[HOWTO] Enable Hidden Dashboard Features

[whitesaint]

From the website - MacWorld

See Dashboard widgets without clicking
Tired of having to mouse over and click on the big plus sign (+) to bring up the Dashboard bar? Here’s a little-known (and undocumented) keyboard shortcut: after activating Dashboard (the default shortcut on most computers is F12), just press Command-equal sign (=) to bring up the Widget bar. Press the combo again to make the bar vanish. Unfortunately, you can’t activate the widgets without resorting to the mouse.—RG

Whip widgets into shape
Having problems getting a widget to work? Often, all you need to do is reload it. To do so, click on the widget and press Command-R.—Ted Landau

Find missing widgets

Ever put a new widget in your Widgets folder but then fail to see it on the Widget bar? Scroll past where it should be on the bar (widgets appear in alphabetical order) and then back again. You should now see it where it belongs.—Dori Smith

Place a widget in the Finder
If you’d rather see a widget all the time—not just when you switch to Dashboard—you can move the widget to Tiger’s Finder layer, so it appears on the desktop. Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities); then type defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES . Log out and then log back in, and you’ll be able to pull as many widgets into the Finder layer as you like. While dragging the widget from the Widget bar, press F12 to close Dashboard. When you release the mouse, the widget will appear on the desktop.—DS

[fryke]

Sadly, "=" is only available via "Shift-0" on Swiss German keyboards like mine, and Dashboard doesn't take that as the same... :/

[fryke]

Ah! Just found it... I just have to do Cmd-^ instead. Sometimes trying every impossible key-combo really helps. (And sometimes that leads to the destruction of computers.)

[whitesaint]

thanks, i thought these "hidden" features would be useful for somebody, thanks for replying. Have you tried the Command-R combination? It makes the widget do a funky "swirl" animation when they reload. Long live dashboard

[fryke]

Yeah. Well: I heard about all the shortcuts even before Tiger was released, but I always thought that some of them were US-English-keyboard dependant. Now I just have to actually _remember_ Cmd-^...

[sourcehound]

Place a widget in the Finder
If you’d rather see a widget all the time—not just when you switch to Dashboard—you can move the widget to Tiger’s Finder layer, so it appears on the desktop. Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities); then type defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES . Log out and then log back in, and you’ll be able to pull as many widgets into the Finder layer as you like. While dragging the widget from the Widget bar, press F12 to close Dashboard. When you release the mouse, the widget will appear on the desktop.—DS

You can use Mac HelpMate to enable Dashboard dev mode (widgets in Finder) or to completely disable Dashboard without any typing in the Terminal.

[ra3ndy]

Wow....the devmode trick is awesome....

So, umm...any one figured out how you get a widget back OFF your desktop?. I have a big ol calendar hovering atop everything now. And on a 12" iBook, it's a big ol calendar.

Tried killing in Activity Monitor (just reloads it)
Tried setting Devmode back to NO.

(Prayed. Lit some incense. Paid my bills. None of these things helped either.)

[ra3ndy]

Neat.... figured it out.

Just click-hold on the errant widget, open dashboard, and let go. Puts the widget back on the dashboard, where it can be humanely euthanized.