[Automator] Renicing Dashboard widgets

[michaelsanford]

This application will pull the process IDs of each of your dashboard widgets and then renice them to +15 for a friendlier user experience on older, slower Macs (such as my iBook G4).

Note that this will only have an affect on widgets that continue to run once the Dashboard has been suspended, either by poor programming or by design. This will also slow down your Dashboard widgets once your Dashboard is invoked.

Since decreasing the nice value of a process involves manipulating root privileges, I have not released any “un-renice Dashboard”, nor will I ever.

If you’re upset that your dashboard is working slowly, go into the Terminal, type killall Dock and hit return. The Dock process owns the Dashboard, so killing the Dock will cause the Dock and the Dashboard to restart, and everything will go back to normal.

Additionally, you can edit this workflow to meet your own needs (such as modifying the nice value) by opening “Renice dashboard.app” in Automator.

WARNING: This workflow is released with no warranty of any kind. If you somehow cause something catastrophic to happen because you used this workflow, I accept no liability or responsibility. Use at your own risk.

Equally, please don’t email me with support requests. I’m a grad student who uses a Mac, not a career programmer; I don’t have time or volition to provide support. Plus, there’s really no reason you should need support with this application.

If you’re really stuck, see the thread on this workflow at http://macosx.com/forums/automator-s...d-widgets.html

[Mikuro]

Nice idea! Thanks for posting it.