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thuyudor · Jul 25, 2006, 11:59 AM

this may be a dumb question to some people but do widgets take up ram, and if they do, is it the more widgets, the more ram usage? cause im trying to figure out whats taking up all that extra ram, i wont worry about it after my parents approve of me upgrading to 512 MB ram.

Tomchu · Jul 25, 2006, 12:06 PM

Yes, they do -- and a rather significant amount of it, too. Each widget is its own process. Open up Activity Monitor and take a look.

IntelMac101 · Jul 25, 2006, 09:03 PM

I didnt think any one actually used dashboard I know me and my friends never have niether has the guy at the repair shop so i delates widgets and stuff now its much better

muaddib420 · Jul 26, 2006, 12:11 AM

i use the dashboard. some of the widgets are pretty useful. nothing you couldn't live without or anything, but still, useful. here's a good one:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashb...rinmotion.html

it gives a time-lapse radar of your area. better than going to weather.com and wading through a bunch of ads. another useful one:

http://www.macwireless.com/html/supp...adar/index.php

gives local wifi channels and relative strength.

i used to think they were useless too until i played around with them and found stuff i actually liked.

iRussel · Jul 26, 2006, 04:14 AM

Hers another good Widget, it actually shows alot of reasonably useful information.

From VersionTracker: iStat Pro 3.0b1

Product Description:
Stat pro is the ultimate System monitoring widget, consisting of 9 sections which can be minimized, expanded or closed. It features detailed information on CPU, memory, hard drives, IP and external IP, bandwidth, CPU temperature, battery, uptime, temperatures and fans. You'll know exactly what's going on inside your mac! Not for the feint hearted or anyone with a small screen.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/27037

cyberwarrior · Jul 26, 2006, 09:53 AM

Widgets are great, but use a lot of memory. When I require the full attention of all the system's resources I use Widget Killer, it is an applescript which I run from the script menu. You can enable this menu by running the AppleScript Utility.app found: applications/applecript/. If you then place Widget Killer in the folder: example scripts, in this location it will appear in the script menu.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...getkiller.html

nickw311 · Jul 26, 2006, 11:40 AM

I like the Album art widget that searches Amazon for the album art of the song you are playing in iTunes. I find it very useful.

imitchellg5 · Jul 26, 2006, 11:47 AM

Widgets use a TON of memory, I never use them unless I am making one.

hadocon · Jul 27, 2006, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by imitchellg5

Widgets use a TON of memory, I never use them unless I am making one.

Yes, Widgets are crazy memory hogs... Any idea why? I have 2GB ram and I'm always almost at zero because of the Widgets. I dont even use crazy ones, just stickies, weather, SMS and calendar.

it's just javascript! I hope that Apple does something to fix this...

Tomchu · Jul 28, 2006, 10:58 AM

A low free memory count in OS X is not a bad thing, and doesn't mean that your widgets are using all of it. Read about disk caches.

amazing · Jul 28, 2006, 02:36 PM

You can use Onyx to turn off Dashboard alltogether. Especially useful if you only rarely use the widgets.

hadocon · Jul 29, 2006, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

A low free memory count in OS X is not a bad thing, and doesn't mean that your widgets are using all of it. Read about disk caches.

I know what a disk cache is. Using 'top' in the terminal shows that my widgets are using over 200MB wired (real) memory. That's a lot for some silly javascripts. I'm using over 17GB of virtual memory - with dashboard resposible for quite a bit of it. Each widget uses about 350MB of virtual memory. 350MB of virtual for a javascript? Gimme a break Apple.

For reference the only widgets I'm using is:

12x stickies
2x weather
1x calendar
1x SMS

Tomchu · 09:34 PM

Well then something is clearly wrong with your computer.

The first column is real memory, the second is private.

masugu · Jul 29, 2006, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by iRussel

Hers another good Widget, it actually shows alot of reasonably useful information.

From VersionTracker: iStat Pro 3.0b1

Product Description:
Stat pro is the ultimate System monitoring widget, consisting of 9 sections which can be minimized, expanded or closed. It features detailed information on CPU, memory, hard drives, IP and external IP, bandwidth, CPU temperature, battery, uptime, temperatures and fans. You'll know exactly what's going on inside your mac! Not for the feint hearted or anyone with a small screen.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/27037

Hey. The temp now works on the new version. A couple degrees off tho when compared to Core Duo Temp. Was thinking of deleting this...as Core Duo Temp stays in the system tray...

amazing · Jul 29, 2006, 11:43 PM

Originally Posted by hadocon

I know what a disk cache is. Using 'top' in the terminal shows that my widgets are using over 200MB wired (real) memory. That's a lot for some silly javascripts. I'm using over 17GB of virtual memory - with dashboard resposible for quite a bit of it. Each widget uses about 350MB of virtual memory. 350MB of virtual for a javascript? Gimme a break Apple.

For reference the only widgets I'm using is:

12x stickies
2x weather
1x calendar
1x SMS

Sounds like you've got some runaway widgets, namely badly written with leaks. Do a restart and disable them, then monitor memory usage as you restart them one at a time.

Or, just disable Dashboard. Use Meteorologist for weather, StickyBrain for stickies, MenuCalendarClock and find replacements for the anything else.