Dashboard Question

adamrao

Since I have not been able to see or use a pre-release version of Tiger, I am hoping someone who has can answer my question.



Looking at Dashboard on the Apple website makes me excited. It looks like it could be really functional (and cool). However, I noticed something that disturbed me. Is it possible to have Dashboard (or a widget) open along side your normal applications? When watching the preview video, it doesn't look like it is. It would seem that you are either accessing Dashboard or you are using your applications, but that they can't be used concurrently.



For example, I can see how it could be useful to use my Calculator widget along side an Excel spreadsheet or a Pages document when I need to do some simple number crunching. Or maybe I want to have my calendar widget available while I'm writing an e-mail so I can look up multiple dates during the year to see which day they fall on. Do I have to keep switching back-and-forth between Dashboard and Mail in order to do this? Or is it possible to have Dashboard and Mail running at the same time with the calendar to the side of Mail for easy viewing?



Anyone know? Thanks in advance.

buonrotto

AFAIK, no, you access your Dashboard widgets as needed on top of your current windows, use them as needed, then they go away. I'm not sure how drag and drop works, though it might work just like how Expose handles it. Copy and paste works as well as I understand, though it seems that you have to know the keyboard shortcuts.

cake

Quote:

Originally posted by adamrao

...Do I have to keep switching back-and-forth between Dashboard and Mail in order to do this? Or is it possible to have Dashboard and Mail running at the same time with the calendar to the side of Mail for easy viewing?

From what I've seen, if you have your Dashboard widgets showing, once you click in any other application or on your desktop, the widgets disappear automatically.



Not sure if this behavior is customizable or not.

brussell

It's a good question, and it points to a fundamental weirdness about Dashboard. It's cool, but is it really more functional than simply having separate apps for all these things? How often do you really need a bunch of little apps all at once? It seems to me that, more often than not, you'd want just one of them. And often, you'd want to use one of them in collaboration with some other app, like the calculator plus Excel, which I know I do all the time. But if a bunch of widgets come up at the same, it's more difficult to switch back and forth, not less difficult.

yikes600

Widgets are meant to be there in an instant and gone just as fast. The calculator widget, for example, is meant to for when you need a quick calculation. It won't replace the normal Calculator app.

dave k.

Does anyone know what happens when you have your Dashboard widgets open and your press cmd-tab?

krispie

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave K.

Does anyone know what happens when you have your Dashboard widgets open and your press cmd-tab?

Yes.

placebo

Quote:

Originally posted by krispie

Yes.

I'd assume that it brings up the application switcher, and when you choose an app and release Command, it zaps out of Dashboard and into that application.

cake

You could be half right, Placebo, but I'm just guessing.

adamrao

If that is the case (Dashboard OR Apps/not both concurrently), then I see Dashboard as a really "neat" thing, but not very useful. Obviously, the Calculator example isn't the best since the Calculator application will still exist (I hope!) in Tiger. However, what if I wanted to check the weather with my Dashboard widget and keep it up to write an e-mail to someone to tell them what the weather is like? I'll have to look at the widget, switch back to Mail, type some, bring the widget back up, and so forth. It would be easier to go to a web site that shows me the forecast instead of using Dashboard! That seems like a complete waste, though since I should have access to a five-day forecast in my Dashboard instantaneously!



I think that this issue really should be addressed, or that Dashboard should be "clarified" in some way to help the user understand its purpose.

ipodandimac

Quote:

Originally posted by adamrao

However, what if I wanted to check the weather with my Dashboard widget and keep it up to write an e-mail to someone to tell them what the weather is like? I'll have to look at the widget, switch back to Mail, type some, bring the widget back up, and so forth.

well apple is assuming you have a better memory than a goldfish. first off, why cant the other person just look up their own weather, and second of all, how detailed are getting such that you have to check the widget several times? unless all your friends are meteorologists that dont know how to use the internet.

a_greer

Quote:

Originally posted by adamrao

If that is the case (Dashboard OR Apps/not both concurrently), then I see Dashboard as a really "neat" thing, but not very useful. Obviously, the Calculator example isn't the best since the Calculator application will still exist (I hope!) in Tiger. However, what if I wanted to check the weather with my Dashboard widget and keep it up to write an e-mail to someone to tell them what the weather is like?

