Set Dashboard to Transparently Hover Again, Out of Mission Control in OS X Lion
Don’t like Dashboard much in Mac OS X Lion? If changing Dashboards background wallpaper wasn’t enough for you, you can always return it to the standard transparent hovering state that existed prior to OS X 10.7 Lion. This pulls Dashboard widgets out of their own space in Mission Control and shows widgets directly over the desktop and applications, just like Mac OS X 10.6.
- Open System Preferences
- Click on “Mission Control”
- Uncheck “Show Dashboard as a space”
Now you’ll have to hit the good old F12 button to show the Dashboard instead of swiping left to the containing space with your trackpad. This adjustment is generally best for users who don’t have a trackpad or Magic Mouse, where swiping and gestures have no roll in their workflow anyway.
If you already forgot what it was like in 10.6, this is what it will look like:
Compared to the default in Mac OS X Lion:
I like the idea of widgets, and dashboard. The deal breaker for me is the resources, cpu and memory that are consumed.
I use Dashboard more now that it’s a separate Space than when it was a function key
well, this leads to the conclusion that Leopard can predict the weather 3 months from now and Lion only the weather in the past
Thanks for the tip…Missed the old Dashboard.
I have pulled some widgets out of the dashboard, onto the desktop, but now… since we can have more desktops… is there a way to show them on ALL desktops?
oh, got it… after extracting one, you can go back to Dashboard and add another instance of the same widget, by clicking the “+” sign, which can then be placed on another desktop…:-)
THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH FOR THIS INFORMATION. THAT MAKES ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT LION. I HATED USING DASHBOARD AS A “SPACE” AND NOW IT IS BACK TO ITS “NORMAL STATE”
I am much happier now. Why can’t APPLE let people know about things like this? Maybe they do, but I could not find it anywhere. I learned about this via the IOMUG apple user group
I agree completely it was driving me nuts and it kept switching screens on me. I am much happier with it back to the old way! Thanks! Maybe Apple should ask regular users before changing things like this!
Yay! I set my widgets back to having a transparent background as instructed above (system preferences…mission control…uncheck “Show Dashboard as a space”.) I much prefer the transparent background because that way I can see things on the desktop when I’m using either the calculator or the translation widget — two things I use almost daily while looking at things on the desktop. Thank you!!!
Anyone know if there’s a way to make the Dashboard appear using a Trackpad swipe? I know you can do option-command-second mouse button, but a downward four-finger swipe, say, would be more convenient.
[...] you find yourself not using Dashboard much anymore, try taking it out of Spaces and make it hover over the desktop again, this simple setting adjustment takes Dashboard back to its roots and lets you access it quickly [...]
[...] them more to the forefront of your desktop experience. This is different from making Dashboard hover over everything again, because this actually liberates the widgets out of Dashboard turning them into movable [...]