Home screen widgets display your app’s new and interesting content in a consolidated form. They link to richer detail within the app.
Users can move and, if supported, resize widgets across their home screen panels.
How to publish an app widget
Information widgets display a few elements of importance to a user and track how that information changes over time, such as weather or sports scores. Tapping the widget launches the associated app into a detail view.
An information widget
Collection widgets display multiple elements of the same type, such as a collection of articles from a news app. They focus on two interactions:
Collection widgets can scroll vertically.
Collection widgets
Control widgets display frequently used functions. These functions may be triggered from the home screen without opening the app. For example, music app widgets allow the user to play, pause, or skip music tracks from outside the music app.
Control widgets may or may not progress to a detail view.
A control widget
Many widgets are hybrids that combine elements of the different types above. Center your widget around one of these types and add elements of others as needed.
For example, a music player widget combines a control widget with elements of an information widget. The result keeps the user informed about which track is currently playing.
A hybrid widget
Your widgets should provide navigation links to frequently used areas of your app, including:
Resizing allows users to adjust the height or width of a widget. This allows users to influence the layout of widgets on home panels.
Your app may be completely resizable or constrained to horizontal or vertical size changes.
A long press and subsequent release sets resizable widgets into resize mode. Users can use the drag handles or the widget corners to set the desired size.
List or grid-based collection widgets usually expand or contract the vertical scrolling area. Regardless of the widget's size, the user can still scroll all elements into view.
Determine how much of your app's information should surface. For smaller sizes concentrate on the essential and then add more contextual information as the widget grows.
Information widgets are not scrollable. All content and layout must dynamically fit as sized by the user.
Widgets should accommodate different spacing requirements across devices, including cell number, size, and spacing variations.
Android widgets display their configuration choices once placed on a home panel.
Configuration best practices:
Once setup, widgets do not typically show a "Setup" or "Configuration" button.