Useing your logic I say, why not just use the calculator in your desk drawr, and for pitty sake, if you want to know the weather, look outside!



I personaly like a little redundency, One of the big reasons that MS office took off like wildfire was the fact that there are ~3 ways to do anything, a toolbar/pannel/pane button, a pull down menu or keyboard shortcuts. Why not have access via multiple routs to the same tool?

hobbes

Dashboard was designed to appear and disappear quickly, not to interweave with other applications.



The real issue here, which is a good one, is whether data can be cut and pasted from Dashboard. Reports so far indicate that you can, via command-C (despite the absence of a standard menu bar).



That's good news, but I'd like to see an additional solution that doesn't rely on the user (a) intuiting that's what they need to, and (b) knowing that shortcut -- common as it is.

hobbes

Holy moley. Let me be the first to eat my own words.



http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=244285



(check out erik's post, close to the bottom of the page)



Apparently you *can* drag widgets out from the Dashboard layer, should you choose to do so. At least in this developer seed...

brussell

Wow, thanks Hobbes, that is very cool. That has the best of both worlds - the ability to treat them like separate apps, but also the ability to flash them on and off the screen with a keystroke.

ipodandimac

i have a question: can you move app windows into dashboard? that would be a great solution for my iChat buddy list window.

hobbes

Quote:

Originally posted by ipodandimac

i have a question: can you move app windows into dashboard? that would be a great solution for my iChat buddy list window.

Almost certainly not. But I bet someone can (and will) make a widget that displays an iChat buddy list.

a_greer

I would love an analog VU meter widget for little more than fun, but fun is good...I would also love to see a customiseable bank of proformance meters, cpu, ram, gpu. customisable in the sense that you could have a digital readouts or analog gauges, or just 3 bars (it has not been demod but it surely will ship with one)



And is there a finder widget, that could be emencely handy, or with spotlight maybe redundent, but i do not know because I have yet to touch tiger

adamrao

I realize that my theoretical situations with Dashboard (Calculator/Excel and Weather/E-mail) aren't usually situations that require a lot of detailed work, but they seem to me to be good examples of why Dashboard seems "fun" but not exceptional in terms of its usability.



I'm looking forward to Tiger, particularly for Spotlight, but I really like the way Dashboard operates as well. I am just making the point that it has limitations.



However, if that post in the MacNN forums is correct, Dashboard may surprise us all! I don't think Dashboard is intended to let us throw away all the tools we already have, but it's simply there to supplement them and allow the user to get at them easier.



So, in the example of creating a widget for iChat buddy lists... sounds fabulous, but I would imagine that we'll still be using iChat to send and receive instant messages. Dashboard just gives us a simpler way to check the list.

buonrotto

It would be very wrong to think that Dashbaord is some kind of great new way of doing everything. Its uses are limited. Deliberately. If people are getting all hopped up imaging that they'll be living in Dashboardland when Tiger comes out, or that people will develop the next Photoshop killer and pillow fluffer in that environment, they're going to be sorely disappointed.

ipodandimac

Quote:

Originally posted by BuonRotto

It would be very wrong to think that Dashbaord is some kind of great new way of doing everything. Its uses are limited. Deliberately. If people are getting all hopped up imaging that they'll be living in Dashboardland when Tiger comes out, or that people will develop the next Photoshop killer and pillow fluffer in that environment, they're going to be sorely disappointed.

i wouldnt be living in dashboard world, but things like checking my buddy list are frequent tasks, and i'd rather not keep the window up or hide it. i plan on using dashboard for all the small things i do a lot so i can keep little windows off my main screen and in the 'virtual' one.