Comparison of widget engines

Short description: None

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.

## Contents

* 1 General
* 2 Operating system support
* 3 Technical
* 3.1 Languages
* 3.2 Formats and Development
* 3.3 Development Tools
* 4 References

## General

Engine  | Creator  | Current Version  | License | Status

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Adobe AIR  | Adobe Systems | 1.5  | Proprietary | Discontinued
AveDesk | Andreas Verhoeven  | 1.3  | Proprietary  | Abandoned
Dashboard  | Apple Inc. | Template:Latest stable release/Dashboard | Proprietary  | Retired
DesktopX | Stardock | 3.5  | Proprietary  | Abandoned
gDesklets | Martin Grimme and Christian Meyer  | 0.36  | GPL  | Abandoned
Google Desktop Gadgets | Google | 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  | 100.0.4815.21 (June 20, 2023; 2 years ago (2023-06-20)[1][2][3])

| Proprietary  | Discontinued
Plasma | KDE (Aaron Seigo, main developer)  | 4.14.38 (November 7, 2017; 8 years ago (2017-11-07)) [±][4] | GPL  | Active and Supported
Rainmeter | Kimmo 'Rainy' Pekkola  | 4.3.1 - r3321 (September 22, 2019; 6 years ago (2019-09-22)) [±] | 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

1. ↑ The Yahoo! Widgets was originally released by Arlo Rose and Ed Voas as Konfabulator. The name was changed several months after Yahoo! acquired the software in July 2005.

## Operating system support

Engine  | Mac OS X | Windows NT5 (XP)  | Windows NT6 (Vista, 7/8/10+)  | Linux | Android

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|
|
|
|

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

1. ↑ As of El Kapitain the Apple dashboard is no longer enabled by default.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 As for the next major version the gDesklets' developers are planning to support Windows XP and Mac OS X.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 NetFront is a Mobile browser, which is also preinstalled on the PSP, and on the PlayStation 3.
4. ↑ The current version of Samurize (1.64.2) runs on Vista but there are a few minor issues that need to be worked out, such as security dialog prompts.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 WidSets is for mobiles and runs on the Java MIDP 2.0 platform

## Technical

### Languages

Which programming languages the engines support. Most engines rely upon interpreted languages.

Engine  | HTML | XHTML | CSS | XML | JavaScript | Perl | Python | Ruby | C++ | Executable | VBScript

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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

1. ↑ Widgets for Adobe Air can also be programmed in Adobe Flash, and Actionscript.
2. ↑ AveDesk can be extended using AveScripter, which supports plugins written with XML and Javascript, extended using CSS.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Dashboard uses a technology called Cocoa Plugins.This allows for Objective-C code to be used through the plugin. The plugin is written with Cocoa and is compiled.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Widgets for Kapsules and Serious Samurize can be written in any scripting language for which there is an ActiveScript engine, including PHP, JScript, VBScript and Ruby.
5. ↑ KlipFolio supports custom styles using CSS syntax.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 This is only relevant for Opera's and NetFront's extensions; the web browsers themselves support HTML, CSS and others.
7. ↑ Samurize supports DLLs compiled with C++, Delphi, PowerBASIC, and FreeBasic, among others. HTML/XML/CSS support can be added by using certain plugins.
8. ↑ Yahoo! Widget Engine supports Perl and Python indirectly through the use of the shell, provided that the interpreters are installed on the machine (on Mac OS X, they are by default).
9. ↑ Yahoo! Widgets can interface with COM (windows) or AppleScript (Mac OS)

### Formats and Development

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

1. ↑ Microsoft Gadget have documentation, but no IDE to aid development.
2. ↑ Yahoo! Widgets have documentation, but no IDE to aid development. A script was provided to allow Photoshop to be used as the Graphical Designer, the script created a widget whose objects were based upon photoshop layer sets or groups

### Development Tools

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.

## References

1. ↑ "Thanks for downloading Opera" (in en-US). Opera Norway. https://download.opera.com/download/get/?partner=www&opsys=Windows. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
2. ↑ "Thanks for downloading Opera" (in en-US). Opera Norway. https://download.opera.com/download/get/?partner=www&opsys=MacOS. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
3. ↑ "Index of /ftp/pub/opera/desktop/100.0.4815.21/" (in en-US). Opera Norway. https://get.opera.com/ftp/pub/opera/desktop/100.0.4815.21/. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
4. ↑ "KDE Ships KDE Applications and Platform 4.14.3". Software:KDE. 11 November 2014. https://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.14.3.php.

* v
* t
* e

Widget engines

Modes|

* Software widget
* Web widget

Engines (free)|

| GTK+|

* GNOME Shell
* Cinnamon
* adesklets
* gDesklets
* Screenlets

|

Qt|

* KDE Plasma 4
* KDE Plasma 5
* SuperKaramba

other|

* WebKit
* Yahoo! Widgets
* XWidgets

Engines (proprietary)|

* Active Desktop
* Dashboard
* DesktopX
* Google Desktop Gadgets
* KlipFolio
* Microsoft Gadgets
* NetFront
* Netvibes
* Serious Samurize
* WidSets
* Yahoo! Widgets
* XWidgets

* Category
* Comparison

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