Dashboard | Putting Widgets On Your Desktop

Tuesday, January 31 2006 @ 08:21 PM SGT

Contributed by: Mack

Something Mac developers have been able to do since the introduction of Dashboard can now be accessed by everyone. Just follow these simple steps and you can place your Dashboard widgets right on your desktop.

Mesa Dynamics has introduced Amnesty which is a simple application that sits on your Mac OS X menubar that allows you to choose the widgets that you want to live on your Desktop. Shareware for USD$19.95.

There's however, a simpler solution that's free but requires tweaking your Mac OS X slightly. Instructions inside!

There are a few caveats to watch out for before carrying out this tutorial:

  1. this requires access of Mac OS X through the Terminal application; if you're not comfortable with command line programming you should not proceed (see Amnesty);
  2. placing wdigets on your Desktop consumes valuable resources and may slow down some Macs;
  3. the Dashboard developer mode must remain on at all times that widgets are required on your Desktop

Launch your Terminal application which is found in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder.


Enabling Dashboard Developer Mode

Bear in mind that command input in the Terminal window is case sensitive - typing commands in the wrong case will produce inaccurate results. To enable the Dashboard developer mode, type out the following in your Terminal window:

The "killall Dock" command restarts your Dock, of which Dashboard is part of. Typing that command will cause your Dock to vanish and relaunch.


Detaching Widgets And Putting Them On Your Desktop

Once the Dock reappears, activate the Dashboard. Click and hold down your mouse/trackpad button and disengage Dashboard (F12 assuming, you haven't changed the default). This detaches the widget from Dashboard and allows you to position it anywhere on your Desktop.


Switching Off Dashboard Developer Mode

To disable the Dashboard developer mode, launch Terminal and type the following commands in the Terminal window:


Re-Attaching Widgets

To re-attach widgets to Dashboard, enable the Dashboard developer mode again and reverse the process of detaching the widget by, clicking on the widget on your Desktop and activate Dashboard (F12 assuming, you haven't changed the default). Once you're done, disable Dashboard developer mode.


Note: Dashboard developer mode does not need to be turned on to enable your widgets to live on your Desktop. Its advisable to disable the Dashboard developer mode once you've carried out your widget organisation. Using this method of detaching widgets unfortunately does not place widgets on the Desktop layer and there's no transparency so detached widgets sit atop Application windows. Mesa Dynamics' Amnesty is your best bet if you'd rather have the widget sit on your Desktop layer, without interfering with your Application windows.

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