A Quick Introduction To Opera Widgets
A widget represents a small application capable to run on your desktop. Opera Widgets are cross-platform and cross-device compatible applications that can be built only by using common Web technologies like HTML, JavaScript or CSS. Opera Widgets Software Development Kit (SDK) comes to simplify the widgets development process because it provides tools, libraries, documentation, and examples on how to make Opera Widgets for various devices.
Any Opera browser is capable to install and run a widget directly on your desktop. Opera Widgets are distributed as zip files (renamed to use the file extension .wgt) and contains the next elements:
-A widget configuration file. This is an XML file in the root of the widget structure that holds information about your widget including its size, name, author, and security information.
-An index document. Like on a web page, this document contains the basic skeleton/content of the widget. Widgets content can be created using any markup that Opera handles natively, for example HTML, SVG, or XML files. This file also lives in the root of the widget structure.
-Images. These are contained in a single images folder.
-JavaScript files. These are contained in a single script folder.
-Stylesheets. These are contained in a single style folder.
In order to begin the creation of your first Opera Windget, you will need to know the basics of how to use HTML, CSS, DOM, JavaScript and other Web technologies that are supported into the Opera 9 platform. The necessary working tools are just an IDE or a text editor and an archives management software which is able to create .zip files.
The main advantage offered by the Opera Widgets Software Development Kit (SDK) is that you can develop Opera Widgets quickly and deploy them to different devices with a minimum amount of code modification. A comprehensive documentation and how to get started tutorials are provided on the official website.
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