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Multiple widgets work fine
Authored by: daveschroeder on May 01, '05 03:56:05PM
A couple notes from playing around with this: 1. I was only able to do this if I dragged to create a new (or new instance of a) widget from the Dashboard Dock, *not* an existing open widget.

That's because you didn't enable devmode.

2. I was able to do this without devmode on.

...as I said above.

3. The widget disappears the next time you hit F12 (and because of this, you can only have one widget on the desktop at a time). I was especially disappointed to learn this as I strongly believe that some of these widgets are really only useful if they are permanently on your desktop.

Again, because you didn't enable devmode.

If you don't enable devmode, yes, you can drag them from the shelf and hit F12, and then it will be on your desktop, but only until the next time Dashboard is invoked, as you noted.

But if you enable devmode (and then log out, and log back in, or do a 'killall Dock' to cause the settings to be applied), then you can:

1. Activate Dashboard.

2. Take a widget that is already in the Dashboard environment (i.e., NOT in the shelf) and begin dragging it, but don't let go of the mouse.

3. While still holding the mouse, exit Dashboard with the keystroke you have set for it (by default, F12), then let go of the mouse.

4. The widget will remain on the desktop, even when Dashboard is activated and deactivated, and you can do this for multiple widgets.

However, they'll all be floating above everything, and there aren't any Konfabulator-like settings for things like transparency, which layer they're attached to, and so on.

i.e. why bother opening Dashboard to use the iTunes widget when you can open iTunes from your dock just as quickly? This is a lot of what made Konfabulator so fabulously useful and why they need to rethink things for Dashboard 2.0.

*Sigh*

That's because Dashboard isn't supposed to be Konfabulator. Konfabulator is Konfabulator.

Aside from all of this, give it a week or two and there will be a utility that lets you manipulate Dashboard widgets *exactly* like you were able to in Konfabulator, and then some.

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