[HN Gopher] Show HN: boringBar - a taskbar-style dock replacemen...
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Show HN: boringBar - a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS
Hi HN! I recently switched from a Fedora/GNOME laptop to a MacBook
Air. My old setup served me well as a portable workstation, but
I've started traveling more while working remotely and needed
something with similar performance but better battery life. The
main thing I missed was a simple taskbar that shows the windows in
the current workspace instead of a Dock that mixes everything
together. I built boringBar so I would not have to use the Dock.
It shows only the windows in the current Space, lets you switch
Spaces by scrolling on the bar, and adds a desktop switcher so you
can jump directly to any Space. You can also hide the system Dock,
pin apps, preview windows with thumbnails, and launch apps from a
searchable menu (I keep Spotlight disabled because for some reason
it uses a lot of system resources on my machine). I've been
dogfooding it for a few months now, and it finally felt polished
enough to share. It's for people who like macOS but want window
management to feel a bit more like GNOME, Windows, or a traditional
taskbar. It's also for people like me who wanted an easier
transition to macOS, especially now that Windows feels increasingly
user-hostile. I'd love feedback on the UX, bugs, and whether this
solves the same Dock/Spaces pain for anyone else. P.S. It might
also appeal to people who feel nostalgic for the GNOME 2 desktop of
yore. I started my Linux journey with it, and boringBar brings back
some of that feeling for me.
Author : a-ve
Score : 198 points
Date : 2026-04-12 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (boringbar.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (boringbar.app)
| johng wrote:
| Wow this looks really neat. I am going to have to give it a try.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I use uBar for this: https://ubarapp.com but this looks like a
| nice lightweight alternative!
| hmokiguess wrote:
| uBar looks amazing as well, and it's not a subscription, I
| really like boringBar but can't justify a subscription tho
| starkparker wrote:
| https://lawand.io/taskbar/ as well
|
| and https://noteifyapp.com/activedock/, which is less extreme
| but has a start menu-like launcher option
|
| Both have one-time/lifetime purchase options. Taskbar is $25
| one-time with a free but expiring older version. ActiveDock's
| one-time prices are $15 (1 year of updates, but usable forever)
| and $60 (lifetime updates).
| PeanutOS wrote:
| Another alternative is https://hypercritical.co/switchglass/
| ($10 upfront) really well done.
| nguyenkien wrote:
| Both are under 10MB, So I don't think there would be much
| difference.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I meant more in terms of featureset. uBar has a lot of
| features and it takes a while to get a setup that works well.
|
| Once it's set up, though, it's pretty rock solid.
| temp0826 wrote:
| Looks great. Subscription? Big ol nope.
| eric-p7 wrote:
| Imagine paying a subscription for your task bar.
| garganzol wrote:
| "Exclusive access to the reset button of you computer,
| $0.99/month only!"
| Contexting wrote:
| Was looking for this exact solution.
| selfawareMammal wrote:
| Cant see how this app would fit into a subscription.
| bradley_taunt wrote:
| Looks excellent but I can't wrap my head around how this is a
| subscription. Pricing the app even at a higher range ($40-50),
| one--time payment makes way more sense.
|
| You could even require paying for "upgrades" for major updates in
| the future. (Similar to that of Sketch or some apps made by
| Panic)
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Wow, this looks very clean. I'm not the target audience, but if I
| was looking for a tool in this category, this would be highly
| attractive to me. Very subtle design that isn't distracting or
| busy. Well done!
|
| Edit: Ok, feedback. Please know that I'm a junky for independent
| Mac apps that I find interesting. This is interesting to me.
|
| This feedback is entirely meant to be constructive. I like the
| app so far and I want it to succeed. Also, as someone who is
| deeply familiar with the platform and the third-party software
| ecosystem, my hope is that I can help communicate the things that
| would make if feel intuitively correct to a majority of Mac
| users. What I mean is that I'm a nerd who thinks a lot about the
| platform and the choices devs make that are nuanced and subtle. I
| hope you find it useful.
|
| 1. Practically invisible on a background that's dark / black. The
| photo on my desktop background is black at the bottom and this
| thing is therefore invisible. I don't know the best way to
| address that. Maybe it should sample the colors behind it and
| default to a light mode at first launch?
|
| 2. Frosted glass only changed one tab / chip (the active focus
| one) and the rest remained black and invisible. Not sure if
| that's deliberate or not. I expected the whole thing to change. I
| do see that window thumbnails are now frosted (didn't try
| thumbnails before toggling).
|
| 3. Needs kbd nav. I hovered to get thumbnails and tried arrow
| keys. No effect.
|
| 4. Thumbnail selections would benefit from a border or other
| visual indicator. Having only traffic light window controls to
| show which is active isn't sufficient.
|
| 5. As I continue to poke around, disabling frosted glass to view
| thumbnails in dark mode didn't change the glass background for
| thumbnails. Again, I didn't check thumbnails before switching
| frosted glass on. I don't know if that's supposed to work that
| way or not. Seems wrong to me, but I don't know the intent.
|
| 6. Delay for hover to invoke tooltips or thumbnails is too long.
| It feels sluggish. However, the snappy responsive drawing of new
| content when sliding from one app's thumbnails to another is very
| nice and impressive. It'd be easy for that to suck, so well done.
