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Dashboard Feature Eliminated in macOS Catalina

That’s a shame, I use it everyday for (multiple) weather forecasts, calculator, loads of unit conversions, a quick chord and music theory widget, a bpm calculator, and the oblique strategies widget! I’m a musician/producer and have a studio so the last three are really useful

Really easy to access with just a swipe of the trackpad...

But the widgets webpage looks like it’s from 2003 so I guess it was always coming...
 
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haleyp said:
It takes them 5 years to implement useful 3rd-party things like night shift, key swiping, ipad as monitor, and they're always removing key functionality, like play history in the music app. Very frustrating.
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YEs it's like there will be no memory in the future, the future is always NOW! This pissed me off no end when I discovered I couldn't go back and find a killer tune I had listened to on a playlist that also disappeared. Crazy.
 
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I use Dashboard everyday still and I use it still as an Overlay and not as a separate space. I have 3 calculator widgets, 3 calendars, and the conversion widget. The multiple calculators is great to have available next to the other. I also like being able to view three months at the same time. Would be a real shame to lose this.
 
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petsounds said:
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.
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It has been taken out so I guess you won't be upgrading.
 
psingh01 said:
I still use the stock and weather widgets. Just move my cursor to a hot corner and I can quickly see it. Why remove it?
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Because keeping it around requires maintaining an older and older code base. And if a relatively small number of people actually use it, it's hard to justify keeping that code base around. Especially since it could be harboring bugs or otherwise interfering with what the developers want to do with macOS going forward. Programming is always about managing limited resources.
 
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I guess maybe people who are not using dashboard are also not using notifications centre either!

So Apple is forcing the choice. I'd swear this is to force people to use it right! 🙂

For fun. I went and set "Dashboard as an Overlay" in preference (I never liked when it became a space but it's nice to have it as a option, it was set as default I think in Mavericks and I ranked until I found it the fix in preferences), ah the focus, the drop in and fade transition. FOCUS. That's pretty ZEN if you ask me, minimal UI, is NOT Zen.

Minimal in UI does not automatically install calm and efficiency. It's the fashion these days (Google are not winning it either, worse if you ask me) but a lot of people are finding it awful - our minds and visual perception is far more capable of processing more, more subtle more please, more detailed more please, no one wants to stare at a white wall except for the expectational crazy or brilliant who like to imagine.

So much potential. We are better at manage the abstract layers in our minds than visually picking out details on barren flat all UI, complexity is ok if it's done right. I wrote before and I'll write again, never have so many pixels done so little work (Retina) in a UI.

More is doing Less.

Removing utility is not improving things, it's like going beyond the fretless neck on a instrument, removing the frets is to far for many, removing the strings! - think: laser stringless type guitars, did they catch on? No.

I rest my case.
 
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therunningman said:
Darn..I use Dashboard every day. Hopefully there will be a developer out there that will write a replacement similar to the way "Rainmeter" replaces Windows 7's sidebar gadgets.
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Dashboard was just a rip-off of Konfabulator to begin with, so its removal will probably spur someone to create a replacement. That's usually what happens.
 
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Steve Ballmer said:
Because keeping it around requires maintaining an older and older code base. And if a relatively small number of people actually use it, it's hard to justify keeping that code base around. Especially since it could be harboring bugs or otherwise interfering with what the developers want to do with macOS going forward. Programming is always about managing limited resources.
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I'll give you code based reasoning, but Apple is surely not limited on resources - this is a choice and it's got some kind of rational behind it as you have written is entirely plausible and/or it was Scott's child or something. It must be banished to the wilderness, look what we did with MAPS people! (7 years later)
 
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Omega Mac said:
but Apple is surely not limited on resources
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I was referring more to code base size. I wouldn't doubt a large company has plenty of resources. I was referring more to if Apple wants to justify keeping however many lines of code Dashboard requires (along with its many bugs) to satisfy what seems to be a very small user base. It's about balance, if the complexity of the code and its bugs are outweighing the amount of usage (which I guess is somehow tracked), makes sense to get rid of it. Apple's PR will also tell you most of Dashboard's purpose has been duplicated elsewhere, which is partially true.
 
