# In this episode, we guide you through adding widgets to your Sonoma desktop. We explain the process of accessing the desktop, adding widgets from your iPhone, and how to interact with them. Tune in to optimize your widget experience on Sonoma with iOS 17.
00:00.170 –> 01:07.602
So in today’s audio, I’m going to walk you through the process of adding widgets to your desktop in Sonoma. Now why might you want to do this? Well, I have recently, as of, I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago, gotten into wanting to be able to meet my step goal. And my step goal is 4000 steps. I really need to up that. But that’s my goal right now and I’d like to be able to find out what the status of that is when I’m sitting at my desktop. So I’m going to show you a couple of things today. Apparently some people didn’t know one of these things. So when I go through this process, I do encourage you to follow along if possible. I have Finder open right now and I’m running iOS 17.1 on my iPhone and I’m running Sonoma 14.0 on my Mac. In Finder. You can first get to the desktop by pressing Command option W. This closes all of your Finder windows and says.
01:07.656 –> 01:11.502
Something like external SSD actions Available. External SSD.
01:11.566 –> 01:33.738
Yours probably won’t say External SSD, but that’s what mine is. And now I’m on my desktop. Now firstly we need to get the widget from my phone to the desktop. And I want to thank Michael Doyce for helping me with figuring out how to actually get this to work with Voiceover. So I’m going to press vo that’s voiceover. O.
01:33.904 –> 01:36.042
Notification center notification center window list.
01:36.096 –> 01:40.262
And this puts me in my Notification Center. Now, if I press vo right arrow.
01:40.406 –> 01:44.538
What’s new? Place widgets directly on the desktop. And now your iPhone widgets edit widgets.
01:44.634 –> 01:48.190
And I locate the edit widgets button. So I’m going to press Vo space.
01:48.260 –> 01:50.974
On this Search Widgets blank search text field.
01:51.012 –> 02:27.066
And this puts me in a search list where I can search for the widget I want. I’m not going to actually do that. What I’m going to do is go through the list of widgets so you can kind of hear what’s available. I’m going to quickly go through them, but I’ll show you how to get to your list of widgets, which yours will be different than mine if you press Vo Right arrow. Once available widgets, you’ll get to an available widgets and it says Activate to Clear Selection. I’m going to go and interact with this. And as you heard, there are 48 widgets. So the one I’m looking for is Pedometer plus plus. So I’m going to use my Vo right arrow key and skip over to that one.
02:27.168 –> 02:37.914
Amazon Alexa audible batteries brave buffer calendar castro clock contacts DX, Dx.com drafts, ductduct fidelity find health view home just press rec layer mona news notes overcast parcel.
02:38.042 –> 03:01.574
Pedometer and now I’ve found Pedometer. I’m going to press Vo space on this and what I need to do is stop interacting with this list out of available widgets and then press Vo Right Arrow previews. And there is what we’re looking for is Previews we want to interact with previews in Previews Pedometer, and you’ll hear it say Pedometer. Now I’m going to show you what you hear in this case and what you need to do.
03:01.692 –> 03:23.114
Text, step count small there’s the small step count text step count medium actions text text goal completion small text text, goal completion medium text text daily step graph small text text light small text text light medium text text dark small text text dark medium text text daily counts small text text daily counts medium.
03:23.162 –> 03:28.058
Text text and for the purposes of this demonstration, I’m going to go back to Pedometer.
03:28.154 –> 03:30.670
Text step count small actions available.
03:30.740 –> 03:38.482
And I want to step count small. Now, you can do two things on this. You can use your Actions menu with Vo command space.
03:38.616 –> 03:39.278
Actions menu?
03:39.294 –> 03:50.850
Two items, and press your down arrow drag to desktop, and that will drag it to the desktop. Or if you escape out of here, step count small. A faster way is to just press Vo space on the name of the widget.
03:50.930 –> 03:55.538
You’ll hear step count, step count small. Step count small inserted.
03:55.714 –> 04:08.986
And now the Step count small is inserted. We’re going to add one other widget to this, and that is my WaterMinder widget. So I’ll stop interacting out of Previews, and I’m going to go Vo left arrow twice to the Search available search.
04:09.008 –> 04:10.234
Widgets blank, search text field.
04:10.272 –> 04:21.642
And I’ll show you how this works by pressing Vo space and typing water and typing Water. And we’ll press Vo right arrow available widgets. And we’ll interact with the available widgets.
04:21.786 –> 04:22.618
Available widgets.
04:22.634 –> 04:25.854
Two items, all widgets and I have all widgets or water.
04:25.892 –> 04:26.294
Monder.
04:26.362 –> 04:37.058
There we go. So I’ll press Vo space to highlight that stop interacting out of available widgets. Previews, go over to the Previews in Previews watermonder. And I’m going to find the widget that I want.
04:37.144 –> 04:38.386
Hydration status large.
04:38.488 –> 04:44.658
And for this case, I’m going to use the hydration status large. And I’m going to press Vo Command space Actions menu.
04:44.674 –> 04:45.106
Two items.
04:45.138 –> 04:49.110
And on this one, I’m going to choose Drag to Desktop and we’ll press Vo Space.
04:49.260 –> 04:53.382
Drag to Desktop hydration hydration status large. Hydration status large inserted.
04:53.446 –> 05:20.686
Now we have my widgets available on my desktop. So I’ll tap escape to exit the Notification Center. And now I’ll press Voo to close the Notification Center finder desktop. External SSD now I’m going to open my Applications Applications window column, and that is what you might be in, or you might be in your home directory. So if you’re in your Finder and you’re not on your desktop, we’ll press Command option W because you won’t see these widgets unless you’re on your desktop.
05:20.798 –> 05:22.130
External SSD.
05:22.790 –> 05:39.154
Now I’m on external SSD. If I press Vo home, you hear Pedometer and I can press Vo right arrow WaterMinder and you hear WaterMinder. In order to interact with this data, we’ll go back up to Pedometer pedometer, and we’ll interact with the widget in Pedometer.
05:39.202 –> 05:40.258
Four items. Walker.
05:40.354 –> 05:43.738
It says Walker. And if I press Vo, right arrow, 9647.
05:43.744 –> 05:46.902
4.3 miles. Two fours. Two fours.
05:46.966 –> 05:55.094
And then I can stop interacting with that widget out of podometer and press Vo right arrow WaterMinder. To get to WaterMinder, interact with it in WaterMinder.
05:55.142 –> 05:57.482
13 items. Today, 43.2oz.
05:57.546 –> 05:59.534
Oh, I need to drink some more water.
05:59.652 –> 06:02.446
Your progress is 89% on September 24, 2023.
06:02.548 –> 06:41.100
So if I stop interacting with WaterMinder out of WaterMinder, that’s how you can access your widgets. Now, let me show you one more thing that I accidentally discovered. If you press Vou in Finder on your desktop widgets menu, that’s a widgets menu. And you can press down arrow pedometer. And let’s say I want to go back over to Pedometer. I’ll press Vo space Pedometer and then press Vo right arrow, water monitor. So if you just need a way to jump to a specific widget, you can use the widgets menu. Just know that you have to interact with the widget itself. Hopefully, you found this to be a little bit useful. That’s how you can use widgets on Sonoma with iOS 17. Share it with a friend.