[nemanirc]

…I am quickly running out of room on my old 15" monitor set at 1024x768. Maybe the next iteration would let me have two Dashboards so I could cycle between them. Otherwise, I would have to keep adding and deleting them to have room.

Here is what I keep up now:

• Calculator
• Calendar (minimized to just the date)
• Address book
• My Yahoo!
• Weather (three locations)
• Dictionary
• Yellow Pages
• Stock Tracker
• Rabbit Radio (for NPR stations)

I would love to have package tracker, flight tracker, and scoreboard on a second Dashboard screen.

[cla]

If non-active widgets would be better visualized (along screen edges without the requirement of scrolling in order to see them all), and that floating effect removed, I would feel somewhat more comfortable. As of now, a widget would be have to instantiated in order for me to be really effective.

The only thing I miss now is a netstat widget, showing ALL of my incoming and outgoing connections along with ports/protocols. Konfabulator had it, so I guess it's only a matter of time. (All I found was widgets showing my IP. What's next, a widget showing my name?)

[ShotgunEd]

When we get truly scalable UI elements, Dashboard should have a slider, maybe even a per widget slider that will adjust the size of the widget(s).

When i say should, i mean it would be nice.

[chris v]

Dashboard is clearly a nefarious plot hatched by the evil iCon to persuade you to buy a larger monitor.

(P.S. i got a killer deal on a LaCie Electron blue 19" from LaCie's refurb page a while back. $199.00 American.)

[SMacTech]

Originally Posted by nemanirc

…


I would love to have package tracker, flight tracker, and scoreboard on a second Dashboard screen.

You are going to be running out of RAM soon too. DashBoard widgets use way too much memory for their functionality.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally Posted by SMacTech

You are going to be running out of RAM soon too. DashBoard widgets use way too much memory for their functionality.

Agreed. I have 11 widgets on my screen and they take up roughly 80 MB of RAM when inactive.

[MartiNZ]

I agree about the limited space issue, and the difficulties with displaying inactive widgets. However, I downloaded DashOpener - it's among Apple's dashboard downloads - and it pretty much solves all the problems. It itself is very small and can easily open any widget without! that damn rippling! Okay it's impressive the first couple of times, but when you realise that you will actually be opening widgets reasonably often, it just gets in the way - as does the widget bar and its shifting of the whole screen!

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Agreed. I have 11 widgets on my screen and they take up roughly 80 MB of RAM when inactive.

However since they're not actually doing anything with that 'RAM' it's almost definitely actually virtual memory and so isn't using up any of your RAM at all.

[bentoon]

and how, pray tell could one disable/reinable the dash easily

[Dale Sorel]

Originally Posted by bentoon

and how, pray tell could one disable/reinable the dash easily

Don't use it, and it's not there

[bentoon]

Originally Posted by Dale Sorel

Don't use it, and it's not there

If I don't have any up on the screen when I activate DashB it still seems to be sucking Power No?

[dru]

If you want it to go away (be disabled), close all the widgets and just don't run it. When you need items, pulled them onto your dashboard for that session.

[Dale Sorel]

Originally Posted by bentoon

If I don't have any up on the screen when I activate DashB it still seems to be sucking Power No?

Dashboard use no CPU if it's not running.

[bentoon]

Ahh So,
Thank You...

[bentoon]

or simply turn it off...

http://www.puissancemac.ch/dashoff/index.html

[Big Mac]

I'm resurrecting this thread because I was late to the Tiger party and want to comment on Widget memory bloat. If I leave widgets open for a few days, I'll notice most of them are taking around 60MBs real memory a piece. Third party widgets do this, but so do some of Apple's, such as the weather widget. The strange thing is, I really haven't noticed this in my other user's accounts, but they may be closing them more often.

[viruscool]

I've noticed that aswell, I once caught Unit Converter using over 100MB, now that is a lot of memory hugging.

[Zimphire]

Originally Posted by SMacTech

You are going to be running out of RAM soon too. DashBoard widgets use way too much memory for their functionality.

That is why I only keep the one or two I use alot open, and shut the others when not needed.

They don't take up any ram just sitting there in the doc

[wataru]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

However since they're not actually doing anything with that 'RAM' it's almost definitely actually virtual memory and so isn't using up any of your RAM at all.

