Widget Concept

A widget (or control or semantic component) is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box. The defining characteristic of a widget is to provide a single interaction point for the direct manipulation or visualization of a given kind of data. In other words, widgets are basic visual building blocks which, combined in an application, are able to do generic data manipulation and visualization work based upon the data and structures (instructions) fed to them.

Widgets as semantic components are an especially important part of ontology-driven applications.