Do you ever get frustrated of going into Dashboard every time you want to access a widget with important information? There’s good news – with a simple Terminal command and the click of the mouse you can have any widget you like run outside of the Dashboard. Please note however that the widget will always be the front most window, so be aware that it may block content from other windows depending on where you place it.
To locate Terminal simply navigate to your Applications > Utilities and within the Utilities folder you will locate Terminal.
Then simply enter the following then press the return key:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
Then enter the following then press the return key:
killall Dock
You’ll also need to enter System Preferences, navigate to Mission Control settings, and make sure “Show Dashboard as a Space” is NOT checked. Now when you go to your Dashboard (by pressing function+f12 on Apple’s wireless keyboard), you can now click the widget, and hold that click while using the Dashboard shortcut once more. The widget you clicked on will now remain visible, even though the rest of the widgets disappear. You can continue working in any application, and the widget will stay put.
Should you wish to put the widget back into the dashboard all your need to do is click on the widget and hold then press F4 to launch dashboard and upon letting go of the mouse you will notice that the widget in question will pop back into the dashboard at that point in time.
Should you wish to completely disable this feature just go back to Terminal and enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode NO
Then enter the following then press the return key:
killall Dock
That’s all there is to it! For more helpful tips for your Apple devices, check out our full collection of tutorials by visiting our How-To category!
