Spotlight, Expose, Dashboard… I don’t use these. Really, not much has changed for me since 10.1 in terms of the way I use my computer. Am I missing out on things?
I’m still using LaunchBar for launching and switching to apps, getting contact information, visiting bookmarked sites and doing searches. I generally use online tools for information I can get from Dashboard widgets because it takes about the same amount of time and I’m already in a browser much of the time.
Automator, hmmm… I don’t really have a good reason to use it yet, but maybe soon.
Popularity: 5% [?]
resistance to persistence adds this Trackback:
Turning Dashboard off, and other Tiger gripes
That’s right, I’m turning the new Mac OSX 10.4 Dashboard feature off. I came across this DashOnOff software yesterday and I really thought about how much I use Dashboard. Very close to 0. Looking at the system info, each widget just takes up valu…
July 19th, 2005 at 10:46 am
smykes adds this Comment:
Automator seems to be the application that has all the features you need just to be almost useful. The thing I use the most that is new in Tiger is Ctrl-Command-D over words in Cocoa apps.
July 19th, 2005 at 10:51 am
brian w adds this Comment:
I’ve turned off Dashboard, too.
Exposé, on the other hand, I find completely indispensible. The “a-ha!” moment for me was setting the “Show only the desktop” to occur when I swing the mouse pointer into the upper right corner of the screen and putting “Show all open windows” into the lower right hand corner.
It feels like I’m flinging my documents around with the mouse; very intuitive and addictive.
July 19th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
I rarely use the mouse like that - I use the Drop Stack in PathFinder.
July 19th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
Trevor adds this Comment:
I use Quicksilver instead of Launchbar, and I find myself using Dashboard a lot. Perhaps you just haven’t found useful widgets yet? Spotlight is pretty good, too, I think. The thing is to remember to use it. Expose is amazing - I hit F9 all day long. Also, what about Smart Folders? Try making a Smart Folder for file you’ve opened today, or this week.
July 19th, 2005 at 2:10 pm
mpconnick adds this Comment:
I use Expose all the time. I have assigned the various keys to buttons on my Logitech Bluetooth mouse. One of the most frequest usages for me is to show the desktop (F11), click on an item and hold down the mouse button, show the desktop (F11), and drag the item to a mail message I’m composing.
We’re starting to use Automator quite a bit for some workflow things in our office.
I don’t use Spotlight too often, but sometimes it proves to be a valuable tool to find text embedded in some random PDF.
My primary usage for Dasboard is weather (though I was disappointed the removed the animations that were shown at Mac World San Francisco), package tracking, yellow page search, dictionary, and wikipedia. I also have an idea for a widget that would be a great add on to one of my company’s products, but no time to develop it right now.
July 19th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
Phil Boardman adds this Comment:
I use dashboard seldom, spotlight a little and Exposé frequently.
Dashboard widgets I use are calender and weather, used at most once or twice a day. That said, it automatically springs into action with Dasher after 15 minutes, so when I come back I get a quick over view of stuff (shortcut changed to F8 on my iBook).
Spotlight is used when I’m looking for a particular email, movie or file and don’t remember where I left it. Applications are launched from Quicksilver - since it indexes less, it finds the applications faster.
Exposé is amazing - it converted me to OS X from windows. I just keep wanting to hit F9, F10 or F11 while at work. Fast for switching apps and seeing if a page / file has loaded yet. Also good for draging a file between open windows / programs without having to dump it somewhere in between (drag, F10, hover, drop).
July 19th, 2005 at 2:45 pm
JohnBaku adds this Comment:
For me dashboard is just a way for me to keep up with the weather forecast but Expose is something I can’t live without. I love Expose!
Spotlight I find to slow on my 867 TiBook.
July 19th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
eric adds this Comment:
yeah, Expose is one of the more brilliant software inventions of the past 10 years. i suppose it took quartz to make it possible, but still: what an obvious, brilliant idea!
i adore Quicksilver. spotlight is great when you need it, but slow on my machine. the coolest dashboard widget is the one Jobs demoed that streams KQED. i also use the dictionary/thesaurus widget a lot.
but one of the cooler 10.4 features that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere is a silent system-wide find pasteboard. search for something in Safari’s google bar and the first word of the query turns up highlighted as default when you hit command-F in a webpage. it also shows up as default in other apps’ find panes — at least those that use the standard find services. obvious and brilliant.
July 19th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
I guess I just don’t get Expose… I can’t see how it’s useful.
QS v. LaunchBar is a bit of a religious argument, but either is a Better Way™ of interacting w/ the computer.
July 19th, 2005 at 10:34 pm
Christopher Black adds this Comment:
I didn’t really get Exposé either until I started using a 12″ Powerbook as my main machine. When you no longer have that much screen real estate to work with being able to hit F9 or F10 to quickly find a window is a godsend.
July 20th, 2005 at 4:15 am
Mick adds this Comment:
All spotlight did was replace the normal search feature, and you bet your ass I used and still use the search feature? Don’t tell me you guys know where everything is on your computer!
My computer is getting old now, and Dashboard appears to slow it down. I’ve learned not to use it, but hope I someday will.
Expose. Used to use it like food. Now I’ve just learned to hide applications that I won’t be using. As much as an innovation Expose was, I’d much rather just have applications that don’t open windows all over the place.
July 20th, 2005 at 6:37 am
Tony Ward adds this Comment:
Still getting a hang of Automator… never did AppleScript so this is a new frontier for me. Dashboard has its uses, though I wonder if it will still be of use to me once the novelty wears off. Exposé, however, is brilliant! I have my scroll wheel center-click set to show me all my windows…. I found myself flying through multi-application tasks (editing images and adding them to web layouts, etc.) I have found a lot to like about Spotlight, too.
July 20th, 2005 at 11:49 am
eric adds this Comment:
I didn’t really get Exposé either until I started using a 12″ Powerbook as my main machine. When you no longer have that much screen real estate to work with being able to hit F9 or F10 to quickly find a window is a godsend.
ah, maybe that’s the ticket. a 12″ powerbook has been my main machine for 3 years, so yeah, Expose is super. assigning expose to extra mouse buttons is super-duper.
July 20th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
Conánn adds this Comment:
Expose is is great, having recently gone back to using a mac locating one of many windows in a program is a bear without expose. I use the screen corners and find it useful.
Dashboard is a hog and may be better when machines are faster.
I have been throwing backups onto an external drive for years now and it was nice to use spotlight to find groups of images, only because I could save the search as a folder.
July 24th, 2005 at 2:57 am
Eddie Scoble adds this Comment:
used Spotlight to open Application the same way as quicksilver.
August 30th, 2005 at 5:57 pm