Widgets

A widget is a small application you build yourself: a form for entering data, a checklist for inspecting a machine, a sheet to fill in and print.

It is made of other widgets. The basic ones — the building blocks available in the editor — are called components, though technically they are widgets too. Combining layout, static and input components produces a tree of elements nested one inside the other, and that tree is your widget.

When do you use a widget, and when a form?

The editor is the same one used by the advanced checklist, so the tool is not what distinguishes them. What distinguishes them is where they live.

	Form	Widget
Lives	attached to an action	as a file in the archive
Starts	when the system prompts it	when you open it
Produces	an attachment to the certificate	a file you save where you want
Answers	”prove this obligation was met"	"I need a sheet to fill in”

Use a form when what you collect is the evidence of an obligation, and it must end up on a certificate. Use a widget when you need something to fill in that does not belong to any action — an inspection sheet, an internal survey, a report form.

Template and completed copy

A widget is saved as a file with the .hf extension: it is a template, and you can run it as many times as you need. Every time you run it and save, a new file with the .hc extension is created: that is one completed copy.

This is what makes widgets repeatable without an action behind them — see The .hf and .hc files.