Run Mac Dashboard widgets on your desktop all the time

After I posted the Midnight Dashboard widget for Mac yesterday, James and I had a quick Skype conversation. Part of the chat was about the Mac OS X Dashboard: I use it and he doesn't. James' reason is that he has to hit a button to view the Dashboard and then take another action to close it; I see his point: I prefer to always see the few widgets that I use. That's not ideal for most folks, but I use my MacBook Pro with in a dual-monitor configuration with the 15-inch screen and an external 19-inch monitor, i.e.: I've got the real estate to spare.

I've actually been running Dashboard Widgets on my desktop full time since April; I thought I had shared this trick here on the blog, but apparently I'm getting older faster than the "Mac and PC" television ads. In Mac OS X 10.4, you can run widgets on the desktop by running enabling Dashboard developer mode. Just open up Terminal and type "defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES" (without the quotes). After you logout and log back in you can drag a widget from the Dashboard by pressing F12 while dragging. It should stay on your desktop full time, which comes in handy for that Midnight widget among other things.

Comments

[bobm]

I have a corner trigger for my dashboard, i go to the lower left corner and the dashboard pops up, I click _anywhere_ but on a gadget and it goes away.

What's hard about that?

I like that way better than leaving my dashboard up all the time. However I do use VirtueDesktop (no longer supported but works great on my MacBook -- http://www.virtuedesktops.info/ ) so I would have to figure a way to keep any gadgets up all the time.

Perhaps an interesting thread would be a 'what's on your dashboard?' thread..

[berniej]

I'm dying to try this trick out. Once the widget is on the desktop, how do you remove it if you change your mind?

Thanks!

[Kevin C. Tofel]

berniej: if you want to remove the gadget, just reverse the process. Tap and hold the gadget and then without letting go, press F12. That will send the gadget back to the Dashboard.

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Shoot, did I say "gadget"? I meant "widget". After all, they're completely different beasts... ;)

[Joseph]

Question from left field, is this available for a "Win" box?

[HandS89]

Problem with dev mode is the widgets stay floating over all your apps. That's fine for you since you have the dual screen. For me, Amnesty Singles is a better option.

[Neil Anderson]

I have my PowerBook in the same size and dual configuration. Works great. One widget I really like that I didn't see in your screenshot is iStat Pro.

[Cris]

It might be just me, but my system seems to have slowed down a bit since I entered the "defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES" command in the terminal. Is there a way to take it back? (I don't want to try the same command with NO in it without knowing more about it)

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Cris, running the same command with NO turns off the dashboard widget development mode. Nothing else.