[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 : 497 points
Date : 2026-04-12 17:25 UTC (1 days 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.
| Lawand wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning my app (https://lawand.io/taskbar/).
| It's been around for a couple of years and it's considered
| the best alternative to uBar according to the extremely
| positive reviews by my users
| 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.
| a-ve wrote:
| I have some existing issues with uBar that I have listed here -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47746812.
|
| 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.
| 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 (obvious) option to change the theme or
| override the computed colors.
|
| 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...
| a-ve wrote:
| Hey. I'm seeing this issue with some other users as well and
| I'm trying to reproduce this - do you have the reduce
| transparency accessibility option enabled by any chance?
| throwanem wrote:
| I do!
|
| _edit:_ Checking now I 'm back in arm's reach of my
| laptop, I can further confirm disabling the option does
| resolve the issue on Sonoma. Nice catch!
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Aha! Same here. No wonder there were gui issues if that's
| the common factor. (Didn't verify behavior, only
| setting.)
| 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.
| senorrib wrote:
| Ok, so you prefer to act like an idiot. Good luck.
| earthnail wrote:
| I wasn't trying to trash-talk consumers, but I was trying
| to be as clear as possible on how consumers behave to
| give good business advice.
|
| A lot of consumer spending comes from motivation.
| Purchase intents come in burts, an "alright I'm gonna
| commit, I'm gonna do this" moment. As a consumer app
| developer, you really need to understand that. Some of
| your users might use your annual sub for five years, some
| only for one, some for two. If your average lifetime is
| 2.5 years, a lifetime price that's 3x the sub price gives
| you more revenue - and revenue upfront - than a sub. Subs
| are fantastic because they give you predictable recurring
| revenue, which is worth a lot in the long run (which is
| why Wikipedia prefers monthly donations instead of larger
| one-time sums, for example), but if you're getting
| started, cash flow is everything.
|
| Consider how much software and goods you bought that you
| thought you were gonna use but then never touched. The
| $1000 music software bundle from Native Instruments you
| bought because you thought it would finally bring you to
| make music? That guitar you bought because you really
| thought you'd play it? The home gym equipment so you'd
| finally do some sports? These purchases came from a
| commitment "I'm gonna do it", and statistically speaking,
| most people don't follow through with this commitment. A
| monthly payment for these things would've been much, much
| cheaper for them. "Oh, but if I own it I can always pick
| it up again", you say? Who's stopping you from
| resubscribing if you want to? It's purely emotional.
|
| There are tons of books on purchase psychology; this
| applies all the way to owning vs renting a flat.
|
| The mistake many developers make is not factoring in how
| highly people value perceived security of one-time
| purchases. Offer a lifetime option, and price it
| accordingly. It's much easier to upsell people while they
| already have a purchase intent than to resell them your
| app every year when the new subscription bill comes in.
| Even if, statistically speaking, it would be much cheaper
| for most of your users to choose the annual subscription,
| you will end up with happier users if you offer an
| expensive lifetime option, and you will end up with more
| cash in your company. Everyone wins.
| chongli wrote:
| _If your average lifetime is 2.5 years_
|
| For a tool people come to depend on for their daily
| computing needs, this is wildly pessimistic. Look how
| many people use Unix shell tools on a daily basis. Some
| of that stuff is 60 years old! Imagine paying a
| subscription for 60 years to use bash.
| 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.
| madhacker wrote:
| I second this! As a lite Mac user, $40 is a bit steep.
| I'll manage without boringBar no matter how great it is.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Honestly, I have tried to really cut down on my usage of
| 3rd-party dependencies when possible. In a way, it's kind
| of freeing. Whatever I still need, I write myself. If I
| cannot write it, then I try to find something FOSS. If I
| find nothing, then I consider purchasing something.
|
| For example, I am rolling my own window manager (that
| needs some much needed TLC). I ditched Alfred for
| Spotlight. Though Alfred is better, I will survive just
| fine. And the list goes on.
|
| I am not trying to take a dig at the OP. I am sure he or
| she put effort into this application. But I am genuinely
| curious -- does anybody actually _need_ this software?
| Cmd+Tab, a decent window manager, and Spotlight would
| solve the same problems for free.
| mitchell209 wrote:
| I fresh install to give myself a different perspective
| when I feel like I have too many 3rd party solutions to
| problems that no longer exist. Spotlight is better and I
| only casually use my macbook nowadays, so I don't need
| the power of Alfred. I don't need dock extensions because
| Stage Manager is mediocre but works well enough for the
| browser, chat / music apps, and whatever document I'm
| working with at the time.
| dangus wrote:
| They're not insane.
|
| It costs $99 a year just to be able to write Mac apps at
| all.
|
| Any sort of buy-once app on macOS is unsustainable to the
| developer. They are paying Apple $99 a year forever.
|
| If you want cheap/free apps get off of Apple's ecosystem
| and switch to Linux.
| rahabash wrote:
| Seconded. $10 for 2y and Id buy.. otherwise it feels too
| steep a price.
| shamsghi wrote:
| Agree
| 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.
| 8avo wrote:
| I cannot agree with you more.
|
| Personally, I dare not replace the Dock with Windows-style
| task bar for fear that my OLED display might have burn-in
| on it. Yet, when I need an alternative, I would rather make
| an APP for my own.
| butlike wrote:
| It's not the idea, it's the implementation. It still takes
| time and effort to reverse-engineer, LLM assistance or not.
| 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!
