Dashboard Feature Eliminated in macOS Catalina

[steviebgr]

The Dashboard option, first introduced in OS X 10.4 Tiger, used to be a prominent Mac feature, housing sticky notes, a weather interface, a clock, a calculator, and other customizable widgets.

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I still remember ordering my Tiger upgrade just so I could use this feature. Still use Dashboard to this day, glad I'm not the only one who's going to miss it.

 

[bbeagle]

View attachment 841015

Just think how many clicks it will take you to re-create that every time you reboot your Mac once dashboards are gone

 

[Topkat]

I will miss it. I use it a lot...

 

[Doc69]

Damn! I use it all the time for world weather and package tracking. I’ll miss it.

 

[GtrDude]

I will miss it, use it every day.

Now with only USB-C, failing keyboards, and lackluster processor performance in units that are too thin to cool them down properly there is really no reason to get a MB of any kind.
Back to Windows I go...

 

[fricotin]

spoken like someone that either is new in the game or never used it. I use it everyday

I use it *several* times a day, especially for iStats.

 

[dandeco]

I will miss the Dashboard as well; I often use it to quickly check the weather on my Mac Mini and for basic calculations. Maybe a future MacOS will come out with something similar as a new feature, acting like the Mac OS never had it before. I remember the first time I tried out Dashboard, when we installed Mac OS 10.5 Leopard on the old PowerMac G4s my college's TV studio had in early 2009.

 

[bbeagle]

I will miss it, use it every day.

Now with only USB-C, failing keyboards, and lackluster processor performance in units that are too thin to cool them down properly there is really no reason to get a MB of any kind.
Back to Windows I go...

You'll find problems with Windows soon enough.

I use a Mac at work, and must remote-desktop to numerous Windows PCs weekly. Windows is just awful at so many things. Like I go into MS-DOS and do something with a file - like OMG - so ancient. cd doesn't work the correct way. What tasks are running? Doesn't work like it's supposed to. I drag and drop a file, rename it or delete it in Windows - file permission issues all the time? Really? I just click OK, then it works? Someone is already remote desk-topped in? Oh, I'm not warned - I just kick them out, and never know they were on? Then I get kicked out without warning? Windows is a mess.

 

[TwitchOSX]

NOOOOOOOOO. **** NO. I use the calculator many many times daily. I don't want to have to open a ****ing calculator app. I just hit a key on my keyboard to bring up dashboard. I also use the calendar and weather widgets too! ****. Also, iStat Pro!

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Rip iTunes AND Dashboard. Next year what will it be, Quicktime?

 

[britboyj]

Ugh.

 

[mzs.112000]

Rip iTunes AND Dashboard. Next year what will it be, Quicktime?

I thought they stopped supporting QuickTime years ago?


On another note, why is everyone so happy that they got rid of a feature, just because *YOU* don't use it?
If you don't like it, then you have the right to avoid using it, but you *DON'T* have the right to take it away from those who do like said feature. How is that so hard for people to understand?

As an example, I don't like Dark Mode or Night Shift, as such I don't use them, no one is forcing me to use those features. I however, am not going to call for the feature to be taken away, because I have the brain capacity to understand that some people actually enjoy these features.

 

[farewelwilliams]

What evidence do you have that a very small number of people use Dashboard? Plenty responding here use it, some multiple times a day. I use it most days, sometimes multiple times.

How many do you count? 50 on this board? How much does that translate in actual percentage among all macOS? Your meaning of "plenty" doesn't really translate to anything concrete.

Dashboard was disabled by default back in 2014. Millions of new users have been added to the macOS install base since then. Most developers have stopped supporting dashboard widgets in favor of today widgets.
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I think Dashboard can show a higher density of information than Notification Center. I use both and most of the time Notification Center is good for a quick glance. But when I need detailed data, I switch to Dashboard.

Here is my layout. From here, I have:
- Detailed info on all my attached storage, network, temps and battery levels
- A graphic 7 day forecast that I can pause and scroll
- News list
- Quick access to a basic calculator. (I have my Dashboard hot corner set for the bottom right of the screen)

For most users, Notification Center is enough. But there are times when you need more.

i don't doubt the screen real estate of dashboard allows for more information. but the lack of discoverability for new users and the lack of updates by most dashboard developers highly suggest that most users have moved on to the today widgets.
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Seriously some people assume to know how many other people use something or not, based on their own confirmation bias. Did you by any chance commission a statistically significant poll ? Or just base your opinion on what *you* use and maybe a handful of your friends & co-workers ?

