94. Access Your Desk Accessories (Dashboard)  SEE ALSO 6 Grab the Window You Want 95 Add a Person to Your Address Book
New in Mac OS X Tiger is a feature called Dashboard , which is a special layer over your Desktop where all your desk accessories a calculator, a dictionary, a weather monitor, a unit converter, yellow sticky notes, and more, including accessories you can download from the Internet and add to Dashboardare stored. Operating in much the same manner as Expos (see 6 Grab the Window You Want ), Dashboard is summoned with a single keystroke, click, or mouse movement, depending on how you configure it. When Dashboard is invoked, all your active desk accessories swoop into view, overlaid on top of your Desktop, which becomes dimmed. Desk accessories, which are also known as widgets , can be activated immediately and placed anywhere on your screen; the next time you invoke Dashboard, the widgets you had previously activated are still right where you left them, with the same contents and active data you had left them with. This makes performing simple, quick tasks such as calculating basic math, jotting down a quick note, looking up a word, or controlling your iTunes music into a simple, instant operation, instead of having to navigate into the Applications folder to launch a tiny utility which must be laboriously launched and quit. | 1. | Open the Dashboard & Expos ° Preferences By default, Dashboard is invoked by clicking the Dashboard icon near the left end of the Dock; but a convenient "shortcut" to do the same thing is to press the F12 key. This can be changed; if you prefer to use F12 for another function, or if you accidentally hit it a lot during normal typing, you can change the keystroke that summons Dashboard to something more appropriate. 94. Access Your Desk Accessories (Dashboard)  Open the System Preferences application (under the Apple menu); click the Dashboard & Expos icon to open the Dashboard & Expos Preferences pane. | | 2. | Choose the Keystroke or Mouse Button to Invoke Dashboard
Dashboard is configured the same way as Expos ; you can assign a certain Active Screen Corner to Dashboard so that it's invoked when you move the mouse into that corner, or you can define a dedicated mouse click (such as clicking the middle mouse button) as the command that summons Dashboard. You can configure any combination of Active Screen Corners, keystrokes, or mouse clicks to suit your needs.
Additionally, you can customize the keystroke or mouse click for invoking Dashboard by adding modifier keys, if you don't want to invoke the feature too easily or inadvertently. To assign a compound keystroke (such as Shift+F12 ), hold down the desired modifier keys while you open either of the two menus next to the Dashboard label in the Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts section of the window. (The first menu defines a keystroke, and the second menu defines a mouse command.) The symbols for the modifier keys you hold down are shown next to the available function keys you can assign. Select the key combination you want to use. Close the window when you're done.
| | 3. | Summon Dashboard and the Widget Bar
Press the key combination that you specified. (Alternatively, click the Dashboard icon near the left end of the Dock.) The Dashboard layer zooms into view, while the Desktop and all application windows become dimmed. Any desk accessories (widgets) that had previously been in use appear in the positions in Dashboard where you had left them.
At the bottom left corner of the screen is a circular + icon; click this to reveal the Widget Bar , a horizontal area at the bottom of the screen (similar to the Dock) that acts as a launcher for your desktop accessories. All the available widgets are shown in the bar, scrolling horizontally with arrow buttons at the right and left ends if there are more widgets in the bar than your screen can show.
Click the + icon again to close the Widget Bar; press the same key combination to dismiss Dashboard as you used to summon it (or simply click on any unused area of the Desktop). You're now acquainted with the techniques necessary to move through the various levels of Dashboard; all that remains is to actually activate and use some widgets.
| | 4. | Open and Use a Widget With the Widget Bar expanded, click the name of any widget that you would like to activate. The desk accessory pops into view in the middle of the screen; if your computer is powerful enough, a "water ripple" effect announces the widget's arrival.  TIP Alternatively, drag a widget from the Widget Bar to any place on the screen where you want it to appear. The widget transforms as you drag it from its icon guise to its appearance as an active utility; this is a great little trick to show off to people. Click and drag the widget anywhere on the screen that is most convenient for you. If you leave the widget active when you dismiss Dashboard, the widget will reappear in the same position the next time you invoke Dashboard. Use the widget in whatever way is appropriate to it. For instance, operate the Calculator by clicking in the display window to activate it, then pressing keys on the numeric keypad. To enter text in a sticky note, click in the note and begin typing. Some widgets have preferences that can be modified; click the small "i" icon (usually in the bottom-right corner) to flip the widget around and work with the widget's options. For instance, you can change the color of your sticky notes to indicate different importance levels, or configure the Weather widget to reflect your hometown or to display Celsius units rather than Fahrenheit. NOTE You may need to move the mouse pointer near the lower-right corner of a widget for the "i" icon to appear that indicates it can be flipped over; otherwise , the icon is invisible. This behavior varies from widget to widget. | | 5. | Close a Widget To close a widget, hold down the Option key as you move your mouse over the widget; a circled X icon appears near the upper-left corner of that widget. Click the X . The widget disappears into the circle, taking with it any information it had displayed (each time you activate a widget, its information is cleared). TIP If the Widget Bar is open, the X icon appears on all open widgets, without your having to hold down Option ; this makes it easier to close them all one by one. | | 6. | Get More Dashboard Widgets
Open the Widget Bar, then click the More Widgets icon that appears in the lower right above the Widget Bar to launch a Safari window and visit the website run by Apple where you can download new widgets. After downloading any widget, move it into the Widgets folder in your Library folder (inside your Home if you want to install the widget only for yourself, or inside the Library folder at the top level of the disk to install it for all users). The next time you invoke Dashboard, the new widget appears in the Widget Bar.
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