Widget library

A widget is made once and then shared: the same chart can sit on a dashboard, a Space and a task, and changing it changes it everywhere. The widget library lists every widget in the workspace, so you can reuse one instead of rebuilding it, and keep the collection tidy. To make a new one, see Create a widget.

Open the library

• Beside a canvas you are editing: click Add widget in the edit bar. This is where you add widgets to the canvas.
• On its own: on the Canvas page, open the ⋯ at the top and choose Widgets library. Here you can browse, view, edit, delete and clean up widgets without a canvas open.

The library opens in the right sidebar. Drag its edge to make it wider, and close it with Hide widgets (the ✕).

Find a widget

Widgets are grouped by type: Chart, KPI, Table, Lookthrough, Tasks, Files and Custom view. Click a group's heading to fold it, or fold them all at once with Collapse all beside the search box. Search widgets... filters by title.

Each card shows the widget's title, its type's icon, and a line saying where it is used: On this canvas, Used in: followed by the canvases' names, or Not on any canvas, which is also what a widget shows when only archived canvases use it. A widget whose settings can't be read is listed under Can't be shown, so it can still be deleted.

Add a widget to a canvas

With the library open beside a canvas in edit mode:

• Click a widget to add it to the canvas, or drag it onto the grid to the place you want.
• A widget already on the canvas shows a green check and can't be added twice.
• Click New widget to make one, or Add text for a text box.

Then Save and close the canvas.

View, edit or delete a widget

Open a card's ⋯ (or right-click it). On its own the library offers View widget, Edit widget and Delete widget; beside a canvas you are editing it adds Remove from canvas to the widgets on that canvas:

• View widget shows it read-only, drawn as a canvas draws it.
• Edit widget opens it in the widget dialog. If it is on other canvases, the dialog says Used in 3 canvases; changes show everywhere. Edited from the library on its own, the change saves to the widget straight away; edited beside a canvas you are editing, it saves with that canvas.
• Remove from canvas takes it off the canvas you are editing. It stays in the library.
• Delete widget deletes it for good and removes it from every canvas that shows it. The confirmation says how many.

Clean up widgets

Over time a workspace collects look-alike widgets (from older duplicates, copies and agent rebuilds) and widgets no canvas uses. Click Clean up widgets (the icon at the top of the library) to tidy them:

1. The dialog (Select what to clean up. Duplicates merge into the copy you keep; the other widgets are deleted.) has tabs, each with a count: Duplicates (look-alike widgets), Unused (widgets on no canvas) and, when there are any, Archived only (widgets only archived canvases use). Each tab lists its widgets with their Data object, with a checkbox per row and one for all: Duplicates adds how many Copies there are and the one to Keep, Unused when each was Updated, and Archived only its Archived canvas. The footer counts what is selected.
2. On Duplicates, each group keeps one copy, the newest unless you pick another in Keep. The others are folded into it, so the canvases that showed them look unchanged.
3. Tick what to clean up. Optionally click Dry run to see what would change, for example Apply will merge 38 copies into 19 widgets, delete 9 widgets and change 12 canvases, without changing anything.
4. Click Apply.

The cleanup needs the canvas you are editing saved first; with unsaved edits, SPARK asks you to save them.

Where to go next

• Make a widget: Create a widget
• Add and configure widgets: Build a canvas
• Arrange them: Layout