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Comment by cstuder | Hacker News Reader

Hey, Dashboard still exists.

I'm wondering why I never use it anymore. It was fun to play around with and design for, but nowadays I... well, I actually forgot the shortcut to open it.

Am I the only one?

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Dashboard is interesting as it seems like such a toy but can actually run almost anything behind the scenes, an example:

I had created a service that used distributed dashboard components to monitor mentions of you or your brand online.

Each widget had a ruby script that ran behind the scenes to do the actual checking against various RSS sources (both for that user and others) creating a really sweet distributed system for the service.

Dashboard is actually one of my favorite features; I can't live without it. I use the dictionary/thesaurus widget every time I write (or read) and I take down short, temporary notes on the sticky notes. Besides that, I use the clock (to keep tabs on different time zones), weather and calendar widgets, and iStat Pro.

  > I use the dictionary/thesaurus widget every time I write
  > (or read)

When reading, try this: hover over the word and press ctrl+cmd+d.

I use it for iStatPro and for the sticky notes feature. Those two thins are actually pretty useful for me. The calculator is typically useless though, and I've never found anything else that can't be solved quicker by just typing it into an address bar to put on there.

I find iStat Menus much more useful.

I use it few times a day:

* Checking traffic (I have safari snipped to traffic website).

* Sticky notes.

* Calendar to check what is the date of specific day of some week (i.e. date for Wednesday next week).

* Clock with second hand.

* Countdown timer (installed widget - TeaTimer).

* Time in other time zones I need to know (installed widget).

* Weather.

* Snow forecast for ski resorts in season.

* And, rarely - iStat Pro.

I've started using Dashboard a lot more since Lion where you can just 4-finger swipe to see it. I have a world clock on the very right egde of Dashboard, so I can 4-finger pull over just enough to see the clock and then go back without ever fully switching. Very handy.

I also make extensive use of the weather widget and Deliveries (package tracker).

I played with it for 10 minutes when it first came out and since then have either disabled or hidden it. It just seems to do stuff that most people I know leave browser tabs open for instead nowadays. The calculator is rubbish (and Cmd+Space, c, enter isn't hard), Google does better work at conversions and weather, etc..

You don't even have to launch Calculator, you can just type mathematical expressions directly into Spotlight, and it will immediately display the result.

I feel like a fool for not knowing this earlier. Works with Alfred too.

I believe it's telling that Apple's latest keyboards no longer include a Dashboard key; in its place is a Launchpad key. While I actually do use Dashboard on a regular basis (gotta check my stocks!), I don't think it's long for this world.

I still use it, mainly because it's very easy to hit the F4 key to pull it up. I only use it for quick look ups - I have a conversion widget, exchange rate widget & the odd time I need to use the calculator.

I use it all the time for various widgets - weather, calendar, network usage etc. It is just as easy to swipe horizontally with four fingers.

I actually use it a few times a day to do simple things like calculations, conversion, weather forecast... then again I'm on a laptop with F4 as the Apple-set shortcut.

I never use Dashboard.

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