“Little attention has really been given to Widgets since Apple made them the ‘in-thing’ in operating systems (take note of Vista using them) when Tiger was launched last year. There’s an awful lot of widgets available that are, questionable, to say the least, but there’s also an array of interesting and useful widgets which can actually help you in your way whilst using your Mac,” Aaron Wright writes for Apple Matters. “So, to get some more attention on those useful (and sometimes useless) applications, I’ve decided to compose a list of my favourite and most used Widgets currently available.”
Wright’s 9 Best Dashboard Widgets:
• iPhoto Mini
• iTunes Stats
• Hang Man
• Scenario Poker
• Tigergotchi
• Auto Crossword
• Digg.com
• Applematters.com
• iStat Pro
Full article with descriptions, screenshots, and download links here.
MacDailyNews Take: The 10th? Shamelessly, we direct you to our MacDailyNews Dashboard Widget. More info, screenshots and download link here.
Surely, you have others ideas of great widgets, so please share them below (and, yes, we’ll stop calling you “Surely.”)
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Related articles:
Google debuts Dashboard Widgets for Mac webpage – February 24, 2006
Microsoft debuts Dashboard Widgets, er, ‘Microsoft Gadgets’ – September 13, 2005
MacDailyNews Dashboard Widget 2.0 released – September 03, 2005
Free ‘Amnesty Screen Saver’ lets Mac OS X Dashboard Widgets run as Screen Savers – August 11, 2005
Runaway hit: Apple Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard Widgets pass one thousand milestone – August 02, 2005
Amnesty Widget Browser 1.0 released; runs Dashboard Widgets on Mac OS X Panther, Tiger Desktops – July 05, 2005
Newsday: ‘Widget mania is for real’ with Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger’s Dashboard – July 04, 2005
Free ‘Airport Radar’ Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard Widget scans for wireless networks – June 14, 2005
ExtremeTech picks ‘MacDailyNews Widget’ among ’20 Favorite Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard Widgets’ – June 14, 2005
Top Ten Best or is it the Top Ten Most Popular??
Was Taylor Hicks the best singer, performer, or talent over Katherine McFee, or was he just the most popular??
I disagree with most of these widgets, having tinkered with most of them over time, and Katherine McFee is the only idol contestant who has the potential to become a real long-term superstar, if she would only hire a personal trainer to work out her big butt.
Strange Picks:
Here are some of my faves:
Rabbit Radio
Marquee
Skype Widget
Google Maps Widget
Air Traffic Control
Local Weather
Package Tracker
TV Tracker
Vintage Radio Shows
Jon’s Phone Tool Widget
What about Hula Girl??
I use …
5 copies of Weather widget for 5 different cities
*NIXmanual
Calculator
Stocks (quick glance at 15 stocks)
Gas to track local Gasoline prices
iStat Pro
love it!</pre>
App Update!
Would be one to permanently remove this useless ‘feature’ from the Mac OS. It’s a nerd’s wet dream but is largely useless. Eye Candy for Geeks.
I like McPhee butt! Shapely.
My favorite Mac calculator, PCalc, recently upgraded to PCalc3, free for everyone whose already paid for PCalc2 (I love free!). PCalc3 includes a calculator dashboard widget which has almost all the functionality of the full application!
Yellow Pages
White Pages
Blow your friends’ minds by looking them up in the White Pages widget (while they look over your shoulder) and then click on their address – boom! A map showing where they live. It would be even cooler if it launched Google Earth.
And, Movie Marquee.
http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=723
If you click on the “info” circle in the lower right-corner of the widget it plays an awesome video of Dubya telling it like it is.
Widgets are a waste mostly, never use them.
The top ten keeps changing weekly.
It’s just faster to type what you need in the google search bar.
weatherBug
Oh, <u>GREAT</u>!
Texas Hold-em sitting just a click away while I’m supposed to be ‘working’. At least the XWord generator qualifies as ‘mental exercise’.
I agree with the several folk that felt that Widgets are (mostly) a waste of system resources – eye-candy. There are quite a few, though, that either provide significant utility or significantly easier access to utility and are thus of significant value. iStat and weather offer utility, maybe the Dictionary offers access if your Dock is too crowded even without the Dictionary app in residence.
