Backbase Portal

Widgets

Widgets are the building blocks of your portal. Widgets provide the functionality and content that make your portal useful and engaging, and enable your users to personalize the portal to best fit their needs.

Each portal page contains 1 or more widgets. Widgets can contain content downloaded from other websites or applications (1), or you can create widgets that have their own content and functionality. Widgets are like mini web applications that can be dragged and dropped in your portal page (2), re-sized (3), and that operate independently of other widgets on the same page.

what-is-a-gadget-overview

Aside from the content and functionality (body) of a widget, widgets can (optionally) have their own title bar, action buttons, and preferences. These are portal-specific functions that enhance a user's ability to personalize a widget.

what-is-a-gadget-outline

A widget exists in 2 different states: 1) As a widget definition file (the source code for your widget), and 2) As a widget instance running in your user's browser.

A widget definition file is an XHTML-valid file stored on the portal server. In this file the styling, functionality, and available preferences for a widget are defined using a mix of HTML, XML, CSS, and Javascript. In addition, the content or functionality of a widget can also be programmed in any client-side web technology such as Flash or Silverlight.