quanta was licensed under GPL before the release of version 2.0 final.
wxWidgets is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes. A wide choice of compilers and other tools to use with wxWidgets facilitates development of sophisticated applications. wxWidgets supports a comprehensive range of popular operating systems and graphical libraries, both proprietary and free, and is widely deployed in prominent organizations.
Yahoo Widgets is a discontinued free application platform for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, specifically Windows XP, Vista and Win 7. The software was previously called Konfabulator, but after being acquired by computer services company Yahoo on July 25, 2005 it was rebranded. The name Konfabulator was subsequently reinstated as the name of the underlying rendering engine. The engine uses a JavaScript runtime environment combined with an XML interpreter to run small applications referred to as widgets, and hence is part of a class of software applications called widget engines. On February 27, 2012 Yahoo updated the License agreement stating that as of April 3, 2012 Yahoo! Widgets will continue to be available for download but support and development would stop.
WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as all iOS web browsers. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the PS3, the Tizen mobile operating systems, and a browser included with the Amazon Kindle e-book reader. WebKit's C++ application programming interface (API) provides a set of classes to display Web content in windows, and implements browser features such as following links when clicked by the user, managing a back-forward list, and managing a history of pages recently visited.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of web browsers. For further references, a browser support matrix is a table of support of a Webpage by browsers
Dashboard is a discontinued application for Apple Inc.'s macOS operating systems, used as a secondary desktop for hosting mini-applications known as widgets. These are intended to be simple applications that do not take time to launch. Dashboard applications supplied with macOS include a stock ticker, weather report, calculator and notepad; users can create or download their own.
A user interface markup language is a markup language that renders and describes graphical user interfaces and controls. Many of these markup languages are dialects of XML and are dependent upon a pre-existing scripting language engine, usually a JavaScript engine, for rendering of controls and extra scriptability.
AveDesk is a freeware widget engine for Windows XP that runs small, self-contained widgets called "desklets", as well as ObjectDock "docklets", and is created by Andreas Verhoeven, a freelance software programmer.
Aptana, Inc. is a company that makes web application development tools for use with a variety of programming languages. Aptana's main products include Aptana Studio, Aptana Cloud and Aptana Jaxer.
ShiVa3D is a 3D game engine with a graphical editor designed to create applications and video games for desktop PCs, the web, game consoles and mobile devices. Games made with ShiVa can be exported to over 20 target platforms, with new export targets being added regularly.
A software widget is a relatively simple and easy-to-use software application or component made for one or more different software platforms.
FlashDevelop is an integrated development environment (IDE) for development of Adobe Flash websites, web applications, desktop applications and video games. The resulting applications run in Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR, on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Android or iOS. The primary purpose of FlashDevelop is enabling developers to edit, compile, debug and publish a Flash ActionScript project. It supports ActionScript 2.0, ActionScript 3.0, Haxe and other upcoming languages. It has code completion, syntax highlighting, snippets and other features similar to Microsoft Visual Studio.
HTML5 can be used as an alternative to some of the functionality of Adobe Flash. Both include features for playing audio and video within web pages. Flash is specifically built to integrate vector graphics and light games in a web page, features that HTML5 also supports.
Sencha Touch is a user interface (UI) JavaScript library, or web framework, specifically built for the Mobile Web. It can be used by Web developers to develop user interfaces for mobile web applications that look and feel like native applications on supported mobile devices. It is based on web standards such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. The goal of Sencha Touch is to facilitate quick and easy development of HTML5 based mobile apps which run on Android, iOS, Windows, Tizen and BlackBerry devices, simultaneously allowing a native look and feel to the apps.
Prince is a computer program that converts XML and HTML documents into PDF files by applying Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Prince is a commercial product, which is free to download and use for non-commercial purposes.