Dashboard Dilemma
3 years, 2 months ago I’ve really enjoyed most of the new features which are packaged with OS X Tiger, but one I have never really fallen in love with is Dashboard. Although there are some useful widgits (calculator, yellow pages etc), most of them are very much gimmicks. I don’t have much use for the majority of them.
This is enhanced even further by the fact that, on my Mac Mini, it takes a good few seconds after switching to Dashboard for all the widgets to activate and start to function. Obviously, the more you have on there, the longer you wait. There have been times when I’ve waited well over 10 seconds to use the calculator. Bearing in mind the calculator application only takes 1-2 seconds to load, what’s the point in Dashboard?
Needless to say, when I found a way to turn it off this morning, I was very pleased. The DashOnOff preference pane allows you to switch off Dashboard (and obviously, switch it back on again). Turning it off showed a major performance increase on my Mac. Calendar loads a few seconds faster, things minimise and maximise without that little delay. Minor improvements, but they all count to make it feel like you’re using a zippier system.
Dashboard, Osx, Speed
June 18th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
Sounds like you have a Ram deficiency, you may want to top up.
June 18th, 2005 at 7:05 pm
One thing to consider is that you have to wade through a LOT of lousy ones to get to the widgets that really are good. I love the various weather widgets, so I get 5 day forecasts, local doppler, and regional weather charts from 3 different widgets. So you have to go searching and see what’s valuable. No, I don’t check these often, but it saves me having to go do multiple web pages.
Then there’s things like “Leo” for using the online German-English dictionary. And here’s the real issue: one of three existing widgest with nearly identical names is good, the others are just front ends for the web site. I don’t want front ends for the web site. I want to have my widget layer bring up the interface and the words, and NOT have to go to my browser. My browser distracts me. I want simplicity on one screen. Plus, I use multiple desktops, and I want to access widgets from all of them, identically.
So the thing for me is that I never expected Dashboard to work for me. But when I can focus on the one thing I need and not get distracted, I work better.
Of course, if nobody has created the relevant widgets to help you work better, then it’s understandable that it’s not really that valuable.
June 18th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
A RAM deficiency indeed - only 512mb - but it’s a shame ‘topping up’ involves so much extra cash
I know what you mean MC - If there are widgets around for things you check regularly, then fair enough. I for one look forward to the new widget for the Mint Shortstat replacement.
June 18th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
I’d also like to add that rather than the minor speed increase I noted above, it has actually made a pretty big difference. As I use more and more apps, I can really appreciate the speed bump.
June 18th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
Did you have any widgets selected that may have been running as a process while Dashboard’s layer wasn’t up front? That may be where the processor cycles were going.
I’m really curious as to what a hack like DashOnOff is really doing to the system. The Dashboard is not really any separate process. It is a part of the Dock process. If I make sure that no widgets are active, drag the Dashboard icon out of the Dock, and turn off key activation, then it’s as if Dashboard isn’t there. Checking the system with Activity Monitor, shows no evidence of any resources being used for it.
I fully understand if you don’t like or have a use for Dashboard. But it’s really easy to get rid of by not activating it. It’s not like you didn’t like the Dock and were trying to get rid of that.
June 19th, 2005 at 5:37 am
Ehm… I run Tiger on a 350mhz G3 iMac with 320 megs of RAM and the calculator is instantly activated when I call Dashboard…
I guess this is a bug in my hardware causing it to run 20 times faster than a mini
June 19th, 2005 at 10:11 am
to Zoid, to change the subject:
How did you install Tiger on your 350 MHz G3 iMac? I think that’s a model without inbuilt firewire, and Apple says inbuilt firewire is essential.
June 21st, 2005 at 3:39 pm
Good tip… I haven’t become a fan of the dash yet either… however, I haven’t had much time to play with it. Somehow I’ve trashed my Mini. I’ve been looking around the various Mac sites and haven’t had much luck yet. I don’t want to hijack the comments though, so could someone point out their preferred discussion site? Best place to go for communtiy help? Thanks!
June 21st, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Sean, try http://forums.macrumors.com - there are alot of very helpful and friendly people there!
June 21st, 2005 at 9:14 pm
Excellent, thanks Marko! I think I found my solution there. Now to rebuild and turn off that dash!
September 9th, 2005 at 1:47 am
Reply to Macadamias:
Hi. I’m the guy that wrote DashOnOff. To answer your question, all it does is call:
/usr/bin/defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
/usr/bin/killall Dock
Which writes “mcx-disabled”
in the dashboard preference ( plist ) file, and restarts dashboard.
To reactivate, it replaces “YES” with “NO”.
That’s all, no magic, just a simple GUI wrapper so that you don’t have to fish for that defaults line every time you want to turn Dashboard on or off
February 5th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
URGENT help please !
I hate Dashboard too, either on a G4 with 1GB & 1GHz or on a G5 it still does not perform well, it’s quite sluggish… a gimmick indeed !
They only work 100% if you’re in America, otherwise they’re pointless to me.
I read somewhere how to turn off Dahboard from the Activity Monitor but I can’t make it work successfully and I can’t remember how to do it !?
Can anyone help please ?
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