Hi HN!One of my favorite apps on macOS, Ice, stopped working when I updated to macOS 27 because the trick it relied on doesn't work anymore. The only thing I really needed from the app was the ability to hide menu bar items to the left of it, so I built Chest to do just that.There are other apps like this as well that try to use the menu bar part of macOS's exam mode to hide items, but that...
Fairly excited for the v4.1 launch. Input cache hit prices have been halved, which looks nice.
One major issue is that the Dock cannot filter apps between Spaces, so I built boringBar[0] for this. It frees up real estate taken up by the Dock and makes it much easier to figure out what goes where.
I do understand the need for an app switcher on the Mac, though. It has the same problem I faced: it is very app-centric rather than window-centric. Switching between windows is nigh impossible on a Mac without third-party apps, unless you like using the three-finger swipe up gesture. I have never been able to switch quickly between windows using Mission Control.
2. Sure, I'll experiment with the Messages app to reproduce this. Thanks for pointing this out.
3. It's $10 per year and not month. There is a $40 perpetual license already on the purchase link - https://boringbar.app
I'll take a look into the app launcher issues that you are pointing out. The drag and drop feature will be implemented later this week in the bar window list and in the app menu as well.
I'll research a bit into the offline activation methods as well to see what best suits this app.
The hitbox part is being requested a lot. It'll be a part of the next update too.
On the other observation, it works this way because apps on macOS do not usually quit when you close all of their windows. If you start an already open app again when it has no windows open, it will bring the app into focus, and you will see it in the menu bar.
Regarding your recommendation, I think I’ll need to experiment with it a bit, since it’ll be important to differentiate between pinned apps and apps with no windows in the bar.
- This has been said by another user as well. I am on a 4K monitor - if possible could you share a screenshot of how it looks like currently?
- That's a fair ask. I will take a note of it.
- Drag and drop is something I am working on as well. It will be released in the next version of the app.
- Again, fair. I think I got used to it because I've been using it for a while. But this is being worked on as well and will be released in the next version.
- Ability to give a desktop a name is easy enough. I'll work on this.
- Ability to map a key or sequence for the app menu - you can already do this from the boringBar settings: Just right click on the empty space in the bar and select settings. You can then record a shortcut there.
Regarding the first bug: I do not have a fix for it yet, but I am trying to reproduce it as of now.
I'll try to reproduce the second one as well - this shows up if you are trying thumbnails for the first time - but only just one pop up and not this many.
My use case is fairly simple: I usually have multiple VS Code windows open at the same time and I have a habit of moving windows related to a certain task to a specific space. The default Dock mixes every window up and I just want to offload the which-window-is-where tracking to some other app - in this case boringBar.
boringBar does not suffer from these issues. That's the reason why I built it. It works as expected from day 1.
If you have multiple displays and have the "Displays have separate spaces" option disabled in macOS settings even then you can have the bar displayed on all displays from the boringBar settings.
All in all it does not seem like a polished app to me. I tried using it and I could not bring myself to buy it. The main reasons being its issues with multi-monitor support and waking up from sleep. boringBar does not have these issues.
- Sidebar looks like a decent app but on a cursory look it does not seem to take care of window overlapping (atleast on Tahoe). You can expand windows behind Sidebar and they stay there. This problem does not exist on boringBar.
Regarding business licensing - I know I need to make changes to the fixed number of users limit. The change for it is there but I need some more testing before that gets pushed out.
Apart from that - why do you think the tiered pricing is bad? As you have more users the price per user goes down essentially to ~$1.5 per year at the highest tier.
- I forced myself to use uBar but it has another level of jank that doesn't sit right with me - it is not reliable on a multi-monitor setup, there's no guarantee it'll work after waking up from sleep. If you maximize windows they will sit behind uBar sometimes - all of which boringBar does better and is more reliable at.
- Taskbar by Lawand is better than uBar but it has similar problems with multi-monitor support and wake from sleep. Apart from that their "start menu" app launcher is still in beta and you have to download a beta version from the developer's twitter page to actually use it. And obviously it's a subjective thing but the boringBar UI is a lot better - it integrates nicely with macOS.
I didn't want to add the logout/restart/shutdown option initially, but I'll experiment with it to see how useful it is.
But hey, the masses have spoken - and a perpetual license it is. Vox populi, vox dei.
- I see, I can work on adding folders to the dock, sure.
- Fair. I think the clickable area is too small, right? I think I had the same issue as well but I got used to it. Nevertheless I'll push an update to fix this in some time.
- I'll experiment with a few toned down versions of the active window chip.
Thanks for your feedback!