| satvikpendem wrote:
| What's the alternative?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Trust and respect, which is a 2-way street. I've bought
| some relatively expensive apps (the pro version of nearly
| everything Omni Group makes, Things, etc. etc. etc.) and
| all of them let you install and use the apps on all of
| your computers. They're licensed per person, not per
| device. I despise technical controls on this for the same
| reason I despise DRM on physical media: it's an
| inconvenience to rightful owners and a temporary speed
| bump to pirates.
|
| I'm not about to abuse my OmniFocus licenses, even though
| I could. They sold me a great product at a reasonable
| price, with permission to throw a copy on everything I
| own so I can use it no matter which chair I'm sitting at.
| They trust and respect me, and I trust and respect them.
| 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.
| dangus wrote:
| To me it seems like small businesses like this get
| squeezed by these demands to make everything cheaper
| while the big corporations ignore it and stick to their
| pricing.
|
| I'm not sure OP should have capitulated. Someone who
| loves this tool will probably gladly pay more.
| cgio wrote:
| The question is what is the proportion of people loving
| it vs liking it.
| dangus wrote:
| The proportion gets a lot easier to deal with as the
| price goes up.
|
| Is it easier to convince one person to pay $100 or 100
| people to pay $1?
| twohaibei wrote:
| I'm pretty sure people who give in to subscriptions are
| usually forced to use a tool (or adobe) for one reason or
| another. New tool, that does one small thing, would not
| force many people to go into that absurd payment model.
| harladsinsteden wrote:
| Well, I'm all for making money but the way it was tried
| here sounds like a pretty bad idea.
|
| Developers (or power users for that matter) aren't really
| known to be generous with their personal money for
| recurring software fees. But this is the primary target
| group. I want value in return for my money. If you have
| monthly recurring costs then I can understand the monthly
| fee. If not then it's a rip-off.
|
| Can you try? Of course. But I guess I'm not the only one
| who has been pushed away from that particular software
| product. Even if it's good I will not give it another
| try. First impressions count.
| ymolodtsov wrote:
| Because what you end up with is a long tail of revenue that
| doesn't justify working on the app.
| natpalmer1776 wrote:
| I personally prefer the monthly payments of a nominal amount
| where $2-8/month is my usual small app tolerance. It feels
| like I'm supporting the development of useful tools while
| having the option to discontinue my patronage when the tool
| is no longer relevant or useful to my workflow. This gives
| products a natural lifespan and aligns the developer
| incentives to keep the product functional and continue
| developing new features.
|
| Old guard will say what they will about software licensing
| but at the end of the day it's all the same.
| a-ve wrote:
| I get it now that folks absolutely loathe the idea of
| subscriptions - that too for a taskbar. In hindsight I too
| find it hideous but I wanted the pricing to reflect the
| effort that went into this - wrestling with the Window
| Server and Xcode for multiple weekends over the past
| months.
|
| But hey, the masses have spoken - and a perpetual license
| it is. Vox populi, vox dei.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| I don't think the notion of subscription is off-putting.
| It's just not a very natural fit for something that isn't
| a function of time or resources. This is just a better
| model for upgrades. If you make improvements later on,
| people will pay again.
|
| For this particular situation, your risk probably isn't
| that people will stop paying. It's more likely that
| people like it enough that a free alternative pops up
| (it's not so different from rectangle and alttab.) You're
| probably better off taking the money up front.
| butlike wrote:
| Who maintains the list of all of these a la carte
| subscriptions? Your credit card company? Seems like a pain
| to have to review it every month and discern the service
| from the ACH transaction name. Additionally, it would be a
| reactive approach, as you would already need to be charged
| for the month you didn't want in order for it to show up on
| the ACH ledger.
|
| I don't have a problem with paying subscriptions, I have a
| problem with the subscription list itself becoming
| untenable.
| natpalmer1776 wrote:
| I have a budget, which is an excel file, that lists my
| fixed expenses. I add a row, select the frequency, and
| let the formula I wrote a while back work out how much
| discretionary funds are left. There are dozens of other
| software products out there that also serve this purpose
| as well as actual paper ledgers you could use instead.
| butlike wrote:
| Ahh but there's the rub. If I buy the software one time,
| I never have to think about it again and I never have to
| add it to a spreadsheet/peripheral software.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Awesome that you were receptive to feedback. I hope most of
| the people who commented find out and don't just memory-hole
| the project.
| upmostly wrote:
| We went through the exact same dilemma with our product [1].
| For desktop apps, one-off with a defined support window just
| feels right.
|
| Users get certainty, and you still have a clear path to
| future revenue when that window expires.
|
| Subscription makes a lot more sense once you're in
| cloud/collaborative territory which we've just entered.
| Sounds like you landed in a good place with this split.
|
| [1] https://dbpro.app/pricing
| yurishimo wrote:
| Hey! Nice to see you have updated the pricing. I really
| liked the idea behind your product when I first saw it but
| the pricing was just a non-starter. Getting work to pay for
| all of my little productivity tools is a PITA and I still
| have side projects so spending a few bucks on a license
| every 2-3 years personally is where I find the sweet spot.
|
| Will be trying out DB Pro again in the near future!
| teiferer wrote:
| C'mon, why not just open source it? Do you really expect to
| gain a sizeable following to get substantial cash flow? Most
| shareware went the way of oblivion.
|
| If you'd open source it then there is at least the chance of
| gaining a community. And you'd be giving back to the
| community that you have benefitted from for decades.
| selkin wrote:
| 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.
| randomeel wrote:
| I agree , but I only need a page dedicated to release
| history to see how frequently the app is updated and so I
| can trust it for the future
| 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 .
