Widget Processing Model

Widget Processing ModelStarted to diagram the a high-level flow-chart of the Widget Processing Model for the Widgets 1.0 Spec using Visio. It is still early days, but hoping to submit it to the WAF Working Group soon for discussion. I’ve particularly focused on resolving the localization of content problem following the model used by Apple, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Opera does not support localization of their widgets through automated folder selection, which makes them the odd one out.

If you have comments, you can post them here or on the WAF public list (public-appformats@w3.org). I’m also hoping to republish the Widgets 1.0 Requirements document within the next few weeks.

One thought on “Widget Processing Model”

  1. This diagram addresses widget installation, but what about widget invocation? Is there a way to link to a widget from another widget, a web page, an SMS message? Locally installed Widget must have a URL to be invoked. Opera for example, allows to close the widget so it disappears from the desktop (avoiding pollution of the desktop). But the only way to open this widget now – is manual user action in Opera’s Widgets Menu.
    Here is a use case – Push mail implemented as widget. Imagine email widget is running on the mobile phone and SMS message arrives alerting user to a new email. User clicks on a link in SMS’s URL and a corresponding email widget opens and picks up an email. This would allow push-mail implemented as widget and many other enterprise scenarios – I can see many uses in CRM, for example (I have a vested interest – we at Lablz build CRM among other enterprise apps and have recently created a widget creation engine). What is important – without widget having its own URL (may be using widget:// schema) such applications become impossible to create. Commonly suggested polling method for widgets is a no-go for mobile. And integration with SMS is very important for mobile widgets to become first-class citizen. Do you see ANY workaround based on the current Widget spec? Sorry for cross-posting – I left a similar message on widgets spec mailing list public-appformats@w3.org, but that list is not RSS-enabled and not easy to track.

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