Making a personal dashboard widget for your Mac is quick and easy, even for those with no coding experience. A  widget is no more than a portion of a web page that is displayed on your Dashboard, you can make one from any web page. Let's make one that displays a random Proverb on your Dashboard.

Many years ago I created a free service for Christian web designers to insert a random Proverb on their web page as an image, avoiding JavaScript, PHP and other more complicated languages. You can learn more about it at http://www.wireddisciple.org/proverbs. We're going to use that project now.

1. Open up Safari (yes, it has to be Safari on a Mac)
2. Enter in this URL: http://www.wireddisciple.org/proverb.php?ft=12&fc=d6008b&w=360
   You should now be seeing a Proverb. If you go to the URL mentioned above you'll see lots of configuration options, including font face, sizes, colors, even a Spanish version. Any configuration option will work, I chose this combination because it looks like it was typed in a book.
3. In your Safari browser, go to File >> Open In Dashboard.
4. Using your mouse, place the white square over the Proverb. Using the handles, stretch the square to cover it completely, leaving an edge around the width and height. The image returned will always be close to this size in width, but it may be a bit longer depending on the length of the Proverb displayed, so you might want to give your Dashboard some added height.
5. Once you're pleased with the size, click the "Add" button in the upper right. This should take you to your Dashboard with your Proverb on it.

You can change the style of the custom Proverb widget by clicking the i in the lower right. Personally I like the Torn Edge theme as it complements the typewriter font. While still in the Edit mode, you can also resize your widget window.

Don't like this version and want to try again? Go ahead, you can create as many as you want. To remove custom widgets from your Dashboard, start up your Dashboard, click the + in the circle at the lower left of the screen, then click the X in the circle on your widget. Please note that once it's gone, it's gone forever. But it only takes a couple of minutes to re-create it.