Help with iStat nano
Hello and welcome to the iStat nano manual. iStat nano is a very advanced system monitor widget in a tiny package.
iStat nano features a fairly unique user interface: 10 separate views for different information and an animated view selector for changing between the views. Most things should be fairly self explanatory, but if they’re not, then read on!
Views
All the views have a similar layout, with a header at the top (this can be used to drag the widget) and specific information below.
Overview
The overview view shows a mixture of various information, including: total CPU usage, total ram usage, how full one hard drive is, one temperature sensor, one fan sensor, upload and download network traffic and uptime (the amount of time your computer has been running since the last restart). The hard drive, temp sensor and fan sensor shown can be selected from the preferences.
CPU
The CPU view shows detailed information on the current state of your CPU(s). It supports up to 8 cores. For more information on the meaning of user, nice, system and idle, please read our iStat terminology document.
Memory
The Memory view shows detailed information about memory usage. For more information on the meaning of active, inactive, wired and used, please read our iStat terminology document.
Please note: iStat nano adds active and wired memory together to get the total memory used. Inactive memory is not counted. This is different to some of our other widgets and apps (eventually they’ll all be like this) and also different to the results from Terminal’s “Top” command. We feel this is a more accurate overview of the state of memory usage (as do all the people who emailed us asking to change it!).
Disks
The Disks view shows detailed information about 3 of your hard drives. If you have more than 3 hard drives you can choose which of those you’d like shown in iStat nano’s preferences.
Network
The Network view shows detailed information about one network interface, including network traffic, total network traffic and external IP. If you have more than one network interface you can choose which of those you’d like shown in iStat nano’s preferences. Pressing “i” when in any view will copy your external IP address to the clipboard (handy for network admins!).
Processes
The Processes view shows the top five processes, listed by either CPU usage or memory usage (selectable in preferences).
Uptime
The Uptime view shows your computer’s uptime, load averages and the total number of tasks and threads running.
Battery
The Battery view shows detailed stat about your notebook’s battery, including cycles, battery health and a nice icon showing if you’re plugged into mains power. For more information on battery health and cycles, please read our iStat terminology document. This view (of course) doesn’t show anything particularly useful for desktop users!
Fans
The Fans view shows seven of the fan sensors in your Mac. If you have more sensors than seven, then only seven will show. Please note that some PPC Macs are not supported by iStat nano.
Temps
The Temps view shows seven of the fan sensors in your Mac. If you have more sensors than seven, then only seven will show. Please note that some PPC Macs are not supported by iStat nano.
View selector
Changing views is easy: simply move your mouse pointer over the widget and the view selector will fade up. Clicking on a view
name will show that view. Easy!
? and i buttons
Clicking the ? button will take you to this document (isn’t that how you got here in the first place???!?!). Clicking the “i” button will take you to the widget’s preferences.
Preferences
Primary Disk
The first disk listed in the Disk view and the disk shown on the Overview view.
Disk 2
The second disk listed in the Disk view.
Disk 3
The third disk listed in the Disk view.
Primary Temp Sensor
The temperature sensor shown on the Overview view.
Primary Fan Sensor
The temperature sensor shown on the Overview view.
Primary Network Interface
The network interface shown on the Network view.
Degrees
The temperature type shown in all temps. This can be either fahrenheit, celsius or kelvin (whichever make more sense to you!).
Sort Processes By
This chooses the sort order and extra information shown in the Processes view.
Animation
The animation used in iStat nano is pretty cool (even if we do say so ourselves), but we also understand you may want to turn it off for some older Macs. This option lets you do just that.
Skin
Choose the skin colour for the front of the widget. The skins work as complete sets in that we’ve chosen appropriate header, view selector header and bar colours to suit each skin.
Check for updates now
See if you’re missing out on a newer version of iStat nano! Clicking this will check you have the latest version.
Check for updates
iStat nano will automatically check for updates daily. If you’d prefer it didn’t then set this option to “off”.
Intel fan and temps extension
The Intel fan and temps extension is required to see fans and temps on Intel Macs.
Paypal
If you like and use iStat nano then please flip us some spare change… it’ll show us you care and help encourage future development of all our widgets.
Done
Clicking done takes you back to the front of the widget.
Copying your external IP address to the clipboard
To copy your external IP address to the clipboard, simply make sure the widget is in focus (click on it once if you’re not sure), move the mouse pointer off the widget so that the view selector isn’t showing, then press “i”. You’ll see this message:
Keyboard shortcuts
Listed below are all the keyboard shortcuts for iStat nano. Please note that the widget needs to be in focus before these will work (ie. you need to click on the widget once, or it needs to be the last widget you clicked last time you used Dashboard). Also, these shortcuts are disabled when the view selector is shown.
0 (zero) - Switch to overview
1 - Switch to CPU section
2 - Switch to memory section
3 - Switch to disks section
4 - Switch to network section
5 - Switch to processes section
6 - Switch to uptime section
7 - Switch to battery section
8 - Switch to fans section
9 - Switch to temps section
Left arrow - Switch to the previous section
Right arrow - Switch to the next section
i - Copy external IP to the clipboard
Other shortcuts and tricks
For some general tips and tricks that work with all Dashboard widgets, check out our guide to Mac OS X’s Dashboard.