I've used Mac's since 1985 and have always been appreciative of innovations and progress in GUI design, but Apple has just moved on to a different planet, in both hardware and UI.

I have briefly used Notifications on iOS & OS X when it first came out and never since. In fact, it's disabled. However, Dashboard is a daily useful piece of information that can be absorbed in a few seconds sine I've designed my layout and placement of all the widgets and muscle memory is a great tool in expediting one's workflow.

Great if you like Notifications and not Dashboard, but I wish people like you here would stop assuming what is best for the rest of us just because YOU don't work that way.

I certainly won't be upgrading.

You argue that I'm using my own "confirmation bias", yet you list out your own single experience and use it as the opinion for "what is best for the rest of us".

Wow.

BTW, I'm not the one assuming what is best for everyone. Apple is.

 

[ignatius345]

Honestly, feels like it makes sense. The Dashboard utilities feel so clunky now and I personally never use them anymore. Feels like the end of an era though.

It feels clunky because it's been neglected for years now.

I still think a fast, HUD-style utility space like this is really useful -- much more so than the little Today strip in the Notification Center.

If Apple had chosen to, for instance, they could have provided a section of the app store for paid widgets and we'd have been seeing useful, up-to-date additions this whole time. I'd have LOVED to see a Messages app in there, for one example.

I just hope that a) Apple revisits the HUD concept again and does it well and/or b) that another developer takes up the reins here and comes up with a useful replacement.

 

[hellopupy]

Glad to see so many users that have dashboard part of their workflow.

Some haters here don't have a busy lifestyle so don't find any use for it and celebrate it's demise. For no reason really, since all MACOS for the last few years has DB already disabled.

Dashboard is an ultimate multi-task/workflow tool. Its simple but sometimes simple just works.

 

[ignatius345]

Terrible decision. The Notification Center was never a good replacement for Dashboard. With one tap I can get a glance at the calendar, weather, time in different time zones, CPU/fan stats, and even an astronomy picture of the day. Simple, fluid, and not constrained to a thin strip of desktop space that requires me to scroll. I use it multiple times a day. So much so that I'm not sure I'll upgrade to Catalina if they've taken it out.

Well put. The Notification Center is small and fiddly. With Dashboard properly configured (as an overlay NOT a "space") it just quickly superimposes a whole screen full of information over whatever you're working on, then disappears with another keystroke. And the web clippings feature still has no equal (or, did until Apple broke it with a Safari update a few years ago) -- allowing you to peel off a piece of practially any site on the entire web and tack it up for quick reference.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Just by comparing the area of the whole screen (usable by Dashboard) and the small strip of the screen (usable by Notification Centre, it is clear (to anyone in his/her right mind) that you can fit substantially less (useful) information on the NC than on Dashboard.

Moreover, you can arrange the dashboard widgets in such a way that you still see relevant pieces of running apps that can contain information you may want to use in Dashboard.

Also, the calendar view is much superior in Dashboard (you can see more events as they are listed as text only). Of course you cannot fit sticky notes, dictionary, thesaurus, etc. on the small and useless notification center.

Incredibly stupid and arrogant decision to remove something super useful to (at least some) people. People not using Dashboard will not benefit in any way by hurting other people's needs & I don't quite understand their happiness when Dashboard users' needs are hurt.

Just because they aren't updating Dashboard doesn't mean it's 0 maintenance by Apple. I'm sure there were many times in the past 5 years since Dashboard was disabled by default where updates have broken Dashboard internally where software engineers have to fix it.

Sure widgets in today view isn't perfect, but it can easily be fixed in future macOS updates. Overtime it can be better than Dashboard widgets.

 

[mzs.112000]

It feels clunky because it's been neglected for years now.

I still think a fast, HUD-style utility space like this is really useful -- much more so than the little Today strip in the Notification Center.

If Apple had chosen to, for instance, they could have provided a section of the app store for paid widgets and we'd have been seeing useful, up-to-date additios.