Yeah so it's in VM paged out to the disk. Then I have to sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting for the widgets to get paged back in when I activate Dashboard next. That delay really is maddening. It pretty much ruins the idea of Dashboard. It's supposed to be information at my fingertips, not information about 10 seconds after I hit the F8 key.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by wataru

Yeah so it's in VM paged out to the disk. Then I have to sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting for the widgets to get paged back in when I activate Dashboard next. That delay really is maddening. It pretty much ruins the idea of Dashboard. It's supposed to be information at my fingertips, not information about 10 seconds after I hit the F8 key.

I find the more significant delay comes from retrieving the information from the internet rather than paging the memory, and even then it's nearly instantaneous most of the time. I pretty much only use the world clock and weather widgets, though.

[andretan]

Originally Posted by ShotgunEd

When we get truly scalable UI elements, Dashboard should have a slider, maybe even a per widget slider that will adjust the size of the widget(s).

When i say should, i mean it would be nice.

Bingo. Some widgets are horribly big.

[wataru]

Originally Posted by nonhuman

I find the more significant delay comes from retrieving the information from the internet rather than paging the memory, and even then it's nearly instantaneous most of the time. I pretty much only use the world clock and weather widgets, though.

I'm speaking of my experience on an 800MHz iBook G4, which has a very slow, almost full hard drive. I also could probably stand to add more RAM (I consistently get several gigs of swap with my current 640MB), and I use Dashboard very infrequently. As such, paging is probably a much bigger hit for me than you.

[cgc]

While on the subject of Dashboard, how about an option to snap to grid so they line up. AND WTF DO THEY SEEM TO MOVE AND REARRANGE WHEN I LEAVE DASHBOARD AND COME BACK LATER? argh!

[gooffer]

Hmmm are you guys only concerened with silly memory ? anyone every thought this is the best way to launch a nice virus that does something in the background. Apple certainly doesn't check widgets they just promote them on their site. Now the first one will be a simple one like taking a screen shoot of what you have going on an sending of it to some server in the Ukraine, and before you know it there will be a widget that keystroke maps you, happy online banking. I say get rid of the damn Widgets they are for lazy bums, if you want to see maps open the browser and type the full url or use you bookmark don't widget it they are EVIL sounds to me like a mircosoft idea.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by gooffer

Hmmm are you guys only concerened with silly memory ? anyone every thought this is the best way to launch a nice virus that does something in the background. Apple certainly doesn't check widgets they just promote them on their site. Now the first one will be a simple one like taking a screen shoot of what you have going on an sending of it to some server in the Ukraine, and before you know it there will be a widget that keystroke maps you, happy online banking. I say get rid of the damn Widgets they are for lazy bums, if you want to see maps open the browser and type the full url or use you bookmark don't widget it they are EVIL sounds to me like a mircosoft idea.

You're late to the party - that issue was debated to death back when there was a legitimate security hole in Dashboard. The fact is, gooffer, Mac users are accustomed to downloading all sorts of freeware/shareware and demoware that has not been certified as virus free. Any of that software could contain malicious code, but OS X has not had any such incident as of yet.

[gooffer]

Well then I guess I hope little snitch will alert me when the s*** hits the fan.

[Randman]

10.4.2 has increased widget security and increased widget management.

[tavilach]

Originally Posted by gooffer

Hmmm are you guys only concerened with silly memory ? anyone every thought this is the best way to launch a nice virus that does something in the background. Apple certainly doesn't check widgets they just promote them on their site. Now the first one will be a simple one like taking a screen shoot of what you have going on an sending of it to some server in the Ukraine, and before you know it there will be a widget that keystroke maps you, happy online banking. I say get rid of the damn Widgets they are for lazy bums, if you want to see maps open the browser and type the full url or use you bookmark don't widget it they are EVIL sounds to me like a mircosoft idea.

Widgets are for lazy bums? If that's the case, Mac OS X is for lazy bums. Computers are for lazy bums. Even pens are for lazy bums! We should all have to etch our ideas in stone: That's the proper way. Right?

Moving on, I have 1GB of RAM, and I'm uncomfortable having Dashboard take up over 100MB of RAM (with only about ten widgets open, and a lot more screen real estate to spare). I'm also uncomfortable buying more RAM just for Dashboard. Is there any way to tell Dashboard to only use memory that's paged to the HD? I could really care less if the widgets are slower...having them is more important.

Furthermore, is there a way to close a widget, and have it reappear in the correct location upon turning it back on?

I love these widgets so much, mainly for the novelty...but I worry that I won't be able to use them much.