Still using Dashboard, or has the novelty worn off?

[iGary]

Are you still using Dashboard every day? I usually chaeck it a couple of times a day for stocks and weather, but my use is certainly down since Tiger first came out.

Curious to see other responses. :D

[Lacero]

I am no longer fascinated by teh ripple effect. I maybe invoke F-12 three times a day.

[Applespider]

Depends on what I'm doing both on the Mac and real world - and which widgets are live. There are days when I seem to hit it every hour or so and there are days when in late afternoon, I open it and the weather widget refreshes from the night before.

Widgets I've found myself using are the translator (instead of making a vague one in my head from context or skipping it), the BugMeNot lookup (rather than just avoiding the site), the train schedule (because it's marvelous!), the Su Doku (since it means I don't have to finish it in one go) and the Notepad since it takes up less screen than lots of Stickies.

[biohazard6969]

i LOOOOOOOOOOOVE the ripple effect, i try to find uses for it, adn i use it maybe 10 times a day. although i wish i could use it more

[superkatalog]

i'm using it for wheater, wikipedia and caldendar. and for the 'more widgets' button. :)

[Jaffa Cake]

I'm getting quite a bit of use out of the Calculator, Unit Converter and Dictionary/Thesaurus widgets. A lot of the others (like the Weather widget for example) are fun but my life wouldn't come to a shuddering halt without them.

[fabsa]

Dashboard is really handy still. I use it for checking weather everyday, occasionally for translations and also have a rss widget that lists all the new forum topics on my local mac forum. Nothing I couldn't live without, but all in all really sweet. :D

[aswitcher]

I am using it 3-4 times a day, and expect to more when working on writing projects. I want more widgets...and an extra dashboard to fit them all in - F13 anyone?

[mad jew]

About 3-4 times a day here too. I just wish the widgets would update faster. If I want to check the weather, I have to sit there staring at a greyed-out screen for about ten seconds like an idiot. I know ten seconds doesn't sound like long, but it'd be nice if the whole thing was sped up.

[Sox]

I'm using the package tracker quite a bit, and it's phenomenal. With one click, I can see that my new Rain iLap is...in San Francisco. Still in San Francisco.

[chameeeleon]

Mad Jew, cmd-R is your friend. Force refresh a widget when you've moused over it.

[mpw]

Being a bit slow at times I was a bit disapointed for the first couple of weeks that Tiger only came with 3/4 widgits. Then having been quite impressed with those I decided I'd like to have a weather widgit and clock for a 2nd location and trying to work out how to do this I noticed the icon in the lower left of the screen and found all the others, and the fabled ripple effect for the first time.
After slapping myself across the forehead Dashboard is now showing it's full worth and I'm still in the honeymoon period.

Widgits I want;
Local White Pages
Lotto Results

[BakedBeans]

im guessing it will become even better as more and more widgets come out, i also dont think its meant to be used all the time - but to be really helpful and useful when you need it

[mad jew]

Mad Jew, cmd-R is your friend. Force refresh a widget when you've moused over it.


Yeah, thanks for that, and I do every now and then but to be honest, it's still a pretty slow and inconvenient way of doing things. But thanks for the tip nevertheless.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Let's see:

* I use the Dictionary and Unit Converter and flip through This Day In History daily.

* The Weather widget is nice, although I like Meteorologist in my menu bar better.

* After installing AcidSearch in Safari the need for the Wikipedia widget almost went completely away.

* I cannot quite decide whether I like using the Calculator widget or Calculator.app better.

* For system monitoring I never stopped using XRG, and haven't even tried any widgets.

[iSaint]

I'm using it fairly often. I make changes in the widgets I am using based on need. I run a few different weather widgets because we're travelling this week, so I want to see the weather forecast for where we're going. I watch for new widgets coming out.

Where's the MacRumors thread subscription widget? Or new posts widget? That would be cool!

Hula Jesus is my fave!

[Vanilla]

I'm using the Dictionary/thesaurus widget a lot and the calendar/weather widgets are handy on occasion.

