Still using Dashboard, or has the novelty worn off?

[eva01]

i still use it a lot

use a countdown for when i go to arizona

use the dictionary for when i am sucking at what a word means

use the weather for weather of course

use translator for spanish translation because fiance is mexican and i am trying to learn spanish for a second language

and use stargate countdown, because, well stargate owns

 

[xyian]

how? how can it be turned off?

Anyone know how to turn Dashboard on and off? It hogs up some memory and I don't always need it on as I'm limited with a dial up connection.

 

[James Philp]

To save space on the menubar (with a total width of 1024pix) I took out the clock. I put a local clock and date widgets in the top right of the screen.

so i use the dashboard every time I want to check the time on my PM - so a good number of times a day (maybe 50 if i'm using the comp all day)

I also like to check up on Apple stock using the stock widget. if i were an investor, I can see this as a very useful widget!

Use the currency converter all the time to see how much cheaper an item in the US is, and the calculator to add on postage and tax from the states to see if the purchase will be cheaper overall.

iTunes widget sucks!

The widgets do seem a little nippier on Tiger.1

I never got the ripple effect, or even the flip effect on my PB, so I'm not in it for the iCandy, I'm using it for functionality

command-+ will bring up the tray when in dashboard view. Just a Tip

 

[mainstreetmark]

use the dictionary for when i am sucking at what a word means

Use Apple-Ctrl-D when mousing over any word in any (cocoa) application.

 

[mkrishnan]

I use the weather widgets every day (US Doppler and the main weather widget), maybe 2-3 times a day. I read Dilbert on my dashboard every day too. And to be honest, I wouldn't have bothered had it not been on my DB so hey! I still have to train myself to go to DB and not to the dock to get a calculator or the address book, and to be honest, I don't really use the stickies, but I needed a pink placeholder.

 

[TreeHugger]

About 3-4 times a day here too. I just wish the widgets would update faster. If I want to check the weather, I have to sit there staring at a greyed-out screen for about ten seconds like an idiot. I know ten seconds doesn't sound like long, but it'd be nice if the whole thing was sped up.

Use this mod to the weather widget and have it update constantly in the background and it will always be up to date when you invoke dashboard.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050506003729373#comments

 

[durvivor]

Lotto Widget

Widgits I want;
Local White Pages
Lotto Results

I might have what you need... Powerball Widget 1.0

homepage.mac.com/durvivor

 

[cgratti]

use weather and fedex widgets almost every day...

 

[G4scott]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this, but I use the Yahoo Local Traffic widget almost every day. In Austin, an accident on I-35 can leave you stuck in traffic forever, so knowing where there are problems beforehand is very useful before going out, that way I can easily find alternate routes.

I also use the weather widget, and my "Hula Jesus" brings me peace and comfort inside

 

[mkrishnan]

I think this thread would be remiss without at least a little whining about the complete failure of the calendar widget to do what it's supposed to (i.e. provide information about iCal meetings/events/reminders).

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I use Dashboard about twice daily. I think everyone expected too much of the calendar widget - I don't think it was ever intended to tie into iCal.

 

[mkrishnan]

I use Dashboard about twice daily. I think everyone expected too much of the calendar widget - I don't think it was ever intended to tie into iCal.

Up until recently, the following was listed on the 200+ new features page.

iCal Widget
Quickly view the current day, date, week and month, plus a list of events for each day based on your iCal calendar.

When I checked today, it was gone from the US version of the page, but it is still on this one: http://www.apple.com/ca/macosx/newfeatures/newfeatures.html

Anyway, I hope they implement it eventually -- I think it would be mad tight.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Up until recently, the following was listed on the 200+ new features page.



When I checked today, it was gone from the US version of the page, but it is still on this one: http://www.apple.com/ca/macosx/newfeatures/newfeatures.html

Anyway, I hope they implement it eventually -- I think it would be mad tight.

Somehow, I missed that completely, mkrishnan. I agree that an iCal widget would be handy and a reason to use Dashboard more.

Lately, the translator widget is the one that gets the most use.

 

[h0e0h]

I still use it

I still use dashboard on a regular basis. My favorite and obviously most useful widgets have to be countdown, US Weather, the stock tracker, package tracker (the one with UPS, DHL, and FedEX), Air Traffic Control, and Capture, but i have more on the screen that are less used.

 

[Monoxide]

I think over time I will find more and more use for it. Currently I use it for the TV Guide wich I use a lot, The Radar and Weather, plus yahoo news and the calandar.

 

[whiteangel]

Here it is

I think this thread would be remiss without at least a little whining about the complete failure of the calendar widget to do what it's supposed to (i.e. provide information about iCal meetings/events/reminders).

Someone made an iCal widget, you can get it here.

iCal Events 1.01

 

[munkle]

Widgets I've found myself using are the translator (instead of making a vague one in my head from context or skipping it), the BugMeNot lookup (rather than just avoiding the site), the train schedule (because it's marvelous!), the Su Doku (since it means I don't have to finish it in one go) and the Notepad since it takes up less screen than lots of Stickies.

Could you please give me the link for the BugMeNot widget, I've tried doing a search at Apple and MacUpdate with no luck. Cheers!

 

[mpw]

I might have what you need... Powerball Widget 1.0

homepage.mac.com/durvivor

That looks like what I'm thinking of, apart from two things;

1.Ideally I'd like it for the UK National Lotto
2.Ideally I'd like it for the next draw not the last one.

 

[mkrishnan]

Someone made an iCal widget, you can get it here.

iCal Events 1.01

Thanks! I will check this out.

 

[munkle]

Anyone know how to turn Dashboard on and off? It hogs up some memory and I don't always need it on as I'm limited with a dial up connection.

I don't think you can turn it off, closest you can get is just to disable all widgets, they're the memory hoggers. Oh and not all widgets require an internet connection to work.

 

[mkrishnan]

Thanks again for the iCal widget. It's actually not bad, although it'd be nice if it integrated multiple calendars, and also if it did entire 24 hour days instead of just the next 24 hours (for instance, at the moment, I see events for tomorrow, but I don't see a class that starts at 5PM because it's more than 24 hours away....) I wonder if by any chance this can be changed via the js file without having to mod or recompile the binary. But still, a big improvement.

 

[Crunchy]

I think this thread would be remiss without at least a little whining about the complete failure of the calendar widget to do what it's supposed to (i.e. provide information about iCal meetings/events/reminders).

Yeah, what is the point of the current calendar widget, anyway? I leave it on because it shows the date, but so does the menu bar + iCal. Redundant widgets are pretty silly...although maybe iCal functionality will be added later.

I think I'll take that current cal widget off my Dashboard, now that I think about it...

 

[russed]

i generally tend to use it for the weather and maybe the dictionary when doing some work. i think the general consensus is that people would like to use it more often if there was a useful reason to use it! so i'll just have to wait for that special widget!

 

[xli_ne]

I use it ever so often. Mostly to check the weather.

 

[jayscheuerle]

Does Konfabulator work with Tiger?

I like my weather widget continuously updating in the background...