Apple Widgets
If you’d like one of your Dashboard widgets to be available all the time, instead of only when you have activated Dashboard via F12, then activate the Dashboard dvelopment mode. Open the Terminal and type defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES and press Return. Then logout and log back in again. Now debugging mode is activated. To get a widget off of the Dashboard and onto your desktop, just do the following:
1. Activate Dashboard by pressing F12 (or whatever key you’ve assigned to Dashboard).
2. Begin dragging the widget.
3. Press F12 again, before letting up on the mouse button.
4. Drop the widget wherever you want it.
You can do the same thing in reverse to drag the widget back onto the Dashboard. Also of interest: while a widget is frontmost, you can press Command-R to reload it. (This may be necessary if a apple widgets is buggy and gets messed up somehow.) There’s even a nifty Core Image-based twirl effect to accompany the reload.
Ready for the fun now? Press f12 to bring Dashboard up, then drag one of your Dashboard widgets around. While you’re still dragging it around (that’s critical: keep that mouse button down!) press f12 again.
Poof! Your Dashboard vanishes, but the widget’s still visible. Move it to where-ever you want on your screen and it’s there, running, fully functional, without the rest of Dashboard around!
You’ll notice that it lives above everything else on your screen (at least, I don’t know how to push it behind other app windows) so I think you’ll have the best results with small widgets that can be tucked into a corner or lined up neatly on an edge.
To move the widget back into the Dashboard world, reverse the trick: begin dragging the widget, then, while still keeping the mouse button down, press f12, then let go of the mouse button. The widget will be restored to its regular Dashboard layer.
