[Ham-Mac] Dashboard Widgets

[Mike Carter]

Widgets, by design, are accessed only to reference information  
quickly then return to whatever you were doing. For that purpose I  
think they are brilliant. Not useless at all. For example, the  
Dictionary widget is handy when writing. It's something that would  
take up Desktop real estate needlessly for most the time until used.  
As a widget, it's waiting in the wings out of sight. Same for the  
Stickies and Calculator widget, and the Weather and Stocks widget for  
me personally. You don't use them often enough to have them hanging  
around on screen, but would rather not hassle with finding the app to  
launch it or clog up the Dock with items you don't use that often.  
Hit F12 and there they are: interact with them, get the data you  
need, then dismiss them all.

I can think of quite a few great ideas for Ham-related widgets.  
They're very easy to create as well. However, as you've mentioned,  
they aren't the solution for every requirement. If you need a window  
open constantly for data, then Widgets aren't the way to go.

I've been using Tiger since we first released the internal betas, and  
they've proven extremely useful. :)

On Apr 30, 2005, at 5:10 PM, Jack Brindle wrote:

> I haven't received the developer mailing yet with Tiger, so I  
> haven't actually played with Dashboard yet. The demo I saw at  
> MacWorld tends to make me think these things are a bit less useful  
> than they could be. Unlike the old Desk Accessories of the original  
> MacOS, it appears that all Dashboard widgets are displayed  
> simultaneously, and when you switch to another app, they all  
> disappear. Again, this was behavior from last January,  but if this  
> is the case, I would much rather have a small application that does  
> a job instead of a Dashboard widget. Yes, many of the widgets are  
> really cool (OK, way, way cool from what I saw), but it appears to  
> me that between the limitations and the relative ease (remember,  
> I'm a developer) of creating small apps, why bother with widgets?
>
> Now, can someone who actually has a copy of Tiger running set me  
> straight as to how they actually perform?
>
> On Apr 30, 2005, at 4:00 PM, Dick Kriss, AA5VU wrote:
>

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Michael Carter
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Apple Computer, Inc.