|
| 7. Time opening / drawing the app menu after first click is too
| long. I have a bajillion (394) apps installed, might be why.
| Should be as fast as clicking the Apple Menu regardless of how
| many apps need to be listed. Wait, now I just clicked it again to
| check if it is faster after the first time. Looks like the app
| cached whatever info it had to pull the first time cause it's
| properly snappy. Maybe pre-fetch that info on first launch so it
| isn't slow on the first click.
|
| 8. The thumbnails for minimized browser windows are awesome! Much
| nicer than using the thumbnails from Dock windows / tiles. I like
| that so much that I would consider working this into my workflow
| despite not needing it otherwise. I probably wouldn't do so, but
| I like it a lot.
|
| 9. The desktop / spaces switcher should probably also have
| thumbnails showing the content of each space.
|
| 10. There should be a toggle that closes a window from the
| thumbnails. I see that right-click has an option to do so, but
| there should be a left-clickable toggle in one of the corners.
| I'm gonna go against typical MacOS idioms and recommend
| experimenting with putting that toggle at the bottom of the
| thumbnail because they're so tall relative to the taskbar height.
| It might be wrong when you test it out. It's one of those things
| that I think either it feels right or it doesn't. My first
| instinct, however, is that it ought to be in the upper-left
| corner.
|
| At the end of the day, I like it. I'm not the target audience, as
| mentioned above. But I know there are a lots of people who are
| the intended audience and I want them to have nice tools. I hope
| this makes some people happy. I'd be happy to provide additional
| feedback on a future build if the above is considered useful.
| Email in profile. Fingers crossed this doesn't come off as
| critical of the app. I like honest and direct feedback and I hope
| I haven't bummed you out cause that's not at all the intent.
| a-ve wrote:
| Wow - thank you so much for the feedback. Let me go through
| this.
|
| 1. That might be a good idea. Do you think adjusting the size
| of the bar from the settings makes it any better?
|
| 2. That seems like a bug. There's glass theme for Tahoe - but I
| think restarting boringBar might help here. I'll check it out.
|
| 3. Fair. I did not think of this use case.
|
| 4. Thumbnails have a blue hue for active windows as of now.
| Could you please let me know how this could work better?
|
| 5. Right now the Tahoe glass/frosted switch only works on the
| bar. A glass revamp is in the works for people who like the
| Liquid Glass design language.
|
| 6. I faced the opposite issue to this during my testing - the
| thumbnails opened up fairly quickly in my case. I'll take note
| of it and will fix it in later versions.
|
| 7. Correct - first time is slower because of the excessively
| large number of apps. I'll try to reproduce this.
|
| 9. Good idea. Will implement this as well.
|
| 10. If you hover on the thumbnail window the close and minimize
| buttons will show up. Are you talking about the ability to quit
| the app and all of its windows entirely?
| alsetmusic wrote:
| 1. It wouldn't in this specific case. The photo is of a
| sunset and the ground in the foreground is completely black
| for about 20% of the bottom due to contrast with the sun.
|
| 2. Still holds after multiple relaunches. Strange.
|
| 3. Cool. Looking forward to it!
|
| 4. I guess my system is causing multiple GUI bugs to present.
| I don't see a blue highlight when I mouse-over thumbnails.
|
| 10. Oh, I'm a dope. I even referenced the traffic light
| controls earlier in the comment. It somehow sailed over my
| head that the thing I was asking for was right there. Just
| tried it and it worked. However, I closed the only open
| window for an app and that thumbnail remained after the
| window was gone and the app had exited. That doesn't seem
| correct to me. But yes it's implemented and I got stupid for
| a moment while poking around.
|
| One other thing that I noticed after exiting the app was that
| all the windows that had been minimized to the Dock were no
| longer minimized. That's a tiny papercut. Minimizing windows
| is a form of window management and everything got reset. Not
| the end of the world, but unexpected and mildly disrupting.
| throwanem wrote:
| I can second the issue with the automatic color selection; with
| my background photo it cashes out to an illegible black on
| black, and there's no option to change the theme.
|
| It seems like it would be relatively straightforward to honor
| the user's light mode/dark mode setting, and the WCAG
| accessibility guidelines [1] do a good job of both discussing
| the importance of luminance contrast to legibility, and
| providing resources and advice toward programmatically
| selecting text vs. background colors to ensure everything stays
| readable.
|
| (I did go ahead and purchase a subscription, since I was one of
| the people who asked for the option. I'll keep an eye out over
| the coming weeks for updates! Considering the immediate and
| extensive interest in boringBar that's been very much evident
| today, I'm really looking forward to seeing where development
| goes on this. Congratulations on your successful Show HN!)
|
| [1] https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-
| minimum...
| sonofhans wrote:
| 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 long.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| It's a tiny market. Why would they bother if only 10 people
| will give them $10?
| SyneRyder wrote:
| Apparently not that tiny, if a competitor has the same
| product priced at $30 and is currently on to version 4 after
| 12+ years in business!
