Dashboard Widgets I Use

The Dashboard is one of Tiger's big new features. It's another layer of your desktop, available via the push of a function key or by moving the mouse to a corner of the screen. Widgets then move to cover the screen, let you use them, and then will move out of the way when tell them too. Hence they are always easily available but separate from your regular applications. You can cut and paste to and from them but you can't drag and drop to them. There's only one screens worth of widgets, they can overlap but that seems less useful, so screen real estate is pretty valuable. I didn't use the Dashboard much at first, then I tried a bunch of third party widgets and now I've settled into using just a few.

There seem to be several kinds of widgets but I find only some of them useful. Some widgets are just search engine wrappers, like those that search wikipedia or yahoo or google maps. Some of these display the info in the browser, others have their own mini-browsers to show the info. For these I'd rather just use a real full-featured browser (particularly with keyword searches) rather than waste screen real estate with several search boxes. Others are better done as applications such as RSS displays (I already use NetNewsWire), mail counters, IM buddy status, (I use Adium) wikis (I use MoinX) , or asteroids games because you want them to be more complex or because you wouldn't use them frequently enough to reserve space on the Dashboard. Others like iTunes controls are things you use so frequently you want it on the real desktop and not have to go to the Dashboard to see it.

In spite of the above limitations there is a set of things I've found very useful as a widget. Something that I use frequently enough that I want it easily available though not so much that I want it on the desktop, and that provides information visually (for some reason widgets should be pretty). Below are the widgets I use, first the Apple supplied ones.

• Weather - I probably check the weather 3 times a day and this widget shows a lot of info, in a little space, in a very pretty way, and it remembers where I am
• Dictionary - I'd prefer if Command-Control-D works in all apps, but it only works in Cocoa ones. And Quicksilver's Lookup in Dictionary doesn't always work either. As a result I use this one pretty often.
• Calendar - Nice to see a calendar in easy reach without having to open iCal. Since the clock in the menubar doesn't show the date, this is an easy solution
• Stocks - Just like the weather, it's easy to check several stocks a few times a day
• Unit Converter - I didn't use this much and then I had need for a couple of conversions in a few days time and found this easiest way to get to it
• Phone Book - I think I've used this once since installing Tiger, but it's still on my Dashboard, it does Yellow Pages look ups

And the third party ones:

• iCal Events - The Calendar widget should show your upcoming appointments but it doesn't so this one does
• RadarInMotion - This is a great adjunct to the Weather widget. I keep two up, one showing the weather radar and one showing the satellite view
• SysStat - This shows CPU, Memory, Drive and Process stats. I don't want it up all the time but it's nice to be able to see easily
• RabbitRadio - This plays various NPR stations broadcast over the net. I don't use it much, but it is on my Dashboard
• QTFS - Rather than buy QuickTime Pro to enable full-screen Quicktime movies, I use this free and legal widget
• YOLK Mini - I use two of these timers, one for the washer and one for the dryer
• Package Tracker - When I order something online I want it now. Rather than look the email with the link to the order to find the link to the package tracker, I enter an UPS, FedEx or DHL number in the widget and it displays the current location of my delivery, easy to check three times a day
• AirPort Rader - This isn't planes but Wi-Fi, shows the strength and channel of available networks. Nice to see the channels so you can set yours to be a different one
• iClip Lite - Has several clipboards for easy use, seems cool but I don't use it much

Some I don't use:

• Stickies - Too limited to be useful
• Translation - I don't need this enough
• Flight Tracker - I don't need this enough
• Tile Game - Not interested
• Address Book - I'd rather use a full-featured Address Book or Quicksilver
• iTunes - Rather use iTunes itself
• Calvin & Hobbes - I'd use it if it worked better