Fedora: Configure the KDE Dashboard to behave like in OSX

One thing I absolutely loved on my Mac (OSX 10.4 Tiger at the time), was the way the Dashboard behaved. All other implementations of this feature I have seen on Windows Vista/7 and the default KDE 4.3 configuration sucked in comparison. For those of you unfamiliar with the OSX Dashboard concept, let me explain it to you…

EDIT: since KDE 4.4, options have been moved!

In OSX, the Dashboard is a “layer” you can superpose to your normal desktop. It’s activated by a button on your keyboard or by moving your mouse to an edge of the screen, so you can access it very quickly. On the Dashboard, you can drop little applications called Widgets, as you can see on the picture below. When you quit the dashboard, all these little widgets are hidden and don’t clutter your normal desktop.

OSX Dashboard I have stolen from Google Image

In Windows Vista/7 you can also add Widgets (called Gadgets), but they simply live on your normal desktop as far as I know. In KDE 4.3 there is a mix of both worlds; there is a Dashboard “layer” similar to what you find in OSX, but all the Widgets are also visible on you normal desktop when you quit the Dashboard view, so it’s cluttered.

Since KDE 4.3 (as far as I know) it’s possible to configure KDE’s Dashboard to behave exactly like in OSX, but the option to configure this is pretty well hidden…let’s see how to activate it in Fedora 12.

First, go to your upper-right corner and click on the little icon to manage your Widgets (it’s called the cashew), select “Zoom Out”…

You will be presented with the following screen, click on “Configure Plasma”…

Now activate the “Use a separate dashboard” option…

To quit the environment, click on the “Zoom In” icon under the desktop picture…

You are done, now you can activate your Dashboard (Ctrl+F12 or a configured screen corner) and throw little Widgets there…they won’t clutter you desktop anymore!

KDE 4.3 Dashboard under Fedora 12, looks quite similar to OSX