You must have heard about Yahoo Widgets? The most recent Windows Vista operating system even has Yahoo Widgets which can be seen on the desktop, but they are also common on computers with the Mac OS X system. Yahoo Widgets were known as Konfabulator in the past; they came to be known as Yahoo Widgets after the original company was taken over by Yahoo.

JavaScript

Yahoo Widgets run on the JavaScript runtime environment, so your computer must have the JRE engine running. Yahoo Widgets are really just small applications that run with the help of the JRE and XML Interpreter. They are a part of the class of software applications ‘widget engines’.

Common Yahoo Widgets

Some of the most popular Yahoo Widgets that you will see on your computer system are digital clock, calendar and weather. These are the default widgets that you will find. In case you want to show more Widgets on your desktop you have the option to customize it. Widgets other than the default ones are world time zone clock, countdown timer, webcam viewers, RSS feed readers, mail checker, memory gauge, picture frame, maps, stock ticker and search. You can get all the other Yahoo Widgets that you require from the Yahoo Widget Gallery.

Separate Process

Yahoo Widgets run on their own through a separate process – hence their stability. If a particular Yahoo Widget is having a problem in functioning then you can easily shut the Widget down without affecting other running Widgets. All Yahoo Widgets need some extra memory of the computer to run, so those computer users who run software applications which are memory intensive may regard them as problematic.

Access of Yahoo Widgets

The first widget engine was known as the Konfabulator. This engine had a feature that could bring all the open widgets onto the desktop of the computer system. You can download the Yahoo Widget Engine from the internet. The file size is about 12 MB, and allows a particular widget to be accessed by using a hotkey or by pointing and clicking the mouse on the widget. The widget can then be brought to the foreground by clicking on the hot key. Other applications will become dimmed.

Yahoo Widget Engine

The engine controlling the widgets is known as Yahoo! Widget Engine 4.0. A feature known as dock has recently been added to the engine. The dock shows all the Widgets that are currently open with their respective icons, and can be expanded by users to check what’s inside the widgets. All the widgets are stored in the My Widgets folder – widgets that don’t have images are represented by their screen shot or a default Widget icon. The dock has auto-hiding options for users who do not want the dock to always be visible on the desktop; you can even close the dock completely when you want to.