| alejoar wrote:
| Thank you for the tip! I love boring notch but it does have a
| few bugs and indeed hasn't been updated in a long time. I
| will check out atoll!
| 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.
| stasomatic wrote:
| There could be 4x buyers at $10. I'd be one of the now, the
| dock is a constant annoyance.
|
| The app looks great, downloading the trial now.
|
| To the app's author I'd say get as many licensees as you
| can fast before you're Sherlocked or somebody vibecodes a
| clone out of "why not".
|
| I use many free and paid apps, little QoL types, like
| BetterDisplay, Coctail, etc and for me the included support
| is of little value. These apps are not mission critical.
|
| There is also Setapp [0], might give you instant access to
| user base that favors such apps.
|
| [0] - https://setapp.com/
| 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.
| zerkten wrote:
| 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 the intent of building
| other great things. The biggest software companies have many
| revenue streams and ways to cover costs that are very different
| from independent devs.
|
| When you sell perpetual use software, you have the incentive to
| release yearly versions (or whatever cadence is best.) You are
| incentivized to only put bugfixes into next year's version to
| force upgrades. Users lose out because they don't get bug fixes
| and the developer is put in a spot where they have to look for
| more devious ways of making a profit.
|
| To make money the cost of perpetual software is also very high.
| Devs make terrible compromises here to seem reasonable, but you
| need to move a lot of units to reduce the price to the level
| possible with subscription software.
|
| Subscriptions are far from perfect, but they bring some
| balance. Next time you complain, it would be an interesting
| exercise to state what you would be prepared to pay and how
| often.
| bean469 wrote:
| > 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
| 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?
| 71bw wrote:
| There is a major difference between losing your power and
| having to constantly fight the UI to keep your power.
| And, for example, window management on Mac is clunky as
| all hell.
| oneplane wrote:
| Which is why I wrote about running the exact UI that was
| referenced, with the same window server, window manager
| and desktop environment.
| 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.
| Kerrick wrote:
| > By default, minimize button not present in titlebars
|
| This is explained by the ElementaryOS H.I.G.:
|
| > Apps should save their current state when closed so
| they can be reopened right to where the user left off.
| Typically, closing and reopening an app should be
| indistinguishable from the legacy concept of minimizing
| and unminimizing an app; that is, all elements should be
| saved including open documents, scroll position, undo
| history, etc.
|
| > Because of the strong convention of saved state,
| elementary OS does not expose or optimize for legacy
| minimize behavior; e.g. there is no minimize button, and
| the Multitasking View does not distinguish minimized
| windows.
|
| More: https://docs.elementary.io/hig/user-
| workflow/closing
| 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.
| trymas wrote:
| Ah, good old Linux, where for free, you cannot experience what
| macOS offers since 1984.
|
| /s of course. Just pointing out that your comment is just to
| flame.
| 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)
| hirvi74 wrote:
| 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?
| msephton wrote:
| 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.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| 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.
| 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.
| Lawand wrote:
| 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
| 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.
| Lawand wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning Taskbar (https://lawand.io/taskbar/).
| It is true that I am not able to detect non-standard fullscreen
| apps, but there is an option to scroll down on taskbar to hide
| it completely until you move the mouse to the bottom of the
| screen again
| 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
| hk1337 wrote:
| I've used it to get me to the desktop where the app is open but
| yeah, generally you're right. I use spotlight more often for
| searching the Mac and opening apps or swiping desktops
| 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
| 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
|
| edit: yeah this is good stuff. see some other bug reports here
| im actually not running into any myself, running 4 workspaces
| plenty of apps. its so straight forward and simple, the design
| is fantastic. seems to play nicely with my rectangle app
| snapping, though it takes a moment for it to resize since less
| bottom space is available with the bar but as long as i can
| snap im happy.
|
| edit2: just tried ubar then ended up back on this. #1 reason is
| because your app will resize my window after i snap with
| rectangle. i couldn't get ubar to do that, ubar also felt a
| little more sluggish at times. ubar is more feature filled but
| something about the simplicity here is kind of exactly what i
| needed to replace the macos dock, and yours is hitting the mark
| really well.
|
| i think few buttons (don't even need to be text menu items) for
| logout/restart/shutdown would be pretty clutch, but outside of
| that i do be digging this a lot. nice. enjoy my moneys!
| a-ve wrote:
| Thanks for actually using the app. Appreciate it! I concur
| with the uBar issue - its jank was the main reason I built
| this app.
|
| I didn't want to add the logout/restart/shutdown option
| initially, but I'll experiment with it to see how useful it
| is.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Doesn't this make Personal licences about 6x the cost of
| Business licences?
| Terretta wrote:
| Put the $40 in the app store, I'll buy it just to support this
| move. (Though it should be $20.)
|
| For business, I would also pay $20/seat in Apple Business's app
| store (no quantity discount needed), so it's part of our MDM
| software for Windows users unfamiliar with Mac. Note that
| subscriptions are not available to businesses using that
| channel, only flat purchases. All you have to do is have a flat
| purchase in the retail app store, and businesses can buy that
| in bulk to assign to users.
|
| // Your other business licensing mechanisms, like, fixed number
| of users, different license per batch of users, etc., are too
| awkward for a real business with real employee turnover to keep
| track of, sorry.
| a-ve wrote:
| Apps like these unfortunately cannot be put on the App Store
| as they use some Window Server shenanigans to make it work.
| boringBar is notarized by Apple and will work well with
| Gatekeeper if that makes it any better.
