Widget Manager won't let me enable widgets.

Question

Level 1

93 points

Widget Manager won't let me enable widgets.

Every time I open the widgets bar, it shows all disabled but about four. At some point I used Widget Manager to disable the others, but now when I try to turn them on, the manager won't allow me. In fact, when the WM loads it shows under Computer Widgets all active, but when I mouseover them, the buttons turn grey, showing off. When I click on one to activate it, the message that comes up says, "Widget could not be enabled. You must have Administrator privileges to alter widgets in the Computer category."

I am the only user and the Administrator of this machine. Why can't I alter these? And in the User category, even if I click on the button and it shows active, it still shows the widget as disabled and it won't open.

How can I make my widgets work. And if someone could point me to an explanation of the different layers here (computer, user) and how I can manage them together, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks, Tonia

Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Posted on Dec 6, 2005 5:00 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 6, 2005 6:11 AM in response to Tonia

I take it you're referring to this Widget manager and not the one that came with the 10.4.2 update. If that's so:
The difference between the Computer and User sections would normally be dependent on whether the widget files are stored in HD/Library/Widgets or HD/Users/<username>/Library/Widgets. The first, being owned by the system, would require an admin password to make changes to enclosed files.

Since there is a Widget manager built into Tiger (accessed throught the Widgets widget or the "Manage Widgets" button above the Dashboard bar, it would probably be easier to use that one instead of the third party downloaded widget. Even you choose to continue using the same one, you should make sure that settings in the Widgets widget are not conflicting or the cause for your problems.

If all else fails, try trashing the preference file for your widget manager in <username>/Library/Preferences/ The filename should start with widget-com.

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Answer 2

Tonia Author

Level 1

93 points

Dec 9, 2005 5:21 AM in response to Mike-N-nahyunil

Yeah, I obtained THAT widget manager before we had one in Tiger. After your reply I decided to trash that one and use the Tiger manager. No change. I trashed all the plists connected with all of my widgets (native and otherwise) that seem to be permanently disabled, no change. Then I reinstalled 10.4.3. and did permissions maintenance, no change. My Tiger widget manager opens up with all but those same 3-4 widgets greyed out, and showing them checked as if active, but they remain the black icon. I tried unchecking and checking them, the status never changes.

FYI, the four that are working are the ones I had open when they stopped working: unit convertor, calculator, world clock, and one third-party, all of which worked together quite nicely for a couple of months. Also, important to note I found this problem just before upgrading to 10.4.3, and was hoping the upgrade would fix it.

Any further suggestions would be most helpful, like tell me exactly in which Library folders all of these belong.

Tonia

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