Could a KDE plasma widget be converted into its own app (easily)?

Question

I've recently made the switch from KDE to Unity and I'm really missing one feature: the FolderView Plasma widget (Plasmoid?)

I know there's a screenlet called Folderview which can be used under Unity, but it's so buggy it's virtually usless (and even it if weren't it doesn't even come close to mimic all the features of KDE's FolderView)

So the question is: is there any way to easily convert/translate a Plasmoid into a stand alone app to be used in Unity? Or are plasmoids so dependent on the Plasma desktop it would be like writing a new app from scratch?

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Edit: I've been using the FolderView screenlet and so far it's not that buggy, only a couple of crashes which have no actual effect on the system's behavior. Perhaps it'll do.

Answer 1

Conversion

It would take a significant rewrite of the plasmoid's source as the plasmoid is built within the kde-plasma framework. You would have to modify the source (if possible) to replace these libraries with GTK or QT equivalents.

Workaround

It may not look quite as fancy as in plasma, but you could try plasmoidviewer, i.e.

plasmoidviewer APPLETNAME

This will run the applet in it's own window, but it will require a large part of the kde libs be installed.

As Cumulus007 suggests you can also then use ccsm (or other appropriate window manager settings dialog) to modify the appearance of the plasmoidviewer - i.e. remove the frame and window title bar, and cause the window to always be below other windows. The result should look and behave a lot like a plasma plasmoid.