In MT4 the publisher has supplied a visual editor, which lets users choose which navigation elements are displayed in the sidebar of a blog or web site. These navigation elements are called widgets, examples include recent entries, recent comments, and a variety of archive listings. There are also very basic widgets included in the default set, including a set and forget Creative Commons widget, and a feed subscription promo widget.
By dragging and dropping on the "Installed Widgets" column of the screen, (as shown above) users can control what is displayed in the sidebar of different parts of the site when the site is next published. The default template includes three widget sets, appropriately named: "2-column layout - Sidebar","3-column layout - Primary Sidebar", and "3-column layout - Secondary Sidebar". n.b. In release candidates for 4.2 I see there are some others as well.
Users can create their own widget sets, and insert them into templates using code like:
<$MTWidgetSet name="Name of the Widget Set"$>
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