[freudling]

Still debate out there about dashboard. Same thing when Expose hit. I have spent the last 2 hours using nothing but dashboard. I find it quite useful. I am researching for an article, using worldbook/wikipedia widgets, all within a widget window. When I need to look up a word, I use the supplied dictionary widget. If I want to adjust iTunes volumes or skip a song, I use the miniTunes widget. When I get board, I look at my news headlines widget with summaries from my fav publications. When I have an idea for my sand up act or need to take a note, I use my notes widget. If I have something that needs a voice print, I use the voice recorder widget.

I have really found a lot of use for this. Just an extension of Expose, allowing one one to use the windows in view. This has resulted in speeding up my processing time significantly. Now, I don't have to vascillate back and forth from program to program, going down to the dock and messing with Expose, all my apps are on screen and ready for use.

[MaxPower2k3]

doesn't sound like much of a debate, sounds like you're an ideal dashboard user

[wataru]

Why use a widget that's just an interface to a website when you could just use the website itself and not waste RAM or sacrifice usability? Widgets are fine for displaying changing results for a constant query, like the weather widget. But I just don't understand these widgets whose sole purpose is to let you search a single website. Just go to the damn website!

[budster101]

Because it's faster that way?

[Randman]

Originally Posted by wataru

But I just don't understand these widgets whose sole purpose is to let you search a single website. Just go to the damn website!

So, you don't use the Google bar in Safari or Firefox? You go to google.com?

[wataru]

The Google bar is fine. You're in a web browser, meant for browsing web pages, which is what you're looking for. That's completely different from a needlessly specialzed widget floating in a separate layer above what you're ultimately going back to anyway, a web browser.

The widget philosophy will net you a million different widgets, each for a different website. I know, how about we make one big widget that can deal with all of those websites? Oh wait, we have that. It's called a web browser.

Or how about this: I need to search the PHP documentation a lot. Let's compare approaches.

The website way:
1. Click on the browser icon in the Dock. I don't quit my browser, so I get a window instantaneously.
2. Click the PHP documentation website's toolbar bookmark
3. Search documentation

The widget way:
1. Open Dashboard
2. Wait for widgets to load (yes, this takes long enough to deserve its own item)
3. Because my iBook's screen space is limited, I can't keep all my widgets on-screen at once. So I have to open the widget drawer
4. Find the damn widget
5. Drag the widget out
6. Wait for the widget to load
7. Search documentation
8. Give up and use the website because the PHP documentation widget is poorly designed so that everything is tiny and not resizable

Yes, 8 is a problem with that particular widget, but I think you get the idea.

Advantages of the website way (besides the obvious):
1. Doesn't take up additional RAM
2. You can have practically unlimited search services all accessible from the same interface (no need for one widget per website). This is especially true with Firefox's extensible search field.
3. Exists on the same layer as where I'm actually working. I hate when I accidentally dismiss Dashboard and (temporarily) lose my data. That doesn't happen on the regular window layer.
4. You are not at the whim of poor widget designers. Some of them are atrocious; some don't work at all on my system for whatever reason, like the WorldBook one. My suspicion is that it doesn't like my locale (Japanese).

[chris v]

i like the Transmit widget and iClip lite. They're quite useful. Hula Girl, Majic 8 Ball, Widgetris, and Asteroids are also fabulous wastes of time, for when I feel like goofing off.

I'm warming up to widgets at about the same speed I warmed up to Exposé, actually.

[wataru]

The goofy ones like Hula Girl and Magic 8 Ball are fun. That's fine. The utility ones like Unit Converter and Calculator are also nice. The web ones where you have a fixed query with changing results, like Weather or the stock market one, those are also great. But this search-widget-per-website thing is stupid.

[Randman]

It depends on the user. Bit arrogant to say it's stupid when people are making use of such widgets. And the google bar is the same type of thing as a widget.

[wataru]

Just because people do something doesn't mean it's not stupid.

And sure, the Google bar is just like a widget... except that it doesn't take up extra RAM, takes up minimal screen space, is highly extensible (in the case of Firefox), exists in the regular application layer, etc. Oh wait, it's nothing like a widget.

[freudling]

I guess I agree with the google widget comments. For me, however, I found myself in Dashboard for hourse plugging away. Just since a few months ago widgets have become more useful. There are over 1000 now. But to those who are not big fans, I have to agree, a lot of those seem not so useful to me. I serached every single widget the other day and narrowed it down to about 10 active widgets that I use.