I also much prefer the calculator widget over the calculator app purely because the widget edits the results for you.
e.g. type in 45*45 in the calculator app and you get 2025 as a result. Do the same in the widget and you get 2,025. When you are dealing in large numbers, decimals etc. having the result edited really helps.

At first I was entering into the dashboard at every opportunity but now its settled down to just being a useful tool that I use on a reasonably regular basis. Actually today I had to use a powerbook with 10.3.9 and it was amazing how quickly I got frustrated in NOT having dashboard and in particular Spotlight available. They're are both very nice tools.

Vanilla

[wordmunger]

I was thinking maybe I should get Tiger because of dashboard, but then I just decided to move my calculator to the Dock. Does what I need, so I'm still using Panther.

[Applespider]

If I want to check the weather, I have to sit there staring at a greyed-out screen for about ten seconds like an idiot. I know ten seconds doesn't sound like long, but it'd be nice if the whole thing was sped up.

How many widgets do you have open since 10 seconds does sound too long? My 2 weather widgets (out of 7 or 8) update within 2 seconds of me hitting f12.

[FelixDerKater]

I use it many times a day to check the weather and for single word translations or checking conversions of euros to dollars. I don't have the ripple effect though, since my Titanium 500 is a bit dated now.

[After G]

I don't really use it all that much now. Not that I used widgets all that much to begin with anyway.

I only have an end-of-school countdown, birthday countdown, and TV tracker on there at the moment. Nice to know there's only 32 days of school left.

[sorryiwasdreami]

I use the weather widget and calendar every day. The calculator sees almost as much use.

[cwedl]

I only use it to show windoze people what they're missing, but I don't use it because it slows my computer down too much.

[JeDiBoYTJ]

I dont like Dashboard just because the widgets use too much RAM.

I really only use it for the Calculator, and Weather

[Crunchy]

I'm using it probably 20 times a day, mostly to check current temperatures and the local radar on the US Weather widget. The US Weather widget doesn't update easily...scratch that. The apple-R command suggested earlier helps a ton...

[eva01]

i still use it a lot

use a countdown for when i go to arizona

use the dictionary for when i am sucking at what a word means

use the weather for weather of course

use translator for spanish translation because fiance is mexican and i am trying to learn spanish for a second language

and use stargate countdown, because, well stargate owns

[xyian]

Anyone know how to turn Dashboard on and off? It hogs up some memory and I don't always need it on as I'm limited with a dial up connection.

[James Philp]

To save space on the menubar (with a total width of 1024pix) I took out the clock. I put a local clock and date widgets in the top right of the screen.

so i use the dashboard every time I want to check the time on my PM - so a good number of times a day (maybe 50 if i'm using the comp all day)

I also like to check up on Apple stock using the stock widget. if i were an investor, I can see this as a very useful widget!

Use the currency converter all the time to see how much cheaper an item in the US is, and the calculator to add on postage and tax from the states to see if the purchase will be cheaper overall.

iTunes widget sucks!

The widgets do seem a little nippier on Tiger.1

I never got the ripple effect, or even the flip effect on my PB, so I'm not in it for the iCandy, I'm using it for functionality

command-+ will bring up the tray when in dashboard view. Just a Tip :)

[mainstreetmark]

use the dictionary for when i am sucking at what a word means


Use Apple-Ctrl-D when mousing over any word in any (cocoa) application.

[mkrishnan]

I use the weather widgets every day (US Doppler and the main weather widget), maybe 2-3 times a day. I read Dilbert on my dashboard every day too. :D And to be honest, I wouldn't have bothered had it not been on my DB so hey! ;) I still have to train myself to go to DB and not to the dock to get a calculator or the address book, and to be honest, I don't really use the stickies, but I needed a pink placeholder. :D

[TreeHugger]

About 3-4 times a day here too. I just wish the widgets would update faster. If I want to check the weather, I have to sit there staring at a greyed-out screen for about ten seconds like an idiot. I know ten seconds doesn't sound like long, but it'd be nice if the whole thing was sped up.

