Comparison of widget engines

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.

General
Engine Creator Current Version License Status
Adobe AIR Adobe Systems 1.5 Proprietary Supported
AveDesk Andreas Verhoeven 1.3 Proprietary Abandoned
Dashboard Apple Inc. 1.8 (July 20, 2011 (2011-07-20)) [±] 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 74.0.3911.75 (2 February 2021 (2021-02-02)[1]) Proprietary Discontinued
Plasma KDE (Aaron Seigo, main developer) 4.14.38 (November 7, 2017 (2017-11-07)) [±][2] GPL Active and Supported
Rainmeter Kimmo 'Rainy' Pekkola 4.3.1 - r3321 (September 22, 2019 (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
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. As for the next major version the gDesklets' developers are planning to support Windows XP and Mac OS X.
  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. 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
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. 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. 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. 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. "Opera 74 Stable". Opera Blogs. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  2. "KDE Ships KDE Applications and Platform 4.14.3". KDE. 11 November 2014. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
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