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| They can set whatever price they want. And in business...
| for a micro saas? Is that just... waiting?
| comboy wrote:
| I have the same bias as the parent. I'd rather pay $50 one
| time than $9 a year even if I throw it away after 4 years.
|
| But the main reason I wouldn't install it despite being happy
| customizing linux is that it's yet another black box I need
| to trust and that knows way too much. It's really insane how
| much you need to compromise your security on macos to have a
| decent developer experience.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| It's not economical. Lifetime sales for a lifetime unlock
| would probably be under $100. So not worth it for the
| developer.
| a-ve wrote:
| I think that's a fair question.
|
| My thinking is pretty simple: most people will probably choose
| the basic 2-device plan, which works out to about $0.85 per
| month. For an app like this, I think that is a reasonable
| price.
|
| Another reason is that a lot of Mac apps charge a one-time fee
| upfront, but then require paid upgrades later. In practice,
| that often ends up being similar to paying for a few years of
| ongoing support anyway.
|
| I also think a low-cost subscription sets a clearer expectation
| that the app will continue to be maintained and kept working as
| macOS changes. For software like this, where OS updates can
| easily break things, that felt like the more honest model.
| a-ve wrote:
| Adding on to this, apps that hook into window management and
| multi-monitor behavior can break in subtle ways over time. I
| ran into some of that with uBar on my setup, especially
| around multi-monitor use and waking from sleep, and I wanted
| boringBar's pricing to match the expectation of continued
| support and fixes.
| theowaway213456 wrote:
| I 100% understand why you are using a subscription-based
| model. It makes sense, and I agree it's the most honest
| model given that you have to continually support it and you
| don't want to have to either over-promise on extended
| support, and offer refunds if you can't fulfill that
| promise.
|
| I just hate managing subscriptions.
|
| If you gave me the option to require manual subscription
| renewal, rather than auto-renewal, I would 100% buy this
| right now. Basically allow me to purchase for 1 year then
| click a button to confirm that I'm still getting value out
| of the product. If I don't click that button then you
| should assume I'm no longer interested and cancel my
| subscription.
|
| (I don't like using my mac but sometimes I have to use it
| for work, and I wish I had this.)
| a-ve wrote:
| Fair point. The billing part of it is managed via Stripe
| - I'll put up the update/cancel subscription part on the
| Customer Billing panel soon.
| earthnail wrote:
| Consider adding a lifetime option next to your sub
| options.
|
| Consumer purchase behavior is highly impulsive and
| irrational. Businesses are very rational and like subs,
| but for many people, subscription fatigue is a real
| thing. Make the lifetime option 3-10x the annual rate;
| done. People will buy it. In my app I set it at 3x (but
| my annual sub is quite high; 6/mo, 30/y or 100 lifetime)
| but other apps, like Halide, have 12/y or 80 lifetime
| last I checked.
|
| You get guaranteed revenue, and you get it upfront -
| better for cashflow. And you can always tell customers
| "if you don't like subs buy the lifetime option".
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| It is utterly bizarre that you portray consumers as
| irrational for not wanting subs and businesses as
| rational for wanting subs. Both are rational in their own
| interests: businesses want subs because it means more
| money and more control in the long run. Consumers don't
| want subs because it means paying more money in the long
| run and eventually having their software taken away from
| them if the company goes under, makes an anti-consumer
| update, etc. Consumers are not irrational just because
| they don't want to give you money every month forever.
| senorrib wrote:
| That's an economic concept, not a dig at consumers. It's
| well known (hell, there's a nobel laureate for it) that
| humans are irrational when it comes to economics.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| Was the thesis of the fake Nobel recipient that consumers
| are irrational specifically because they prefer one-time
| purchases to subscriptions? Otherwise I'm not really sure
| what the relevance of bringing it up in this very
| specific context it.
| wamatt wrote:
| > Consumer purchase behavior is highly impulsive and
| irrational.
|
| This is correct. It's quite possible to both satisfy more
| customers and work within your constraints.
|
| Eg $30 bucks lifetime would be nice. You could put it in
| small print below the main pricing to avoid decision
| fatigue and keep things streamlined for subs.
|
| Often those early adopters appreciate and become
| advocates. Subs fatigue is a real thing
| ukuina wrote:
| GoodSync's pricing is notable: $20/year for five devices,
| but stackable. I've signed up for 10+ years. GoodSync
| needs central infrastructure to work, so the ongoing
| pricing makes sense.
| a-ve wrote:
| I've added a perpetual license - $40 for 2 devices and 2
| years of updates.
| gedy wrote:
| Price-wise it's reasonable but the general feeling I and
| others have is subscription fatigue. It's no one
| subscription's fault, but in aggregate a lot of us are done
| with it. App looks nice, good luck.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I don't think anyone is trying to have you get rid of the
| subscription option in order to have the non-subscription
| option. Same with defendending the good value - whether it's
| subscription or not is orthogonal with whether it's priced
| reasonably.
|
| Low cost subscriptions as the only options can also give
| multiple vibes, not just one intended one, as well. The one
| you highighlight is somewhat optimistic takeaway "the
| publisher is fair with this price and I only need to pay for
| however much I actually use - what a great guarantee this
| will be good for the long run".
|
| Another valid takeaway is basically the opposite "It's not
| clear if the publisher is committed to this software. The
| only payment option they think they can sell is for just $10
| and are only showing commitment in being around for up to
| just 1 year - are they really confident in the product or
| value"? Even more doubtful are those suspicious of new
| dealings "It's fair enough now but do I really want to get
| used to it for a year and then the price is jacked up by
| renewal?" (this can be solved with more than a non-
| subscription option too. E.g. longer term subscriptions, only
| if you truly are trying to advertise "years of support to
| come" can help provide the feeling of commitment).
