Creating Widgets for Websites

Widgets are made of files resembling the website code packaged for running small applications. These widgets are used for displaying weather updates, games, stock values, news feeds and interesting things like countdown to your favorite television show’s next season. Adding widgets to a website will offer visitors coming to the site useful graphic gizmos. Below, you will find the steps of creating widgets for websites.

1. Download the converter tool and widget editor. You will find widgets in two formats, flat files and compressed files. The flattened widgets can be run faster; however, if you are looking to edit the flat files, they need to be converted.
2. Write down the widget’s code on the plain text editor. Remember, here, you are not allowed to use word processing tool. It is advisable that you perform the writing task on simple applications like a Notepad. For writing a widget code, you will need to have knowledge of XML, HTML, AppleScript and JavaScript.
3. The next step would be editing the images for the widget. Convert or create the image file using image editing applications. This step can be omitted in case you don’t want to have any image displayed on your widget.
4. Now, you will have to create the file required for the widget. In case of simple ones, having only ‘.kos’ files will do; these files contain primary codes. A ‘.kos’ file must include JavaScript code, which is required for explaining the running mechanism of the widget and XML code, which is required for widget preferences and image placement. In case of complex widgets separate ‘.scpt’ files can be created for AppleScript codes and ‘.js’ files can be created for the JavaScript codes.
5. After completing the code, remember to turn off the widget’s debug feature. Your widget is now ready for being packaged. Convert your widget folder for packaging it; this will allow you to run it on different computer platforms.
6. The final step is of uploading the widget on the website. If you like, you can keep the option of sharing the widget with people visiting your website for using it on their sites. To make sharing possible, submit the widget to a widget gallery.