My hit list:

1. Wikipedia (allows one to search, go back and forward and copy text all within the widget window {ww})
2. The currency exchange widget
3. IRecipes (allows one to search for some keyword food and have instant recipe ideas - summaries in ww)
4. WorldBook widget (similar to wikipedia)
5. RSS News Feeder (allows one to display a list of fav. news feeds - cnn, bbc... - and shows headlines
6. Apple Address Book widget (very nice)
7. Dictionary/Thesarus (search words and get results all within ww)
8. Audio Recorder widget (click and record your voice)
9. Note Pad widget (very useful, exports to text editer and lots of cool features)
10. MiniTunes widget (skip forward, back, play and pause, and volume cotrol itunes)
11. iCal events
12. Calculator
13. Project calculator (allows one to input and add up a list of expenses - very nice! - specially with flight tracker)
14. IMDB widget (search an actor or film database. Unfortunately, results not in ww).

[wtmcgee]

They lost their novelty for me slowly, and recently I disabled dashboard via the terminal.

[Chuckit]

I don't use them. They're just second-rate applications (or worse, Safari bookmarks) with poor window management.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by wataru

Just because people do something doesn't mean it's not stupid.

I agree. That's why I wish you'd stop posting stupid stuff like this:

Originally Posted by wataru

Or how about this: I need to search the PHP documentation a lot. Let's compare approaches.

The website way:
1. Click on the browser icon in the Dock. I don't quit my browser, so I get a window instantaneously.
2. Click the PHP documentation website's toolbar bookmark
3. Search documentation

The widget way:
1. Open Dashboard
2. Wait for widgets to load (yes, this takes long enough to deserve its own item)
3. Because my iBook's screen space is limited, I can't keep all my widgets on-screen at once. So I have to open the widget drawer
4. Find the damn widget
5. Drag the widget out
6. Wait for the widget to load
7. Search documentation
8. Give up and use the website because the PHP documentation widget is poorly designed so that everything is tiny and not resizable

Give me a break. I could just as easily do this:

The website way:

1. Open a web browser
2. Because my dock space is limited, I can't keep all the apps I use in it. So I have to open a Finder window
3. Navigate to Applications
4. Find the damn web browser
5. Launch the web browser
6. Wait for the web browser to load (yes, this is exactly as fair as you listing waiting for widgets to load when you know damn well that they need to load only if you don't have the Dashboard running already).
7. Find the web site in your bookmarks or remember the name of it
8. Navigate to the web site
9. Oh crap, the browser crashed
10. Relaunch the browser
11. Find the site in the bookmarks again
12. Navigate to the web site
13. Wait because the web site makes you watch some crappy Flash ad before navigating to the main site
14. Close some crappy Flash pop-over that the popup blockers can't block yet
15. Close another crappy Flash pop-over that the popup blockers can't block yet
16. Give up because the web site is so poorly designed that it looks like crap in anything other than IE/Windows

See, I can play this game too. You are just bitter and making a half-baked attempt to rebut my comparison, which actually compares the steps that a person would take if that person were actually accustomed to that particular method.

You also cut a few corners in making selecting the bookmark only one step. You are criticizing the Dashboard because you have a limited amount of screen space, so you can't put up every widget ever invented. And you mention that to replace all your bookmarks, you would need a "million different widgets." Okay. So how do you figure you can assume your bookmark will be readily accessible in the browser toolbar? That can store way fewer items than the Dashboard can. For most cases, you'll need at least two clicks, one to click on either the Bookmarks menu or the chevron at the right-hand side of the toolbar, and another click to actually select your bookmark. If you've organized the bookmarks by folders, that's some more additional maneuvering. So if I'm going to do a search using a service that I use "a lot", it's disingenuous to assume that I would have it readily available in the toolbar using the browser method, but I wouldn't have the widget out for some reason using the Dashboard.

Now, let's try a comparison similar to yours, but in a manner which is optimized for each particular method, and let's count clicks (counting keyboarding, moving the mouse to a screen corner, and other types of user interaction as "clicks" for convenience):

The Widget Way:

1. Invoke the Dashboard. That's one click. Assuming this isn't the first time I've invoked the Dashboard since I logged in, it should come up rather quickly.

