How to work with Windows 11 Widget Panel

Windows 11 introduced an all-new Widgets panel, where you can access a variety of up-to-date information using configurable topic areas (what Microsoft calls Info Cards ). It's made up of two sections:a top section that offers widgets for weather, sports, your latest photos, and other custom topics, and a news section that offers clickable headlines from a variety of sources.

ContentsAccess your widgetsAdjust your widgetsNews FeedCustomize your interests

Here's how to get the most out of today's Windows 11 widgets.

Access your widgets

To access the widgets, select the Widgets icon in the taskbar (it's the one that looks like a square divided into white and blue sections). You can also press Window + W or, if you have a touchscreen, swipe from the left.

You'll likely see a variety of splash widgets at the top that give you info on sports scores, weather, stock quotes, and any pictures you might have in your OneDrive account. There is also a search box and a button that lets you add new widgets. Below, you can scroll down to find a number of news sources.

Adjust your widgets

There are a variety of ways to modify your widget panel.

• To move your widgets, long press the top of a widget until you see an open hand. (This is as opposed to a "pointing" hand, which lets you click on a link.) You can then change its position on the panel.
• To change the size of a widget, remove it from your panel, or customize it, click the three dots in the upper right corner. The selections you see will depend on the widget; for example, the Weather widget can be small, medium, or large, and you can customize it to set a default location and operate in Fahrenheit or Celsius. The Photos app, on the other hand, is only medium to large in size and has no other customizations.

• Click on the widget name in the top left corner and you'll be taken to a separate page where you can access more information – more weather details, for example, or more latest sports results.
• If you would like to see the current selection of widgets available, click on the "Add Widgets" button located between your widgets and news feeds. It's not a long list at the moment - I counted 11, all available are produced by Microsoft. Hopefully, however, there will be additional third-party entries to come.

News feed

The news section is under the "Add widgets" button. It's led by a "Best Articles" section that highlights several headlines, followed by individual articles. Both come with Facebook-like icons that you can attach to each story (including thumbs up, heart, "surprised", "thinking", sad or angry).

Select the three dots next to each headline and you can see more or fewer stories like this, hide stories from this source, save them for later (in other words , bookmark them) or report them. All bookmarked stories will have a gray square around these three dots.

Customize your interests

The "Add Widgets" button also has a link (in the bottom left corner) that allows you to tell the Widget app what interests you and what doesn't. (You can get to the same place by clicking on the three dots next to a story and selecting "Manage Interests.")

Either way, you'll end up on Microsoft's start page, basically the Edge browser settings page. Using the "My Interests" tab, you can tell Windows what types of news you want or don't want. On the left side of the page, you can choose from categories like News, Sports, Travel, Health, and more. clicking on each of these categories will bring up a list of specific topics in the main window. For example, if you select "Entertainment", you can choose from topics such as "Celebrities", "Music", or "Books", among others.

Other tabs you can choose from include "Profile" (which introduces you to what's called the "Microsoft News Community"), "My Saves" (all the stories you've saved ), "History" (a list of stories you've read in the last 48 hours), and "Experience Settings". You might want to visit the latter:it lets you choose your feed language (the default is English) or toggle several features on and off, including those Facebook-like reaction icons. You can also disable some of the basic information cards, such as finance or weather.

Right now Windows 11 widgets seem to be more of a curiosity or a way to take a break than a real tool. However, if and when third-party widgets become available, the widgets pane could become really useful.