|
| Even in the case one wants to start/stick with the
| subscription having a lifetime and/or versioned option only
| adds more to all of the things you listed as reasons for
| offering a subscription alone. E.g. seeing that "lifetime is
| equal to at least x years" or "y year term subscription" and
| then the user going with the 1 year subscription is strictly
| better signaling to them than just having a 1 year
| subscription.
|
| The only thing suspicious from your comment is the current
| subscription option is 1 year, the ask was for
| longer/perpetual options, and the justification given was the
| price per month seems great. Other than the absolute value of
| the price per month is lower and sounds easier to defend,
| there doesn't seem to be anything about your product, the
| subscription for it, or the context made the cost per month
| the relevant interval for a user to consider the value.
| sonofhans wrote:
| Thank you for replying. I understand your perspective -- the
| subscription is a signal that you will maintain the app long-
| term, and to provide the revenue for it. Also, it looks
| cheap. A few counter-points, while we're talking:
|
| > For an app like this, I think that's a reasonable price.
|
| Except that it's not a price, it's an access fee, and those
| are very different. If it were a price I'd have the thing I
| paid for -- a binary to use as a like. Instead what I have is
| a token that you can revoke at any time for any reason,
| including you getting hit by a car or getting bored with the
| app.
|
| > a low-cost subscription sets a clearer expectation that the
| app will continue to be maintained ...
|
| Forgive the bluntness, but it does no such thing. This app
| just launched. No one has reason to believe the little
| business behind it will still exist in 12 months. Death rate
| for products like this is very high. A subscription from me
| is a bet that you will still be around in a year, and you
| have zero track record.
| a-ve wrote:
| Alright - that's fair.
|
| I've taken the feedback here and added a perpetual personal
| license for 2 devices at $40 - it includes 2 years of
| updates and the app will keep on working after that.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| The target audience for any product for sale are people who are
| willing to pay.
|
| Not people who are outraged by that concept.
| a-ve wrote:
| 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 pricing.
|
| A lot of the comments on pricing were fair, and I appreciate
| people being direct about it. I still care a lot about long-
| term maintenance for an app like this, but I think this is a
| better balance.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743992
| DrammBA wrote:
| Given how many developers here use LLMs daily, how do you
| think about defensibility? Tools like this seem relatively
| easy to reverse-engineer and replicate with enough time and
| LLM assistance. Did that influence your decision to charge a
| subscription or the change to a personal license?
| risyachka wrote:
| >> how do you think about defensibility?
|
| defensibility nowadays is app support and development. the
| more work you pour into it the more defensible it will be.
|
| I personally would gladly pay to have app constantly
| polished and improved. What I would not use is some vibe-
| coded alternative that was slopped with AI in a day and
| pushed to github with a tweet "i made a free X alternative"
| and then abandoned.
| mfru wrote:
| how much is there to improve and polish for a taskbar? at
| most it will be keeping up with macOS throwing breaking
| changes at you and maybe one or the other weird bug.
|
| but isn't that it?
| user34283 wrote:
| 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.
| a-ve wrote:
| That's the reason why I added a subscription in the first
| place - you would pay a dirt-cheap price for a "boring"
| product with an added insurance that someone will be there
| to support it.
|
| People will replicate it, sure, but supporting it regularly
| is another thing. I guess the majority wanted a perpetual
| license - so it's a win for the masses.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Feedback from a potential customer: I despise 2-device
| limits. I used DEVONthink for a decade but dropped it because
| of that exact thing.
|
| At home, I have a Mac Studio[0] set up in my office with my
| music stuff, and I'm writing this on my MacBoor Air[1] here
| on my lap in the living room. I also have a work laptop,
| although it's safely tucked away in my backback right now. My
| wife has an MBA, too, but that's hers and I don't mess with
| it. So I'm elbow-deep in Macs that are used solely by me, and
| I bounce between them regularly.
|
| The 2-device limit is a dealbreaker for me. It's where I stop
| reading. I don't care if it cures cancer: I won't buy an app
| that makes me pick and choose which of the devices in my care
| I can use it on. I'm sympathetic to _why_ vendors pick that
| limit. I get that you don 't want me to buy a single license
| and spread it around my friends and work circles. That's
| completely reasonable and understandable. And yet, it
| completely breaks my use case. I bet I'm far from alone in
| this.
|
| [0]A previous job let me keep it when I left.
|
| [1]I bought to hack on personal projects instead of using
| [0], which was work-owned at the time.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You can purchase multiple licenses. If you can afford a
| dozen computers, you can afford a couple more licenses.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Very true! Completely irrelant here, because I only
| purchased one of those computers as you correctly noted,
| but true!
| harladsinsteden wrote:
| What was your justification for the monthly fee in the first
| place?
|
| There is a model that worked for decades: If you spent a
| _significant_ amount of work enhancing an existing tool you'd
| release a new major version. The would be a discount for
| license holders of the old version. Why reinvent the world
| over and over again?
| Griffinsauce wrote:
| Simple answer right? It makes more money.
|
| Not saying that was OPs motivation but that's obviously why
| the shift happened.
