14 DAY TRIAL // The new Windows 11 widgets are slowly but surely evolving, and with the latest preview build shipped by Microsoft as part of the Windows Insider program, the feature is also getting support for notification badges.
With notification badges, users can therefore know when new content is available without even having to expand the widgets UI. Of course, the whole thing works exactly as you’d expect it to work, with a banner to be displayed at the top of the screen specifically to let you know what’s new and what triggered the notification badge.
“We’re beginning to roll out even more dynamic Widgets content to your taskbar with notification badging for Widgets. Below is an example of a notification badge for Widgets. When you open the Widgets board a banner will appear at the top of the board providing more information on what triggered the notification badge,” the company explains.
Worth knowing, however, is that the feature is currently in its very early stages, so it could still take some time until it goes live for production devices.
In fact, it’s not even available for all users in the Dev channel, as Microsoft says it’s rolling out the notification badges for widgets gradually, just to make sure it’s working properly.
At this point, there’s no ETA as to when the rollout could expand to all users in the Dev channel.
Known issues related to widgets
Worth knowing, however, is that the new widgets experience comes with a series of known issues as well, including the notification badge number not being displayed properly on the taskbar.
“Notification badge number may appear misaligned on the taskbar. In some cases, the notification banner for some badging will not appear in the widgets board. We’re working on the fix for an issue causing Widgets preferences (temperature units and pinned widgets) to unexpectedly get reset to default,” Microsoft explains.