Show HN: Shade. A Free Mac App to hide your messy desktop. • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Shade. A Free Mac App to hide your messy desktop.

#11

Post by msarnoff » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:01 AM UTC

I hide/show my desktop icons with a couple of aliases in my .zshrc:

  alias dihide="defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool NO && killall Finder"
  alias dishow="defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool YES && killall Finder"

This has a couple side effects: clicking on the desktop background doesn't steal focus from the current app, and you can no longer drop files onto the desktop. It doesn't have a pretty UI, but since I've got a terminal open almost all the time, it's just as convenient to me as a menu bar item.

Re: Show HN: Shade. A Free Mac App to hide your messy desktop.

#12

Post by macarthy12 » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:08 AM UTC

Curious, how long that take to develop? You done many osx apps before?

Re: Show HN: Shade. A Free Mac App to hide your messy desktop.

#13

Post by notlisted » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 6:12 AM UTC

Lacks dual screen support. Hence, I will still be stuck with BackDrop (works too, not as nice)

Re: Show HN: Shade. A Free Mac App to hide your messy desktop.

#14

Post by Yaggo » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 10:16 AM UTC

I keep my stuff in ~/, not in ~/Desktop.

Re: Show HN: Shade. A Free Mac App to hide your messy desktop.

#15

Post by sodiumphosphate » Fri, Aug 17, 2012, 3:33 PM UTC

msarnoff wrote: post #11

I hide/show my desktop icons with a couple of aliases in my .zshrc: alias dihide="defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool NO && killall Finder" alias dishow="defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool YES && killall Finder" This has a couple side effects: clicking on the desktop background doesn't steal focus from the current app, and you can no longer drop files onto the desktop. It doesn't have…

I just leave the desktop function turned off and use Finder and terminals. I prefer a plain black background.

Off-topic, but I will say it again anyway: I really wish I could disable all window decoration and personalize the way windows are managed like you can in many X11 window managers.

( I miss using compiz standalone on Arch. )