What are widgets?

Read about it all the time, but what is it

[mandy54]

Hello,

what do you Guys mean with widgets.
I always see it in the posts like " white widgets, blue widgets etc."

Sorry but I am not from the us, and my translation programm didn't find the word as well.

Regards

[heini]

Hi Mandy, welcome to the board.
We have a thread answering this question running right here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[atadams]

widg·et   (wij'it)
n.

1. A small mechanical device or control; a gadget.[/li]
   
2. An unnamed or hypothetical manufactured article.[/li]

A widget is nothing. It's an hypothetical thing used for illustration purposes only.

[mandy54]

Thanks a lot :-)

[drbrain]

In X (X11) terminology, a 'widget' is a control on your screen, buttons, scrollbars, sliders, tabs, textfields, textboxes, etc.

[jesserud]

If you search Google for 'red widgets', 'blue widgets', etc, you get discussions about search engine optimization, including discussions at WebmasterWorld. But if you search for 'widget colors', you get people talking about user interface controls (drbrain's definition).

[mayor]

Use the word "widget" when you want to talk about an object (typically a manufactured product, but not exclusively so) but don't want to name the object.

In the usual context of use, you don't want to name an object because a name is of no relevance to the discussion. So you just call it a widget.
;)

[Beachboy]

I got news for all of you. I have been a major West Coast widget manufacturer since 1984. Thanks to all the discussion hereabouts, my widget biz has improved 30% in the last 2 years. So there!

[SlyGuy]

I have been a major West Coast widget manufacturer since 1984.

Do the red ones still out-sell the blue and yellow ones? ;)

[Beachboy]

Yes. And the left-handed purple ones are our worst seller.

[liamgt]

In the uk a widget is a small device which floats in a tin of John Smiths Beer to help it to pour better. Any one in the uk should be able to back me up on this one. In this case as well the widget is called bob.

liam :-)

[Rugles]

I can hook you up with all kinds of widgets. We have a few million dollars tied up in widget inventory. The prices range from 10 cents to 10 thousand dollars.
Shipping the next day for a nominal charge.