This feature allows Windows 11/10 users transitioning to Linux to recreate familiar widgets—such as news, stocks, weather, and more—on their desktops. An excellent example is Desktop Widgets (Desktop Clock) by andrew_z, which brings customizable clock widgets to the Linux desktop environment.
A lightweight implementation could be developed and adopted for Red Hat Workstation or Fedora Linux.
Bringing this functionality to Linux could attract more users from Android and Windows who are accustomed to a dynamic “wall” of widgets and real-time information.
Yeah, widgets already exist on both GNOME and KDE. As a KDE user, I don’t actually use any, but the action to add them to the desktop is a little weird. Right clicking on the panel will give you the option to “add or manage widgets”. However, right clicking on the desktop, where the widgets will go, does not give you an option to “add or manage widgets”. That just seems like it should be the other way around for anyone coming across from Windows. Why would you click on the panel to add widgets to the desktop, and not click the desktop to add widgets to the desktop.
Right-clicking the desktop does give you the enigmatic “Enter Edit Mode”, and if you select that you get the “Add or Manage Widgets” option. But certainly less intuitive than it could be!
The Desktop Widgets work on Gnome, and adding any bash script you can make magick, and developing this add-on can bridge the gap between Windows Widgets. For now, I can make News, Weather, Stocks and Clock just from one place with these extensions.
Another extension worth looking at from this developer is:
