Why Widgets?

[Nigel_James]

What so good about widgets?

I am not yet convinced, so help me! Why are widgets the best thing since punched cards?

Because I can make a RSS reader with one? I need a run a widget engine for that?

Because I can get wifi strength? I have a tray application?

Because it will tell me the time? I have a car, phone, watch, oven - they all tell me the time.

Because I can get stock ticker information? I have a trading platform or a browser.

Could one of you Widget evangelists please tell me why they are so good?

I would like to be a convert, a disciple of groove, but I am not yet convinced.

regards,

Nigel

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Nigel,

Real good question..

Sometimes widget could seem just graphical exercises, and in some cases they really are but I think that there are some scenarios where they could really be usefull and overall they could really add some value.

For example what do you think about a tool that notify a manager that a request needs to be approved and that can let that manager do that job just with a click.

You could say: "can't you just send an email to that manager? you could put in that email a link to a web page where the manager could approve the request"

And I would say "yes, but I think it will require more developments on R3 than a simple RFC or a webservice, at least in that case you should also define a web gui"

But personally I think that one of the point where widgets have a real added value is for alerting.

Imagine that you need to monitor several different un-correlated things; you could create some widgets and while you are doing other things they could poll every X minutes the system and check for errors, and in case of errors play a sound and display a warning screen in the middle of your desktop.

And what if just with a click on the warning screen you could directly navigate to a transaction on sap to manage the error?

All this with a few programming, maybe reusable with different SAP system with simple parameter configuration? it doesn't seems bad to me...

I think that in some cases widgets could really simplify life.

But I agree on the fact that they should not be seen as substitute for other work instruments and that they should not be abused.

I hope that these examples will "convert" you a little bit. If this is not enough, repeat with me "I Believe in widgets, I Believe in widgets", it could help

Kind Regards,

Sergio

[Nigel_James · Accepted solution]

Ha Ha Sergio. Good answer.

I guess what it comes down to is : What scenarios do widgets work best in and where do they provide the best value?

Value would have to be defined in terms of speed to deliver as well as ease of use and functionality. Some great programmer may be able to write a great little (Windows) tray program in C++ that can monitor and do the same sort of thing but then they are tied to windows all be it probably doing it for a lot less memory than a widget engine.

I would still like to hear some more opinions. I am warming to the concept.

Regards,

Nigel

[CountZero · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I use widgets as a personal thing for the following scenario. Currently I am developing and testing an interface into SAP. During the testing phase I need to monitor what has been sent and at what status it is. Rather than logging onto SAP and running a report within SAP I get the widget to run and deliver the information to me.

Now I chose the widget approach for a number of reasons. One, I wanted the information delivered to me rather than me hunting for it (a dashboard type approach). Two, it was quicker for me to write a widget than a client application. The speed up occurred with the UI it was just XML and additional inbuilt functionality (screen placement, single key press to bring the information to the front etc.

As for some background I used to be a visual basic developer and so would have chosen VB .NET had I not been using widgets. I was able to get a functional widget up and running (it didn't look too pretty) far quicker than had I written an equivalent in .NET.

Although Yahoo Widgets will never be distributed around our business, for me at least it meant I could monitor something we were testing whilst carrying on with something else. I was alerted to problems earlier and without waiting to be told about them.

In total it has saved me a lot of time and allowed issues to be trapped earlier.

I hope this helps.

Nath

[johna69 · Accepted solution]

Hi Nigel,

I use widgets as part of my developers toolbox, to monitor the status of download activity on one of my websites and to provide me with the fixtures for my football team. I run a PC and Mac, I prefer the Dashboard version to Yahoo as it is less intrusive.

I get the most use out of a Soap Test widget I created. When working with web services it allows me to rapidly perform bounds testing on input values to the service. I could do the same in other tools, but the widget is convenient and simple.

I don't see widgets as a replacement UI, just another option when it comes to viewing information.

Regards

John

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

The way I see, Widgets fall the area of 'Use centric UI'. It doesnt matter if IT provisions or not, people try to use them if they are used to it (e.g. at home, for personal use etc.) It is also a matter of taste, demography etc. And for user centric UI, there isnt one solution that fits everyone. Thats why you see, Yahoo!, Google, NetVibes, SAP, Microsoft everyone trying to cater in different ways of their own.

Very fact that Microsoft is bundling Widgets functionality in Vista shows the interest regarding Widgets by the consumer. Looking the way Yahoo! widgets engine has grown in its functionality (latest 4.x supports Flash as well as HTML) indicates a strong demand from developers, end users.

Is there a way in SDN to poll and see how many in the community feel the necessity of Widgets for the Enterprise?

[eddy_declercq]

Hi,

As far as I'm concerned they are nothing more or nothing less than little apps running on your desktop which run typical things you want to watch/monitor/search without launching seperate applications for that. An example I've made is the SDN search for Mac(/people/eddy.declercq/blog/2006/02/01/sdn-by-the-dashboard-light) and Opera (/people/eddy.declercq/blog/2006/02/14/phantom-of-the-opera).

Once you want to go into detail, you will start that app after all. It makes to my feeling no sense to duplicate things since then you end up with double maintenance.

Eddy

[Nigel_James]

Sure Eddy, and I love the way you jump at every opportunity to point back to other things you have written before. Get the link love happening and that's really cool. I am just not sold yet though.

I am hoping that someone - maybe one of the imagineering team will say they are really cool because they are so quick to develop and port to a wide range of platforms.

I love your search thing for firefox Eddy - very useful, but that is much better integrated into FF than a separate widget that requires another runtime to run. I know in the future we will all run 10 Tb of RAM so this wont be an issue.

Perhaps Craig will weigh in with how cool all those internal SAP widgets are and how much they make him more productive etc when he get back from his well earned rest.

2 points for you Eddy - May we be seeing your 20K celebration very soon.

Regards,

Nigel