|
| 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.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Here's where this can be awful - I have a few pieces of
| software that are identical to this. After a few years I switch
| machines out and can't reactivate them and I'm SOL.
| a-ve wrote:
| OP here - for boringBar you can use the same license for your
| new machine. It would not be an issue. Keep in mind though
| boringBar on your previously activated device will stop
| working after 30 days if it exceeds the device limit on your
| license.
| kunai wrote:
| Thanks for taking feedback into account but $20 per license is
| still a bit absurd. StartAllBack for Windows does almost
| everything your product does and costs $5 for a lifetime
| license.
| klaxce wrote:
| I'm trying the demo now, since I've been looking for something
| like this and haven't been happy with any of the options. This
| is really close, so I want it to be right so I can be done
| looking.
|
| I have "Displays have separate Spaces" enabled for a few
| reasons, and I'd like to keep it that way.
|
| I have "Show on all displays" in BoringBar turned off, because
| if I turn it on, then I lose the per-monitor window on the bar,
| which I want.
|
| My MBP and First External Display have the opposite windows on
| their bars. Spotify is open on MBP, but showing on the monitor,
| and vice versa. The Main display is fine. External Display 2 is
| my "Main display" and External Display 1 and the MBP display
| are "Extend display".
|
| On the extended monitors, BoringBar doesn't stop windows from
| going behind it (it auto resizes on the main display) when I
| maximize them.
|
| I would really like if it had an option like Windows to group
| windows by application, but not to put them all in one "chip"
| as you call it. I just want all of my VSCode windows to be next
| to each other, without another app's window in between. If I
| use your "Group windows by app" then I don't like how hiding
| and showing from the bar works. In Windows 11, I always show
| window title and group windows by app.
|
| Lastly, I'd like if all "chips" were the same size, even if
| some title text is shorter than others.
|
| Great work so far. It feels far less janky than uBar or others
| I've tried. I'm hopeful and will keep an eye on it! Is there
| any way to reset my trial if you come out with these changes at
| a later date? For now I'll be uninstalling it, as the windows
| on the wrong display is unusable.
| 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?
| a-ve wrote:
| These are NTP servers for checking time via the app. I'll fix
| this in an update today - it shouldn't be required in the trial
| version.
| brandon272 wrote:
| Facebook is needed to check the time?
| 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.
| a-ve wrote:
| Thanks. Regarding your suggestions:
|
| - 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!
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > I think the clickable area is too small, right?
|
| If you extend the clickable area to the bottom left corner of
| the screen, it becomes in practice infinitely large.
|
| I just noticed that the same is true for the taskbar
| application buttons. Their click targets should also be
| extended to the bottom of the screen for best user
| experience.
| 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!
| a-ve wrote:
| Okay this is most definitely a bug. Have you enabled reduce
| transparency in macOS settings by any chance?
| lmiller1990 wrote:
| Yes. I can try turn that off but I really prefer no
| transparency
| danpalmer wrote:
| Why is the personal licence $20/yr and the business licence
| $3.49/yr? Unless I'm misreading the pricing here.
| matthewhartmans wrote:
| This looks really nice!
|
| I really like this panel, do you have a linux version config or
| dot files that is similar looking?
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| This would be perfect for me if it docked to the side in a
| vertical orientation, like Firefox tabs, or Windows XP.
| green-salt wrote:
| Glad to see the pricing was adjusted! Something that would make
| this perfect for me would be autohide on the bar. I'm trying to
| keep static UI lements to a minimum on an oled display.
| roger_ wrote:
| Looks great but even $40 for a perpetual license with only two
| years of updates still seems excessive.
|
| Taskbar, Uber, etc. cost less and have unlimited updates. How is
| this better?
| a-ve wrote:
| I've already used these apps and they did not serve my purpose
| well.
|
| - I forced myself to use uBar but it has another level of jank
| that doesn't sit right with me - it is not reliable on a multi-
| monitor setup, there's no guarantee it'll work after waking up
| from sleep. If you maximize windows they will sit behind uBar
| sometimes - all of which boringBar does better and is more
| reliable at.
|
| - Taskbar by Lawand is better than uBar but it has similar
| problems with multi-monitor support and wake from sleep. Apart
| from that their "start menu" app launcher is still in beta and
| you have to download a beta version from the developer's
| twitter page to actually use it. And obviously it's a
| subjective thing but the boringBar UI is a lot better - it
| integrates nicely with macOS.
| Lawand wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning Taskbar
| (https://lawand.io/taskbar/). The multi Monitor bug was fixed
| in the recent macOS update, as it was a macos bug and not a
| taskbar bug. Also, the start menu update is almost done and
| will be out soon.
| Lawand wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning my app (https://lawand.io/taskbar/).
| It is still free for the foreseeable future and once the paid
| version comes out it will be 25$ for a lifetime license, and I
| will not offer a subscription option
| villedespommes wrote:
| IMO, this isn't priced competitively: * Mbar can be had for $15
| on stacksocial * Sidebar is $21 w/ lifetime updates * DockDoor is
| free and OSS
| dangus wrote:
| I think businesses like this should rarely listen to customers
| asking for cheaper prices.
|
| If your price is higher that's fewer people you need to
| convince to pay. Fewer customers also means lower support
| burden.
|
| Obviously it's a balance, but I think customers asking for
| lower prices may just be an indicator that people actually like
| what you're doing and want to buy it. That probably means
| someone else is going to just buy it without worrying about the
| price.
|
| The lowest priced option isn't always the most popular, either.
