[mAxximo]

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

Can you point me to that thread?

[wataru]

Originally Posted by grovberg

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

I disagree. He has his opinion, I have my opinion. Clearly there are others who agree with me. He didn't convince me, but I'm not going to waste any more time bickering about something so trivial. If you want to delude yourself into thinking you're saving time by using a billion different widgets instead of a single web browser, that's fine by me.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by wataru

I disagree. He has his opinion, I have my opinion. Clearly there are others who agree with me. He didn't convince me, but I'm not going to waste any more time bickering about something so trivial. If you want to delude yourself into thinking you're saving time by using a billion different widgets instead of a single web browser, that's fine by me.

Again, I have repeatedly said that I am not advocating the use of Dashboard to completely replace the browser and do everything. It's great, though, for a few things that you use often. Unfortunately, you seem to have an all-or-nothing approach which requires getting a "billion widgets" so that you can never have to touch the web browser at all in order to use the Dashboard. I've never argued for this, and I've mentioned this several times, so I'd appreciate if you would stop using this straw-man argument and projecting this argument onto me.

[eddiecatflap]

expose is fab , but dashboard i can do without

if they were there in normal use - cool - but all this seperate layer stuff seems a tad pointless

[freudling]

CharlesS, in your defence. Steve Jobs said it best about Dashboard, "You can get in, and then (with a sighed breathe) get out). It is a quick way for calculator, timings, flights,... Once people get used to the concept of one icon in the dock pointing to several apps (widgets) that can be used all at the same time, it will become more acceptable. It is kinda like Minority report. Times are changing...

[SomeToast]

Originally Posted by Salty

By X.6 or X.8 I bet Dashboard will have grown into something just about everyone loves.

...or becomes a piece of tech which Apple becomes bored with and abandons, like Sherlock.

[Salty]

Originally Posted by SomeToast

...or becomes a piece of tech which Apple becomes bored with and abandons, like Sherlock.

You mean spotlight?

Since... really that's what Sherlock was... now if you wanna go into Sherlock 2... well that has kinda been replaced by google... and Sherlock 3... well that's kind of replaced by... well Dashboard really...
You gota remember if anything killed the new sherlock... it was Safari. Sherlock was made because Apple for some reason wanted to bypass the browser.... later then realized we didn't want to. So Safari ate Sherlock... and the children rejoiced. That said unfortunately Watons died shortly after which was very unfortunate. Fortunately I used neither.

[SomeToast]

Originally Posted by Salty

You mean spotlight?

Since... really that's what Sherlock was...

And a Hummer H2 is really a Radio Flyer because they both have four wheels. Spotlight and Sherlock are radically different beasts, even though superficially one could say "they both do search."

Originally Posted by Salty

Sherlock was made because Apple for some reason wanted to bypass the browser.... later then realized we didn't want to.

Odd that Apple went down the Dashboard path, then. Bypassing the browser is its raison d'être.

[mhuie]

Originally Posted by wataru

I disagree. He has his opinion, I have my opinion. Clearly there are others who agree with me. He didn't convince me, but I'm not going to waste any more time bickering about something so trivial. If you want to delude yourself into thinking you're saving time by using a billion different widgets instead of a single web browser, that's fine by me.

So what, you don't like dashboard, other people do. Post your opinion, don't put people down just because you think you're better than them.

Some people aren't so anal about RAM usage and just like to use their computers how they want to. I'm sure you're wasting the most time checking RAM usage for all your apps

I'm not a huge fan of dashboard, but i do use the weather and yellow pages widget from time to time. I'm not stressing about hitting that F12 key because I'm worried how much ram its going to use.

[wataru]

I wasn't putting anyone down. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said the idea of search-widget-per-website is stupid, not that any individual person is stupid.

[Helmling]

wateru,
How about this as useful.

I'm making a powerpoint for my Aca-Dec class. I am doing image searches in safari, but suddenly I need to look up something. Instead of losing the image page I'm working from, or opening a new Safari window and then clicking a link and surfing through their first screen to get to a search box in wikipedia, I just hit F12 and there it is.

