Download Free Solitaire! For macOS 10.7 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. Free Solitaire! Is a completely free version of the very popular Klondike game, which most people just call 'solitaire'. The game includes options for one- or three-card draws from the stock.
- The Missing Plug-in prompt may also display if you have an outdated version of the plug-in, allowing you to update your Mac with the latest version. To view the content, you will need to install the missing plug-in. Below we show you how to install missing plug-in with Mac OS X.
- Mar 31, 2011 First, you want to click on the Dashboard icon. If you’ve got no idea what that is, you can see it highlighted in the image above. Press the button with the + at the bottom left of the Dashboard.
First introduced with OS X Tiger in 2005, Dashboard organizes Mac widgets — program shortcuts and precursors to apps that we are all more familiar with. Many of these widgets still come as part of the standard package with every Mac and new operating system.
Dashboard is useful to keep close at hand. Mac widgets include contacts (which you can sync with iOS contacts), to calculators, flight trackers to stock market information, the weather app, games, and a wide range of extra tools you can add when you tap the + icon in the lower left of the Apple dashboard.
If you want to take a look at what you can access via the Dashboard, here is the complete list of 1703 Widgets currently available and supported. Now, here is how you use the macOS Dashboard to improve your productivity.
Mac Dashboard shortcuts
Since MacOS Yosemite was launched, Dashboard is something you may have to enable to use. On Macs using an older operating system it is something that automatically sits in the Dock.
To enable Dashboard:
Go to System Preferences > Mission Control
Click the Dashboard pop-up menu
Here it gives you options for how Dashboard appears:
- As Space: Dashboard can inhabit its own area of your Desktop. Get to it when you press the keyboard shortcut for Dashboard, or move between spaces. There are a few other ways you can use space on your Desktop which we will outline below.
- As Overlay: Dashboard occupies a permanent space on your Desktop (which you can switch off via Mission Control).
Now that Dashboard is enabled, there are several ways you can access it (and set shortcut to give you access quicker). Access Dashboard through one of the following shortcuts:
Use Launchpad > Open > Dashboard.
Using Siri. Open Siri in the Menu bar and ask “Open Dashboard”, or something similar.
If you have set Dashboard as a space, use a Trackpad to access. Simply swipe right with three fingers.
In Mission Control Preferences, set a Mouse or keyboard shortcut; then use that to access Dashboard.
Now you can use any of the widgets you need, and add any as needed using the Add button ‘+’ in the lower-left corner of the screen. Remove them using the ‘-‘ minus symbol.
How to use Dashboard as a web monitor
- Go to the website(s) you want to monitor. Choose File > Open in Dashboard.
- The page or website will grey out, opening a purple border around part of the page you want to monitor.
- Now you can adjust the size of the border around the web source.
- Tap ‘Add’ and it will take you to the Dashboard with the source website pulling the information through to your Mac, making a shortcut to a specific website for quicker monitoring.
How To Design A Dashboard
How to close Dashboard on Mac
When you want to close dashboard, either click anywhere on the screen and the widgets will fade, or press the escape key, or use the mouse, trackpad or keyboard shortcut to close.
Dashboard is also incredibly useful for monitoring website you want to keep an eye on. Whether this is the status of a delivery or recent Amazon order, or a news outlet you read often.
Monitor your Mac with CleanMyMac X
There are always things that would be really useful if you could keep an eye on that don't come in a widget format. Such as your network connection speed and health status of vital functions (disk space, battery, etc.) For those, CleanMyMac X comes with a Menu monitoring feature.
The CleanMyMac X Menu comes with the ability to monitor RAM and how full your trash is, so if you experience a performance drop it can quickly isolate and clean the problem. The Menu even shows real-time statuses and health indicators of your hard drive, memory, battery, and CPU. You can also connect your Dropbox to see how much space is remaining. Plus it monitors several other vital functions, keeping your Mac running smoother straight from your status bar.
Download CleanMyMac X (for free).Everyday, CleanMyMac cleans 614TB of data for Mac users, and we have customers scanning and cleaning their Macs in 185 countries. CleanMyMac X comes with dozens of useful and smart features — a powerful app that your Mac needs.
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Do you ever get frustrated of going into Dashboard every time you want to access a widget with important information? There’s good news – with a simple Terminal command and the click of the mouse you can have any widget you like run outside of the Dashboard. Please note however that the widget will always be the front most window, so be aware that it may block content from other windows depending on where you place it.
To locate Terminal simply navigate to your Applications > Utilities and within the Utilities folder you will locate Terminal.
Then simply enter the following then press the return key:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
Then enter the following then press the return key:
killall Dock
How To Add Games To Dashboard Mac Os
You’ll also need to enter System Preferences, navigate to Mission Control settings, and make sure “Show Dashboard as a Space” is NOT checked. Now when you go to your Dashboard (by pressing function+f12 on Apple’s wireless keyboard), you can now click the widget, and hold that click while using the Dashboard shortcut once more. The widget you clicked on will now remain visible, even though the rest of the widgets disappear. You can continue working in any application, and the widget will stay put.
Should you wish to put the widget back into the dashboard all your need to do is click on the widget and hold then press F4 to launch dashboard and upon letting go of the mouse you will notice that the widget in question will pop back into the dashboard at that point in time.
Should you wish to completely disable this feature just go back to Terminal and enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode NO
Then enter the following then press the return key:
killall Dock
That’s all there is to it! For more helpful tips for your Apple devices, check out our full collection of tutorials by visiting our How-To category!
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