Yes you can build Widgets… soon

If you are like me and have been dying to try your hand at creating a widget but know nothing about coding beyond basic HTML tags and are too cheap to pay someone to do it for you, then you will want to read this article.

Sprout Builder has arrived in all it’s glory and is set to make widgets accessible to a much wider group of ‘creators’. I imagine will mean a lot more niche widgets and hence a lot more widget users/viewers. For example, I enjoy a leisurely paraglide on the weekends and I have had an idea for a widget for the 100k + registered paragliding pilots worldwide. When you estimate how many of those are online, we are talking very niche. How many of them have used/seen or bothered by a widget, even more niche.

Confused
Please note that all the positivity I pour out above (being my optimistic self) is based on the promo video on the site and I haven’t actually given the tool a go. Confusingly, their blog says the tool had launched yesterday but when I try to use the app, I am asked to give my email address, to which I duly abided, as they are in closed beta phase. But, much like my potential card fraud query at the bank, I’m sure it will sort itself out in a few hours or days.

Either way the video shows off the interface a bit and seems simple enough. It reminds me of Swishmax’s linear editing style interface as well as Synthasite’s drag and drop building style interface. I’m hoping it’s more like the latter!