Widgets - what do they look like?

[7_Driver]

Talking to my Girlfriend, the topic turned to widgets.

Turns out that she's always visualised them as small spikey things - much like the metal "jacks" that you can play games with.

Hadn't really thought about it before - but on being asked I realised - I visualise widgets as round and flat - a bit like an ice-hocky puck, but smaller. And of course they come in lots of colours.

How do you visualise widgets?

[lawman]

Due to lack of creativity I've never visualized one.

By the way what were you and your GF talking about right before widgets came up? Make sure your answer complies with the TOS [webmasterworld.com] and the Foo Charter [webmasterworld.com]. ;)

[shigamoto]

I visualise them as boxes, blue boxes if it's blue widgets :P

[digitalghost]

Always see them as wedges, like the little pieces of pie in Trivial Pursuit.

[grelmar]

I was once told they're the plastic keepers on the end of your shoelaces. I've since been informed this is inaccurate, but that's what widgets always look like to me now.

[digitalghost]

Aglets can't be widgets. ;)

[a1call]

I visualize widgets as plastic knobs like the ones on the car radios, but apparently it means gizmos.

[Liane]

Pretty much like this Widget [answers.com] :)

[PhraSEOlogy]

I see them as small triangular things that change color i.e. green widget is green a blue one is - well blue! Also they have a smooth surface and reflect light.

[perfectcoding]

My favourite "actual" widget is the one they put in beer cans that produce the head. Not sure how they work, but I know they're white and spherical; also there's nitrogen involved somewhere.

[jecasc]

When I came across webmasterworld for the first time (being a non native english speaker) I was wondering for days that everybody here seemed to be in the same field of business - selling widgets.

[duckhunter]

I have always seen them as little cog-wheels like you find in gears but now thanks to Liane's post, I think the little cartoon character is now stuck in my head :)

[zCat]

A widget is simply a more precisely defined thingy.

[digitalghost]

Yeah, but a thingy [markstivers.com] doesn't look like a widget.

[PhraSEOlogy]

My wife says (and I wont argue with her ;-) ) that widgets look like a spring...

I guess she was thinking slinky.

[ska_demon]

A Widget is a length challenged Worm.

A Worm Midget even.

Ska

[pageoneresults]

Widget [answers.com]

An unnamed or hypothetical manufactured article.

When I was growing up, back in the 60s/70s, there was an actual product called a widget. It was a little handheld razor blade/scraper that was bright yellow, had a custom razor blade (by Gillette) inserted (with extras and a place for used blades) with a frosted clear plastic cover to keep it safe. I used mine regularly.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

As Perfectcoding says Widgets are real things here in the UK. Patented too ...

[patent.gov.uk...]

[swan.ac.uk...]

[seth_wilde]

I have always seen them as little cog-wheels

That's funny, this is also how I have always pictured them.. I think it's because somehow in my mind I associate widgets with Spacely's Sprockets and Cogswell Cogs from the Jetsons..

[gamiziuk]

Gee, I always thought a widget was a variant of a round tuit!
:D

[Pfui]

I've always pictured them as small, dark-colored metal whatevers -- the kinds of things you find jangling around in the bottom of a toolbox or fishing tacklebox, or hanging on an old nail on a garage wall. In short -- guy stuff:)

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Ever since I first heard the word in connection with X Windows' Athena Widgets, I've always pictured them as brightly coloured geometric shapes, often rectangular, that can be stuck on a screen.

I still have that "bright" "sticky" "pointy" "cornery" "coloury" feeling whenever the word comes up, so the usual "red widget" vs "blue widgets" discussions make perfect sense to me!

Rgds

Damon

[rkhare]

i have always known it to be something like bullet, always on target

[totter]

My favourite "actual" widget is the one they put in beer cans that produce the head. Not sure how they work, but I know they're white and spherical; also there's nitrogen involved somewhere.

That's emc. I can remember watching Young Einstein and being only one of two people that laughed at that.

[BillyS]

Three dimensional boxes, gray in color. Stackable, like bricks, you can build whatever you want with them.

[DrDoc]

[en.wikipedia.org...]

[andrea99]

I've been a widgetarian since the fourth grade. Actual widgets are all made in China now.

[larryhatch]

I visualize a widget as being roughly shoe-box in size or a little smaller.
Ideally, the bottom end is larger than the rest, round or spherical in shape.
Extending from the bottom is a smaller tube-like structure, with shafts sticking out of that.
Put some knobs on the shaft, color it metal or grey and you have a classic generic widget.

I have no data to back this up, but suspect American and European widget makers
have suffered greatly from Asian competition. -Larry

[Lobo]

haha .. strangely I always think of widgets as the little whirly bits inside those party horns that go wheee ...

[larryhatch]

Hi Lobo:

I hadn't envisioned anything as flimsy as a party horn.
The best widgets would be solidly constructed, often with a cast metal base and other metal parts.
Sure, the knobs could be plastic, nothing made of paper except the label on cheaper models.

The roundish base should have a flat bottom so it sits upright on a table.
The tube or projection sticks out at an angle, not straight up like a flagpole.
The electromechanical ones have lights and switches, maybe even a meter.

My biggest complaint about widgets are the rubber 'feet' on the bottom.
If you clean the widget with alcohol or Windex, the glue softens and the damned feet fall off.
Now you have a 'wobbly widget'. Its futile trying to glue the lost foot back on. -Larry