Desktopple Pro

Our old PC had 1GB of memory. That’s about one-half of what 32-bit XP can use, but it was still tight, especially with multiple users and fast user switching. Often it was preferable just to log the other user off when switching.

Our new Mac Pro has 4GB, and will address a great deal more if necessary. As it happens, 4GB is very generous for our needs; the fast user switching experience under OS X is actually usable.

Really, there’s so much memory available that one never needs to close anything. This is nice, but cluttered, and I’m easily distracted when confronted with visual clutter. For this reason, I’d often use the maximize window function under Windows; there’d then be nothing else blinking at me while I was attempting to work on something.

Sensei Patrick chides me for this as DOS thinking, but I have to go with what works.

OS X does offer a zoom function, but it doesn’t work in the same way that maximize works under Windows; the differences between the UI approaches and the rationales behind them are described well at the XvsXP site.

Well, if zoom isn’t our solution to reduce visual clutter, then perhaps we can minimize the windows we’re not using.

OS X has a minimize function just as Windows does; the window does a spiffy Genie effect and descends to the dock. Nice, but it makes the dock larger, and now there’s a redundant icon in it. This reminds me of the Windows task bar, which I always had to expand to multiple rows in order to contain everything in a readable manner. Surely we can do better than this.

And we can. OS X does offer something different; showing and hiding of applications. Contained in the application menu of any running application are the entries ‘Hide’, ‘Hide Others’, and ‘Show All’. These commands are ideal when dealing with clutter. A hidden application’s windows simply vanish; the running application is still available via the dock icon or command-tab, and reactivating via these methods will restore it from the hidden state.

Perfect for our needs. To focus on a single application, just doing a ‘Hide Others’ will declutter the desktop. However, being of an obsessive nature, we can still improve on this, and some applications, for example MacJournal, do so via use of a fullscreen entry mode. This is a nice approach for something like pure text editing, but the paradigm doesn’t really work all that well elsewhere.

There’s a great discussion of this very issue on 43 Folders, including an informative video podcast. In the podcast, several utilities to assist in elimination of distraction are demonstrated; among them are Backdrop, MenuShade, and Spirited Away. These applications are freeware, and their use is demonstrated in the podcast.

These three applications do what they do well, but I’d prefer a single application to take care of it all.

There is such an application, Desktopple Pro.

Desktopple Pro combines the functions of the three freeware utilities into a single preference pane and menu bar icon. It’s rich with features, but for purposes of decluttering, the following two are just killer:

• Firstly, it monitors the activity state of non-foreground windows. When they’ve been unused for a configurable time period, they’re automatically hidden. It’s like having someone clean up after you; the developer terms this ‘Window Cleaning’. Quite nice.
• Secondly, by choosing a menu option or by using a hotkey, desktop icons are hidden, the wallpaper is smoothly replaced with something basic (I use black), and the menu bar fades into the background; hovering over the menu bar will restore it. There’s now zero visual distraction; only the application is visible.

It’s all very crisp, polished, and highly configurable; it’s evident that a great deal of care has gone into development.

Desktopple Pro is $17 USD shareware, with a 15-day unrestricted trial.