Use this mod to the weather widget and have it update constantly in the background and it will always be up to date when you invoke dashboard.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050506003729373#comments

[durvivor]

Widgits I want;
Local White Pages
Lotto Results

I might have what you need... Powerball Widget 1.0

homepage.mac.com/durvivor (http://homepage.mac.com/durvivor)

[cgratti]

use weather and fedex widgets almost every day...

[G4scott]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this, but I use the Yahoo Local Traffic widget almost every day. In Austin, an accident on I-35 can leave you stuck in traffic forever, so knowing where there are problems beforehand is very useful before going out, that way I can easily find alternate routes.

I also use the weather widget, and my "Hula Jesus" brings me peace and comfort inside :)

[mkrishnan]

I think this thread would be remiss without at least a little whining about the complete failure of the calendar widget to do what it's supposed to (i.e. provide information about iCal meetings/events/reminders).

[wrldwzrd89]

I use Dashboard about twice daily. I think everyone expected too much of the calendar widget - I don't think it was ever intended to tie into iCal.

[mkrishnan]

I use Dashboard about twice daily. I think everyone expected too much of the calendar widget - I don't think it was ever intended to tie into iCal.

Up until recently, the following was listed on the 200+ new features page.

iCal Widget
Quickly view the current day, date, week and month, plus a list of events for each day based on your iCal calendar.

When I checked today, it was gone from the US version of the page, but it is still on this one: http://www.apple.com/ca/macosx/newfeatures/newfeatures.html

Anyway, I hope they implement it eventually -- I think it would be mad tight.

[wrldwzrd89]

Up until recently, the following was listed on the 200+ new features page.



When I checked today, it was gone from the US version of the page, but it is still on this one: http://www.apple.com/ca/macosx/newfeatures/newfeatures.html

Anyway, I hope they implement it eventually -- I think it would be mad tight.
Somehow, I missed that completely, mkrishnan. I agree that an iCal widget would be handy and a reason to use Dashboard more.

Lately, the translator widget is the one that gets the most use.

[h0e0h]

I still use dashboard on a regular basis. My favorite and obviously most useful widgets have to be countdown, US Weather, the stock tracker, package tracker (the one with UPS, DHL, and FedEX), Air Traffic Control, and Capture, but i have more on the screen that are less used.

[Monoxide]

I think over time I will find more and more use for it. Currently I use it for the TV Guide wich I use a lot, The Radar and Weather, plus yahoo news and the calandar.

[whiteangel]

I think this thread would be remiss without at least a little whining about the complete failure of the calendar widget to do what it's supposed to (i.e. provide information about iCal meetings/events/reminders).

Someone made an iCal widget, you can get it here.

iCal Events 1.01 (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/26796)

[munkle]

Widgets I've found myself using are the translator (instead of making a vague one in my head from context or skipping it), the BugMeNot lookup (rather than just avoiding the site), the train schedule (because it's marvelous!), the Su Doku (since it means I don't have to finish it in one go) and the Notepad since it takes up less screen than lots of Stickies.

Could you please give me the link for the BugMeNot widget, I've tried doing a search at Apple and MacUpdate with no luck. Cheers!

[mpw]

I might have what you need... Powerball Widget 1.0

homepage.mac.com/durvivor (http://homepage.mac.com/durvivor)

That looks like what I'm thinking of, apart from two things;

1.Ideally I'd like it for the UK National Lotto
2.Ideally I'd like it for the next draw not the last one. :D

[mkrishnan]

Someone made an iCal widget, you can get it here.

iCal Events 1.01 (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/26796)

Thanks! I will check this out.

[munkle]

Anyone know how to turn Dashboard on and off? It hogs up some memory and I don't always need it on as I'm limited with a dial up connection.

I don't think you can turn it off, closest you can get is just to disable all widgets, they're the memory hoggers. Oh and not all widgets require an internet connection to work.

