User:Toussaint/WikiWidgets

WikiWidgets is the use of wikis to render Ajax widgets. It will take advantage of MediaWiki's extensive templating system as a means for creating these widgets, which can make use of such web technologies as XHTML, Css, JavaScript, SVG and SMIL. What makes this different from other widget platforms is that the widgets will be created using simple wikitext, the same type that is used for such wikis as Wikipedia.

Reason
The widget platforms of current are very limiting in exactly how much functionality, customizability and standardization is allowed or available for these widgets. Often, the same function - such as that of a clock widget - will be rewritten and reduplicated in the most unnecessary ways.

Instead of this wasteful practice of 100 widgets which do the same thing, why shouldn't one's widget become another's platform for extensibility? Why not let others extend the capability and design of the widget into other, newfound purposes? That's the aim of the WikiWidgets platform.

Why the wiki?
The wiki is the CMS with the most freedom for development. While it is most commonly associated with collaboratively written articles, it has also been used to create subject-specific portals and templates, with much greater emphasis placed upon graphical design than written content. Thus, while this graphical orientation is in constant development, it is already looking to be a big hit, and it looks like a good way to start off with creating the widgets.