WindowManagement
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TUAW's Daily Mac App: Quiet
We've covered apps that help you focus by masking other windows in the background in the past. Quiet is another app that will blank out distractions and help you stick to the task at hand. You can configure keyboard shortcuts or use the drop-down menu from the menu bar icon to enter and exit Focus mode for a selected app or Space. You get a choice of "isolation" effect, with Quiet defaulting to Fade to Black. Focus Out is available as well as Wallpaper, which removes everything off screen apart from the window or space you're focused on and reveals the wallpaper behind. Where the Fade to Black and Wallpaper modes worked fine, the defocus effect caused some temporary disruption to certain apps, which made it frustrating to use. A warning is displayed up to say that "Focus Out demands a powerful Mac" (Intel integrated video not supported), but you don't get much more powerful than a 2011 top-spec MacBook Pro. That's an option to avoid for most, then. Quiet will "quiet" certain apps or all supported apps at your preference. Apps such as Adium, iChat and Skype can be selectively suppressed along with Mail and the GrowlHelperApp, which blocks all Growl notifications. Quiet will also set your instant messaging status to DND with the default being "I'm in The Zone." Whereas other apps, such as HazeOver, quickly isolate windows automatically, Quiet is a heavier, totally manual affair. If that's something you're after, then Quiet will do the job for US$3.99 from the Mac App Store. If you're after something similar for a little less money, check out the free Isolator.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Breeze
There are plenty of window management apps on the Mac platform. Some allow you to snap windows to the edges of your screen like BetterSnapTool, but others, like Autumn Apps' Breeze (which we covered last year), allow you to record a desired window size and position. Breeze sits in your menu bar and lets you define "states" of windows by positioning them on your screen wherever you want and selecting "Save State As." You can save states for one application and apply them to any window from any program or just for that one specific program. States can be bound to keyboard shortcuts or selected from a drop-down list from the menu bar. Once you've got all the window states you want defined, you can quickly and easily move your windows around with just a few key presses. Some programs don't react well to being manhandled like that, with one poignant example being Photoshop, but most programs behave as they should. If for some reason you have a problem with a window (maybe it moves too far off screen), Breeze has a handy "Rescue window" function that brings the window back on-screen for you to deal with. There's a free trial available from Autumn Apps' website, while purchasing the app will set you back US$8. Breeze works on Mac OS X 10.5 and up, including PPC-based Macs.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: BetterSnapTool
If there's one good thing that Windows 7 users have built-in that Mac users don't, it's window snapping. In Windows 7 you can drag a window to the top of the screen to maximize it, or to the left or right side of the screen to make it fill half the display. BetterSnapTool is window snapping for OS X on steroids. Whether you want to snap and expand to full screen, half screen (either horizontally or vertically), one-third of a screen, quarter screen, centered or even centered or maximized on the next monitor, BetterSnapTool has a gesture or keyboard shortcut to do it. Options include the ability to define your own keyboard shortcuts, all 17 of them, turn on or off the various screen edge snapping gestures, as well as a whole host of settings for the preview window. If you're a fan of manually resizing or moving windows, BetterSnapTool includes a system of window resizing and movement using a modifier key and the movement of your mouse -- you don't even have to click. You can even make the OS X window traffic lights do set things with right or middle clicks, or define a task to a title bar double-click. As the name might suggest, there are other apps that do similar things to BetterSnapTool. Cinch, for instance, gives you some of the screen edge gestures, but none that I've tried have had such a comprehensive and easy to use list of snap options. Even the optional menu bar icon is rather attractive and looks like a mini Battenberg cake. While there are other applications that do similar things, including the recently featured Flexiglass, BetterSnapTool is certainly one of the best and an absolute steal at US$1.99.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Flexiglass
There are many things that OS X does well, and a few things that it could do better. One area of potential weakness is window management, and that's where Flexiglass comes in. Flexiglass, a US$7.99 (currently 20% off) app from the Mac App Store, adds to and enhances the built-in window management features of OS X. It allows you to quickly resize and move a window using any part of said window when a modifier key is held down (the Option key by default), not just the title bar or the resize corner. With the modifier key, a left click and drag allows you to move the window, while a right click resizes the window, altering its size from the bottom or right hand-side edges. If on a trackpad, one, two or three-finger mousing does the same. The result is a fast and efficient means of window movement and resizing that doesn't get in the way of normal operations. Flexiglass also allows you to move and resize windows to set positions like full screen, half screen horizontally or vertically by dragging the window to the edges of the screen or through keyboard shortcuts. An option to double click the title bar or right click the green zoom button to maximize a window is also included, while a right click on the red button will quit the program, not just close the window. Flexiglass rolls in many features found in other separate apps, with lots of options to enable or disable features that you don't want. It's a fast, slick experience that caters to keyboard and mouse jockeys alike, so it's well worth considering if you find OS X lacking in the window management department.