[mkrishnan]

Thanks again for the iCal widget. It's actually not bad, although it'd be nice if it integrated multiple calendars, and also if it did entire 24 hour days instead of just the next 24 hours (for instance, at the moment, I see events for tomorrow, but I don't see a class that starts at 5PM because it's more than 24 hours away....) I wonder if by any chance this can be changed via the js file without having to mod or recompile the binary. But still, a big improvement. :)

[Crunchy]

I think this thread would be remiss without at least a little whining about the complete failure of the calendar widget to do what it's supposed to (i.e. provide information about iCal meetings/events/reminders).

Yeah, what is the point of the current calendar widget, anyway? I leave it on because it shows the date, but so does the menu bar + iCal. Redundant widgets are pretty silly...although maybe iCal functionality will be added later.

I think I'll take that current cal widget off my Dashboard, now that I think about it...

[russed]

i generally tend to use it for the weather and maybe the dictionary when doing some work. i think the general consensus is that people would like to use it more often if there was a useful reason to use it! so i'll just have to wait for that special widget!

[xli_ne]

I use it ever so often. Mostly to check the weather.

[jayscheuerle]

I like my weather widget continuously updating in the background...

[Applespider]

Could you please give me the link for the BugMeNot widget, I've tried doing a search at Apple and MacUpdate with no luck. Cheers!

Here it is

Site U.P. (http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=323)

[Kerry Sanders]

Like the second post in the thread, the ripple effect was cool the first day, but I have gotten over that. As for Dashboard itself, I do use it each day. I installed the Scoreboard widget (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/scoreboard.html) and I use it to watch baseball scores each evening when I am on the Mac.

I also use the TinyURL widget (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/tinyurlwidget.html) a lot.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I like my weather widget continuously updating in the background...Get Meteorologist (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16142), sits in the menu bar and updates regularly.

[TreeHugger]

I like my weather widget continuously updating in the background...

there is a macosxhints.com hint to get the weather widget to do this. it won't float on the desktop constantly, unless you use another hack. But with the macososxhint it will konstantly be updating in the background and be up to date when you invoke dashboard.

[Makosuke]

Yes--in fact, I'm using it more now than I thought I would when I first installed Tiger, and I have it set to one of the buttons on my Logitech mouse so that I can invoke it without even moving my hand. That's an illustration of how useful I find it.

Basically, before, I had the Calculator and direct links to the Dictionary and Translator features of Sherlock in my dock, and I used the calculator itself, the calculator conversion features, the dictionary, and the auto-translator a combination of several times a day. Dashboard gives me the basics of all of those in an even faster format (one click from anywhere on the screen, instead of a trip to the dock and back), and lets me check the weather in Japan while I'm there.

Dashboard is cool. Very cool.

[stubeeef]

Check the Eureka thread in distributed computing, redeye is building a widget for those who fold.

I am curious, setting up a tiger eMac for my mom this weekend, can widgets be turned off or disabled?

[wrldwzrd89]

Check the Eureka thread in distributed computing, redeye is building a widget for those who fold.

I am curious, setting up a tiger eMac for my mom this weekend, can widgets be turned off or disabled?
The easiest way is to move all the widgets to a Widgets (Disabled) folder. This will prevent them from running, although it doesn't stop installation of new widgets (that can be done by making the Widgets folder in /Library and the one in ~/Library read-only).

[SuperChuck]

I use dashboard more than any other Tiger feature.

[cgratti]

just downloaded the Baseball scores widget, I will use it even more now..

:D

[wide]

is there a way to lock certain widgets into the desktop? For instance, I'd have the weather widget and the stock ticker widget built into the desktop background?

edit: just read posts above and saw someone mentioned a hack that enables floating widgets or something...does this hack exist or is there a feature that allows it to be enabled?

[mkrishnan]

is there a way to lock certain widgets into the desktop? For instance, I'd have the weather widget and the stock ticker widget built into the desktop background?

edit: just read posts above and saw someone mentioned a hack that enables floating widgets or something...does this hack exist or is there a feature that allows it to be enabled?