2. Click the search field of the widget representing this search that I do often. That's two clicks.

3. Type my search query. Boom, I'm done. Three clicks.

The Web site way:

1. Click the browser's Dock icon. Because I'm being fair this time, it's already running and should come up rather quickly. One click.

2. Click your bookmark in the bookmarks toolbar or type the URL. For the general case, this could very likely be two additional clicks, but I'm assuming this is something you use extremely often and thus will be in the toolbar. Two clicks.

3. Click on the search field. Three clicks.

4. Type your query. Four clicks.

I have thus saved one click using the widget method. Possibly two, if the bookmark was nested away in a menu. Occasionally, I can save even more clicks if a site requests information which could have been saved locally in a widget's preferences (such as the city and state fields at switchboard.com, requiring four extra clicks, two to navigate to fields and two more to type information into them, clicks that would have been saved by just using the Yellow Pages widget). Plus, you have the problem of sites with really crappy, ugly, and/or inefficient designs which can be bypassed with a widget. Finally, having a widget for every search engine on the Internet is a moot point, because it's not designed for that. It's designed primarily for things that you use often. If there's some site you don't search very often, then for God's sake use a website to search it the one time per year that you do! The Dashboard isn't supposed to be the be-all and end-all interface to the Web that you use exclusively (hmm, maybe the fact that you expect it to do so explains your browser-only fundamentalism!).

[Tsilou B.]

Well said, CharlesS. I couldn't agree more

[Randman]

TypeCast is a very handy widget, for example. I'll bring it out to the desktop and it does the job without having to open FontBook up or hitting the font list for whatever application(s) I'm using.

True, some widgets are better than others but to say that they are a waste of time is a bit skewed, at best.

Some people don't use Exposé much. Does that mean it's also a garbage application? No, it just gives each user a different (and sometimes better) way of doing something. That's the opposite of stupid, in my book.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

6. Wait for the web browser to load (yes, this is exactly as fair as you listing waiting for widgets to load when you know damn well that they need to load only if you don't have the Dashboard running already).

Since when? My widgets (on both this computer and the one at work) lock up like a paranoid shopkeeper every time I bring them up.

[mAxximo]

Originally Posted by wataru

The Google bar is fine. You're in a web browser, meant for browsing web pages, which is what you're looking for. That's completely different from a needlessly specialzed widget floating in a separate layer above what you're ultimately going back to anyway, a web browser.

The widget philosophy will net you a million different widgets, each for a different website. I know, how about we make one big widget that can deal with all of those websites? Oh wait, we have that. It's called a web browser.

Or how about this: I need to search the PHP documentation a lot. Let's compare approaches.

The website way:
1. Click on the browser icon in the Dock. I don't quit my browser, so I get a window instantaneously.
2. Click the PHP documentation website's toolbar bookmark
3. Search documentation

The widget way:
1. Open Dashboard
2. Wait for widgets to load (yes, this takes long enough to deserve its own item)
3. Because my iBook's screen space is limited, I can't keep all my widgets on-screen at once. So I have to open the widget drawer
4. Find the damn widget
5. Drag the widget out
6. Wait for the widget to load
7. Search documentation
8. Give up and use the website because the PHP documentation widget is poorly designed so that everything is tiny and not resizable

Yes, 8 is a problem with that particular widget, but I think you get the idea.

Advantages of the website way (besides the obvious):
1. Doesn't take up additional RAM
2. You can have practically unlimited search services all accessible from the same interface (no need for one widget per website). This is especially true with Firefox's extensible search field.
3. Exists on the same layer as where I'm actually working. I hate when I accidentally dismiss Dashboard and (temporarily) lose my data. That doesn't happen on the regular window layer.
4. You are not at the whim of poor widget designers. Some of them are atrocious; some don't work at all on my system for whatever reason, like the WorldBook one. My suspicion is that it doesn't like my locale (Japanese).

Great post. Point by point what I think of Dashbore. I killed it long ago in my box.

[budster101]

I like the Hiroshima widget... you should get that one.

[wataru]

Wow CharlesS, you don't need to get so defensive. My post had absolutely nothing to do with whatever you had written in the past (I had never read it). Why the personal attacks? Frankly I expect more out of you.

