So, the documentation says:

"Widget instances placed onto individual documents by page editors are stored using the same format in the DocumentWebParts column of the CMS_Document table."

Why do you say this then?

"Widget is an instance of a object on a page template"

Now, if I add a widget to an editable text field, it doesn't go live until the page is published. I assume because it's stored in a different place:

"Inline widgets are saved as control macro expressions within the text content of the document onto which they are placed. For standard editable regions on pages, this content is stored in the DocumentContent column of the CMS_Document table."

The problem is that an inline widget isn't very visually appealing to the content editors, because it just shows the widget icon, instead of the end result.

We would really like to find a workaround to this solution.

How difficult would it be for you to apply workflow to the "DocumentWebParts" column, like you do the "DocumentContent" column?

How difficult would it be to make the "Web Part Zone" widget save its content to "DocumentContent" instead of "DocumentWebParts"?