Favorite dashboard widgets

[Megatomic]

There are so many dashboard widgets out there, what are some of your favorites? I only have the four that run by default so far and would like to trick out the dashboard a little. Thanks.

 

[Tyranicus]

Other than iStat Pro, I use only the stock Apple widgets. (weather, calculator, iTunes, ESPN, movies)

 

[Megatomic]

Just after I posted this thread last night I found and installed iStat Pro. Nice widget, shows lots of system details.

Here's a related question: do widgets consume alot of system resources? If I run a bunch of them will my mac get laggy?

 

[bearxor]

I'd like to know how many people use the dashboard...

Honestly, I can't think of anything more inconvenient than having to go to a completely different screen to see something. I prefer the sidebar in Vista by a great deal.

 

[Wonderful Pork]

I use the dashboard for simple things like weather, gas prices, movie times, and TV schedules. Its quicker than opening up a web browser.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: Wonderful Pork
I use the dashboard for simple things like weather, gas prices, movie times, and TV schedules. Its quicker than opening up a web browser.

Ditto.

Personally, I prefer the Dashboard to Vista's Sidebar, because I don't like the real estate that the Sidebar consumes. They're both the same concept with different angles. I think it's much easier to middle click my mouse and check out the weather, or use the calculator, than having 200px taken up on the side of my screen.

That aside, I only use the stock widgets: Calculator, Movie Times, Weather, etc...

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Just after I posted this thread last night I found and installed iStat Pro. Nice widget, shows lots of system details.

Here's a related question: do widgets consume alot of system resources? If I run a bunch of them will my mac get laggy?

IIRC, if you run your "activity monitor" (in /Applications/Utilities) it will show you how much of your resources each individual widget takes up... most of them don't take up much.

 

[TMoney468]

I like Scenario Poker...it really helps me out at work when I should be working but would rather play Texas Hold Em 🙂

 

[rikadik]

The Amazon Art widget is great. Makes it a breeze to import Amazon artwork into your iTunes library.

 

[randomlinh]

I hate the dashboard. I just don't see the point. Actually, I think if it were more instantaneous, then I would use it more, but as it stands, I have it disabled. All I really used though was the calendar and weather. I still would like to see a quicker way to get to a calendar other than having ical open. Or rather, I would like a desktop embedded ical (that would sync w/o 3rd party software to google calendar). It's much faster to use expose than the dashboard.

Basically, my gripe is when it loads, it takes a few seconds to display the info. Yeah, you can say I'm impatient, but that's the point of a quick access system, isn't it? Or maybe I've missed the point of dashboard. Stuff like iTunes control... why? I can tab to iTunes so much faster. It's even better when I dedicate a space to itunes. Hrm... maybe I should start doing that more.

How does apple do the desktop widgets at the apple store?