Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks
Here's a handy trick I came across this afternoon while using Dashboard. Hold down the option key while hovering your cursor over an open widget to bring up its close button. Now you can close a widget without having to first open the widget bar. This may be old news, but I hadn't seen mention of it before. Use Spotlight as a reference tool. Type any word in the Spotlight box and one of the top entries will be a definition. Click on it, and it will bring up the dictionary application to check the word in either the dictionary, thesaurus, Apple database, or Wikipedia.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
doktor242 said 3:34PM on 7-23-2005
'Command' + '=' will bring up or down the widget selection bar at the bottom of the window when dashboard is open.
Reply
Ryan Groat said 3:43PM on 7-23-2005
Command + R refreshes the last widget you clicked on or opened or something with a cool 'swirl' effect that I think is coreimage only. I wish that there was a way to refresh all open widgets at the same time.
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Clayton Zaugg said 1:58AM on 7-24-2005
Brilliant, thanks for that great tip!
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Henry said 4:27PM on 7-23-2005
If you drag a widget from the drawer and close dashboard while you're still holding it the widget will stay on your desktop until you open dashboard again. If you want it to stay permanently (Until you drag it back into the dashboard) and to be able to drag a widget that is already open onto the desktop you have to enable devmode. To do this you type:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
into the terminal press return and logout and log back in.
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Jeff Wheeler said 4:30PM on 7-23-2005
On the weather widget, you can Cmd+Opt+click to go to Nowhere, and continue clicking to see all weather options.
Also, did anybody notice the new Widget Manager widget is weird, and always has a close button. It's the only one like that.
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Zac said 6:20PM on 7-23-2005
Ironic that you post this after writing that rather snarky entry abour Daring Fireball since he posted this exact same tip weeks ago.
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James said 10:41PM on 7-23-2005
As of 10.4.2 Command + Left Arrow/Right Arrow scrolls through each 'page' of the widgets bar. It's much quicker than moving your cursor down to those tiny little arrows on either side of the screen! In fact come to think of it I haven't seen this on Mac OS X Hints... Better add it...
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kansir said 10:53PM on 7-23-2005
Thanks TUAW and everybody here.
I am new to Tiger, i learn a lot about widget from here.
I am happy to use Tiger, it's great !
I am also happy to know about TUAW, it is a very useful website for Mac user.
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jim said 11:57PM on 7-23-2005
Is there a page in apple that lists out all these keyboard shortcuts for dashboard/widgets?
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Tim O. said 10:08AM on 7-24-2005
Henry: even better then logging out then back in, just type "killall Dock" (withot quotes, and the D in dock must be capital) while you are still in the terminal! Some actually made a widget to do this, and I urge everyone to check it out. http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=671
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Henry said 3:15PM on 7-24-2005
Tim: I like that widget a lot. What, exactly, does killall Dock do?
It seems to me that Apple should have devmode always on as it adds some functionality and doesn't cause any problems as far as I know.
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Tim O. said 7:53PM on 7-24-2005
killall Dock just restarts the dock, no more. The dock disappears for about 5 seconds, then comes back up. This is what the devmode widget does to reset your dock. All your widgets are intact, it is just like restarting your computer.
So, in short, all you have to do to enable devmode (without the widget) is entrer these commands into the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
killall Dock
Reply
Scott Gardner said 10:28PM on 7-24-2005
While in Dashboard, command+option+'+ button' zooms in, command+option+'- button' zooms out. Use mouse/trackpad to move around within a zoomed in window. This works the same as--yet independently of--the Desktop.
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Jerid Hill said 9:45AM on 7-25-2005
F12
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Balperro said 12:56PM on 10-07-2005
Hi,
This is my first experience with Tiger and Mac. While playing with the cool features of the my mac. I happened to drag the dashboard icon from the Dock to the trash and cleaned up. Now, my dashboard icon is gone and I don't know if I can put it back where it was.
Thanks for your help
Bal
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