And besides, I have to disagree with you for several reasons:
1. Who doesn't keep a web browser in the Dock? I think it's reasonable to omit steps 2 through 6 in your description.
2. Widgets do need to load even if you have Dashboard running already. I find that Dashboard is very slow to become usable even if it's not the first time I've launched it. This is with only a modest number of widgets in use.
3. The web browser bookmarks toolbar, what with folders and everything, can accommodate far more items than one's screen can accommodate widgets, unless you happen to have a gigantic display and gigabytes of RAM. You assumed that I use Safari. I don't. I use Firefox, with all of my bookmarks inside folders in the bookmarks toolbar. This allows me very fast (at most single-click-and-wave-the-mouse-down-a-hierarchy) access to all of my most-used bookmarks.
4. Furthermore, all of those items can be used within the same program, instead of wasting screen space and RAM on a different floating instance.
5. You can't accidentally dismiss the regular application layer, unlike the Dashboard layer. I don't have a million buttons on my mouse, or even a mouse at all on my iBook, so accessing Dashboard is not "one click away." I have to either move my cursor to a corner of the screen or press an F-button. Neither of those is all that fast.

You also ignored the fact that many widgets are poorly designed, give unreadable, un-resizable results, or dump you in a web browser to read results anyway.

I stand by my opinion, and I won't stoop to juvenile namecalling like you.

[Randman]

You keep claiming poorly designed widgets. Not all widgets are poorly designed. You may not have a use for them but many people do. And calling people stupid because they don't do things the same way as you is ...

[siMac]

Originally Posted by budster101

I like the Hiroshima widget... you should get that one.

Hmm, neither Google, Apple nor I have heard of that one. I hope such a widget exists and that that wasn't a very poor attempt at humour. Maybe you could see your way to providing a link before I see my way to reporting you?

[budster101]

Report away ********.

[Randman]

In this case, a report would be warranted. While we may not agree with Wataru and vice versa, it's a semi-civilized debate. Take that garbage to the lounge.

[budster101]

I forgot this wasn't the loung for a second... (Used "check new posts")

Anyway. Sorry for the momentary derailment. (carry on)

[Adam Betts]

There's always someone who went out of their way to criticize something that they don't find useful.

Comparing approaches is dumb. It's like saying I can pee faster than you with non-zipper pants. Just use whatever you're most comfortable with.

Dashboard is not exactly amazing but I found them useful in some areas. Checking website for TV listing is painful and TV Tracker widget nicely solved that as well as weather, stocks and translation widgets.

I don't want to have millions of links in my bookmark. I like to keep them clean and small.

Oh well..

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by wataru

Wow CharlesS, you don't need to get so defensive. My post had absolutely nothing to do with whatever you had written in the past (I had never read it). Why the personal attacks? Frankly I expect more out of you.

I began my post with a quote where you basically called people that use the Dashboard stupid. In comparison, the closest thing to a personal attack that I can find in my post is the word "bitter" (well, and the word "fundamentalism", but that one was pretty tongue-in-cheek). Add in the belittling attitude you're using, and it's pretty obvious how someone could get piqued by your posts.

As for not having read my earlier list, well, it was in direct reply to a post of yours...

And besides, I have to disagree with you for several reasons:
1. Who doesn't keep a web browser in the Dock? I think it's reasonable to omit steps 2 through 6 in your description.

Um, that was kind of the point. The first list was a demonstration of how the steps to do anything can be artificially inflated. I'm not sure why someone would not keep a widget he/she used often on the Dashboard so it would be necessary to pull it out of the widget dock each time, either.

2. Widgets do need to load even if you have Dashboard running already. I find that Dashboard is very slow to become usable even if it's not the first time I've launched it. This is with only a modest number of widgets in use.

That's odd, because I just invoked my Dashboard after my machine had been asleep since the previous post, and everything was up within a second. The widgets get loaded the first time you use them, and they stay loaded until you kill the Dock or log out. I suppose the delay you're seeing could have been the widgets getting paged back into RAM after being paged out. Believe it or not, I've had web browsers get paged into RAM too after using something else for a while under low-memory conditions.

3. The web browser bookmarks toolbar, what with folders and everything, can accommodate far more items than one's screen can accommodate widgets, unless you happen to have a gigantic display and gigabytes of RAM. You assumed that I use Safari. I don't. I use Firefox, with all of my bookmarks inside folders in the bookmarks toolbar. This allows me very fast (at most single-click-and-wave-the-mouse-down-a-hierarchy) access to all of my most-used bookmarks.

