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Lost widgets icon/access from dock on OS 10.4

E

erieyahoskimmer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 8, 2011
7
0
Hi,
I have an IMac with OS 10.4 and accidentally dragged the widgets icon off the dock. There was a puff of smoke and it disappeared. How can I get it back? I don't have the widget icon in my applications folder or any other folder that I could see, ( I had hoped to just drag the icon back to the the dock) and the finder and preference folder don't help me either. Any help would be appreciated.
 
By widgets I'm assuming you mean Dashboard widgets. Dashboard should be in the main Applications folder. Find it there and drag a copy of it to the Dock to get it back. Also if I remember correctly pressing the F12 key under Tiger will also open Dashboard.
 
Thanks so much for the response, Dew Guy.
For some reason Dashboard isn't in my applications folder. I have no idea why that happened and when I run a search for dashboard, nothing comes up except a window with a log of dashboard errors. I still can access the dashboard through the f12 key, but would really like it back on the dock if possible. Do I have to reinstall my software?
 
erieyahoskimmer said:
Thanks so much for the response, Dew Guy.
For some reason Dashboard isn't in my applications folder. I have no idea why that happened and when I run a search for dashboard, nothing comes up except a window with a log of dashboard errors. I still can access the dashboard through the f12 key, but would really like it back on the dock if possible. Do I have to reinstall my software?
Click to expand...

Are you looking in the correct Applications folder, the one you get to by going to your Hard Drive and it should be at the root level, not the one in your User directory.
 
I hate to admit this, but I am barely computer literate and need to have have a "super dummies" version of your answer ( I know, to you it probably already is the dummies version, but humor me) I don't know what you mean by root level. I have been going to the hard drive and opening the applications folder (with the big A on it--user directory??) and there is no dashboard there. I've been through the preferences for dashboard with no luck and have opened some of the other folders in the hard drive (e.g. library) to no avail. I am pretty much self taught and have huge gaps in my learning and skills, I'm afraid. If I haven't been looking at root level, can you tell me how to get there? I really appreciate your time and help.
 
erieyahoskimmer said:
I hate to admit this, but I am barely computer literate and need to have have a "super dummies" version of your answer ( I know, to you it probably already is the dummies version, but humor me) I don't know what you mean by root level. I have been going to the hard drive and opening the applications folder (with the big A on it--user directory??) and there is no dashboard there. I've been through the preferences for dashboard with no luck and have opened some of the other folders in the hard drive (e.g. library) to no avail. I am pretty much self taught and have huge gaps in my learning and skills, I'm afraid. If I haven't been looking at root level, can you tell me how to get there? I really appreciate your time and help.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about being self taught, most of us are. When I was teaching my father-in-law how to use his Mac I kept telling him even though you don't think you know very much, there's always someone out there who knows less and you'll be able to help them with what you know. Very few people are formally trained in using personal computers.

Sounds like you're looking in the right place. Root level is the very top level of the hard drive. If you double click on the Hard Drive on your Desktop, or single click on the Hard Drive in the Finder's Sidebar that's the root level that you see and the Applications folder there is the main Applications folder. There can also be a Applications folder in your user directory, so say your name is Bob and when you set up your Mac your user name is also Bob, in the Finder's sidebar will be an entry called Bob with a little house next to it. That's your (Bob's) user directory it's a sub-directory of Users at the Root level and it's where all your stuff like music, photos and documents are stored and sometimes (but not always) there is an Applications folder there. This is for Applications that are only available to a specific user. The Applications in the main Applications folder are available to all users (if there are more than one) on a Mac.

Since it's working when you press F12, my guess is that it's there somewhere. Are you using a PowerPC or Intel iMac?
 
erieyahoskimmer said:
It's an intel core 2 processor. The computer is almost 4 yrs. old.
Click to expand...

I was hoping you had a PowerPC iMac as I've got Tiger here on my old PowerPC iMac and I could of given you a copy of mine to replace yours. Since mine is PowerPC code but I don't believe it would work on in Intel iMac with the rest of the code that's already in place.

Have you looked through your Applications and/or Utilities for any file that may have the Dashboard icon
535838618398508250.png
? Maybe it's still there but the name accidentally got changed.

Have you Repaired Permissions using Disk Utility?

The only other thing I can think of right now to get Dashboard back in the Applications folder is to use Pacifist to extract it from the OS X Tiger install/restire disc.

You can download Pacifist from here.

The documentation for Pacifist can be found here.
 
I can't find anything with a dashboard logo, but will take the time to go through everything on my hard drive this week just to be sure I don't have it under another name. I also downloaded Pacifist and will get someone to help me install that if need be. I wasn't even aware that existed. Again, thank you so very much for your help; I was at a total loss for what else to try.
 
erieyahoskimmer said:
I can't find anything with a dashboard logo, but will take the time to go through everything on my hard drive this week just to be sure I don't have it under another name. I also downloaded Pacifist and will get someone to help me install that if need be. I wasn't even aware that existed. Again, thank you so very much for your help; I was at a total loss for what else to try.
Click to expand...

Another thing that you could try is to post here asking if anyone could give you a copy of their OS X 10.4.11 Tiger (Intel) Dashboard.app. I don't believe that this would be a violation of terms of use as it's something you own and would probably be simpler than using Pacifist. If you get a copy, just put it in your Applications folder and then drag a copy to the dock and everything should be back to normal.

I don't know if you've Googled this problem or not, but I did and I found a number of other occurrences of it, but there were never any resolutions other than what we've come up with here and no one could explain how it disappeared from the Applications folder or how it could still run without being on the Mac. My guess is that it's somewhere within the OS X and that the Dashboard app in the Applications folder (under 10.6 it's only 205 KB) is just another way of accessing it.
 
Here's Dashboard.app taken from a 10.4.10 install disk from an Intel iMac.

@DewGuy1999 Thanks for the direction on how to extract it :)
 
Wow, thanks guys! Dew Guy, great thinking to come up with that fix, and Adrian, that was SO nice of you to share your icon. I downloaded it, opened it and presto! I was able to slip it right into the dock again. I was kind of glad to hear that there were other incidents of the lost icon. I couldn't figure what I did wrong. I'm copying the icon to a flash drive, too--just in case. You're both the greatest!
 
Last edited:
erieyahoskimmer said:
Wow, thanks guys! Dew Guy, great thinking to come up with that fix, and Adrian, that was SO nice of you to send share your icon. I downloaded it, opened it and presto! I was able to slip it right into the dock again. I was kind of glad to hear that there were other incidents of the lost icon. I couldn't figure what I did wrong. I'm copying the icon to a flash drive, too--just in case. You're both the greatest!
Click to expand...

Glad to hear that you got it working. FYI: That's not just the icon, it's the Dashboard App. Don't forget to put a copy of it in your Applications folder. From the other cases I found, people either voluntarily or accidentally removed it from the Dock, but nobody could seem to figure out how it disappeared from the Applications folder.
 
Got ya! I put did put it back into the applications folder where it is happily sitting. Now as long as I don't go wild with the mouse and take the icon out of the dashboard again.........
 
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