Dashboard Widgets Desktop in Mountain Lion

[groove-agent]

There was a cool trick with OSX where you could have your dashboard widgets exist on your desktop rather than limited to the dashboard window.

This was done via terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
killall Dock

Now with Mountain Lion, "dragging" the widget to the desktop causes it to disappear. If you then reverse the settings in terminal, the widget appears on the desktop and you can drag it back to the dashboard.

I use this feature to routinely drag various sticky widgets to the desktop and back again. This is now not practical nor convenient.

Has anyone been able to use this feature properly in Mountain Lion?

 

[nyolc8]

try to disable dashboard desktop in system preferences > mission control

 

[groove-agent]

try to disable dashboard desktop in system preferences > mission control

Thanks for your reply.

You mean disable "show dashboard as a space"? Yes I've already done that.

 

[chartractegg]

I'm having the same problem. Just today I discovered dashboard devmode, but 10.8 Mountain Lion is not permitting me to drag widgets to the desktop successfully. I've played around with GeekTool, but I think dashboard on the desktop better suites me.

 

[groove-agent]

I think if they made dashboard devmode standard, that is, being able to drag widgets to use freely on your desktop, I think more people would take advantage of dashboard.

 

[robbski]

I've been looking for a solution to this for the past 2 months! It really sucks not having my clock/calendar widget, weather & battery performance widgets on my desktop!! It's not practical to have to move to the dashboard to see these! Come on Apple! Fix this, please!!

 

[robbski]

I just found this, and it WORKS with Mountain Lion! It's actually pretty damn cool. You can resize the clock, change colors, translucency, even put your own PHOTO for the background!

http://download.cnet.com/Simple-Floating-Clock/3000-2094_4-173851.html?tag=bc

 

[evangw]

This still works in Mountain Lion. I did the same technique as described in the original post, but it did not work... until I reset my computer, then it suddenly worked for some reason. Killall dock did not. I can drag on and off normally now--I don't have to reset each time.

Unfortunately the floating widget is on top of all my windows, just like before 10.8. Really annoying! No wonder I never used this hack pre-10.8. I just want some way to have the weather on my desktop and not using some horrible hack like GeekScript.

 

[groove-agent]

This still works in Mountain Lion. I did the same technique as described in the original post, but it did not work... until I reset my computer, then it suddenly worked for some reason.

What do you mean you "reset" your computer? Do you mean you restarted it? I tried replicating your results with a restart. The results are the same: the widget once dragged to the desktop simply vanished.

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Ok so I got this far.

If you put it in DEVMODE and drag it to the desktop it will disappear until you log off and log back on again. At that point the widget appears on your desktop and you can move it back and forth from dashboard the same way you could pre-osx lion.

HOWEVER, you have to do this for each widget for it to behave "properly". Kind of a pain, but a step in the right direction.

 

[Shawzborne]

What do you mean you "reset" your computer? Do you mean you restarted it? I tried replicating your results with a restart. The results are the same: the widget once dragged to the desktop simply vanished.

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Ok so I got this far.

If you put it in DEVMODE and drag it to the desktop it will disappear until you log off and log back on again. At that point the widget appears on your desktop and you can move it back and forth from dashboard the same way you could pre-osx lion.

HOWEVER, you have to do this for each widget for it to behave "properly". Kind of a pain, but a step in the right direction.

I did it

Just make sure you unclick show dashboard as a space and bam!

 

[CartoonMac]

"put it in DEVMODE and drag it to the desktop"

Could someone please detail exactly how to do this? Also - do the widgets stay where you want them on the desktop - and NOT display over top of other windows? Thanks

ps: I've tried this: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-run-widgets-on-your-desktop-in-mountain-lion-mac-os-x/ but the widgets all stack up under the finder icon (bottom left) upon restart.

 

[fhall1]

I use WidgetRunner on ML to display the weather widget on my desktop....works fine.

http://db.lcs.mit.edu/madden/WidgetRunner/

 

[xxmxixnxkxx]

I use WidgetRunner on ML to display the weather widget on my desktop....works fine.

http://db.lcs.mit.edu/madden/WidgetRunner/

I downloaded WidgetRunner yesterday and found that it does not work with default apps like it said it would (World Clock, iCal). Then today I found Amnesty 1.6, which is way better than WidgetRunner. It actually works better with widgets that does not work with WidgetRunner (i.e. World Clock, iCal). It used to cost $20, but it is now free. The link to developer site and to download the app is in this website: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20130407192115114 or directly download it here https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/17922/amnesty

Amnesty 1.6 did the job without glitches and having to go through developer mode. My Mac is 10.7 Lion, but hopefully it will work with 10.8 Mountain Lion, too.

 

[fhall1]

Thanks for the heads up on Amnesty...I'll give it a try