Macworld Forums

Hi all,

just wondering if I'm the only one who's realising I hit F12 less and less - after the initial novelty of the eye candy gave way to actaully getting on with work and stuff

•The US based weather widget isn't very accurate;
•whenever I use a calculator, I want to be able to see it whilst I'm back
within an application
•Ditto for a calendar
•The Dictionary widget is redundant with the discovery of Control-
Command-D in any cocoa app
•multiple clocks is okay - but even I can subtract 5 from most numbers to
work out New York and mebourne only changes once a year from 9 to 11
hours difference which isn't that hard to remeber

all in all, using the old stand alone apps with similar functions to widgets is more useful and intuitive way of working - but I realise it wouldn't have been a new gizmo in an OS to 'big-up' in a keynote speech

nom,

I agree about the weather widget - I'm still using the bbc website as it's far more accurate. (Much of it is all too American based I find)

I have to admit to finding the SysStat widget extremely good and I also like fat fingers for ebay. These are very handy. I think that the main problems with it are the loading times when you first press F12 (sooo slooow) and the fact that you can't turn it off altogether.
If Apple speeded it up a bit somehow and made it more harmonious with other apps - I think I would use it more.

I did, at one point, use Konfabulator but this just annoyed me and after a couple of days I uninstalled it. I think some people will love it or they will hate it but there's always the temptation to download widgets just for fun. (There's new ones all the time!)
I should imagine many people here have downloaded the hula girl widget for a laugh!!

I just wish Apple had changed that calculator - looks so bad!

Nicintosh,

agree that the time to reload info for net based widgets takes away from the supposed instant gratification it was meant to bring

(the weather widget is particularly prone to this - I thought it had gone completely loopy one day when it said blistering sun on one of our famous carwash impersonation days - only to see it update a mo later)

I may try out fat fingers for ebay - though again I usually have a browser running in background nomatter what I'm up to on the Mac and hitting Command-R is almost as quick as F12

also re downloading new one - I'm still a little loathe to overdo it - what with the prev mentions of security - let alone importing something with bad coding onto your work machine

I also noted the amount of ram it used when I was running multiple weather apps (cannot even remebr why i wanted to do this other than because i could!) so I quit the unnecessary one - and, like you, go to bbc when I really need to know the forecast

I too would like to be able to quit dashboard if I really want to - seems to go against prev Apple custom of allow the user full control?

nom,

Ditto - I've usually got Safari / Firefox running in the background too and almost always on Google! I do find that I don't need the dashboard half as much as I thought I would as I can access everything on the web! I'm not overly concerned about security (kiss of death saying that?) as I always download only from Apple or a known recommended site. I think (and hope) I can trust those!

I agree that the memory hog is a bad one for dashboard (seems to flicker about a lot on my mac) but it's not quite as bad as Skype. (One third of my processor!!)
The option to turn it off would be great as not everyone needs to check weather, ebay, trains, hula girl every 5 minutes and like yourself - I'm surprised Apple don't let you get rid when you want to.
One of my mates said that you could probably force quit it but I think that may cause more problems than solve! We shall see if Apple includes an update whereby you can turn the darling widgets off...although I doubt it.

Nicintosh,
Turn dashboard off http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/18204

nom,

The 'initial novelty of the eye candy' hasn't worn off for me quite yet, but I am quite shallow! I know what you mean though, most of the information can be retrieved better in other ways, the only DB Widgets that I find useful are the train times one, and one that tells me when certain webpages have been updated.

I am a Konfabulator junkie though, and currently I think it does a much better job.

defcom,

thanks for the link to the app for that purpose

should be an option in the sytem though

I wouldn't, personally, want to risk using a 3rd party app that forces it to disappear - just in case it cause a prob further down the line

nom,

The security issues really aren't as long as you download them from a reputable site and even then it's not as bad as some people think. The use of RAM isn't actually a good indicator the way most people check it. OS X caches an awful lot, and that's why when I've got Safari, Mail and Activity monitor open my system is listing 695MB of RAM being used, whereas in real terms it's using about 120MB including the system. When Dashboard is hidden it effectively uses 0 RAM and 0 processor time, that's why quitting it really isn't necessary because it's not doing anything anyway.

Anndra,

Glad you like the train one

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator

Anndra,

I'm sure you're not shallow - maybe you just have a an overly developed 'aesthetic appreciation' segment of the brain

I agree that this the train timetable widget from this forum's own JP is one of the best (used it just after the Tiger install as I was heading to London Bridge to Photo the Mayor)

but as I don't travel into town much I don't use trains that often - but JP's work will stay on the mac for when I do need it (thanks JP)

never used Konfabulator - interesting to note you still prefer it - I kinda feel some sympathy for it as DB was clearly a rip-off of sorts (even if the Konfab developer used some code he had access to when working at apple originally)

Anndra,

You're not shallow - you just love gadgets and gizmos! (We all do!) I have to admit and confess to having over 40 widgets installed but I really only use about 2 at a time!! I think the fascination of it all being so new and fun just made me go widget-mad for a few days!

J.P.,

just spotted after posting my response

interesting to note that about system activity not being that accurate in 'real' terms - kinda defeats the purpose of it really

(I have to confess to doubting the results anyway - given the time DB takes to upload new info - didn't think it could be constantly in real world ram)

I see what you mean about it not needing to be quit(ed?) but there is something about having that little triangle there whether you like it or not

maybe I'll go all Val Singleton and just make a 2mm triangle of sticky back plastic to match my desktop and force my brain into believing nothing's going on in the background

nom,

Just drag it out of the Dock and you a shortcut or screen corner when you want to see it, that's what I've seen most people do.

The way that Mac OS X handles RAM is actually pretty clever, but you can get easily confused as to what RAM is actually in use. Using Activity Monitor the real memory in use numbers are the Wired and Active numbers (not added together, but they're both different types of "in use" RAM).

Just wait until you see the TV Guide widget and the Macworld UK RSS one. They're both pretty nifty

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator

J.P.,

Ha! Me big fool!

Had assumed that because option to quit wasn't in the menu - it couldn't be removed from dock

cheers!

PS sorry for pigeon english - go like that when excited

nom,

Dashboard was a five minute wonder on my Mac. The only thing on it now is JP's train thing, but the last time I used a train was about two years ago...

Certainly not worth Apple making such a song and dance about it and definitely not worth upgrading for.

andybarton,

agreed - sadly have to admit it smacks of something those in the Mac OS development team thought, "Hey, here's something that looks new and works in a different way - so we can really push it as a major new feature"

Of course it may evolve into widgets that can stay on the desktop (I have heard there is a way of doing this even now) and are constantly viewable whilst in other apps - I think this would make them far more useful

this sounds a bit like what I heard M$ were planning on having web features right at OS level - so maybe Apple didn't want to look like they were merely pre-empting a future (current?) M$ feature

but in the end - the gimmick of rapidly appearing and disappearing info is far outweighed by the advantage you have by having the same info a in a window that's there behind/alongside the one you're working in (so you can drag and drop info for example - which cannot be done via dashboard)

Edit: forgot to say - although dashboard is not worth the upgrade, Spotlight has already proved worth the price and then some

personally, I'd have paid twice what I did for Tiger for just that alone (and I did get the Family Pack)

nom,

The whole point of Dashboard is that you don't take up screen space with things that you only use occassionally. You can also drag and drop from widgets without a problem, try typing something in a sticky and then dragging it onto Safari. That works with files as well (there is a very nifty Transmit widget, pick up a file, hit Dashboard and drop it on the Transmit widget to send it via FTP).

JP.

Apple Certified System Administrator