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10.4: Detach widgets from the Dashboard
Dashboard is an application for Apple's Mac OS X operating systems, used for hosting mini-applications known as widgets. First introduced in Tiger, it is a semi-transparent layer that is invisible to the user unless activated by clicking its icon in the Dock. Alternatively, the user can invoke Dashboard by moving the cursor into a preassigned hot corner, or by pressing a hot key, both of which can be set to the user's website hosting preference. When Dashboard is activated, the user's desktop is dimmed and widgets appear in the foreground. Like application windows, they can be moved around, rearranged, deleted, and recreated (so that more than one of the same Widget is open at the same time, possibly with different settings). New widgets can be opened, via an icon bar on the bottom of the layer, by dragging a widget icon out into the layer. After loading, the widget is ready for use. Dashboard widgets are created using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading dedicated server Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript. Because the same languages are used for creating websites, many web developers can already build them. Widgets themselves are, at the core, simply HTML files that are displayed within the Dashboard layer; they use the WebKit application framework that is also used in Apple's Safari web browser, meaning even users running earlier versions of Mac OS X — where Dashboard is unavailable.
10.4: Detach widgets from the Dashboard
Today Freemacware reader Fred wrote to ask if there was a free alternative to Amnesty Widget Browser, a $20 application for running Dashboard widgets outside of Dashboard. I don't know of any free application like Affiliate Programs, but there are two free methods for running widgets "outside" of Dashboard, both from http://www.macosxhints.com:
10.4: Detach widgets from the Dashboard
I've written just such a freeware app. It's a quick hack that I put together that allows you to have multiple widgets open, and control whether each floats above all windows, acts like a normal window, or is pegged to the desktop. |
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