Actually, I didn't assume you use Safari (your Firefox fanaticism on the forums has been quite pronounced). The bookmark toolbar works more or less identically on Firefox and Safari. They can both have menus in the toolbar, but this adds an extra click to the process (and if you hold down the button, it's still an extra mouse movement), increasing the clicks needed from four to five, and increasing the number of saved clicks using a widget by two rather than one.

4. Furthermore, all of those items can be used within the same program, instead of wasting screen space and RAM on a different floating instance.

Okay, but that doesn't affect the reasons why some of us find the Dashboard useful.

5. You can't accidentally dismiss the regular application layer, unlike the Dashboard layer.

I've accidentally hit Command-Q when reaching for Command-W before...

I don't have a million buttons on my mouse, or even a mouse at all on my iBook,

You should not assume that everyone else is in the same situation.

so accessing Dashboard is not "one click away." I have to either move my cursor to a corner of the screen or press an F-button. Neither of those is all that fast.

Moving the cursor to a screen corner or clicking the Dashboard icon in the Dock are every bit as fast as clicking a browser icon in the Dock. An F-key is also a single key-press, so they all fit under "one click", since I am using "click" as a short way of saying "single act of user interaction", as I mentioned at the beginning of my steps.

You also ignored the fact that many widgets are poorly designed, give unreadable, un-resizable results, or dump you in a web browser to read results anyway.

So you use ones that aren't. So what? Many web sites are poorly designed as well. Many applications are poorly designed. I guess we should all stop using computers altogether because of this?

I stand by my opinion, and I won't stoop to juvenile namecalling like you.

Except that you did before I even wrote my post.

[wataru]

I never called anyone stupid. I said that the "search-widget-per-website" paradigm is stupid, and I stand by that. If "stupid" is too provoking for you, I'll retract that and change it to "wasteful and inefficient."

You make some good points. In rebuttal:
1. I honestly never read your post. I don't get around to re-reading every thread I post in.

2. Yes, my "the widget way" was inflated, but to illustrate a point. That point is that a web browser bookmarks toolbar is a much more efficient place to store "access points" to the search capabilities you're looking for. A screen has only so much room for widgets, but a browser can hold pretty much unlimited bookmarks. What's more, it's easier to get to a bookmark than it is to get to a widget that isn't open.

3. Maybe Dashboard performance is just peachy for you, but it isn't for me and many other users. The delay is real, and I never experience such a delay with my web browser.

4. I interpreted "chevron at the right-hand side of the toolbar" to mean Safari's bookmarks pane button. That's why I thought you assumed I was using Safari. I know you like to demonize me for liking Firefox, but that has nothing to do with my arguments against the search-widget-per-website paradigm.

5. Moving the cursor to a screen corner or hitting an F-key is not the same as "one-click."
Problems with the F-key: If I'm mousing, I don't want to reach for the keyboard. Furthermore, on any keyboard, the most convenient F-key is the one near the edge. On my iBook that's F11. I need that for Exposé. F10 and F9 are also taken by Exposé. Now we're left with F8 for Dashboard, which is a bitch to find by touch alone. I frequently hit an Exposé key by accident when reaching for it.
Problems with the screen corner: If using a screen corner, you end up in Dashboard with your cursor far away from the widget you're looking for. You can argue something similar for the Dock, but the Dock is multiuse; I have to go there all the time anyway. A Dashboard corner is just for Dashboard.

If you have a million buttons on your mouse, great. Unfortunately, most people don't, and so access is one problem with Dashboard and therefore one problem with search-window-per-website.

6. How can you deny that poorly designed widgets are a problem? Why rely on umpteen different developers to create a decent interface when you could just use a single tried-and-tested interface, i.e. the web browser? Interactions with a web browser are standardized and universal. Printing? Saving? Intelligent copy-and-paste? Check, check, and check. Yes, some websites are designed poorly. But the impact on usability is far less than a poorly designed widget. A widget has to deal with so much more than a website does in order to provide equivalent functionality.

And how about this: You don't have to do anything when a website changes how its search feature works, but any widget that accesses it will have to be updated and reinstalled. And how about just general bugfixes and whatnot? Widgets seem to have new point releases every week; why bother with all of that when you could just use a web browser? Is your one saved click really worth the hassle?

