How to Fix Your Desktop Widgets
Having problems with your widgets? Ben was as well, and he found out how to fix those little buggers:
I have been another fairly recent convert of going over to OS X full time and it was around the same time you went Mac Pro on everyone. My laptop had came downgraded with Vista and I upgraded back to XP which made me happy for awhile but eventually I felt the need to go to using OSX after the place I worked needed me to live in an OS X world more and more (glitches in Leopard ended up sending me over the top). I like Leopard, I really do and that is what I run but there are underlying issues with it that has broken a lot of Tiger applications out there. I do not know if the broken programs come from bad programmers or good ones but I wish I knew if Apple has changed documented API’s that are not suppose to change (that would mean I could then blame Apple).
Apple Widgets have been breaking for a lot of people – and from what I read, very few know where to go to fix it. I found a forum that finally addressed the issue and I think a lot more people need to know about this solution that worked for me. There are multiple things that can break and corrupt files, including enabling .Mac syncing – but also if you enable your parental controls, you risk breaking your widgets! My issue more than likely was corrupted files (and simply deleting them resolves the problem). This solution came from Paul Burd.
I only have one widget running – the weather one, and even that sits in the upper left hand corner of my second monitor all the time (I enabled Developer Mode for the Dashboard so I could drag widgets onto the desktop).
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22 Comments
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March 21st, 2008
at 3:59pm
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NJ Tech Geek
March 22nd, 2008
at 12:31am
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Gary
March 21st, 2008
at 5:42am
Chris,
Why do you continually talk about your MAC switchover on Windows Fanatics. Start another newsletter and leave us alone. I bought and tried an iMac and took it back because it wasn’t my cup of soup. I personally like my Windows PC and in fact I have Vista and think it’s far superior to XP.
Gary
computersgalore
March 21st, 2008
at 6:51am
well-desktop widgets are great. Mac Os X And WIndows Sidebar Have exceptionally good widgets but i like google desktop. Cool widgets on there.
iowafan4life
March 21st, 2008
at 4:19pm
i have tiger and have no problem with my programs and desktop widgets. My applications may unexpectedly quit but only is when i run over five applications. I don’t know what is happening.
jedijoe
March 21st, 2008
at 6:08pm
thanks, that fixed my problem
wCurtis
March 21st, 2008
at 7:00pm
Well I don’t run Mac OS X or Vista, I am running XP so I don’t have anything like Widgets or Gadgets readily available. So I use Google desktop sometimes. I think it works pretty well for what I need it too do. It is not the best. But it lets me have a Sidebar on my second monitor and I can have a easy search feature on my start bar. Those are my thoughts.
Tanner
March 21st, 2008
at 7:01pm
so far all the widgets for me on windows have been doing fine and as far as comming across any that didn’t work haven’t been problem for me yet which is pretty great
theclownslaugh
March 21st, 2008
at 7:08pm
the key to happiness
is
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and analizing of the problem
Mozillarama
March 21st, 2008
at 7:09pm
I don’t use a mac, and probably never will. Widgits to me just seem very trivial and kind of a hassle. I mean i can see how they would be cool, and i can see how they can help, but i think that if givin the opportunity to put tons of widgets on my computer i would just bogg the screen up. I think that a good remedy for PC users instead of widgets are addons for firefox. I love them.
Aaron
March 21st, 2008
at 7:13pm
I too have been having problems with my widgets. For now there fine. I also found out through you about the developer mode. This has helped me and saved me a lot of stress because now I don’t have to hit F12 to go back to the dashboard!
ohmahgaw246
March 21st, 2008
at 8:17pm
I also recently transitioned to Macs and I think that Developer Mode is a great tip. Being a desktop modder on Windows this got me into using widgets more often in OS X. It made it more like a similar widgets program I use in Windows called AveDesk. I kind of got annoyed easily having to go into Dashboard to see the widgets all the time. I know some people think widgets make desktops look cluttered but I find them very useful.
IchBinMatthew
March 21st, 2008
at 8:59pm
GREAT POST.
My weather widget has been stuck on my desktop for awhile now…….
SBDTHRU
March 21st, 2008
at 9:00pm
Wow, this really helped me out a lot. I was looking all over the web for something like this and I found it right here on your site. Mac OS X can’t be perfect but it’s the closest thing to it!
SpencerC
March 21st, 2008
at 9:03pm
i hate gadgets, i love widgets. there is a cool program that lets you make gadgets! i forgot whats it;s called
Brian
March 21st, 2008
at 9:03pm
I like Widgets.
Scuba Steve
March 21st, 2008
at 9:04pm
is it true that widgets slow down your computer?
Commodore256
March 21st, 2008
at 9:04pm
Thanks for the advice!
climby
March 21st, 2008
at 9:05pm
Widgets do help us communicate with the internet over our desktop, technology surely has advanced :)
joseph
March 21st, 2008
at 9:10pm
I love widjets
nick
March 21st, 2008
at 9:15pm
Cool
Kurt
March 28th, 2008
at 9:23pm
If you want to keep a widget on your desktop, enter this command on your Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
Whenever you activate Dashboard, click on the widget you want on your desktop and drag it around, then exit Dashboard and your widget will appear on your desktop. It’s pretty useful.