| The F-150 sells a lot better than the Nissan Versa.
|
| Psychologically people can also perceive a low price as an
| indicator of low value and quality.
| a-ve wrote:
| - I cannot seem to find Mbar on stacksocial. Do you have a link
| for that?
|
| - 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.
| ofabioroma wrote:
| Amazing! I've been testing for the last hours
| a-ve wrote:
| Hey - thanks for testing it out. Have you found any issues as
| of yet that I need to look into?
| msephton wrote:
| I'm not sure this is for me, but I wanted to say I Appreciate the
| little design touches and thought that is on display in this app.
| Great work!
| a-ve wrote:
| OP here - much appreciated. Is there something that you didn't
| like about boringBar? Is there any missing feature you would
| like to see implemented or is it that it doesn't fit well with
| your current muscle memory with the system Dock?
| msephton wrote:
| I don't really use the Dock or need an alternative. I do
| things using Alfred and Finder. Also, I run a portrait
| display with my Dock hidden down the right side.
| websap wrote:
| I appreciate a good UX improvement, and I respectfully appreciate
| you building this for your own use case.
|
| But Dawg? Really!
| saurabh-194 wrote:
| Would have loved it if this was free!
| Barbing wrote:
| Love it!
| atymic wrote:
| Downloaded to give it a try, but one feature is missing, I can't
| rearrange open windows. Is there a wayt to do that?
| a-ve wrote:
| That feature is under development. Right now the windows are
| arranged based on which app was launched first.
| nagonago wrote:
| When I got a Macbook many years ago, I was surprised how often
| little utility software like this cost money. I was just so used
| to the abundance of open source and freeware in the Windows/Linux
| world.
|
| No judgement either way, I get that developers want to be
| compensated for their time. I just always found the difference in
| culture curious. I guess it's because if you're willing to spend
| the extra premium for Apple products, you're probably also
| willing to spend a little extra premium on the software too.
| teiferer wrote:
| > 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 wouldn't exist.
| Time to pay back to the community and open source such a
| project.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| 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.
| bean469 wrote:
| > FOSS communists
|
| That's a solid combination of ideas. If anybody is forming
| a group of FOSS comrades - count me in!
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Pick any FOSS project and you will be right at home.
|
| But you won't have time for much merry-making with your
| friends: An important manager at Meta just submitted a
| bug report to your open source project which needs to get
| taken care of urgently and for free by you. Quarterly
| reports are quickly approaching, so get on it comrade!
| Don't make him wait!
| TonyStr wrote:
| There is a lot of work post launch in customer support,
| fixing security issues, keeping code up to date, and fixing
| bugs.
| teiferer wrote:
| 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.
| sbkg0002 wrote:
| subscription. bye.
| disillusioned wrote:
| Would it be possible to potentially expand the size options?
| Large just isn't large enough for me on my MBP; I'd like it to be
| nearly 2x the size, or roughly equivalent to the 150% 4k scaling
| factor I have on Windows. (I like the icon-only mode!)
|
| On the default XDR M2 Pro MBP display I'm on, I have it set to
| the default scaling for reasons, but I'd really like to be able
| to scale the BoringBar to be... quite a lot larger... maybe a
| scale bar, or maybe add an XL and XXL option?
| a-ve wrote:
| Wow okay - I thought the large option was already quite large.
| Will experiment with an extra large option in some time and
| push out an update if it appears stable.
| disillusioned wrote:
| Thanks! For context, this is how things look for me:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/V5vXq6t.png
|
| One other feature request: allow users to click and drag
| pinned (or any) icons on the taskbar. I very much arrange my
| pinned apps spatially so I know where to look/find/launch
| them. I know that I can effectively be deliberate in my
| pinning to try to get them in the right spot, but that's
| obviously quite limiting.
|
| Just bought a license, though, and really enjoy this! Well
| done!
| alykirk wrote:
| I went through a similar transition and ended up with yabai +
| skhd for tiling. The Dock pain is real.
|
| One thing I'd love to see: integration with tiling WMs. Being
| able to see which windows are in the current yabai Space, and
| maybe even switch between stacked windows, would be amazing.
|
| Does boringBar play nicely with yabai or similar tools?
| a-ve wrote:
| Technically it should - I tried using Amethyst with it for a
| few weeks before launch and it seemed to work fine for me.
| webprofusion wrote:
| You want me to pay for your UI coding subscription?
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Nice attempt, but too slow for me
| a-ve wrote:
| Hey. OP here - which part of boringBar did you find slow? Is it
| the time it takes to hover on a window to show its thumbnail?
| Or is it something else you think needs improvement?
| Jean-Philipe wrote:
| Neat! I would love to also be able to give desktops names
| kombine wrote:
| This is a great app but it highlights just how insane it is to
| use apple products where you have to pay a subscription fee for
| the 3rd party software that provides the basic OS functionality.
| With KDE Plasma I don't feel the need to install any additional
| plugins - everything is built-in, coherent and configurable to
| your liking.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| It's expensive for me. Sidebar is half the price (lifetime
| license): https://sidebarapp.net
| a-ve wrote:
| I tried Sidebar, uBar - all of them. All of them have the same
| set of issues that they don't take care of windows that are
| being maximized (they end up behind the bar) and they have
| intermittent issues with waking up from sleep.
|
| boringBar does not suffer from these issues. That's the reason
| why I built it. It works as expected from day 1.
| egorfine wrote:
| I am running Macs for over 20 years now and I wonder: why do we
| need Dock at all? I have hidden it over a decade ago and never
| ever used it. If anything, it gets in the way when I push the
| cursor to the edge of the screen.
