The reality is that if I was watching the widgets / meters / interface-elements all the time, every second, then I would want them to update every second. Otherwise, I asked myself, is it really critical to have something update every second that I only look at once every 5 minutes?
So, I decided that I was wasting CPU I wanted to have available for RealWork™, and for noble causes, by having every interface element update every second. I decided that an update every five seconds should strike a nice balance between accuracy and CPU load. It was easy to fix in MenuMeters, as there's a slider to set update intervals. However, not every Konfabulator widget has update interval settings in their prefs. Problem?
No problem. One of the great things about Konfabulator widgets is that you can Hax0r them to your preference, and even create new widgets from pieces of other widgets. So read the rest of the hint for instructions on how to change the update interval for widgets.
Here's how to do it...
- Close the widget you want to alter
- Navigate your Finder to /Users -> yourshortname -> Documents -> Widgets
- Find the widget you'd like to put on a CPU diet
- Control-click on the widget and select "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu
- In the new window that pops up, open the folder "Contents"
- Next open the widget_name.kon file in your favorite text editor
- Find this line: action trigger="onTimer" interval="1"
- Change the 1 to 5" (change once every second to once every five seconds). Alternatively, use whatever interval you prefer.
- Save the file
Bonus tip: mini iTunes Remote stomach stapling. In the miniRemote.kon file (after changing the interval as described above):
- Change the line if (updateTimer >= 4) to if (updateTimer >= 0) -- this fixes the track counter
- Comment out the two lines with code concerning scrolling and autoleft -- this disables text scrolling, which is a relatively huge CPU pig

