The widgets have become, over the years, an element that has been gaining weight in the interfaces of operating systems, something that in turn is inextricably related to a growing demand by users. It is true that their implementations have not always been the most appropriate (you only have to remember the right bar of Windows Vista, right?) but, in general, they are a very interesting proposal, which allows us to concentrate the information that most interests us in a certain space.
This has, as a consequence, that the companies responsible for the operating systems actively work on the search for possible improvements for themwhether they are displayed anywhere in the system interface, as in Android and iOS, or are limited exclusively to a certain space, as in the case of Windows 11. Something that, I admit, I do not finish understand, because in the end it forces the user to access the gadget panel, instead of being able to have said information directly on the desktop.
And this may seem like a minor detail, but it actually has an important consequence, and that is that we can miss an update of the content of one of them or, at best, take a few minutes to figure out something that we could know almost instantly if these plugins could be placed directly on the desktop, or better yet, if they could be set to always be on screen, above windows that are open at the time.
The good news is that Microsoft has acknowledged this problem and, although the widgets will continue to be placed exclusively in their own panel, as we can read in The Verge Windows 11 has started receiving an update that allows widgets to generate notifications. “When something important happens related to one of your widgets, you may see an ad for that widget on your taskbar”, explains Microsoft in a support article. “These ads are meant to be quick and visible, and if you don’t interact with them, your taskbar will go back to showing you the weather”.
This novelty comes from the hand of the Windows Web Experience Pack update, which is already accessible to some users and will expand further throughout this week. The bad part, according to the first testimonies, is that Windows 11 doesn’t seem to offer users control to choose which widgets can generate notifications and which ones can’t. However, it is to be hoped that it will be possible in the near future.
