Dashboard is a feature of Mac OS X. With Dashboard you get many small programs, called “widgets,” that have a wide variety of uses such as checking stock prices, finding local or global weather information, looking up words in the dictionary, and so on. Widgets speed up many everyday tasks.

Dashboard comes with many widgets already installed. If you’re connected to the Internet, you can download additional widgets. There are also two easy ways to create your own widgets: Web Clips and Dashcode.

Some widgets are linked with larger applications. With the Address Book widget, for example, you can search for a name and address without opening the full Address Book application. Other widgets, such as Weather, provide web-based information without opening a web browser.

To see Dashboard and the widgets, press the F12 key. Press it again to hide Dashboard.


Dashboard shortcuts:

You press the F12 key to show or hide Dashboard. If you want, you can change the shortcut key, or choose a different type of shortcut.

To set Dashboard shortcuts:
  1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Exposé & Spaces.
  2. Open Expose & Spaces preferences
Choose one or more shortcuts for showing and hiding Dashboard. You can choose an active screen corner, keyboard key, or mouse button (if you have a multiple-button mouse).

For more information about the options, click the Help (question mark) button.



Installing more Dashboard widgets:

If the widget you need isn’t already on your computer, you can install additional widgets if you’re connected to the Internet. There’s a widget for almost every task you can imagine.

To download and install widgets:
  1. Press the F12 key to open Dashboard.
  2. Click the Open (+) button to open the widget bar.
  3. Click Manage Widgets.
  4. Click More Widgets to go to the Dashboard Widgets website.
  5. Browse the widget website. When you find a widget you like, click its Download button.
  6. When the Widget Installer opens, click Install.
If the installer doesn’t open automatically, go to the downloaded file and open it. If the file’s name includes the “.zip” extension, double-click it to unzip, and then open it.

Click Keep to keep the widget. If you decide not to keep it, click Delete.

If the Widget Installer doesn’t open automatically when you download a widget, you may want to change your download preferences in Safari.

To find even more Dashboard widgets, search the Internet. As with any software you install on your computer, make sure you install widgets only from trusted sources.