[wataru]

Originally Posted by Adam Betts

There's always someone who went out of their way to criticize something that they don't find useful.

Comparing approaches is dumb. It's like saying I can pee faster than you with non-zipper pants. Just use whatever you're most comfortable with.

Dashboard is not exactly amazing but I found them useful in some areas. Checking website for TV listing is painful and TV Tracker widget nicely solved that as well as weather, stocks and translation widgets.

I don't want to have millions of links in my bookmark. I like to keep them clean and small.

I know you also like to attack me, but you're agreeing with me here. The TV listing is a fixed query with changing results. Widgets for that are good, like I said earlier.

On the other hand, a search widget for every website is stupid, especially a Google one. What are you going to do with that search result? View it in a browser. Why not just start in the browser then?

No one wants a million links in their bookmarks, but a million widgets isn't the answer either.

[Adam Betts]

Originally Posted by wataru

I know you also like to attack me, but you're agreeing with me here. The TV listing is a fixed query with changing results. Widgets for that are good, like I said earlier.

On the other hand, a search widget for every website is stupid, especially a Google one. What are you going to do with that search result? View it in a browser. Why not just start in the browser then?

No one wants a million links in their bookmarks, but a million widgets isn't the answer either.

I have no desire of attacking you personally, I just disagree with your idea of having everything in one browser.

Search widgets are stupid, yes. I roll my eyes when I look at them but you have to admit that they can be a nice interface to site if done right such as MacUpdate widget from http://www.widgetmachine.com/ . I'm sure once widgets are very crowded, we'll have higher standard and expectation for them which is a good thing. Small and flexible interfaces with more consistency and less blinding super aqua graphics are what I'm hoping for.

About Dashboard loading speed being slow, I'll agree with you. They definitely need to work on that.

[wataru]

I don't think everything needs to be in a browser. Certainly things that have never been in a browser before need not be done there. But things that were designed with a browser in mind, like websites, and don't conform to the fixed-query-changing-results model, should stay in the browser. Unless, that is, widgets provide significant convenience, which I don't think they do.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by wataru

I never called anyone stupid. I said that the "search-widget-per-website" paradigm is stupid, and I stand by that. If "stupid" is too provoking for you, I'll retract that and change it to "wasteful and inefficient."

Efficiency is in the eye of the beholder. If I can do a certain process with 2 fewer clicks, and I do that process a lot (let's say, 50 times), then I have just saved 100 clicks. Pretty efficient, if you ask me.

2. Yes, my "the widget way" was inflated, but to illustrate a point. That point is that a web browser bookmarks toolbar is a much more efficient place to store "access points" to the search capabilities you're looking for. A screen has only so much room for widgets, but a browser can hold pretty much unlimited bookmarks. What's more, it's easier to get to a bookmark than it is to get to a widget that isn't open.

But a widget that is open is easier to get to than any browser bookmark. You just invoke the Dashboard, and there it is. One step. To get to a bookmark, you have to 1. click the browser icon, 2. click the bookmarks menu in the toolbar, and 3. click the bookmark. So while it would obviously not be a good idea to keep all my bookmarks in the Dashboard unless I had a 30-inch Cinema Display or something, it's definitely not a bad idea for the sites that I visit the most frequently, especially ones where the widget provides a significant UI improvement such as Yellow Pages, Dictionary, Weather, TV Tracker, etc.

3. Maybe Dashboard performance is just peachy for you, but it isn't for me and many other users. The delay is real, and I never experience such a delay with my web browser.

I just invoked it again after being away from my computer for most of the day, and it came up almost instantaneously. Maybe you should get more RAM. I have noticed a delay invoking it if I've been using the computer heavily for Xcode, leading me to think that it's caused by the widgets getting paged out to disk.

4. I interpreted "chevron at the right-hand side of the toolbar" to mean Safari's bookmarks pane button. That's why I thought you assumed I was using Safari.

When I said "chevron at the right-hand side of the toolbar", I meant a chevron at the right-hand side of the toolbar:



I didn't mean "thing that looks like a book at the left-hand side of the toolbar." If I had said that, I would indeed have had to have been referring to Safari.

I know you like to demonize me for liking Firefox, but that has nothing to do with my arguments against the search-widget-per-website paradigm.

I have never demonized you or anyone else for liking Firefox. I like Firefox. I use it occasionally. Furthermore, I don't care what you use. You could use MacWeb in Classic for all I care. It's none of my business.

