Can anyone actually get their Dashboard Webclips to work?


dashboard.jpg

I’ve never really found Dashboard useful. I understand that some people do, but for me, its never been something I wanted or needed on my Mac. I thought that was going to change with Leopard.

The webclips button in Safari is one of my favorite “ideas” of Leopard. I say ideas because the thing doesn’t work. Not in the slightest.

I have tried multiple sites, and I can’t get any positive results. I clipped the stats tracker for this site, and it worked for a day or so, then it stopped loading. I tried turning my Dashboard in a comic strip page, but after the first update the images above are all that will load from the sites.

I love the idea of Dashboard Webclips, but they would be even better if they…you know…worked. Am I the only one having this problem?


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

21 Comments

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  1. I love Dashboard. It’s quick and easy access to my calendar, calculator, weather, dictionary, flight times, package tracking, and tons of other stuff I use all the time. Even things like taking screen shots, resizing images, combining pdfs, and leaving myself sticky notes. I can get in, do what I need to do, and get out fast. Boom. All without digging through my applications folder and launching an application.

    I have not tried the webclip function yet. I’ll have to see when I get home if it works.

  2. If you click on the webclip widget, and press “Command” + “R” it will reload the widget (with a nice little animation) and reload the webclip.

  3. My friend just upgraded to Leopard and it seems to work fine. I’ve seen him make a couple of webclips. Must be something specific to your set up.

  4. I’ve tried a few and they seem to work for the most part, but eventually get knocked off (ie showing parts of the page it wasn’t suppose to. I just don’t bother with them. The new movie/showtimes widget kicks major ass though, amazing time saver.

  5. It’s worked great for me. I’ve got my fantasy football scoreboard set up as a widget, so when I’m working on a Sunday, I can just click over and get a quick update. The only problem I’ve had is that it seems to take a while to update…but with James’ tip up top, that should fix that.

  6. My webclibs work fine. I only have 2 that I use. It does take a few seconds longer to load than my other widgets, but it does work.

  7. I have several web clips that sort of work, the don’t auto-refresh (as advertised) and sometimes I hit the dashboard and they are blank, a cmd+R does refresh but they are supposed to auto-magically…

    By the way, I upgraded to Leopard and this is the only quirk I have run into.

    The simply trick to put a widget on the deskop is press F12, click and hold a widget, press F12, viola a widget on your desktop, beware they are “on-top” of all apps by design, I’ve not found a way to move them behind an app.

    To put the widget back; click and hold the widget, press F12, drop the widget into the dashboard.

    Later!

    MacBook Pro, 2.0GHz. 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200 RPM SATA, 17″
    This thing rocks!!

  8. My webclips weren’t working either until I found a thread somewhere advising that you should check the stylesheet being used in Safari>Preferences>Advanced. If you’ve used a Safari add-on of some kind, this can mess it up.

    After ages trying to find the solution, I did indeed find Safari was using a custom stylesheet. I changed it to ‘None Selected’ and it’s been working like a champ since!

    HTH.

  9. My default browser is Firefox (god bless…) and my Dashboard Webclips work just fine. This is in reponse to Ender’s comment in ’07.