| oa335 wrote:
| I would pay $10 one time for this; a subscription seems excessive
| to me.
| dd8601fn wrote:
| 100%. A subscription is instant death for this.
|
| The good news is someone definitely will (or perhaps already
| has) done this without one.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| I am using BoringNotch, which is great. Is this somehow related?
| randomeel wrote:
| No , boring notch is a Dynamic Island like utility and it also
| hasn't been updated since November , I suggest you to try out
| atoll which is a fork of it and pretty great .
| APock wrote:
| Of coarse its a subscription...
| SyneRyder wrote:
| While I don't use a Mac as my primary anymore, I'm surprised I
| like the look of this! It actually looks quite Mac-like as well.
|
| Subscription is a big nope here, though. Especially for Mac
| software, I'd expect something where you pay for one major
| version, that is guaranteed to works on specific macOS versions,
| and gets minor bugfix updates too. But maybe the next macOS
| version requires a newer major version update to run, in which
| case you pay an upgrade fee to buy the next major version - or
| maybe the next major version has new features you might want to
| upgrade to as well.
|
| My old Macs are stuck on 10.13, and I see Ubar mentioned
| elsewhere in this thread and that it's still compatible with
| 10.13. I might consider the $30 one off price to buy Ubar and
| keep it forever, but I wouldn't do a $10 subscription.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Please don't overindex on this comment OP, $10 a year is
| completely reasonable and the status quo they describe has
| killed so much software for so little benefit
|
| It's a subscription with extra steps and worse retention.
| 18182939393939 wrote:
| This reminds me of when I got my Vaxx subscription after the
| 5th booster.
| einherjae wrote:
| Why not offer both?
|
| I personally dislike subscriptions to the point where I'd
| gladly pay more to own, and as this thread shows, I'm not
| alone.
|
| So why not offer both?
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Why offer both?
|
| Some people will take the subscription with extra steps and
| worse retention and I'm saying the product will be worse
| off for it. Why not _just_ offer the thing with the simpler
| messaging*, better retention, and better outlook for
| actually being supported down the road even if it 's not a
| massive success?
|
| * 1 year = 365 days, not when a new major version is
| subjectively justified
|
| Honestly anyone who'd over index on people _claiming_ they
| 'd pay except $10 a year is just too much for a major
| utility or subscriptions are just too exotic for them is
| doomed unless they learn about _conversion rates_ : I don't
| get the vibe OP is unaware though based on their comments
| here.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Why not? Apple decides when a breaking change gets
| introduced, people on an older Intel Mac might get 5+
| years of usage out of a Lifetime license for boringBar if
| they don't upgrade to macOS 27. It's the people that
| demand constant updates who should subsidize new versions
| being developed.
|
| > Honestly anyone who'd over index [...] is doomed unless
| they learn about conversion rates
|
| Converting those sales is OP's problem. People that don't
| buy SaaS products are principled and their stance won't
| change.
| SyneRyder wrote:
| I didn't downvote, but just to be clear - I'm not saying $10
| for lifetime updates. Lifetime updates are a _terrible idea_
| and, yes, that does kill off software.
|
| $10 is too low for a one-off purchase as well, I'm not saying
| to lowball the price. $29 for a small utility could be
| reasonable, and that gives you some room to offer discount
| pricing / sales if you want. As for major version upgrades,
| I'd be imagining a typical 50% off, $15 to buy an upgrade to
| v2 if the customer wants it. Of course, not every customer
| will want that.
|
| You could offer both a subscription and a one-off purchase.
| It might put off some customers that you're even offering a
| subscription, but at least then you're offering everyone what
| they might want. And if you offer both, you'll have real data
| on what customers actually prefer, if you don't have that
| data already.
|
| And as others have said - it's their business, they can
| choose their sales model! Offered only as a friendly
| suggestion and potential customer feedback.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| > You could offer both a subscription and a one-off
| purchase.
|
| Regardless of the presentation, $10 a year presumably
| represents what they want per user, per year, for this to
| be worth it for them. Don't rush to repackage that very
| conservative target into a 2nd format for people who won't
| pay $10 a year for a thing they'll use daily on a Mac in
| the first place.
|
| > Offered only as a friendly suggestion and potential
| customer feedback.
|
| And "please don't overindex on that comment OP" is offering
| an unreasonable response?
| SyneRyder wrote:
| > And "please don't overindex on that comment OP" is
| offering an unreasonable response?
|
| Not at all! Apologies if tone isn't coming through as I
| wanted. Good to have a contrarian view presented. Maybe a
| subscription really is what their particular market
| wants.
| vunderba wrote:
| Agreed. The idea of having to pay for non-cloud based software
| in perpetuity forever, and having it stop working the very
| second I discontinue paying is a _hard no_ for me.
|
| OP, go with the JetBrains model. You can still offer a monthly
| subscription, but also provide an annual option where you pay
| up front for a year. After that year, it reverts to a fallback
| license for the specific version that was current during that
| period. It's a good approach.
| genbugenbu wrote:
| 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.
| blueaquilae wrote:
| Is there some more expensive tiers to change the color or do I
| need to pay a premium?
| ssenssei wrote:
| it looks great, looks clean, seems like people want it.
|
| nobody's paying a subscription for a taskbar. The business model
| here is a one time sale.
