That’s the appeal to me. I like to _focus_ sometimes without distractions. I work with a single 5k 27” monitor. I accept that i’m human and do better work when i limit my distractions. Especially when writing code.
Research shows that almost everyone performs worse when they multi task, even if they THINK they are doing things better / faster. It’s an illusion. The hilarious thing is everyone thinks it only affects other people. They’re a special snowflake or something haha.
But sometimes multi tasking is needed, like if you’re in a zoom meeting, referencing docs, slack messages, graphs, etc. In that case i’ll just have multiple windows on my desktop and resize them as needed. Or if it’s just for a few seconds, then i’ll jump between full screen windows.
Actually, I also don’t use it very often. Sometimes I turn on full screen mode when recording or watching videos. My reasons are quite similar to yours. Switching to other apps when there is an app in full screen mode is so inconvenient. However, after the product launched, I realized that more people use full screen mode regularly than I expected.
But I set the menu bar and dock to auto-hide to create a less distracting, more focused workspace. Therefore, Corner Time is very important to me, as it allows me to check the time without repeatedly hovering over the menu bar.
Fullscreen (or, as is my preference, "hide menu bar automatically" and "open window to maximized not true fullscreen mode") is useful for presenting a full display cleanly, when the contents to present is exactly 16:9.
Otherwise, the menu bar makes the contents not truly 16:9 or awkwardly shows distractions/leakage in the form of the menu bar.
Critically, if contents being presented is true pixel perfect 16:9 ratio and the window is not "fullscreen" or "maximized with hidden menubar", then the aspect ratio gets messed up, ruining what is otherwise perfection through a slice of "missing" content along one edge.
Indeed, more for presenting than actual task work IME.
Nice thing is this clock can show on other displays, too, in multi monitor setups, e.g. when auto-hide-menu is enabled. So sweet.
No, many of my colleagues do this, using desktops. They use the four finger swap left/right to switch between the different fullscreen apps. It's their main multitasking method.
I think it's partly because alt + tab does not exist on Mac. Command + tab is between applications rather than windows. Command + ~ is between windows within an application. I had to downloaded HyperSwitch to get the same functionality.
edit: HyperSwitch is free. HyperDock is what I paid for.
Three/four finger swipe is unbearably slow for me. I'm ready to interact with 0.3s but then I have to watch the image slide the last 10 pixels for another 0.3s before focus switches (and if I use the keyboard before it's finished switching the input goes to the now-99%-invisible app that was previously focused!!)
[numbers made up, I don't know the exact values, but the general point still stands, and you can't change the speed!!]
Fwiw I discovered rcmd a few years ago and it changed my workflow to attribute an app to a shortcut. I switch through cmd-tab less often and I’m really more productive. I can’t live without it now
Losing right cmd isn’t great IMO (e.g. if you want to press ⌘ P, you need both hands now). I’ve tried doing both cmds for launching apps, but settled on ⌘+⌥ (and use it for very common apps only: browser, mail, Telegram, Finder).
Edit: looks like rcmd also includes a quasi-modal app switcher - if it works like I imagine (type the name of the app you want), that’s pretty neat. But not that different from just typing it into Spotlight I guess?
Yes I sacrificed the right ⌘ but the gain I have all day compensate for the few times I have to do ⌘ + p in one hand.
You can cycle through and have a switcher yes. It’s really instantaneous to switch apps for me and I gain so much time for the main apps I use. You can summon them from any screen and virtual screen and it goes right to it without an other modal in the middle.
All other tools I tried didn’t offer the same flawless UX
Agreed. I personally reduce distractions and maximize screen space by setting the dock and menu bar to auto-hide, and by maximizing windows to achieve a full-screen-like effect while still allowing quick window switching with Cmd+Tab.
For work I will have VS Code and a web browser side-by-side. Every ticket I work on gets its own instance. I find it keeps me organized so I can focus on the work.
If Apple ever got rid of fullscreen mode I could probably just do this with normal virtual desktops. But this is slightly better than that.
the full screen animation when you want to jump back and forth between apps is such a time waste. when I see people swiping across multiple full screen apps I just think you are not a serious person.
I use the mac app sizeup to get actual keyboard shortcuts to properly maximize a window, and also get split left/right top/down etc too. Mainly use it for legacy "fullscreen" convenience.
*EDIT* It seems to work okay for the main macbook pro display. I'm guessing because something in the fullscreen is automatically handling bumping it down for the notch for you but on the second monitor I do not have the notch.