|
| (I exclusively use cmd-tab, which is a Docker _feature_ )
| a-ve wrote:
| I think that's fair.
|
| 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.
| 00deadbeef wrote:
| I leave it there because I have a large screen and it looks
| pretty
| 00deadbeef wrote:
| I like it so far.
|
| Some features I'd like:
|
| - XL bar size - even large feels a bit small on a 6K display
|
| - I have grouped windows off, but it would be nice if there was
| an option to still sort the chips by app, so all the app's
| windows are listed adjacent to eachother
|
| - If not using the suggest idea above, it would also be nice to
| be able to drag and drop chips to sort them in the order I want
|
| - Make the Applications menu open for clicks on the entire bottom
| left area of the screen so I can slam my cursor in the general
| direction, where it ends up at the bottom left pixel, and click
| like I could in Windows to open the Start menu
|
| - Ability to give a desktop a name
|
| - Ability to map a key or sequence (e.g. opt, opt) to open the
| Applications menu, again like how you could open Windows' Start
| menu with a key
|
| Bugs:
|
| - Clicking a chip to minimise a window, then clicking it again to
| restore it sometimes causes the window to change size.
|
| - Quitting boringBar spawned three stacks of these:
| https://postimg.cc/WhmwHGNz even though it already has
| permissions granted. Clicking "Allow" just spawns another one so
| they never go away. boringBar is not running in Activity Monitor.
| Had no choice but to reboot.
| a-ve wrote:
| Hey! Thanks for checking it out. Regarding your feedback:
|
| - 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.
| thevaultdj wrote:
| Nice work! Always great to see independent macOS utilities. I'm
| building something similar in the Apple Music space, a library
| cleanup tool that detects duplicates, fixes metadata and checks
| lossless availability. The macOS dev ecosystem needs more of
| these focused, single-purpose tools.
| wjakob wrote:
| I am running the trial and it seems great except for two crucial
| deviations from Dock behavior. Clicking on a button ("chip") does
| not bring the associated window to the foreground. It _does_ work
| when I hover over a chip and then click the preview of a specific
| window. But nothing happens when I directly click the button in
| the bar. The issue occurs regardless of whether an app has 1 or
| >1 windows open. In the latter case, I would prefer if clicking
| the button brings the most recently used window to the top.
|
| Another observation: many macOS apps (e.g. pages, mail, keynote,
| etc.) like to stay open even without having any active windows.
| This is completely hidden by boringBar, which leads to tons of
| apps being open without the user being aware of it (-> memory
| waste). Furthermore, actually using such an app then requires me
| to awkwardly type the name of the app even though it's already
| open.
|
| I think it would be better if such passive apps without windows
| still have chips, perhaps smaller ones without a window title.
|
| Regarding the foreground issue, in case it's relevant: The app
| has all the permissions it requested. This is on a macOS 26.2 on
| a M4 MBP.
| a-ve wrote:
| Clicking on the chip and not having the window come to the
| foreground is a fairly weird issue. Do you have anything else
| installed that uses Accessibility permissions?
|
| 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.
| wjakob wrote:
| Besides boringBar, the following are enabled: Claude,
| Dropbox, MacWhisper.
| bschwarz wrote:
| Small issue: Can't do cmd+a in the search bar and I'd like it
| more if the hitbox for the "start menu" extended fully to the
| edges.
| a-ve wrote:
| I'm able to reproduce the cmd+a issue. Will fix it in the next
| update. Thanks for letting me know.
|
| The hitbox part is being requested a lot. It'll be a part of
| the next update too.
| lapinovski wrote:
| This is great. Gonna give it a try couple of days. The first
| thing that I've noticed, on lighter bg the contrast between the
| buttons (minimised) and the bar's bg is quite low. It looks like
| a single bar when there's a light bg. Would have been fantastic
| if there was an option to high contrast option (Also my eyesight
| is quite crap, which doesn't help either)
| a-ve wrote:
| OP here - I think I need to focus more on accessibility
| features in the next few releases. Could you please post a
| screenshot of how boringBar looks to you right now?
| perplexa wrote:
| Hi there! I really like this project and just bought a copy for
| myself.
|
| It would be great to allow offline activation - as others have
| pointed out, using the application after the activation servers
| may go away is something that is useful for an application like
| this.
|
| Also, the application viewer seems a bit clunky - please allow
| sorting pinned items via drag & drop, or always sort them
| alphabetically. A mouse over highlight effect is also missing.
| a-ve wrote:
| Hey, thanks for purchasing it!
|
| 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.
| jetin wrote:
| That's nice! It feels polished and feature-full, but like others
| commented, I'm not seeing myself paying for this.
|
| On my end, I managed to first develop an open-source alternative
| status bar based on Ubersicht (https://github.com/Jean-
| Tinland/simple-bar) 6 years ago and then a standalone rewrite in
| Swift (https://github.com/Jean-Tinland/a-bar) if anyone is
| interested. Though both bars require yabai or AeroSpace to work.
| hk1337 wrote:
| First of all, this looks really nice, I mean REALLY nice. It's
| obvious you put a lot of thought and work into making the UX work
| really well. I probably will not use it, I like macOS as it is
| and have gotten used to it over the past 10+ years. I am probably
| not the target user though, seems like it could be good for new
| users transitioning from Windows.
|
| How does this work with the dock in macOS? I mean you only have
| so many places you can put the dock, certainly not the top
| because that's reserved for the mighty blue Apple.
