Please don't let widgets take the place of applications! For example, please don't drop Kpager because you've got a pager plasmoid. KPager can be kept out of the way until I need it, then called up with a keyboard shortcut, then removed.
On other hand, I wonder if someone is working on a plasmoid that I can run applications in. Something that would enable me to run hot-babe, or maybe xdaliclock, or even gaim, as a plasmoid.
I whole heartedly agree. In fact, I think this whole "Widget Fad" has missed the boat entirely, on every platform. We already have all the apps we need. We don't need more ways to do the same old things we've been doing for EONS. You mean we're going to need to depend on even MORE developers who will get bored of their code? Why?
What would be useful is a way to widgetize applications. Mostly, just strip the window managers widgets and embed the application on the desktop or in a bar or whatever. Sure, not all apps will work this well, at least immediately, but atleast we can get some REAL functionality instead of more boondoggles that are use less.
I agree that we should widgetize applications. Something were we right click on the title bar, select "Widgetize", drag it to the desktop, scale, rotate, and crop as needed. BAM! Instant widget. Between composting and the window manager, all this functionality is there. Then, "save widget" and it gets added to our library of widgets. Most applications could probably be coaxed this way, and those that can't, maybe it wouldn't be so hard to make them with a patch or two.
Where's my Celestia Widget? Do I really need to rewrite celestia to have a space widget? Why not run the program, give in some instructions, widgetize it, crop out the menues, and I'm done.
Where's my gmail widget? I can fool gmail in to thinking I'm on an iPhone, and that will give me a VERY useful, minimalistic gmail application without any coding. If only I could just take a Konqueror instance, crop out everything but the "web page" and I've got a g-mail widget, all without touching any code.
Using vmware, wine, or rdesktop, I could even widgetize windows applications. Check the health of my company's windows servers, or widgetize the progress bar from Ghost as I publish my Ghost image under a VM.
Maybe we can even crop out segments of a single app and make them multiple widgets:
Where's my XMMS widget? There probably is one, but all I need is the play and stop buttons and the volume slider. Sadly, those aren't next to each other. What we could do is load up XMMS, pick out regions of the interface, widgetize, and then we have three new widgets from the same program.
A window manager is a means of organizing multiple discreet interfaces. A widgeting system is a means of organizing multiple discreet interface elements. A widgeting interface should simply allow us to control our own interfaces.
THEN people can still make widgets, they just act like real applications, only they come pre widgetized so the user doesn't need to scale, crop, or tweak the widget, they just select it from the library and go.