Thank you!! I do need to optimize its positioning on the external monitor. I’ll prioritize adding an optional background to improve readability to ensure the experience on monitors without a notch.
Is there another corner where you’d like to place it?
like a decade ago there were an xosd library for xorg which were dead easy to use. I used it to show song information and the time on one display. It was very no disruptive. I used a fifo to pipe information to it but the xosd_fifo/ruby library eventually broke.
I should investigate if there is something similar now
Different states that garmin watches get into, that you just can't see the time. I feel a watch should just always show the time somewhere on the screen haha.
Thanks! If you set the menu bar to always auto-hide (not just in full screen), it works just as well. This is actually my use case. This website was built using Next.js, with Tailwind CSS and shadcn/ui for styling, Motion (formerly Framer Motion) for animation.
Because some media outlets that also advocate for digital minimalism have shown interest in the app. That’s why I prepared it. For example, it has been featured on websites like: ifun.de, digitalminimalist.com and apptisan.substack.com
Are you referring to the position not being exactly the same? It’s true that the alignment isn’t perfect yet at the moment, especially for MacBooks without a notch.
If you’re willing, could you share a screenshot or screen recording?
Research shows that almost everyone performs worse when they multi task, even if they THINK they are doing things better / faster. It’s an illusion. The hilarious thing is everyone thinks it only affects other people. They’re a special snowflake or something haha.
But sometimes multi tasking is needed, like if you’re in a zoom meeting, referencing docs, slack messages, graphs, etc. In that case i’ll just have multiple windows on my desktop and resize them as needed. Or if it’s just for a few seconds, then i’ll jump between full screen windows.
But I set the menu bar and dock to auto-hide to create a less distracting, more focused workspace. Therefore, Corner Time is very important to me, as it allows me to check the time without repeatedly hovering over the menu bar.
Otherwise, the menu bar makes the contents not truly 16:9 or awkwardly shows distractions/leakage in the form of the menu bar.
Critically, if contents being presented is true pixel perfect 16:9 ratio and the window is not "fullscreen" or "maximized with hidden menubar", then the aspect ratio gets messed up, ruining what is otherwise perfection through a slice of "missing" content along one edge.
Indeed, more for presenting than actual task work IME.
Nice thing is this clock can show on other displays, too, in multi monitor setups, e.g. when auto-hide-menu is enabled. So sweet.
I think that's one of the appeals to full-screen mode: the ability to focus with limited distractions. I don't think it's designed for multitasking.
I think it's partly because alt + tab does not exist on Mac. Command + tab is between applications rather than windows. Command + ~ is between windows within an application. I had to downloaded HyperSwitch to get the same functionality.
edit: HyperSwitch is free. HyperDock is what I paid for.
(and of course, ⌘ ` opens the terminal on all of my machines)
[numbers made up, I don't know the exact values, but the general point still stands, and you can't change the speed!!]
https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/
Both variants (and of course an rcmd-like setup) are easy to do with Karabiner (free, Unlicense): https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/
Edit: looks like rcmd also includes a quasi-modal app switcher - if it works like I imagine (type the name of the app you want), that’s pretty neat. But not that different from just typing it into Spotlight I guess?
For work I will have VS Code and a web browser side-by-side. Every ticket I work on gets its own instance. I find it keeps me organized so I can focus on the work.
If Apple ever got rid of fullscreen mode I could probably just do this with normal virtual desktops. But this is slightly better than that.
Of course you don't get 12k pixels at 4800 fps or other large numbers and can't be blinded by misguided HDR, if you care about that.
I use the mac app sizeup to get actual keyboard shortcuts to properly maximize a window, and also get split left/right top/down etc too. Mainly use it for legacy "fullscreen" convenience.
I wish there were a way to adjust the positioning, maybe change the corner, change the margin from the edge of the screen, or a add a background?
https://i.imgur.com/BxanupM.png
*EDIT* It seems to work okay for the main macbook pro display. I'm guessing because something in the fullscreen is automatically handling bumping it down for the notch for you but on the second monitor I do not have the notch.
Is there another corner where you’d like to place it?
I should investigate if there is something similar now
The only problem with "automatically hide and show menu bar" was that the clock was not there.
Which is actually very nicely solved now.
Well done!
Different states that garmin watches get into, that you just can't see the time. I feel a watch should just always show the time somewhere on the screen haha.
Happens on IOS too.
Are you referring to the position not being exactly the same? It’s true that the alignment isn’t perfect yet at the moment, especially for MacBooks without a notch.
If you’re willing, could you share a screenshot or screen recording?