| aftergibson wrote:
| Looks nice, I'm forced to use OSX at work, but it's a hard no for
| another subscription.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| +1 to amplify the voice that hates a subscription to a taskbar.
| If it was EUR15 one time I would've instantly bought it.
| amarant wrote:
| Ah, good old Apple, where for only $9.99 a month, you can
| experience what Linux offered for free 15+ years ago.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Not really true if what you want is a full macOS-style desktop
| experience with a few choice features from elsewhere bolted on.
| Linux desktops are predominantly Windows-style or minimal
| tiling thing, with the exceptions (GNOME, Pantheon) bearing
| only surface-level Mac aesthetics and being more comparable to
| superpowered tablet OS experiences.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| MacOS is neutered for any advanced or even power user
| compared to practically any Linux desktop experience. Trying
| to just resize or remove a window should convince you of that
| instantly.
| oneplane wrote:
| That statement makes no sense. X11 works fine on macOS and
| running it in rootful mode with Gnome essentially works the
| same way it would work on an OS that uses the Linux kernel.
|
| Granted, it will not integrate with anything hardware-wise
| by itself (unless there's a package for it - if not, macOS
| still handles it, and Aqua/Quartz will keep running in the
| background anyway), but if what you wanted was something
| that is KDE or GNOME running with its own WM on its own X11
| server, doing the exact same thing you'd get if you're
| running a Linux distro, that's been natively possible for
| over 15 years.
|
| If a power user loses their power based on what GUI happens
| to be in front of them, how much of a power user was the
| power user to begin with?
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| It's just a matter of what one is used to. As someone who's
| used macOS since before OS X was released (alongside
| Windows and Linux), moving and resizing windows rarely
| poses issues.
| amarant wrote:
| Can you expand a bit on what you mean by "Superpowered tablet
| os"?
|
| I'm tend to think of it as a server os with a DE, but as a
| backend developer I'm probably biased.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I'm talking about the desktop environment explicitly, not
| the underlying OS.
|
| To me, GNOME and Pantheon (elementaryOS DE) strongly
| resemble e.g. iPadOS or Android running on a tablet for a
| few reasons:
|
| - Chunky heavily padded touch-optimized UI elements (even
| when no touch capability is present)
|
| - By default, minimize button not present in titlebars
|
| - Near total abandonment of menubars in favor of mobile-
| style "hamburger" menus
|
| - By default, no desktop icons (not even an app grid!)
|
| - Simplistic ecosystem apps with mobile-like philosophy of
| eschewing functionality that doesn't fit in toolbars and
| hamburger menus
|
| - Little to no presence of progressive disclosure (enabling
| power user functions to be present without falling in the
| path of novices and tripping them up)
|
| - Limited extensibility and scriptability (more so than
| macOS in some ways), with what exists (GNOME extensions)
| being fragile and breaking constantly due to needing to
| monkeypatch UI code
|
| While it's not my cup of tea, KDE and even less trendy DEs
| like XFCE do a better job at acting like an actual
| _desktop_ environment and surfacing the capabilities of the
| system.
| amarant wrote:
| Ah. Well then I'll argue my original statement holds. Op
| himself likened his product to gnome 2. Gnome 3 was
| released 15 years ago so if anything I was generous in my
| original comment.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Gnome is a pretty big exception lol. Considering it's the
| dominant DE.
|
| Also tablet OS? Gnome is keyboard driven with tiling features
| OOTB...
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| See my answer to the other comment[0].
|
| Being keyboard-driven is nice but doesn't make up for these
| things, and these days macOS comes with Aero-Snap-like
| tiling built in too.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743939
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| as long as we're quipping, free software is free so long as you
| don't value your time
| bigyabai wrote:
| It takes me longer to login to PayPal than it takes to
| install Dash-to-Panel:
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/
|
| Maybe that's just what $10 worth of labor looks like in
| today's economy, though. Times _are_ tough.
| fii wrote:
| Subscription on something like this is goofy, and extra
| subscription per seat even for personal is goofier. For free, I
| can use Alfred/Raycast, Aerospace, and either sketchybar or zebar
| and have all this functionality executed even more skillfully and
| ergonomically. If you want to throw money into it, Alfred power
| pack is PS34 and supports a great company with a lifetime
| purchase.
|
| But I also understand I'm not the target audience for this, and
| some of my coworkers that wanted a Mac because "it's a Mac" and
| now compare everything to Windows would probably use it. I'll
| just have to feel bad for their wallets.
| garganzol wrote:
| I always have an eerie felling when something like that has a
| dependency on 3rd party presence.
|
| Q&A section doesn't explain what happens when the subscription
| is no longer active, but the app is still installed. What
| happens when the app manufacturer goes out of business? Does
| the app continue to work?
|
| The subscription is a tell sign of an egoisticBar. A real
| boringBar wouldn't do that to its users.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| Remember when we bought software, and owned the right to use it
| in perpetuity? Good times those were. Now fucking taskbars are
| SaaS. There is no end to rent-seeking behaviour. In a decade or
| two, I suppose we will not only be renting the right to use our
| computers, but also the mouse and keyboard will be time-gated
| rentals as well. Mousewheel and numpad only available on the Pro
| subscription, of course.
| thehamkercat wrote:
| They're milking the final drops, before LLMs become so good
| that they'll write something like this in an hour
| harladsinsteden wrote:
| One-time fee? I would be onboard instantly. Monthly fee? For what
| exactly? There is no recurring cost like server space or anything
| else. Nope, you lost me as a customer. For good.
| mikestew wrote:
| "$9.99/year". <closes tab>
|
| C'mon, man, there's not even a backend to support. Want more
| revenue next year? Release a new version that's a compelling
| upgrade.
