Functionality of desktop widgets
In the following, we describe the functionality and the preference options of the different desktop widgets.
Navigator
The navigator widget supports quick and simple navigation to a certain folder or document by folding and unfolding folders and other container objects of your folder hierarchy. Clicking on a folder or document opens it in a new tab of your Web browser.
You can also upload documents to BSCW via ‘drag & drop‘. Select a document or a group of documents on your local computer, move them with mouse button down to the navigator widget and drop them into one of the folders there by releasing the mouse button.
Preferences:
• Root folder: Origin of the folder hierarchy shown in the navigator widget.
• Context: Folder up to which the folder hierarchy is automatically unfolded when the navigator widget is started.
Address book
The address book widget shows the contacts and contact lists contained in your personal address book in BSCW. The tooltip of a contact entry shows a selection of the contact data, the tooltip of a contact list shows the names of the contacts contained. To the right of a contact entry that is associated to a registered user, the online status and the date of last login is shown. The online status is shown as a coloured dot: green or grey, when the user has been active in BSCW during the last 5 minutes or the last hour, respectively. An online status in red indicates that the last user activity is older than an hour, the user is not logged into BSCW or that the contact cannot be associated to a user at all. In addition, there are the colour values of yellow and orange for users who have logged into BSCW, but have set their online status to “busy” or “do not disturb”.
Instead of your address book, you may also view the contacts of an arbitrary contact list in the address book widget.
Preferences:
•
Context: Address book or contact list whose contacts are to be
shown in the widget. With 
you choose a
contact list, with 
you return to your personal
address book.
• Number of entries: Maximal number of entries shown at a time.
• Filter: Hiding of contacts where the associated user has not been active in the period of time selected. Applying such a filter hides also all contact lists of your address book.
• Update interval: Time interval for automatic update of widget content.
• Sort: Criteria for sorting the address book entries. The criterion ‘your preselection’ sorts the entries like they are currently sorted in your address book or contact list.
Calendar
The calendar widget lists the appointments of your personal calendar. The essential properties of an appointment are shown as a tooltip. In the preferences, you may change the period of time for which appointments are to be listed. You may sort the appointments and filter them by status. Instead of your personal calendar you may also choose a group calendar for display in the widget.
For better orientation, there is a monthly calendar where
the current date is underlined and dates with appointments are coloured in
orange. This calendar may be folded and unfolded using 
.
When you select a certain date in the monthly calendar, all appointments in
the widget list which take place at that date are highlighted in grey.
Preferences:
•
Context: Calendar whose appointments are to be shown in the
widget. With you choose a
group calendar, with you return to your personal
calendar.
• Number of entries: Maximal number of entries shown at a time.
• Filter: Hiding appointments according to attendance or status.
• Period: Period of time for which appointments are to be shown. ‘Seven days’ is the period of seven days from today.
• Sort: Sorting appointments in ascending or descending order.
Tasks
The tasks widget lists the tasks of your personal task list along with status and deadline if given. The tooltip of a task shows the essential properties of a task. You may sort and filter the tasks according to various criteria, and may have only tasks shown whose deadline falls into a certain period of time.
Preferences:
• Filter: Showing only tasks with a certain status.
• Period: Showing only tasks whose deadline falls into the period selected.
• Sort: Sorting the tasks by various criteria.
Search
The search widget works similar to the search field in the navigation bar of the standard user interface. Using the search widget, you may search from your desktop for BSCW objects whose name, description, tags or content contains the text entered into the search field (option “all”). You may restrict the search to objects where only the name or the tags contain the search string, or to documents containing the search string. You can also limit the search to certain folders.
The tooltip of a search result, which shows its place in
the folder hierarchy, may also be unfolded below the search result as a
clickable folder path using . By clicking one of the
folders here, you can also have the folders displayed that contain the
search result.
Preferences:
• Context: Folder to be searched.
• Number of entries: Maximal number of entries shown at a time.
Events
The events widget offers an overview of the current events in your workspaces, i.e. of events which have not been caught up by you yet. The events are shown in chronological order. The tooltip of an event gives object, action, user and action date. Clicking on an event opens the object concerned in your Web browser. You may [Catch up] with the events shown.
Preferences:
• Context: Folder whose events are to be shown.
• Number of entries: Maximal number of entries shown at a time.
• Filter: Hiding of events that were either caused by you or not caused by you.
• Update interval: Time interval for automatic update of widget content.