Shame, it was a good feature, I still use it on occasion as I prefer the widgets to the Notification Center. Hopefully something else comes along to be a true replacement.

To everyone who is cheering at this, I don't think you understand the extent of an operating system. There are many many features in macOS to this day that I bet none of you have touched but are very useful to others. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's bad. It was turned off by default anyway, so it didn't take up any overhead. Pointless to be glad it is dead when it is of no concern to you.
 
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Steve Ballmer said:
I was referring more to code base size. I wouldn't doubt a large company has plenty of resources. I was referring more to if Apple wants to justify keeping however many lines of code Dashboard requires (along with its many bugs) to satisfy what seems to be a very small user base. It's about balance, if the complexity of the code and its bugs are outweighing the amount of usage (which I guess is somehow tracked), makes sense to get rid of it. Apple's PR will also tell you most of Dashboard's purpose has been duplicated elsewhere, which is partially true.
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Gotcha, system resources as opposed to $$$ in the Bank! 😉
 
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

First you take away OpenGL. Then you take away my 32-bit apps. Then you come after my iTunes library it took me years to organize the way I like it and now you’re coming for my dashboard.

Then you dangle irresistible native iPad dual screen and iPad apps on macOS in front of me to stop the pain.

I damn you Catalina.
 
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lec0rsaire said:
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

First you take away OpenGL. Then you take away my 32-bit apps. Then you come after my iTunes library it took me years to organize the way I like it and now you’re coming for my dashboard.

Then you dangle irresistible native iPad dual screen and iPad apps on macOS in front of me to stop the pain.

I damn you Catalina.
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So keep using Mojave or older releases? They'll continue to work just fine and it seems you will need something to run 32-bit apps. As for iTunes, don't use iTunes Match or Apple Music and all your music will continue to remain local and structure how you want, will it not? Vote with your wallet and stop giving Apple money on their planned obsolesce model.
 
I use it every day (as an overlay). Most often for the calculator pad, instantly available at the touch of a button, that shows a full history of calculations. Also to see what time zone people I need / want to talk / message are in. Or see when my packages are arriving, or look up a word, or set a quick timer, or make some conversion, or do a subnet calculation, or to just to be reminded, by the APoD, that there is a universe beyond my workspace.

I would pay a developer for a similar feature set.
 
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Steve Ballmer said:
So keep using Mojave or older releases? They'll continue to work just fine and it seems you will need something to run 32-bit apps. As for iTunes, don't use iTunes Match or Apple Music and all your music will continue to remain local and structure how you want, will it not? Vote with your wallet and stop giving Apple money on their planned obsolesce model.
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I do use iTunes Match. I actually exported my entire library to an external drive and just stream on demand from all of my Apple devices including my MBP. And it’s a PITA to do this. Let’s say I clean installed Mojave right now. I can’t just point my library to the external drive. I have to sign in, create a new library on the external and download everything from iTunes Match again. Even with my fast connection this takes an entire afternoon.

I would stay on Mojave but in 2 years many developers will stop dropping support for it and in 3 it will be dropped completely. So that’s just not a viable long term solution. If I decide to buy a new 2020 MBP next year then I’m SOL regardless.
 
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p96 said:
I use it every day (as an overlay). Most often for the calculator pad, instantly available at the touch of a button, that shows a full history of calculations. Also to see what time zone people I need / want to talk / message are in. Or see when my packages are arriving, or look up a word, or set a quick timer, or make some conversion, or do a subnet calculation, or to just to be reminded, by the APoD, that there is a universe beyond my workspace.

I would pay a developer for a similar feature set.
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Hopefully the Konfabulator people are still around.
 
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