Is it possible to "unfloat" a widget?

I assume you're talking about a Dashboard widget that you have jumped through a bit of a hoop to get on the desktop... correct? If so, I believe that what you do is start dragging it, then hit F12 (or whatever hotkey brings up the Dashboard on your system) and drop it back in the Dashboard.

It sounds to me like the OP wanted to do just the opposite of what you're describing. Namely, given that a widget shows in the Dashboard, which overlays everthing else, how does one unattach it from the Dashboard floating display so that it can be used as a separate app in its own separate window, just like any normal app?

In any case, how can one do what I've just described.

As a case in point, I have the iStatPro widget that shows temperatures, etc. It's not really all that useful unless I can have it showing while I work on various apps. But as things stand, to use it now I have to interrupt what I'm doing and open the Dashboard, read the resuls in the widget, then close the Dashboard.

Incidentally, how can one begin dragging and then hit F12 on the Apple wireless keybaord, where you have to hold down the Fn key while pressing the F12 key to get an actual F12 instead of the volume-increase action? It would seem to take either gigantic hands to stretch between the two keys with the fingers of one hand while moving the mouse with the other.

So, you want to actually put a Dashboard widget ON the desktop, not take it off the desktop? In that case, it's not that hard, assuming that the following still works in Lion. Paste the following command into the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

Then you need to restart the Dock (the Dashboard is managed by the Dock), so do this:

killall Dock

When the Dock reappears, open the Dashboard. "Pick up" one of your widgets and then hit the hotkey to hide the Dashboard. Now drop the widget where you want it to go.

Then that may simply be a problem with doing this in Lion. I believe that in previous systems it would be above the desktop but behind all other windows.

Exactly the same thing in Snow Leopard: the newly-freed widget floats atop other windows.

Now... how do you reverse the action so as to restore a widget back to the Dashboard?

Of course I can simply open Dashboard and add back the same widget in the usual way (clicking the big plus sign, etc.)

But I still have the free-floating version of the same widget -- and it's still on top of all windows.

Yes, although if you do that while there is a widget that has been pulled off the Dashboard, I'm not sure what will happen. Maybe it'll just go away with no consequences, maybe not, I dunno. I'd put the widget back on the Dashboard first.

Yes, I did put it back on the Dashboard. But another copy is still free-floating on the desktop, and it's still on top of other windows.

To put the widget back into the dashboard... Grab the widget with your mouse and hit the dashboad hotkey.

I found out how to get rid of the free-floating version of the widget here:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/dashboard_widgets_on_my_mac_os_x_desktop.html

You do not manually add the same widget back to the Dashboard (and if you did, first remove it in the usual way). Rather, you stay with the same commands:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

killall Dock

Now you do what, with an Apple wireless keyboard is a feat of bodily contortion:

1. Click on the free-floating version of the widget and keep the mouse button down still.
2. Hold down F12 -- that is, on the wirelesskeyboard, hold down together the two keys fn and F12 at opposite corners of the keyboard. This opens Dashboard. And you're still holding down the mouse.
3. Drag the free-floating version of the widget back towards the displayed Dashboard and release the mouse.

Now, unless you want to be able to too-easily drag other widgets off the Dashboard, repeat the same two Terminal commands but with NO instead of YES.

All this seems ridiculously complex for something that ought to be trivially easy to do and to reverse.

As I say in my own post on how to restore the widget, this is hardly an easy thing to do when the fn and F12 keys are at opposite corners.

Perhaps with two mice (??) or a mouse and trackpad both active (??), you could drag the free-floating widget as you simultaneously click the Dashboard icon in the Dock.

Another way to remove the widget from the desktop is to... Open the dasboard... click on the ♁ icon... click on the MANAGE WIDGET button... find the widget you want to remove from the desktop... uncheck (turns it off) the widget and recheck it again.

Now that's easy! No arcane terminal commands to enter; no hand-contorting keyboarding to employ. As simple and straightforward as one could hope. Thanks.