Gadget & Widget

中文版(點這裡)

The Gadgets of Google and Widgets of Yahoo are desktop tools which are composed by Javascript mainly, and provide handy/fun functions. Both of Google and Yahoo provide support information on their own website. Visit Google Desktop and Yahoo! Widgets for more details. It is quite different between Gadgets and Widget for installation. Administrator privilege is needed for installing Google Desktop and user privilege for Yahoo! Widget. I brought this up is because that the laptop I'm using belongs to the company and I do not possess administrator privilege. It seems that The Yahoo! Widget is my only choice!

Make Your Choice Carefully

Just a small part of those Gadgets or Widgets on their websites were developed by their own teams, most of desktop tools were composed by so-called "third party", it might just like you or someone else. And the quality might different between those little desktop tools. You might know that it takes system resources while running (on a computer). It is possible that a Gadget/Widget grabs system resources more than you thought if the author (of the desktop tool) did not consider about system performance carefully.

Develop Your Own Desktop Tools/ A Platform for Practicing Javascript Programming

Have you ever thought about what inside these desktop tools are? Google and Yahoo provide a lot of resources for developers. And they might intent to interest you for your taking part in developing their desktop tools. Google provides a SDK (Software Develop Kit) and lots of information on websites. Yahoo supplies a tool application Widget Converter, for packing/unpacking Yahoo! Widget, and tutorial documents and reference manuals. Furthermore, you can decompress those Gadgets and Widgets that download from their websites as example programs, if you are interested.

Different Between Gadget and Widget

	Google Gadget	Yahoo Widget	Remark
Pack File	Zip File/Flat Format File	Zip File	Widget converter is for Flat format Yahoo! Widget.
Ext. File Name	Widget	gg
Type of Main File	*.kon	Main.xml	XML(Extensive Markup Language) format
Tool App.	Widget Converter	SDK (Software Develop Kit)