Create a new widget in dashboard, and while you are initially positioning it, hit your dashboard keyboard button to go back to the desktop (while still holding the mouse button down), and the widget will come with you. I think this works if you only want one widget; if you want more, I think it gets more complicated. To put it back in Dashboard, start dragging it and then hit the dashboard keyboard button and it should go back to the DB. This is, incidentally, a FAQ. :rolleyes:

[gamestriker]

I'm loving Dashboard. I use it at least 5 times a day, and as much as 20 times, depending on whats going on around me. Its a great time saver. Oh yeah, and the ripple effect is awesome.

[munkle]

Here it is

Site U.P. (http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=323)

Thanks Applespider, much obliged! :)

[TreeHugger]

Thanks Applespider, much obliged! :)

there's also a bookmarklet for bugMeNot that you can directly have in safari or the browser of your choice.

[Apple]

I think of Dashboard as my primary reason for upgrading to tiger so I tell myself to use it a lot. I keep a google search widget on the desktop and I am waiting for an apropriate gmail widget for my desktop.

[oingoboingo]

I was thinking maybe I should get Tiger because of dashboard, but then I just decided to move my calculator to the Dock. Does what I need, so I'm still using Panther.

Yep. I have always had my Calculator, Address Book, iCal and iTunes in my Dock. I find this to be more convenient than using the Dashboard equivalents. I do use the weather widget maybe twice a day, but that's largely a product of me being too lazy to add a bookmark for the local weather service to my Safari bookmarks bar.

Maybe it's the way I work, but for me at least, Dashboard is one big 'meh'. Could take it or leave it. The best thing about it is showing off the ripple effect to PC users and making them go 'ooohhh...ahhhh'.

Spotlight on the other hand...******** brilliant. I use it all the time.

[Apple Hobo]

I've been using the dictionary a lot. Scoreboard is great for keeping up with baseball scores. And for fun, I've been using an uptime record widget called Showoff.

Language Translator, Unit Converter, Calculator, and Phone Book also reside on my desktop. I have few other add-on widgets, but I keep them hidden in the Dashboard selector. That Bug-me-not widget also might end up in my Dashboard. I can't stand those stupid newspaper logins. :mad:

As more widgets become available, I think I will be using Dashboard even more. :cool:

[enoch]

Seeing as I'm not in America, most widgets are not as useful...

For instance, the weather widget completely misses me here in Newcastle, the phonebook doesn't do the UK and the dictionary is in American - not English!

10 out of ten for effort, Apple. 4/10 for the final product.

[Applespider]

For instance, the weather widget completely misses me here in Newcastle, the phonebook doesn't do the UK and the dictionary is in American - not English!


Click on 'More Widgets' to go to the Apple site and get a UK yellow pages; there are a few other UK specific ones there too. The dictionary is American but I've been pleasantly surprised at how many Brit definitions and spellings it has in it.

As for weather, Newcastle is in there. Try typing in the name and then press
the Tab or Return key instead of clicking on Done. It will validate and come back with this list of place names.

[mms]

I only have four widgets in Dashboard: the clock, calender, iTunes, and the sticky. The clock and the calender let me take the clock out of the menu bar, letting me have more space for other little things. I've found that this only increased my use of the menu bar. I'm considering getting rid of the iTunes widget because it's ugly and unresponsive. The sticky note, which I use for a to-do list, is the only thing that I really use, and the old stickies under Panther would suffice for that. So you can say that I really am not finding any novel use for Dashboard and that I can really live without it. It wasn't anything like exposé in Panther that completely changed the way I work.

[BWhaler]

I use the Dashboard throughout the day:

1. Because my company works in different time zones, I look up the time around the world constantly.

2. I read the Calvin & Hobbes widget daily. Makes me think back to high school. (They still need to debug that widget though)

3. Battery meter is awesome too.

I have others that sit on the screen, and dozens more I installed but don't use. But the top 3 get used a ton.

[BornAgainMac]

Dashboard is the one of the best Tiger features. It seems to be a more popular compared to Spotlight and Automator with developers because the list of widgets is growing much faster. Spotlight and Automator have the same downloads featured since day 1.

I only wish I had multiple dashboard screens because I like so many of those widgets.