Yahoo! Widgets 4 released

Dashboard's developer mode confuses me. Everyone says activating it puts my Dashboard widgets on my desktop. Then why don't they stay there? Once I open my apps to use them, the widget(s) are on top of all the windows!!!

And yes, Dashboard does eat up memory and CPU whether displayed or not. As long as any number of widgets are left open.

And lastly, Dashboard came under a lot of controversy when it debuted. People said it copied Konfabulator but Apple claimed it was a revamped return of Desk Accessories. I don't really care, 'cause I disabled it anyway. I got a bunch of Menu Extras and use Geek Tool to see the kind of stuff I used widgets for on my desktop and menubar.

But I'll at least read the release notes...

Dashboard sucks. Widgets are really pointless if you can't keep them on the desktop.

It's true that Apple copied Yahoo!Widgets (formerly "Konfabulator") in most major respects when creating Dashboard, and that its utility is thus reduced to Mac users. But IMHO, with Dashboard as with others, only use the built-in Apple technology if you're really too lazy to install something better.

Lars:
They really mostly eat memory when not displayed, and the cpu jumps a bit when visible and active. Your point still remains valid, of course.

I see a bunch of posts about desktopping widgets, but none about another key function of Yahoo! Widgets: having widgets while using XP. Any time I switch to my XP partition I'm greeted by a slew of widgets similar in function to my Dashboard ones, helping ease the loss of functionality hopping between OS' brings. Thanks to some dedicated folks there's many that mimic the look and feel of Apple's default widgets so it feels all the more similar.

Jayson, you don't really think that Dashboard doesn't eat cpu and memory (even when it not even showing?) Because it does. Open up Activity Monitor and see for yourself.

I use Yahoo Widget Engine under 10.3.9 since I don't have Dashboard and I love it. I just wish I could get Dashboard widgets to work in it. :)

Now if only they would put out another beta of Yahoo Messenger for Mac. It's coming on a year since they released Beta 1, and Mac support is starting to look hopeless again.

F12 blows? Huh? What blows is a bunch of widgets on my desktop eating up CPU and memory...

Yeah, the entire reason for the Yahoo Widgets thing is so you can put them on your desktop. (Developer mode for Dashboard is only half a solution.) I don't get it -- all Apple has to do is make Dashboard do that, and Yahoo Widgets is dead. Why do they insist on the "Dashboard" metaphor?