Tiger Dashboard & Spotlight questions here

rokrok
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
okay, first thing after installing tiger was invoking dashboard (also because spotlight was indexing the drive... which, as an aside, made things quite pokey for a few hours on my mac. ah well...). anyway, while dashboard is cool, is there any way to have a widget show persistently? like have the itunes widget always visible without having to invoke the entire dashboard "layer"? kinda like, i hate to say it, how konfabulator works?



oh, and as a special request to apple and dashboard widget makers, could you please make the same world clock widget, but with a way to add cities by name rather than the drop-down list? i live in new orleans (well, covington), and getting the austin, texas time isn't exactly the same. well, okay, it IS, but i'd like to see my town's name on it.



also, how do you adjust the width of the spotlight drop-down menu? it's finding stuff, but some of the titles of files are long, and i can't see any standard stretch-thumb to open up the menu wider. i could swear i have seen the menu wider in spotlight screenshots...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    like have the itunes widget always visible without having to invoke the entire dashboard "layer"?



    just use the mini itunes window built into itunes. (activated by clicking the green circle when viewing the main itunes window. in the prefs, you can set this window to always be on top of other windows. the dashboard window is for people who want that mini controller on the side (that is, not always there), and the itunes one is for people who always want it there.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    just use the mini itunes window built into itunes. (activated by clicking the green circle when viewing the main itunes window. in the prefs, you can set this window to always be on top of other windows. the dashboard window is for people who want that mini controller on the side (that is, not always there), and the itunes one is for people who always want it there.



    okay, perhaps a poor example on my part. my point is that there are some widgets that people would want constant access to, like konfabulator does (i'm not really a konfab advocate... i never bought the app, but i can see the advantage of having some of these "mini-apps" always on, and have even more together in the dashboard "layer."



    but i guess the answer is "no, widgets remain in the dashboard layer at all times." personally, i think there should be some option to break off widgets on a case-by-case basis from the dashboard layer when the user wants to. i would use stickies as an example, except apple has left the default stickies app hanging around AND the dashboard widget, which makes things bit, um, odd.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    nd32k3nd32k3 Posts: 187member
    there isnt a way to do what you want but i know exactly what you mean. im hoping they change that in the next update. I want my weather to be on my desktop the entire time at a desktop level. So I can click on it unless i press for dashboard. Just so i dont have to press it everytime and i can still view
  • Reply 4 of 16
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by nd32k3

    there isnt a way to do what you want but i know exactly what you mean. im hoping they change that in the next update. I want my weather to be on my desktop the entire time at a desktop level. So I can click on it unless i press for dashboard. Just so i dont have to press it everytime and i can still view



    konfabulator is working on a konfab widget that will launch dashboard widgets, so you would be able to place them on your desktop if you were running kaonfab. i hate konfab though
  • Reply 5 of 16
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by nd32k3

    there isnt a way to do what you want but i know exactly what you mean. im hoping they change that in the next update. I want my weather to be on my desktop the entire time at a desktop level. So I can click on it unless i press for dashboard. Just so i dont have to press it everytime and i can still view







    Just activate Dashboard, start dragging the Weather Widget out of the tray at the bottom of the screen, then while still dragging, hit F12 to deactivate Dashboard. Drop the widget and it now floats above all the windows.
  • Reply 6 of 16
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by lundy

    Just activate Dashboard, start dragging the Weather Widget out of the tray at the bottom of the screen, then while still dragging, hit F12 to deactivate Dashboard. Drop the widget and it now floats above all the windows.



    dude, you are BEYOND awesome.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    hirsch22hirsch22 Posts: 18member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    dude, you are BEYOND awesome.



    WAY beyond!



    This should be a new post of its own, really.
  • Reply 8 of 16
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hirsch22

    WAY beyond!



    This should be a new post of its own, really.




    My pleasure folks.



    If someone wants to start listing Dashboard tips in one post, I'll sticky it.
  • Reply 9 of 16
    the cool gutthe cool gut Posts: 1,714member
    If you want to start a thread about how awsome lundy is, thats fine - though a little weird. I'm sorry but making that thread a sticky is going just a bit too far.
  • Reply 10 of 16
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Of course, then you have this tidbit from an Apple dev over at Slashdot:



    Quote:

    Is there a way to make Dashboard widgets sticky on the desktop?



    You don't want them to. One of the benefits of the Dashboard layer is the fact that when the Dashboard isn't visible, the widgets are completely suspended, consuming no CPU cycles at all. If you put a widget on the screen outside the Dasboard layer --which of course you can do, if you run Dashboard in debug mode --it'll execute its run loop all the time, sucking up CPU cycles unnecessarily.



  • Reply 11 of 16
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    okay, getting back to my other question, is there any way to expand the width of the spotlight menu? or do you have to invoke the spotlight "window" in order to do that?
  • Reply 12 of 16
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    Of course, then you have this tidbit from an Apple dev over at Slashdot:



    well, i'm not so sure about that. i'm running a weather widget on top of my windows, using lundy's suggestion (without resorting to debug mode), and top in terminal says all of my widgets are using 0% CPU right now.
  • Reply 13 of 16
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    okay, i'm exhuming this recently-deceased thread because i can't find the question i posted elsewhere: namely, how do you REMOVE widgets? do you have to remove them from the /Library/Widgets folder manually? i would think there'd be some sort of drag-n-drop discard method like the dock.
  • Reply 14 of 16
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Amnesty has a lot of potential, and is probably the next logical step (towards a complete Konfabulator takeover) that Apple will take things, if they can make it so CPU usage isn't as much of an issue.



    http://www.mesadynamics.com/amnesty.htm



    Amnesty is fairly buggy though, but worth a few minutes of playing with. (I can't use it fulltime, it's too quirky).
  • Reply 15 of 16
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    how do you REMOVE widgets? do you have to remove them from the /Library/Widgets folder manually? i would think there'd be some sort of drag-n-drop discard method like the dock.



    Dragging an item off the Dock does not remove the original application either.



    By "remove" do you mean get rid of it's window or the actual .wdgt file?



    You can close any widget by holding option and clicking the X circle that appears at the upper left of the widget (you need to move the cursor for it to show up).



    As for deleting the .wdgt file, yeah, drag and drop to the trash or command-delete it from the ~/Library/Widgets/ folder...



    If you were deleting an application from the Dock, you'd have to do Show In Finder and move it to the Trash too, right?



    But yeah, ideally you could command-click and choose "Remove this Widget", like you could to to System preferences in Panther (and you can't do anymore in Tiger!).
  • Reply 16 of 16
    argeliusargelius Posts: 309member
    No one may be watching this topic anymore, but thought I'd ask here rather than create a new topic.



    I'm lovin' the F12 maneuver described above to get widgets to stay on the desktop. However, I've noticed that some widgets are always on top of all other windows (such as the weather widget) and others are happily placed on the desktop (such as the Dictionary/Thesaurus) where I want them.



    Is this behavior a function of the particular widget? I can figure out any way to get the weather widget to not stay on top of all windows...



    Thanks!
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