I like the Dashboard — puts stuff close at hand without cluttering up the desktop.
My top favorites:
* Gmail (can see what’s new in my Inbox without having to login from Safari)
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* Weather (especially multiple weather widgets — I’m monitoring conditions for our upcoming vacation destinations)
* ESPN Widget (get both scores and news)
* Yahoo! Local Traffic
* CNN
* This Day in History
* Calendar (handy when I need to quickly check a series of dates)
* MacWorld News
* And of course, MDN…
Best Widget and Most Useful:
“Radar in Motion”
…absolutely.
The above said however, the Most Often Used and Most Clicked To Web Links award by far on goes to my MacDaily News widget. : ) No lie there.
I don’t find myself using too many of the wigits- weather is about it. . .
MacRaven,
Shoulda added that one to my list. It sits permanently on my Dashboard.
While I agree with a few of the picks… it is true that AppleMatters has been going pretty steeply downhill lately. Most of the articles there nowadays just seem to be yearning for a decent subject to talk about.
Sorry MDN Web Master for sounding harsh…… I do really appreciate the window titles now! In the dark days, I would have to open my bookmarks panel and go through my history (or bookmarks) looking at the URLs to find the article I wanted. No longer!
You guys who love to diss widgets have no imagination whatsoever. Either that, or you have a really small screen or a really slow machine. There are countless useful widgets that can replace shareware apps you might have paid for. But you have to know how to use them, and which to use. Widgets are where some of the most creative ideas in web software is taking place today… so many great Mac developers, so many great ideas!
If you have a large monitor, just bring the widgets onto the desktop. (Use “developer mode”: grab a widget in the dashboard and drag it while holding F12. This will bring it to the desktop. You can put it back the same way.) I never use the dashboard layer (well, almost never). I keep about a dozen widgets on my desktop, though:
1. Percount Nano. Cute countdown widget that lets you drag any photo or image you like into the middle. Very customizable.
2. eCheck. OK, this is one I paid $5 for. But there’s nothing else like it. This little guy lets you set up any number of email accounts, both POP and IMAP, and keeps the screen updated with the number of unread emails you have. Without having to open Mail! It’s Growl-enabled, so you can get notifications that way if you like.
3. Screenshot Plus. The easiest way to take screen grabs. Has features even SnapzPro doesn’t, like: You can select an app to open your screen grab once you copy it to the clipboard. And it’s free!
4. SeeSS. If you do any web development, this is the best CSS reference tool around, and it curls up into a tiny lozenge on the desktop when you’re done. No shooting you out to the web either… everything’s in the widget.
5. Reminder. I’ve tried umteen reminder apps, and there are many good ones. This one is the best. All you do is type in a number of minutes, a title and Return. Reminder sets up an iCal alarm in a customizable configuration. Sweet.
6. Launcher. Have so many widgets you can’t remember their names or what they do? This is a search tool for widgets. It also has a search for Applications, so you can use it as an app launcher, too.
7. PHPQuickReference. The PHP analog to my CSS reference widget.
8. Symphony. Launch any song in your itunes collection without opening or launching itunes.
9. AppButton. From Taco Widgets, it’s still in beta. But this is going to be the most useful app launcher in widget form ever made. Again, it’s great because it has so much power hidden behind that tiny round “A” icon. Takes up very little space on your desktop.
10. Widget Update. By the makers of App Update… this one lets you see which widgets have more recent releases and gives you links to the various widget sites to download.
11. DoBeDo. The best to-do list app, widget or not. It’s the only one that reliable syncs with iCal, so it not only reads iCal to-do lists, but you can add to them as well. Great interface.
12. Apple’s Stock widget. If you follow the stock market at all, this is probably the easiest way of glancing at the latest data.
That’s just a beginning… but it’s all I’ve got time for right now. Widgets are a marvel… you just have to know how to use them. Oh, and it is important to be able to turn the widget system off now and then. I have an applescript in my script menu that disables all the widgets and another than reenables them. Widgets DO take up resources, and sometimes you don’t have any to spare.
Damn! I forgot to mention iPhoto Mini. What a great widget that is!
Cyndi 1.0 is the newest and coolest widget yet!
Its available on the apple.com site and at neucastmedia.com
Slothcam is excellent too!, and MDN’s widget of course
http://artvintage.org