What is the Sidebar and what are “gadgets”?
 The Sidebar is a vertical bar which sits either to the left or the right hand side of the screen, that contain “gadgets” which are small XML based plug-ins which can be easily written and easily installed. These gadgets can be anything, from clocks to Active Content. These gadgets and the Sidebar in general are meant to make things you access often more accessible and easier to use.

 How many gadgets will there be for the Windows Sidebar in the released version of Windows Vista?
 There will be loads of gadgets, ranging from clocks to updatable gadgets (such as the RSS aggregator), there will be a calendar one as well as the long awaited Windows Media Player 11 gadget. Of course there will be pre-configured ones that will ship with the operating system, however MicrosoftGadgets.com will be available from the website (at the bottom of this article) which enables anyone to write them and install them.

 MicrosoftGadgets.com already make gadgets for Live.com, so where do I find the section for gadgets for Vista?
 There will be a section on the MicrosoftGadgets.com website soon for Vista Sidebar gadgets. This is expected to be around the time of Beta 2 release in April.

 What are the Sidebar Gadgets actually made of?
 Gadgets at the moment are basically zipped or compressed folders with instead of the .zip extension, they have the .gadget extension. The gadget’s innards will consist of a XML file which describes the gadget’s resources, a .JS file which contains the gadget’s functionality and any other resources like images or Flash content if necessary, a HTML document which will represent what the gadget looks like on the Sidebar, and anything else that might relate to the gadget itself. There is a simple walkthrough guide to writing gadgets here.

 What is the shortcut key view the Sidebar when there are windows in the way?
 Pressing the Windows key + Space will bring the Sidebar to view.

 Which browsers will support the Sidebar?
 At the moment, Windows Internet Explorer 7 is required to be the default browser within Windows Vista to run the Sidebar properly and the gadgets within. However, the sidebar will work with Firefox as well as other popular browsers out there to give other’s a chance.

 What is the final name for the Sidebar?
 ”Windows Sidebar” - it’s as simple as that!

 Will other content be able to be run in gadgets, such as Flash and ActiveX controls?
 Yep, anything that can be displayed in Internet Explorer now should be able to be seen as a gadget. Flash runs fine, ActiveX runs fine - remember that the Windows Media Player gadget is mainly ActiveX.

 How do we install gadgets to the Sidebar?
 You can either copy the .gadget file into C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets or you can double click on the .gadget file and it will automatically open (with security warnings) in the Sidebar.

 There is a demonstration relating to this article. Click here to view it.