Liberate Your Widgets

The developer mode isn’t just handy for developers. Sometimes you need a widget alongside your regular workflow and not stuck in Dashboard.

The “developer mode” allows you to yank widgets out of Dashboard and have them float on top of your normal desktop (and put them back of course).

I resisted trying this out for a long time thinking that I had no interest in the weather or the clock or whatever floating above my desktop 24/7. But I find the best use is to temporarily pull a widget out, use it then put it back.

Calculator is the widget that makes the trip most often for me. Most of the time I’m working with numbers displayed on my screen. With so many widgets it’s nearly impossible to see whatever list of numbers I may be adding.

To enable devmode you can use the Terminal or a utility. In Terminal type:

Then restart the dock:

There is also a widget that will do this for you.

Once you’ve enabled it, liberating a widget is simple. Just click and drag the widget and while still dragging, hit F12 (or however else you have it set to enable/disable Dashboard) and the widget will come with you. Do the same to put it back, or you can still hold down the option key to close.

If you need to disable dev mode, in the Terminal type:

And restart the dock again. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t enable this, it doesn’t change any default behavior, and can be quite handy when the need arises.