Widget Construction Set

Widget Construction Set enables web-powered dynamic widgets for the things you care most about. Websites can host simple JSON files that describe data + layout for WCS to download and periodically refresh.

This was my first Swift app and I really enjoyed the REPL-like UI development. There’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem with a new web standard like widget.json: why would site owners host and maintain a widget.json and when no one has a way to view it and why would users install WCS if there aren’t widget.json to view!

We spent some time building a widget catalog with Aspen Micro hosting dynamic widgets for things like YouTube channels and RSS, but ultimately we couldn’t find a way to make it sustainable and it felt strange monetizing the catalog since we weren’t creating content. I guess this is what popular RSS readers do though, so it is possible.

You can read all about widget.json on our site wd.gt. We were super excited to get that domain as we wanted to offer cool short vanity URLs (think wd.gt/bj). The doc site is made with mdbook which was a joy to use.

WCS is totally free to use. If you want private, password-protected widgets, there’s a one-time in-app purchase.

WCS is available on the iOS App Store.

WCS is open source and available on GitHub.