Finder and Dashboard questions

[Gregg2]

I have a couple of basic questions. I've poked around, but haven't found answers. And no, I haven't searched here or on Yahoo! or Google.

1. Finder windows display a pane on the right, sometimes featuring a file or folder within the current folder, but often it is just blank. The only way I've discovered to remove that pane is by sliding the vertical line to the right. Is there a way to disable this so that this "pain" doesn't ever appear to begin with?

2. Invoking Dashboard now makes the active windows disappear, and the Desktop background becomes blurry. I would like to disable this behavior as well. Can that be done?

 

[MacManiac76]

1. If I understand correctly, open a Finder window, right-click in a blank area, then click "Show View Options", then uncheck "Show preview column".
2. Go to System Preferences, Mission Control, then change the Dashboard option to "As Overlay".

 

[Gregg2]

Thanks! You got me there. For others, the solutions:

1. View Menu>Hide Preview * (SVO has a checkbox for Show Icon Preview - not my issue) It appears that I will have to do that every time I open a window until they're all gone. My windows are far too diversified to have any hope that Use As Defaults will clean it up globally.

2. System Preferences>Mission Control, Dashboard: As Overlay (mine had been set to As Space)

* I guess the default was Hide Preview in previous versions. I had never run into this before, so I didn't know what to call it.