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| I'm not the target market for a subscription for this, but I
| found it quite buggy - I had multiple browser windows open and
| couldn't navigate to more than one. I couldn't navigate to other
| spaces either (clicking on them did nothing) and scrolling
| through the apps menu was laggy.
|
| The screenshots on the website look nice though.
| jorl17 wrote:
| Hi!
|
| Over the years, I've tried several of these dock replacement
| apps. The one that stuck the longest was uBar (which I used with
| a setup similar to what you have here, emulating a "windows
| taskbar".
|
| I've hit issues with most of them that forced me to move back to
| the normal Dock, but the number one issue has always been around
| notification badges: they always seemed to break in strange ways.
|
| For example, can your dock show badges for iMessage if the app
| isn't open? Does it get the updated badge count without me
| opening it? Say I receive a SMS/iMessage, does it instantly show
| a counter next to the unopened pinned messages app? None of the
| other apps successfully did this when I tried them...
|
| I don't know if there are other apps like this, but iMessage was
| by far the biggest offender. Perhaps system settings too?
|
| P.S.: Congrats on the launch :)
|
| P.P.S.: As others have said, I think a subscription for this will
| rub many people the wrong way (I am one of them). If I'm paying
| for a subscription, I expect this to be pretty bug-free and have
| at least monthly updates. I wouldn't ask this of other
| subscription-based apps, but for one that replaces a system-level
| component and wants me to keep paying, you bet I am holding it to
| a high standard! I've wasted too much money on other replacements
| and gotten very little value out of that.
| a-ve wrote:
| Hi there - I ran into the same issue myself, but sadly I still
| haven't found a way to show the badge count without opening the
| app. I'm still experimenting with it.
|
| I expected some pushback on subscriptions, but after trying
| uBar and running into quite a few issues with it I wanted to
| build something that feels reliable and polished. I'm pretty
| much all-in on the Apple ecosystem now, even though I only
| switched ~6 months ago. My intention is to keep supporting
| boringBar regularly, as I use it every day myself.
| jorl17 wrote:
| Surely the regular Dock uses some hidden API. Could you try
| to trace it?
|
| Having failed that, I'd look into trying to inspect (if
| possible, even we have to disable SIP) the dock itself. Have
| it do the work for us and read out its badges.
|
| (Throwing random ideas out there, I'm sure you've thought of
| this)
| ike____________ wrote:
| Take a look to Jotego's (mister FPGA) business model. I was the
| main maintainer of a distro so I can say that That's not going to
| work. Also I'm in love with your style.
| vivid242 wrote:
| I'd be happy to pay for an upgrade if future macOS changes break
| the functionality of this - cool - app, which would require the
| creator to update it. More work, which I would pay for. But not a
| subscription, sorry!
|
| Plus, I'd prefer to (but that's impossible?) install via the App
| Store, to avoid a black box.
| randomeel wrote:
| There are MORE apps that have a better reputation like sidebar ,
| dock fix , active dock (has been around for years and years) ,
| and a subscription does not make sense since most can be done for
| free like window previews with dock door , group windows by app
| is free in desktop and dock settings for Mission Control , the
| native dock can also do many things like notification badges,
| click to show desktop or use a hot corner or trackpad gesture ,
| pin apps in the dock , there are a billion app launchers ,
| spotlight is built in . Most people will stay away from
| subscriptions as I have observed in the comment below (Pls be
| nice I'm new here and I don't know how to comment properly )
| throwanem wrote:
| 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.
| vswaroop04 wrote:
| Subscription ? Big No
| interstice wrote:
| I'll be trying this! I used uBar for a long time, and more
| recently taskbar as uBar was too buggy to ignore. My main issue
| with Taskbar currently is that it sits over non windowed
| fullscreen apps (eg Steam games). Other than that I prefer the
| design on yours based on a quick look through the page.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| > I built boringBar so I would not have to use the Dock
|
| Does anybody really use the dock as a an app switcher? MacOS is
| built around shortcuts, alt-tab, show spaces, etc. The dock is
| there for starting apps - which you can also do via spotlight,
| and as a "favorites" list after you remove all the built-ins.
| hecifato wrote:
| I see a lot of people treat the dock like the Windows taskbar.
| They have it filled with as many apps as they can fit in it and
| leave it on-screen. I used to use the dock like that when I
| first started using macOS. Now it lives off the left edge of
| the screen and spends most of the time hidden. I can open any
| app I need with Spotlight and Mission Control, CMD+Tab, and
| moving between virtual desktops lets me move around my
| currently open apps.
| vunderba wrote:
| I personally use Raycast, which has a Switch Windows global
| hotkey (Opt + W) that brings up a list of all active windows
| and apps. From there, you can start typing part of the window
| title and hit Enter to bring the corresponding window to the
| foreground.
