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1) In general, widget (pronounced WIH-jit ) is a term used to refer to any discrete object, usually of some mechanical nature and relatively small size, when it doesn't have a name, when you can't remember the name, or when you're talking about a class of certain unknown objects in general. (According to Eric Raymond, "legend has it that the original widgets were holders for buggy whips," but this was possibly written tongue-in-cheek.)

2) In computers, a widget is an element of a graphical user interface ( gui ) that displays information or provides a specific way for a user to interact with the operating system and application . Widgets include icons, pull-down menus, buttons, selection boxes, progress indicators, on-off checkmarks, scroll bars, windows, window edges (that let you resize the window), toggle buttons, forms, and many other devices for displaying information and for inviting, accepting, and responding to user actions.

In programming, a widget also means the small program that is written in order to describe what a particular widget looks like, how it behaves, and how it interacts in response to user actions. Most operating systems include a set of ready-to-tailor widgets that a programmer can incorporate in an application, specifying how it is to behave. New widgets can be created. The term was apparently applied first in UNIX -based operating systems and the X Window System . In object-oriented programming, each type of widget is defined as a class (or a subclass under a broad generic widget class) and is always associated with a particular window. In the AIX Enhanced X-Window Toolkit, a widget is the fundamental data type.

In computer programming, a widget (or control) is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box. The defining characteristic of a widget is to provide a single interaction point for the direct manipulation of a given kind of data. In other words, widgets are basic visual building blocks which, combined in an application, hold all the data processed by the application and the available interactions on this data.

A family of common reusable widgets has evolved for holding general information based on the Palo Alto Research Center Inc. research for the Xerox Alto User Interface. Different implementations of these generic widgets are often packaged together in widget toolkits, which programmers use to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Most operating systems include a set of ready-to-tailor widgets that a programmer can incorporate in an application, specifying how it is to behave. Each type of widgets generally is defined as a class by object-oriented programming (OOP). Therefore, many widgets are derived from class inheritance.

Widgets are sometimes qualified as virtual to distinguish them from their physical counterparts, e.g. virtual buttons that can be clicked with a mouse cursor, vs. physical buttons that can be pressed with a finger.

A related (but different) concept is the desktop widget, a small specialized GUI application that provides some visual information and/or easy access to frequently used functions such as clocks, calendars, news aggregators, calculators and desktop notes. These kinds of widgets are hosted by a widget engine.

Most if not all application development languages today, such as Java and Tool Command Language , come with a ready-made library of widgets that a programmer can incorporate and modify. Using Microsoft's Visual Basic , a widget can be implemented as or part of an ActiveX control .

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