Is that useful enough for you? I do the same thing with the dictionary. Instead of taking the extra steps to get a browser window open to dictionary.com and wait for it's window to be accessible, etc. etc. I just hit one key.

This is all quibbling over a few seconds here or there, but this saves me from having so many windows open on the desktop. I could use Expose and more browser windows, but having a second layer of my desktop in Dashboard it preferable.

[wataru]

You could do all that in the browser without opening new windows by 1) using tabs, and 2) if you're in Firefox you can do your searches from the extensible search field.

[jeff25624]

From the vantage point of someone who's a "casual" Mac user, Dashboard is easily my second favorite feature of Tiger(the first being Spotlight). I agree that there are many widgets that seem to lack a purpose, however, that is why you download your own widgets. What someone may find useless, someone may find useful. The weather widgets in particular have been instrumental in my plans since I purchased Tiger. I can actually see on Doppler when rain is going to come, how bad it is going be, etc etc. Before I leave for class in the morning, with just one click of the Dashboard hotkey, I know whether to wear a sweatshirt, winter coat, t-shirt, yadda yadda. The usefulness of Dashboard is all in the user implementation, in my eyes.

As for speed, once Dashboard loads up for the first time, the ensuing loading time is roughly one second, two at most. So for me, that is not an issue as well. The only negative I find with this feature is that screen space is limited, and to be perfectly honest that is a necessary evil.

[Salty]

Originally Posted by SomeToast

And a Hummer H2 is really a Radio Flyer because they both have four wheels. Spotlight and Sherlock are radically different beasts, even though superficially one could say "they both do search."

Odd that Apple went down the Dashboard path, then. Bypassing the browser is its raison d'être.

Yes I mean because one is the evolution of the other. I understand that Spotlight and Sherlock were entirely different in the way that they figured out how your data should be indexed, and all that. And I understand that spotlight is way more full featured. However to suggest that Apple just decided search was important is dumb.

[B Gallagher]

Originally Posted by 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?

Yeah.. that really really wasn't funny. AN exceptionally bad-timed and bad taste attempt at humour.

Back on topic, I've only used widgets briefly, but I think they're great. They're a new and different way of doing things. In some cases faster, in others perhaps not. But like anything else, there's gunna be both good ones and bad ones. And, people who like them, along with those who don't. Simple as that.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by wataru

You could do all that in the browser without opening new windows by 1) using tabs, and 2) if you're in Firefox you can do your searches from the extensible search field.

Steps to get to your search engine in the extensible search field:

1. Click browser icon in Dock

2. Click the little pop-up menu thing on the left hand side of the search field

3. Click on the search engine you want

Steps to get to an already-open search engine window in a tab:

1. Click browser icon in Dock (or switch to the browser window via some other method)

2. Click tab

Steps to get to the search engine in Dashboard:

1. Invoke the Dashboard

[freudling]

The thing that is important here is the "toolbox" that is Dashboard. Not only does it provide a shortcut to useful miniapps, but if you need something extra it is ready to go, like a calculator, world time, currency exchange pane, etc. Imagine having to open a "tabbed browser window" to bring up a calculator, or an iTunes controller... Half my widgets don't even need the web, so they are snappy - no watching a browser page load, communicating with server side scripts, etc. That is why Tabbed browsing, in response to wataru, doesn't trump Dashboard. However, tabbed browsing is pretty good, too. But what is another plus for Dashboard is it takes us out of the world of crappy web pages and blinking advertising: cool, crisply designed miniapps for me are perferrable.

And so far, many times I like the ability to shoot over to the Dictionary or notepad and/or calculator. It is simply your toolbox, and it can make your computing experience more efficient. Web browsers cannot do what Dashboard does and never will. We are comparing one application, the browser, to a portal that provides dozens for use at one time.

What really makes it cool is I have a 12" iBook. If I had a bigger screen, I could shuffle web browser screens more easily. Dashboard has really helped me out here.