|
| Slightly related but AltTab is also a nice window switcher with
| built-in thumbnail previews if you prefer being able to tab by
| "window" and not by "process" (aka more like Windows).
|
| https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos
| superjared wrote:
| Just adding to the pile to say that the subscription kills it for
| me.
| neuropacabra wrote:
| Gnome 2 anyone?
| ziml77 wrote:
| I'm with other people here. Make this a one-time purchase. If a
| major macOS update requires significant changes to keep the
| program working, make that a new version that people need to buy.
| A pretty standard way to keep people from feeling screwed if the
| break happens right after they bought your software is to give
| them the next version of your software for free if you release it
| within 1 year of their purchase.
|
| I think you're actually likely to make more money that way
| because people will pass on adding yet another subscription to
| the pile they have already.
| hecifato wrote:
| Personally, I like the macOS dock so this wouldn't be for me.
| $10/year for a dock replacement is a bit much to ask for too,
| especially since this is a price per seat model. Maybe $15-20 as
| a one-time purchase per license? One of my favourite apps in the
| past few years is antinote and that is a one time fee of $5.
| heyitsaamir wrote:
| I'm totally a target audience here. I've been trying so many
| different app switcher applications. My latest favorite one is
| "flashspace". I would love that kind of functionality be part of
| this too if possible. Regardless I'll give it a shot for a few
| weeks and see if it works for me. Thanks for sharing!
| myself248 wrote:
| I'm not the target audience for this, but THANK YOU for putting a
| description in the title, instead of letting me eagerly click it
| thinking it might be a speeds/feeds/stickout calculator for a
| lathe boring bar or something.
| overflowy wrote:
| Subscriptions for apps that require absolutely no infrastructure
| to run make absolutely no sense to me. Hard pass.
| bloqs wrote:
| Fantastic work, but ubar is going to eat your lunch with that
| subscription
| theonemind wrote:
| I know you've received plenty of feedback about the subscription
| being a dealbreaker. There would be no point in me adding that
| but I would say that I could see myself paying $50 for one
| version of this without upgrades. Maybe half price for upgrades
| if you have an existing license. So I probably wouldn't
| necessarily mind paying $25 per year per se if it's not a
| subscription. Like many other others here, I'm just not gonna go
| there.
|
| Good luck!
| naze wrote:
| Forced subscription = immediate uninstall; would have gladly paid
| a decent one-time fee for the app.
| mwit2023 wrote:
| I've always setup my macbooks with a custom json config using
| https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ to avoid the dock, but
| couldnt convince any friends to give it a try since its high
| effort, i guess
|
| so i hacked together https://dockshortcut.com really quick and
| that kinda made the difference in how some people use their
| macbooks these days, but tough market, nobody likes paying for
| something that should come out of the box
|
| you should probably reconsider asking for a subscription, people
| barely wanna pay once, even if it would save them weeks a year
| AbraKdabra wrote:
| Not a mac user, looks cool... but a subscription for a simple
| boring and static task bar?
|
| Fucking omega lol. April fools was 11 days ago my man. Charge me
| $50 if you want but absolutely fuck subscriptions.
| a-ve wrote:
| 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 pricing.
|
| A lot of the comments on pricing were fair, and I appreciate
| people being direct about it. I still care a lot about long-term
| maintenance for an app like this, but I think this is a better
| balance.
| trueno wrote:
| alright man i'm gonna buy it you seem p cool. lovely looking
| software here too
| fr4nkr wrote:
| Don't take it personally OP, but taskbar-as-a-service is
| objectively one of the funniest things I have ever seen posted on
| this site.
| gloosx wrote:
| having to click somewhere is not a shortcut, seriosly who the
| hell switches the desktops with mouse scrolling or clicking?
| there is a real shortcut for that
| jonhohle wrote:
| I can't find it now, but there was a Start Menu/Taskbar for Mac
| OS 9 era Mac's as well. It was bizarre.
| SpyCoder77 wrote:
| Already got indexed by Brave Search's AI: boringBar: A modern
| Dock replacement specifically for macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later that
| organizes windows by desktop, provides thumbnail previews, and
| includes unread notification badges. It requires a one-time $40
| personal license after a 14-day free trial
| SpyCoder77 wrote:
| It looks really good, what makes this different from uBar?
| fleeno wrote:
| Why does it need to talk to facebook.com, ntp.org, aws.com,
| cloudflare.com, google.com, and windows.com?
| rhubarbtree wrote:
| Anyone who has watched Ubar constantly break across macOS updates
| will understand the point of a subscription fee. It's non trivial
| to maintain and I doubt vibe coding is gonna help.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Amazing what a bunch of swine the commenters are towards OP here.
| Always complaining, never creating anything of value themselves.
|
| OP: Congratulations on what seems to be a very nice taskbar!
|
| I have two suggestions:
|
| - I miss the ability to pin folders like on the MacOS Dock. For
| example for your Downloads folder.
|
| - The applications menu should open when the cursor clicks in the
| corner, not only over the icon. Fitts's law.
|
| - The active window background color is too bright in dark mode.
| It draws too much attention on the screen.
| lmiller1990 wrote:
| I am trying it but the colors don't seem correct. I cannot read
| the title of any other tab except currently selected one:
| https://imgur.com/a/t0BDxuC
|
| PS: How to contact developer? I cannot find email.
|
| Neat idea!
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