Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

boringbar.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 327 posts

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#281

Post by teiferer »

TonyStr wrote: post #238
teiferer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get that developers want to be compensated for their time. Depends. If you build software for others then of course you should be paid. But if you build sth for youself, to scratch you own itch, isn't that already compensation? Why try to milk that cow to for such a mini tool that just took a few weekends to build? (The author said that.) If everybody had followed that philosophy then the whole OSS ecosystem woul…

There is a lot of work post launch in customer support, fixing security issues, keeping code up to date, and fixing bugs.

The author wrote explicitly that they want to be compensated because they spent weekends writing the thing.

Any customer support that has to do with payments and license checks doesn't count.

Once you have a community of interested folks then fixing security issues and keeping things up to date is much easier. If there isn't enough interest then there isn't much of a monetizeable customer base anyway. It's self-regulating.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#282

Post by selkin »

a-ve wrote: post #101
sonofhans wrote: post #11

I am the target audience for this, from a UX and tech perspective. It addresses a problem I have and for which I periodically audition solutions. A subscription for a menu bar, though, kills it for me. I have apps on Macs that are over 20 years old. Some of those companies don’t exist anymore. I’m not going to risk paying $100 for a decade of your app and hope that your company, or your goodwill, stays around that lo…

Since this is the top comment as of now - hijacking this to introduce a change to pricing: ------ OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app It’s now $40 for 2 devices and includes 2 years of updates. After that, you can keep using the version you have, or choose to pay for updates again later. For businesses, I’m keeping the existing annual…

What bothers me ain't the subscription, but the lack of transparency. I'm asked to pay for future updates and support here, but I don't know what that would be.

Some visibility into the roadmap and operations (an anonymous LLC doesn't really say "Trust") is needed for me to feel good about typing my credit card number into the form.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#283

Post by bean469 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #234
teiferer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get that developers want to be compensated for their time. Depends. If you build software for others then of course you should be paid. But if you build sth for youself, to scratch you own itch, isn't that already compensation? Why try to milk that cow to for such a mini tool that just took a few weekends to build? (The author said that.) If everybody had followed that philosophy then the whole OSS ecosystem woul…

The Mac way is much better. Users get high quality software for a fair price, and talented indie developers get compensated for their work and skills. Meanwhile I guess FOSS communists can continue to enjoy working for free programming crucial net infrastructure for companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft.

> FOSS communists

That's a solid combination of ideas. If anybody is forming a group of FOSS comrades - count me in!

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#284

Post by bean469 »

zerkten wrote: post #251
genbugenbu wrote: post #18

I love that you've made this, but in a world of never ending subscriptions, a subscription to a taskbar is just not something I (or many I imagine) can justify - no matter how low the price. We really have entered the age of everything being a subscription.

They have a perpetual pricing option available alongside the subscription one. It's still worth thinking about the economics of this. How are they supposed to fund development? It's important to differentiate independent devs and the goliaths. When you release an app like this, it is "good enough" for more people. Your incentive to build the thing is that you can make a living off of it and continue crafting it with…

> How are they supposed to fund development?

By people buying the software. That's how it works for plenty of game devs, especially indie ones

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#286

Post by Lawand »

throwanem wrote: post #48

Show me a side-dockable vertical taskbar, circa Win XP thru 7 style - and a lifetime license for 10 years' worth of the subscription, which you may no longer even support by then - and you will have closed a sale.

Have a look at my app (https://lawand.io/taskbar/) it's matches your criteria except that it doesn't have an option to go vertical but this has been requested and will probably be added at some point. It's free for the foreseeable future so you can take your time to try it

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#287

Post by elahd »

In addition to changing bar size, would you consider supporting a multi-level bar? This is a Windows (pre-11) taskbar behavior where you can drag the top of the taskbar bar up to add additional rows of windows. uBar supports this, but the app overall doesn't behave well with my multi-monitor setup. Currently using Taskbar, but it's also buggy and only supports a single row.

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#289

Post by shamsghi »

rahabash wrote: post #262
user34283 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not. I'm not paying $40 for a taskbar replacement. And not for two years of updates and a two device limit on top. Maybe if it was $10, I could consider it. Prices for macOS apps are insane in my opinion. Everyone wants to charge yearly or every two years now too.

Seconded. $10 for 2y and Id buy.. otherwise it feels too steep a price.

Agree

Re: Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

#290

Post by hirvi74 »

msephton wrote: post #170
hirvi74 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just spitballing here, but I know notifications are stored in a sqlite3 database. You might be able to query the count based on application type and use that?

Are they? I'm not so sure. If they are you could set a watcher on it to receive filesystem notifications when it changes. I think you can get the info from LaunchServices using `lsappinfo` command.

So, the database I was talking about is located at:

    ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.usernoted/db2
However, that is the one that feeds the Notification Center itself. If ones dismisses a notification from Messages via the Notification Center, but does not open the message itself, then the count would be off between what remains in the Notification Center database and the actual number of the Messages' alert badge.

For example, one could have 3 notifications in the Notification Center belonging to Messages, but one could still have 20 unchecked text messaged. Thus, my suggestion wouldn't actually solve the problem.

Though, there may be another database one could check that I am unaware of.

Post reply on HN