What is a Yahoo Widget?

What format are Yahoo! Widget files, and how do I open them and extract their contents?

• I've downloaded and installed the Yahoo! Widget engine, and there are some Widgets that come installed with it. I have found the folder containing the Widget files, and I would like to extract the contents from these to read the XML and view the images and see how they work. Can someone please tell me how to get inside these files and what format they are? Maybe even point me in the direction of any software/utilities that could do it, or even a specific web page which explains it? I've Googled everything I can think of and I can't find what I need. Many thanks!!!

• Answer:

  Hey Alasdair, as you already know, you have the "My Widgets" folder inside your "My Documents", but the folder you're looking for is located elsewhere on your hard drive. I'll walk you through the path to get to it, and you'll find all these individual files you've made reference to here in your question. This is obviously for a Windows XP operating system, so if you have something different, someone else will have to help you. Also, you'll see folders with the same names as I'm sharing with you below, but you have to follow this path of Hidden Folders to get to the actual Widget Engine folder itself, and that's where all the 'goodies' reside. Anyway, here goes: > 1. Open 'My Computer' > 2. Open your Local Disk Drive (usually C:) > 3. Make sure you have your "Folder Preferences" set to 'Show Hidden Files and Folders' > 4. Open Documents and Settings folder > 5. Open "Your Name User" folder (the one with Administrator level privilege, but NOT the Administrator folder itself) > 6. Open Local Settings folder > 7. Open Application Data folder (this is one of those hidden folders) > 8. Open Yahoo folder > 9. Open Widget Engine folder > 10. There's all your stuff! I hope this helps you, Alasdair, but most of all, I hope you can make heads/tails out of my instructions. They're not anything eloquent by any means, so hopefully they did the job. Have fun with your exploration!