Apple Disables Dashboard by Default in Latest OS X El Capitan Beta

[MacRumors]

Apple has quietly disabled Dashboard by default in the seventh beta of OS X El Capitan, an unsurprising move given the ten-year-old widget feature on Mac has not been updated in over four years and looks increasingly poised for retirement. Dashboard was similarly disabled by default on OS X Yosemite.

Latest OS X El Capitan beta disables Dashboard by default. Not long now, old friend 😥 pic.twitter.com/Cp2ecE6Fa2 - Jeremy Burge ? (@jeremyburge) August 20, 2015

While a few websites claim that Apple has removed Dashboard from OS X El Capitan entirely, the feature can be re-enabled by opening System Preferences > Mission Control and choosing "As Space" from the Dashboard drop-down menu. Then, tap on the Dashboard key on your keyboard to bring up the window.

Dashboard was introduced on OS X Tiger in 2005 and acts as a secondary desktop for widgets such as a calculator, calendar, clock, weather, stocks, sticky notes, mini games, dictionary, flight tracker and more. Widgets can be added or removed from Dashboard by clicking on the plus or minus buttons in the bottom-left corner.

Article Link: Apple Disables Dashboard by Default in Latest OS X El Capitan Beta

 

[itguy06]

Shame they are doing this. It was and is an awesome place for seldom used but needed "NOW" things. I still use it frequently. Especially the calculator. Spotlight's calculator, well, sucks.

 

[stridemat]

Would be a shame to see it go indefinitely as I use this widget daily still

 

[Crosscreek]

Noticed that when I updated. I know a lot of people don't use it but I keep a weather radar running at all times. Storms all the time where I live so it comes in handy to hit a hot corner to take a look.

 

[spherox]

Meh, I disable it anyway. But they definitely shouldn't get rid of it completely.

 

[oldmacs]

Sad Apple never promoted dashboard like it should have... Luckily they've just disabled it by default instead of completely removing it like I assumed they would.

 

[macintoshmac]

I am very sure it was disabled by default in the last beta, or maybe the one before, because I wanted that damn unit converter, and the dashboard did not work. I had to reenable it. So, in my opinion, the twitter guy is a beta or two late, and so is MR being mindless in reporting.

 

[Soylent Yellow]

Would be a shame to see it go indefinitely as I use this widget daily still View attachment 576287

Still use daily:

• Local rain radar (I take the bicycle to the station)
• Train departure times
• Local time of all the countries we do business with
• Weather of all the countries we do business with
• Translation widget
• Snippet with our address and telephone number (moved too many times to remember that reliably)

Quite handy to have all this available on the touch of a button (F12 or CTRL-left arrow)

 

[tills24]

I thought it was just me! I use Dashboard all of the time, too, because I like to keep my dock clutter free.

 

[S.B.G]

I updated this morning and it wasn't disabled for me. I set mine to be viewed as an Overlay and after the update it was reset to Space.

 

[H2SO4]

Still use daily:

• Local rain radar (I take the bicycle to the station)
• Train departure times
• Local time of all the countries we do business with
• Weather of all the countries we do business with
• Translation widget
• Snippet with our address and telephone number (moved too many times to remember that reliably)

Quite handy to have all this available on the touch of a button (F12 or CTRL-left arrow)

Calendar, Translator, Converter and Calculator for me.

 

[iBlazed]

I use it daily to check weather quickly. Is there any other way to do that?

Edit: As noted by @SandboxGeneral it's in Notification Center now. Didn't realize.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I always liked that cool shimmer effect it'd do when you added a new widget I used to use it all the time on Snow Leopard. Just press F4 and everything I needed was there. Mainly weather, calculator, and train times. iStat Pro, too.

 

[S.B.G]

I use it daily to check weather quickly. Is there any other way to do that?

You can put weather in the Notification Center that slides out from the right.

 

[nagromme]

I can do without—I'll just have to move my Stickies text, which I have stopped adding to but which still contain stuff that matters. I think I'll leave Dashboard off and keep my Spaces simpler. No burning need to remove the feature, though—it uses Web technology and doesn't seem to be much bloat. Snippets from Safari are cool, if you use them!

The reason I've stopped using it, I now realize, is because a) I grab my iPhone for those things instead (notes, weather, calendar, world clock). And b) OS X now has other stuff so well-integrated: double-tap a word with 3 fingers on the trackpad for Thesaurus, Command-Space to type a quick calculation without needing a calculator.

 

[iBlazed]

You can put weather in the Notification Center that slides out from the right.

Ahh it's actually already there. I guess I didn't notice because I don't use it much. Thanks! Now that I don't need dashboard anymore Apple can go ahead and get rid of it. To hell with everyone else who still uses it.

 

[Macrolido]

Too bad. I still use Dashboard everyday.

 

[pavelbure]

Noticed that when I updated. I know a lot of people don't use it but I keep a weather radar running at all times. Storms all the time where I live so it comes in handy to hit a hot corner to take a look.

I use it for the same thing. I don't want a vague weather app that just shows rain or sun, that tells me nothing. If I want to know if it will rain in 20 min the radar in motion widget is nice. Is this what you use ?

 

[aaronsullivan]

Oh, I can turn it off. That's good. I've been using it by accident for the calculator mostly, so now I can just use the notification center. Especially after setting the keyboard shortcut to F12. It's a pretty natural progression, but I'm sure people will miss some widgets that won't make it to the notification center eventually. I especially like that I can tap F12, and if the last widget I used was the calculator I can just start typing in numbers without any mouse interaction. But, that's a narrow case.

Apps can make Notification Center widgets now, so I think having the dashboard doesn't really make long-term sense.

 

[tennisproha]

is there an alternative for dashboard now? like for translation, etc...

 

[skellener]

Too bad. I still use Dashboard everyday.

So do I.

 

[S.B.G]

Ahh it's actually already there. I guess I didn't notice because I don't use it much. Thanks! Now that I don't need dashboard anymore Apple can go ahead and get rid of it. To hell with everyone else who still uses it.

There's one widget I use regularly to track shipments and is handy for me. But I don't really use Dashboard for anything else.

 

[cambookpro]

iStat, Stickies, Calculator and Unit Converter are widgets I still use daily.

The only one I could perhaps do without is Unit Converter as Spotlight is generally fine for that, but the other three don't yet have alternatives which are better. Calculator is still much more convenient in Dashboard than in Notification Centre.

 

[baller1308]

I haven't used Dashboard in a while now. If they do keep it around the widgets really need to be updated graphically.

 

[2457282]

I tried the dashboard once and never really got into it. I like the notification center better as it is more consistent with iOS and I get everything I need there. I see a lot of folks use the dashboard in this thread and that is a surprise to me, but everyone has their preferences.

The reality, it seems to me, is that Apple will continue to bring OSX and iOS closer together -- and that means notification center over dashboard.