What I don't like is the way you like to parrot Firefox as the One True Browser and demonize people for using anything else, especially Camino, because that's annoying.

5. Moving the cursor to a screen corner or hitting an F-key is not the same as "one-click."

Under my working definition which I was using for the purpose of my example, it is. Argh. Apparently stating all special definitions I was using beforehand didn't work. Very well, just replace every mention of the word "click" in my post with the word "step" and you will understand my meaning. I just didn't want to use "step" because a step's complexity can be ambiguous. You could give a "three-step" process to write an application that went 1. write the code, 2. compile, and 3. package in a .dmg file, but that wouldn't make creating a major commercial application using this process simpler than creating the Currency Converter tutorial in seven more explicit steps. For this reason, I was looking for a term that would be more specific.

Problems with the F-key: If I'm mousing, I don't want to reach for the keyboard. Furthermore, on any keyboard, the most convenient F-key is the one near the edge. On my iBook that's F11. I need that for Exposé. F10 and F9 are also taken by Exposé. Now we're left with F8 for Dashboard, which is a bitch to find by touch alone. I frequently hit an Exposé key by accident when reaching for it.

Given that the F-keys for all these things are easily configurable, that's a moot point. And again, not everyone shares your lack of an external mouse. I have a six-button Logitech that has absolutely no problems opening the Dashboard with one (literal, physical!) click.

Problems with the screen corner: If using a screen corner, you end up in Dashboard with your cursor far away from the widget you're looking for. You can argue something similar for the Dock, but the Dock is multiuse; I have to go there all the time anyway. A Dashboard corner is just for Dashboard.

I see no difference how many times you use the Dock if the cursor is still equally far away from your next target when you go there. Plus, not to get into the whole Fitts' Law discussion again, but according to that particular principle, the corners should be easier and quicker to hit than items in the Dock.

You also forget that the Dashboard can be invoked through a Dock icon. That's also one literal, physical click and moots your point about it not being as bad to move to the Dock.

If you have a million buttons on your mouse, great. Unfortunately, most people don't, and so access is one problem with Dashboard and therefore one problem with search-window-per-website.

While an extra mouse button is definitely the most convenient way to activate the Dashboard, all the other methods are also done with a single click, keystroke, or mouse movement. IOW, a single action.

6. How can you deny that poorly designed widgets are a problem? Why rely on umpteen different developers to create a decent interface when you could just use a single tried-and-tested interface, i.e. the web browser? Interactions with a web browser are standardized and universal. Printing? Saving? Intelligent copy-and-paste? Check, check, and check. Yes, some websites are designed poorly. But the impact on usability is far less than a poorly designed widget. A widget has to deal with so much more than a website does in order to provide equivalent functionality.

1. Poorly-designed widgets are absolutely not a problem, because I don't have to use them. If a widget is poorly designed, I can either get a widget that is better designed, or use a web browser instead. There is no Widget Mafia that will point a gun to my head and make me an offer I can't refuse if I don't use a widget. Just like with everything else, I can just use the widgets that I like and that are not poorly designed and ignore the rest, and everyone's happy. Unless, of course, I was trying to use the Dashboard for everything, which I've already said is not the case.

2. You're not using a single tried-and-tested interface with a web browser. You're using the interface that the web page's creator designed. Sometimes this interface is nice (i.e. Google). Sometimes it is unspeakably horrible (i.e. tvguide.com). Sometimes web sites do extremely annoying things like put up multiple Flash pop-ups that no blocker can block and that you can't close with a simple command-W because they're not true windows. Sure, the browser provides a layer that they run in which is standardized, but that's true of the Dashboard as well.

3. Like I said, if you want to eschew widgets altogether because some are poorly designed, you're going to have the same problem with just about any form of third-party software. There are going to be poorly designed examples in every category.

And how about this: You don't have to do anything when a website changes how its search feature works, but any widget that accesses it will have to be updated and reinstalled. And how about just general bugfixes and whatnot? Widgets seem to have new point releases every week; why bother with all of that when you could just use a web browser? Is your one saved click really worth the hassle?

