macOS I'm a noob, help programming in dashcode

That's odd that you can't edit your js file.

Hmm looking at your screenshot, it says you are editing AppleAnimator.js. You can click on arrow by the "AppleAnimator.js" (located right above your text editing pane" and select a different file to edit. Not sure if that'll help.

When I made some test widgets, I had to a edit "main.js" file. I just created a function for the "onclick" event for my button in the Inspector window, as described in Apple's Dashboard tutorial,. Clicking on the "arrow" icon next to my function name in the Inspector brought up main.js and then I just wrote some simple JavaScript.

As for coding a timer, just use setInterval for the timer.

A pretty good tutorial on making a timer widget in DashCode is here.
http://www.1995again.com/blog/2009/7/28/building-a-timer-in-dashcode-a-tutorial.html

If you follow that DashCode Widget Tutorial that I linked too earlier, are you able to edit your js file? In the case of the tutorial, it's the main.js file.

I'm not a DashCode expert, but it's interesting that you are editing AppleAnimator.js and specifically the AppleAnimator.prototype.start method (function). That indicates to me that it's a class file.

Are you sure you supposed to be editing the AppleAnimator class directly? You can override and extend the class, if you are really comfortable with OOP, but I gather that is not what you are trying to do, and if you are, normally you would do it in your own class definition, rather than directly edit the library itself.

That's probably why you can't edit it. It's a library file. Hmm I did a search and yeah. AppleAnimator is an Apple class library. You can use the AppleAnimator classes in your javascript as shown in the "Using Animation" guide.