Jun 13
I wasn’t going to bother writing up this little Dashboard tip because it seemed like such a small tip, but since I read about it on macosxhints, I find myself using it all the time.
The anonymous author of the tip calls it “at a glance” mode. To open Dashboard, you press the F12 key. But if you hold it down, Dashboard will appear as long as you press the key. Take in a quick glance at your Apple stock or check the weather, then just let go of the key as soon as you’re finished. But there’s more…
This same tip also works with the Exposé keys: F9, F10, and F11.
Related Articles:
8 Responses to “Tiger Tip: Hold Down F12 for Dashboard”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
June 14th, 2005 at 5:01 am
Hrm. On my keyboard, holding down F12 causes the CD drive to pop open. Holding it down again causes it to close. Tapping it enables/disables dashboard. What’s up with that?
June 14th, 2005 at 7:53 am
That’s a mystery. Do you have a PowerBook? If not, is it an Apple keyboard?
Anyone else have any ideas why F12 would open the CD drive?
June 14th, 2005 at 8:14 am
My keyboard is a PC-style Kensington PS/2 keyboard, plugged into a TrendNET KVM switch, which is then connected via USB to my PowerMac G4.
I’m running Mac OS X 10.4.1. It’s strange that tapping F12 gets me the normal dashboard behavior, but holding it down gets me the eject behavior. Maybe for some reason the Mac OS thinks my keyboard is a laptop keyboard?
I’ll have to give this tip a try on my PowerBook at home.
June 15th, 2005 at 5:00 am
I tried this on my Pismo at home (also running 10.4.1), and it has the same effect – holding down F12 causes the CD drive to eject.
June 15th, 2005 at 8:15 am
Hmmm. That’s odd. Maybe it only works with Apple keyboards. Anyone else have any experience with this?
June 15th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
By ‘Apple keyboards’ I assume you are referring to external Apple keyboards? Because my Pismo is an Apple PowerBook G3 with its own built-in keyboard (presumably made by Apple).
June 15th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Yes, sorry. I mean an external Apple keyboard. The PowerBooks have the F12 key as the eject key, so that explains that (I had to check my wife’s PowerBook).
June 16th, 2005 at 11:08 am
You might try assigning Dashboard to a different shortcut key. Open System Preferences>Dashboard and Exposé, then choose a different shortcut from the popup menu. If you hold down a modifier key (Shift, Option, or Control) before you click on the popup menu, you’ll be able to choose a modified function key.
June 17th, 2005 at 5:04 am
I reassigned Dashboard to another key, and now the tip works great! Not sure why the Mac OS is treating my external keyboard like a laptop keyboard… oh well!