| brainzap wrote:
| Actually pretty good. I wish it would not minimize applications
| when switching. (a sick workaround would be to hide single window
| applications)
| oldandboring wrote:
| Crazy that this popped up right now. I am a lifelong Linux
| desktop user, primarily on KDE Plasma the past 10 years or so.
| I'm a Virtual Desktops devotee because I swap back and forth
| between multiple projects/clients. I recently acquired a Mac and
| found, as you said, the Dock is "app centric" and that this
| inherently cripples Spaces / Mission Control.
|
| - Clicking things in the Dock or elsewhere keep taking me off my
| current Space. There's a setting that supposedly stops this
| (disable "When switching to an application, switch to a Space
| with open windows for that application"), but that only affects
| affirmative clicking in the Dock. If you try to open a file it
| will still seek out an existing instance of that app and take you
| to another Space if it finds it there.
|
| - Spaces are named "Desktop 1", "Desktop 2", etc. I need to give
| them custom names that represent the actual work I do in them.
|
| This is by no means a complete list. My overall impression is
| that Spaces and their various settings are a bolt-on, with
| requirements built by committee to resolve the tension between
| the users who want virtual desktops and the users who want
| nothing to change.
|
| @OP, here are my suggested improvements based on a morning's
| worth of use:
|
| 1. If you have clicked on the Applications button to raise that
| menu, clicking on the button again should collapse it. Right now
| it just re-raises it.
|
| 2. Let's say one of my apps is a messaging app like Slack or
| Signal, and there's a new incoming message. In KDE Plasma or
| GNOME, the taskbar or docked representation of the app will
| visually change (as does your chip) but more importantly there's
| a toast-style an on-screen notification. I'm actually not sure
| what happens on the Mac by default when you're using the Dock.
| Regardless, I'm finding I'm missing incoming messages because I'm
| not scanning boringBar for the visual indicator that a new
| message has come in.
|
| 3. Allow us to give our own names to the Spaces/Desktops.
|
| 4. Provide an option for rendering the Space/Desktop switcher as
| an array of chips so we can switch with one click, rather than
| the current two clicks (one to raise the pop-up menu, two to
| choose the desktop). The lack of (3) and (4) has me sticking with
| "Deskspace" for now, but also because Deskspace parks the desktop
| switcher in the menu bar, which is similar to how I have it
| working on KDE Plasma.
|
| 5. As another user pointed out, the bar is... dark. Changing
| on/off Frosted Glass isn't sufficiently changing the visual
| appearance.
| spy888 wrote:
| I would like to use this product but I use 5 Macs regularly. I do
| not see an option to use it on more than 2 Macs. Is there a
| solution for a user with more than 2?
| butlike wrote:
| The issue I have with UI replacements is that I now have a
| dependency that MUST be installed, otherwise I have to learn how
| to UX again from scratch. If I ever get a new Mac, I now MUST
| install boringBar, otherwise it will be like learning a new OS
| workflow, akin from switching from Mac to Windows. If Apple ever
| updates anything to where the plugin would stop working, I now
| need to do the same adaptation. It's fun for a while to do things
| like this, but in my older computing age, I can't bear the
| cognitive effort, so I tend to just use mostly-default UI.
| jkestner wrote:
| I do the same, to the point that I avoid updating the OS so
| Apple can't break my flow/heart.
| rohanm93 wrote:
| Well done. Buying this.
|
| I love the landing page - ugh just so perfect for the HN
| audience. I am pretty happy with the dock but after reading your
| landing, I felt like I need it.
|
| Also, don't listen to people about pricing. $10/year as you have
| it is already cheap considering I'll end up using it every day
| (if I like it). People will never be satisfied.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| great work! i'm started trying it and it seems like it solves a
| bunch of issues i have with the native docker.
|
| the only problem that i have, right now, is colors: i usually
| have everything in my computer as black[0], so the white
| highlight on the bar is so jarring! being able to replace that
| with something else is going to be great.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/OqnZCUT.png
| Y-bar wrote:
| I think Mac OS window handling has become worse over the past
| years. But I don't care for MS Windows style either (in fact I
| dislike it more). Do you happen to have a mode which more closely
| resembles the classic spatial Finder of yesteryear?
| Cheezmeister wrote:
| Have you heard the good gospel of Asahi?
|
| https://asahilinux.org/
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I don't "get" this: I switch between Mac and Windows a lot.
|
| If you prefer the way Windows works, just use Windows! Both
| platforms have their merits.
| tomwheeler wrote:
| I totally get this.
|
| At work, my OS is largely dictated by my employer. At home, the
| choice is mine, but largely influenced by the use case and
| application availability.
|
| Thus, I do not use any one OS exclusively and and likely never
| will. I prefer Linux, but find macOS better than Windows for
| all but one thing: window management. Even Windows 95
| absolutely trounces macOS there. I just don't understand how
| macOS can be so bad at it. Every attempt to make it better
| (e.g., Spaces and Stage Manager) takes them even further
| astray.
| moistoreos wrote:
| Great idea. But, I'm will to wait for the AI sloppified OSS
| version of this.
| swah wrote:
| Nice first impression butI was VERY surprised that there are no
| Themes at all? Or maybe a config.json ? The default theme looks
| very dark, and I would use something like to make my life easier,
| not harder...
|
| edit: also it didn't work for me - I can tap buttons but the
| corresponding window won't open.
|
| edit2: after a restart it did work...
| MisterTea wrote:
| I thought this was about hole making for a second.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_bar. I just bought a lathe
| last week at a fire sale so my brain is stuck in machine tool
| mode.
