How to add a widget to the post editing view?

Question

I would like to add some features (via authoring a plugin) to the post editor in wordpress. Is there a way to add a widget to the post editor view?

Alternatively is there an existing plugin someone can point me too, that does this so I can see how they do it.

Answer 1

"Widgets" as you're calling them on the post edit screen are actually meta boxes. You can add as many as you want to do whatever you want using the add_meta_box() function.

Once you know what they're called, it's fairly straight-forward to do a Google search for examples. Or check out some great tutorials listed in the Codex.