A widget can remember any of the following settings in each layout it is in:

Visibility. Whether or not the widget is visible in the layout.

Location. Where the widget resides on the screen when it is visible.

Configuration. The various settings available in the widget's Configuration window (opacity, level, etc.).

Amnesty. This is the standard location for the Amnesty widget library. In Tiger, Widgets installed in this location are not loaded by Dashboard.

Dashboard User. This is where Dashboard installs third-party widgets. This library is not accessible in Panther.

Dashboard Default. This is where Dashboard installs the default widgets written by Apple. This library is not accessible in Panther.

Run in reduced CPU consumption mode. Some "highly active" widgets (e.g. those with constant animation) were assumed by their authors to run only when Dashboard was active and thus were not necessarily designed to minimize their use of system resources. This mode helps keep these widgets under control, which can be useful if they are running and visible all the time.

Automatically close widgets when hidden. In order to keep memory usage to a minimum, you may prefer to automatically close any widget that is not visible.

Launch Amnesty with all widgets closed. This option (in which Amnesty launches with the Hidden layout active) is useful if you have set Amnesty is launch during login and you wish to keep widgets hidden until you call them up explicitly (e.g. using a Hot Key or the Amnesty menu).

Hide/Show Layout. This is equivalent to selecting Hide or Show from the Layout submenu and will toggle the visibility of the current layout.

Open Amnesty Menu (Tiger only). This is equivalent to clicking the Amnesty menu butterfly icon: the menu opens and items are selectable via the mouse, arrow keys or using "predictive typing" (e.g. typing "cal" to select the Calendar widget and then hitting return to open it).