Who makes the puzzles is definitely one of my concerns about this.  I don't know what you would need the format to be in order to create this widget, so I don't really know where to start looking, but I do know there's about a million online crosswords out there.  I think ideally you'd want it to be a NYT crossword puzzle, but since they're so well-known, I'm pretty sure you have to pay in order to do them online.  (Pay to do a crossword puzzle... boy the newspapers must really be hurting these days.)

Would you prefer me to email/PM my ideas directly to you or use this space to discuss them so other people can contribute as well?

Agreed on the open forum and no-NYT aspects.

So here's what I was thinking (and this is just a rough draft idea too...):

Upon loading the widget, the puzzle loads and the screen shows the entire puzzle but no clues (or perhaps an instruction screen is displayed with a "Start Puzzle!" at the bottom).
The user could then click on a section of the puzzle (say, split it into 4 or 9 regions).
This zoomed-in view would allow the user to see the down and across spaces more clearly, so if they have filled things in they can see how other answers fit in.
You could then click on a square to begin filling things in.
This would pull up a screen that shows the answer spaces in question, the clue for the puzzle (with an option to switch between across/down), and the letters of the alphabet (either all of them or half of them, don't know what would work best).
A little X in the corner or something would zoom back out to the small region of the puzzle, while another X or something would zoom back out to the whole puzzle.

A "Check Answers" option might be nice as well.  Personally, I hate the "Give Hint" option on games, particularly my crosswords, but some people might like that as well.

I'll try to draw up a little picture or two to help explain this more clearly.  (Actually, I'm not quite sure how to attach an image to these posts...)

Cool -- well I'll mess around as I have some time in-between other things.  I really like the idea.

Cheers.

Take a look at the various links here:

http://www.webcrosswords.com/

http://puzzles.about.com/od/freeeasynyt … uzzles.htm

http://www.crossword-puzzles.co.uk/

as well as

http://answers.google.com/answers/threa … 14430.html

for some inspiration/info/ideas :-) :-)

Hope this helps !

My wife had a suggestion for the selection of the letter from the alphabet -- could you create a "wheel" (think Price is Right style) that allows the user to quickly scroll through the alphabet and then click on the correct letter?  That would free up a fair amount of screen for other things, I would think.