Topic on Extension talk:Widgets

So I followed the directions...

downloaded widgets, unpacked it into a folder called "Widgets" under extensions

downloaded smarty, unpacked it into the same folder

There was already a smarty folder in widgets, I moved libs into the smarty folder.

I set compiled_templates to 777

I added the text to localsettings.php

I get an error. I remove the text from localsettings and site is back and running.

That error indicates something is probably in your error log. Did you check there to see what it says?