Well, since you've admitted you use a bookmarks menu, it's two saved steps. And remember, that's a minimum. If a web site does annoying things or a widget provides additional usability enhancements, you can save many more than two steps. In my original example which I linked to, I showed that I save five steps with the Yellow Pages widget. If a widget either offers me significant savings, such as in this case, or if I use a widget frequently enough, it quickly becomes worth it. Besides, it's not true that I don't have to do anything when a website changes. I have to get used to the new interface. That can be annoying, especially if they change it for the worse.

The bottom line for me is, since Dashboard came out, I have found myself using many services that I did not use before, even when they were on web sites. The fact that I am using them now but never managed to make checking these sites a routine before shows me that there is something about the Dashboard that is making these things more convenient. There were This Day in History type web sites long before 10.4 was released, but I didn't end up actually checking them each day like I have been doing since I discovered the widget by MacKiev. That shows you that the Dashboard is doing something right, no?

[freudling]

You all have made good points. I still like widgets. I will definately have to up my ram if I want to keep using them. Also, with time, I am sure better widgets will be available. I am impressed at what we have right now.

[Chuckit]

Holy crap! I didn't know it was possible to make posts that long.

[wil]

Clearly people are struggling with their opinions here. I'm willing to offer my advice and guidance for a nominal fee.

If you are feeling insecure or confused, don't panic! Just send me a private message, we'll work out a nice payment plan, and I guarantee you immediate access to the best opinions available on the web.

Your confidence will sky-rocket, I tell you, sky-rocket.

[iomatic]

Is there a GUI way to disable Dashboard?



Really?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by iomatic

Is there a GUI way to disable Dashboard?



Really?

Yeah, just don't turn it on. It's not running until the first time you invoke it.

[iomatic]

Um. OK; I mean, a little app... or some'n? Sorry for being OT, but um, like, the thread is a debate and everything.... um, just *ducks head* trying to figure it out...

[Chuckit]

It isn't on to begin with. Just don't turn it on and it is disabled. If don't want to be able to activate it, uncheck the shortcut in the Keyboard prefpane.

[budster101]

I like them.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by wil

Clearly people are struggling with their opinions here. I'm willing to offer my advice and guidance for a nominal fee.

If you are feeling insecure or confused, don't panic! Just send me a private message, we'll work out a nice payment plan, and I guarantee you immediate access to the best opinions available on the web.

Your confidence will sky-rocket, I tell you, sky-rocket.

Or, if anyone simply doesn't have an opinion, let me know and I'll supply you with one.

[amazing]

Personally, I find it suggestive that the new version of Onyx allows you to disable Dashboard. That's what I call voting with your software.

[CharlesS]

Why use a third-party software just to do something you can accomplish simply by not hitting the Dashboard key?

Seriously.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by amazing

Personally, I find it suggestive that the new version of Onyx allows you to disable Dashboard.

That is pretty lewd.

[Randman]

Use the widget manager to turn off all widgets, then remove the icon from the dock or go back to Jaguar and Panther if it bothers you so much.

[budster101]

I don't see what the big deal is. I really don't.

- John Travolta, "Broken Arrow"

[ShotgunEd]

This thread is inane.

If you don't want to use dashboard to do some really simple information gathering in often pretty GUI interfaces then go to the dashboard/expose pref pane, and unassign it from an f-key and disable its hot corner.

Personally I like it for the slimmed-down iTunes widget and an iTunes art widget, and maybe the BBC weather widget. Maybe i'll call it up for yell.co.uk, or the translator, or the calculator, or the currency or maybe i'll use a browser to go to yell, or whatever.

Its optional.

[leperkuhn]

my roomate logged into my computer yesterday. i dont' think he knows what dashboard is.

i just checked the activity monitor, with all processes. under his user, he's consuming 58% of the CPU through dashboard. It's staying there too.

I like dashboard, but that's really not cool at all.

[Salty]

I use dashboard for a few stickies, calc and the fidget/flickr widget. So far I have yet to find anything else that it's really good for me for. I think for some people it might be great but it's not a killer feature for me, and I never thought it would be. Though Exposé is an awesome one... I don't think of the two as connected at all though. I think of Dashboard as a mini OS X virtual desktop. That said I think once developers get used to it and stop pumping out widgets for the sake of making a widget but instead actually come up with great ideas we'll be on the road to having it be a lot more of a universally loved feature.
By X.6 or X.8 I bet Dashboard will have grown into something just about everyone loves.

[grovberg]

Dude, I don't even care about this particular debate, but I truly enjoyed how CharlesS DESTROYED wataru.