| lorenzowood wrote:
| I had a go. Nice work. Two minor irritations I thought it would
| help with, but it didn't:
|
| - Lots of iTerm shells open: easy to access, but iTerm's window
| titles don't make it easy to find the one I want, and neither
| does this
|
| - (the big one) Lots of browser windows each with multiple tabs
| make it hard to find the tab you want if it's not at the front of
| the window it's in. Would be more compelling if there were a way
| for it to look inside (eg,) Brave and represent each tab as a
| window
|
| Otherwise: some lag in updating thumbnails occasionally
| confusing; it doesn't seem to do anything clever to cope when
| things spill off the right-hand end (eg, good time to group by
| app if you weren't already); quitting did not bring the dock
| back, as claimed.
| pbronez wrote:
| Agree that treating each major tab within a terminal emulator /
| browser/ etc as a nearly-first-class window would be helpful.
| Windows actually does this pretty well.
| a-ve wrote:
| I reckon peeking into the individual iTerm/Brave/Chrome tabs
| would not be possible without disabling SIP. I need to research
| this a bit though.
| tusharkhatri369 wrote:
| Looks really cool. just downloaded it will definately give it a
| try. nice UI btw
| s-y wrote:
| Back in the days when I used to use windows, they way I navigate
| through the task bar was window key + app index (manually
| sorted). Same way i navigate through tabs in my browser. This, of
| course, can be my own ergonomic feature, but using a task bar
| without this feature feels clunky.
|
| And since full-screen apps on MacOS work on different workspaces,
| and the bar is context-dependent to the workspace - this means
| that I have to choose to work on a maximized window or have it in
| my taskbar. It will be nice if there is an option to consolidate
| all the apps. Static, sticky, salad.
|
| And damn, I used to pay $100-200 for an entire OS, now its $40
| for a taskbar. - "Old man yells at inflated clouds"
| brandon272 wrote:
| Feedback:
|
| - Would like the ability to customize colours or themes (i.e.
| taskbar background, application menu button colour, chip
| background colour, chip active state colour, etc.)
|
| - In another comment you mention that you haven't figured out how
| to display badge counts without having the app open, but I am not
| seeing badge counts even with the app open. For example, when
| someone sends me a message in Messages, the badge count that
| shows up in the dock never shows up in boringBar. Strangely,
| other apps that do not show a badge count in my dock show a badge
| count in boringBar! (This one is a deal breaker for me given the
| amount of messaging I do through that app. The badge count is
| something I rely on a lot.)
|
| - My preference is to have "Show Windows Names" enabled. But in
| certain apps it does not behave as I would expect. For example,
| when the Mac Messages app is open, it always has a conversation
| selected, which means the name of the Messages app in boringBar
| is always the name of the person whose last conversation you had
| selected. Messages may be a unique case, but for me I would like
| for it to just be called "Messages" no matter who I am talking
| to.
|
| - On the subscription debate: I am not anti-subscription, but the
| value proposition has to be there. $10/month for a dock
| substitute is too much for me. That's $120/year. $1200/decade per
| user, for what amounts to a marginal quality of life improvement
| to the operating system. I think a proper price for something
| like this that is fair to the developer and to the end user is a
| $40 - $80 perpetual license with one year of updates included.
| a-ve wrote:
| 1. Support for themes will probably not happen in the near
| future. I want to keep this as simple as possible.
|
| 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
| brandon272 wrote:
| > 3. It's $10 per year and not month.
|
| My apologies, I was working off memory from when I first
| looked at it yesterday. I think that $10 per year is totally
| reasonable. But given the current extreme distaste for
| subscriptions, I think that a $40 one time perpetual license
| is probably going to work more in your favour.
| j-b wrote:
| If you could add the ability to auto hide the bar and show it on
| mouseover, kind of like the dock, and also customize the active
| app color in the bar (it's a little bright for my taste), I would
| totally purchase a license.
| InfraScaler wrote:
| There is a natural law that says all operating systems, if they
| survive and evolve for long enough, become a Windows clone.
| mebizzle wrote:
| Love this and thank you for switching to perpetual, I will be
| signing up if the trial goes well as I am not satisfied with
| Sidebar's application behavior!
| a-ve wrote:
| Thanks! I'll be hanging around this thread for a few more
| hours. Let me know if there's any feature you need or any bug
| you encounter.
| haaz wrote:
| Can you change the photos on the website to short videos? I don't
| really understand how it works
| elahd wrote:
| 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.
| shamsghi wrote:
| $40 dollars is still too expensive for this feature. And the ui
| design looks like a linux app (which was intended), but im not
| sure most macOS users would want that
| Brainspackle wrote:
| Trial link is giving a 404
| Chrisszz wrote:
| I've just tried it seems to work
| Chrisszz wrote:
| This is tremendously cool
| adi_kurian wrote:
| I use lawand's taskbar and have found it be very good.
| randomeel wrote:
| https://github.com/nagisa77/OpenBoringBar Only one day after the
| release ... so far I know two oss alternatives to boring bar
| danish00111 wrote:
| I think it's a great idea. I have been a gamer for the last 20+
| years, and I work on Mac for development. I do love some of the
| old taskbar-style view that I get on Windows. Great product...
| Are you thinking of also making a Windows 11 version of it? I
| would actually love that to have consistently also if we can make
| the hotkeys pretty much the same.
| MollyRealized wrote:
| I don't have a Mac now, but this makes me a little excited for
| the next time I go that route, to know this feature now exists.
| :)
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