Great Widgets for Mac OSX
Must Have in Your Dashboard
Are you familiar with widgets? A widget is a little program that runs in the Dashboard of OSX. When widgets were introduced they were hotter than hot. Now they seem to have cooled down. I have never really been into widgets but there are a few I use on a regular basis. Here they are:
Tinydash (direct download link) If you don’t use tinyurl in any form, you should. Tinyurl allows you to enter a long url from your clipboard and turn it into a smaller one for emailing, posting, or whatever. This widget is a widget that does this process for you instead of haivng to go to www.tinyurl.com. I think this is my most used widget. (figure 1)
Twidget I am still debating about using Twitter on a regular basis. However, I have an account and occasionally have used it to enter a contest or two. Twidget is a widget that lets you enter tweets to your account without having to go to the website or use another program. A very simple way to tweet. (figure 2)
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Widget (Macupdate.com link) This is exactly what the name implies. It is a dictionary widget for the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Not a bad thing to have. (figure 3)
To be honest with you those are the only three non-Apple installed widgets I use. There use to be others, but over the years Apple has added their own widgets to replace the ones I installed. These widgets (which I always have running) are the ESPN Sports Ticker widget, the Weather widget, the Stock widget, and the Calendar widget. I also used to have the movie widget running, but since my son was born movies have become a thing of the past.
With that said, I have to mention the GOGO Redball widget (now at 2.0). I used to have a student who was very proud to have over 1000 widgets installed on his computer (warning- widgets can slow your computer down if you run too many at once) and this was one of his favorites (or one like this). It is basically a bouncing ball that you click to bounce.
I also have to mention the MyMac.com widget, which I created and designed the icon for. Widgets are actually very easy to make with the help of Apple’s Dashcode software, which is part of xcode (but that is a series of articles).
While I don’t have many widgets in use, there are plenty out there. There are games (there is a pacman like widget), email utilities, and countless other widgets that are being developed every day. To find widgets that are right for you visit Apple’s widget site
References
Screenshots taken by author.
Article based on author’s experience.
Links:
Tinydash: https://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=615
Twidget: https://www.gettwidget.com
Merrian-Webster Widget: https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/reference/merriamwebsterdictionary.html
GoGo Redball: https://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=1386
Apple’s widget site https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/.
MyMac.com: https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/blogs_forums/mymaccomwidget.html