Breeze: another fresh take on window management
We've covered a surprising number of innovative Mac utilities for easily positioning windows, from MercuryMover to SizeUp and, most recently, Divvy. Well, a new one, Breeze, is taking yet another look at the task of window management. Breeze is similar to the others in that it runs in your menubar and handles resizing and positioning windows via keyboard shortcuts. Unlike some of the others, it does away with the confines of presets and grids, and instead lets you memorize any window position and assign a shortcut to it. What makes Breeze stand out, though, is per-application settings: you can assign a single hotkey to perform different window movements depending on which application you're in at the time. That's pretty cool. Breeze is resolution independent, allowing you to perform equivalent positioning no matter what display you're using at the time. The latest version also handles "drawers" (the sidebars that dock to some windows), adjusting as necessary to fit. It has a simple interface, too. It's a cinch to add new window states and shortcuts, and easy to see existing states from its menubar icon. Breeze also has a "Rescue Window" feature that will bring stray windows to the center of your screen. That's not a daily need of mine, but I can think of several frustrating incidents when I would have loved to have the option. Breeze has a couple of shortcomings, the biggest one being an inability to edit existing shortcuts. I have little doubt that the developer is working hard on expanding new features as I write, though, so this is one to keep an eye on. Try it out for free, and if you like it, pick up a license for $8.00US.
SecondBar puts your menu bar on a second monitor
The menu bar is a quintessential piece of the Mac "experience." On the left, it shows all of the menu items for the currently active application; on the right, it shows icons from various menu bar application programs: the date/time, WiFi status, MobileMe sync status, and many, many more. The whole idea is to make the menu items easy to find and easy to "hit" with a mouse, by being connected to the top of the screen (Fitts's law and all that). But what if you have two monitors? Suddenly the menu bar might be all the way over on the other side. Yes, I realize that complaining about using a Mac with two monitors might be the quintessential "first-world problem," but the more minor irritants you can remove from life, the better. SecondBar is an app which will extend your menu bar to a second monitor. I've been using it for a while and it works pretty well for what the author describes as an "alpha" build.
Sticky WIndows 2.0: universal and more
We last mentioned Sticky Windows over a year ago, and now finally the window clutter tab utility has finally been updated to version 2.0 as a universal binary. Sticky Windows allows you to create a tab from any window. You just drag the window to the edge of the screen and it shrinks down into the tab. You can then click on the tab to get the window back. Also new in version 2.0 are tab types: manual vs. automatic (all tabbed windows other than the foremost one automatically shrink) as well as drag and drop to the tabs (though this doesn't work with every application). The Sticky Windows site has an extremely slick flash movie that demonstrates what it does (notice the clock in the menu bar of the movie). I have to say, though, that I'm not that big a fan of the pink scaling visual effect that you see each time a tab shrinks or expands.Sticky Windows is $20 and a demo is available from Donelleschi Software.[Via MacMinute]