I just hope that a) Apple revisits the HUD concept again and does it well and/or b) that another developer takes up the reins here and comes up with a useful replacement.

Yes...
All Apple would have had to do, would be to upgrade the existing Dashboard widgets to match the UX of the rest of the system, add a App Store section for Dashboard widgets(as opposed to the dilapidated Dashboard website), and maybe add Siri integration.
Bonus points would have been awarded for making widgets available on the desktop (which is quite barren as it only has icons, and no widgets or anything useful, even on modern 5K displays. Possibly also making more things available as widgets(like a small, iPhone-sized Safari as a widget) and encouraging developers to create widgets as well(a simple scripting language for them, but with striped down versions of all macOS API's would mean even novice developers could create amazing things)

 

[ignatius345]

Just because they aren't updating Dashboard doesn't mean it's 0 maintenance by Apple. I'm sure there were many times in the past 5 years since Dashboard was disabled by default where updates have broken Dashboard internally where software engineers have to fix it.

Yeah, but you get what I meant. There's been ZERO effort to modernize anything about Dashboard.

Sure widgets in today view isn't perfect, but it can easily be fixed in future macOS updates. Overtime it can be better than Dashboard widgets.

What you're missing there is the HUD concept. A little strip of space off to the side of the screen isn't going to replace that.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Dashboard widgets can be made by anyone with knowledge in HTML and Javascript, making a notification center widget needs other knowledge and the App Store only has a bunch of widgets compared to the dashboard widgets, that are in the hundreds.

You can make today widgets with React Native which is purely Javascript.

Also, try to have more widgets in the notification center, a scroll is guaranteed.

I can access dashboard without any click, amnd the real estate is much bigger, I have two screens, and I have several widgets.

I also have made several widgets to fit my needs.

Notification center is not a good alternative, I really don't undestand why they would kill dashboard, I knew it would disappear one day, they've been hidding dashboard more and more, so it was a matter of time.

I really don't like what Apple is doing, dashboard is just a small drop in this ocean; a lot is degrading compared to what was some years ago, Mojave is full of bugs (I need to restart some times so that the "application X is not open" error disappears (not to mention other stupid bugs)).

I love the Mac and MacOS, I've been using Macs since 1989 and will hopefully continue to use, but why should we make so many "detours" in our methods just to acommodate the way Apple would like you to follow?

Instead of complaining about the removal Dashboard, it's far better that users complain about the notification center size being too narrow. That way Apple can address these issues in future updates and eventually have notification widgets exceed any usefulness of Dashboard in every possible way.

Yeah, but you get what I meant. There's been ZERO effort to modernize anything about Dashboard.

Everyone knew that Dashboard was never going to get modernized for several years now. The Apple developer documentation explicitly states that you should consider developing notification center widgets as opposed to Dashboard widgets.

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What you're missing there is the HUD concept. A little strip of space off to the side of the screen isn't going to replace that.

You skipped the part about future updates. Apple can change it in the future. Who knows, maybe swiping in the notification center presents a full screen overview of your notifications and all of your widgets.

 

[AnsonX10]

I use several web clips every day, and they are HUGELY more convenient than opening a bookmark in a browser and scrolling to the information I want.

 

[jerryk]

Never used it, so I won't miss it.

 

[ehrens]

Literally only use Dashboard anymore to play Classic Memory. I won't miss Dashboard, but I'll miss all of those Mac OS 9 icons.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Why are people happy this is gone?!

You didn't HAVE to use it.

However, if you DID use it often (like me), you are right to be upset.

Just one less differentiator keeping me from giving Windows a fair shake.

I want to stay with Apple, but they JUST. KEEP. REMOVING. THINGS. I. LOVE.

EDIT:
TBH, I'm not going ANYWHERE. There's STILL too much good stuff in Apple's camp. But man, these last few years have been a painful exercise in letting go.

frees up developers (Apple and third party devs) from maintaining this old resource. focus on notification center. don't like notification center? make a fuss about it. Apple will hear and make it better in the future.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

frees up developers (Apple and third party devs) from maintaining this old resource. focus on notification center. don't like notification center? make a fuss about it. Apple will hear and make it better in the future.

I really doubt that. Apple rarely backpedals on anything, and when it does it's because of a HUGE outcry.

I don't think this qualifies.