11 ms·

Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

• gloosx 6mo ago
  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
• Rekindle8090 6mo ago
  [flagged]
• johng 6mo ago
  Wow this looks really neat. I am going to have to give it a try.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
• mynameisvlad 6mo ago
  I use uBar for this: https://ubarapp.com https://ubarapp.com but this looks like a nice lightweight alternative!
  • hmokiguess 6mo ago
    uBar looks amazing as well, and it’s not a subscription, I really like boringBar but can’t justify a subscription tho
  • starkparker 6mo ago
    https://lawand.io/taskbar/ https://lawand.io/taskbar/ as well and https://noteifyapp.com/activedock/ 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 6mo ago
      Another alternative is https://hypercritical.co/switchglass/ https://hypercritical.co/switchglass/ ($10 upfront) really well done.
    • Lawand 6mo ago
      Thank you for mentioning my app (https://lawand.io/taskbar/ 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 6mo ago
    Both are under 10MB, So I don't think there would be much difference.
    • mynameisvlad 6mo ago
      I meant more in terms of featureset. uBar has a lot of features and it takes a while to get a setup that works well. Once it's set up, though, it's pretty rock solid.
• temp0826 6mo ago
  Looks great. Subscription? Big ol nope.
  • eric-p7 6mo ago
    Imagine paying a subscription for your task bar.
    • garganzol 6mo ago
      "Exclusive access to the reset button of you computer, $0.99/month only!"
• Contexting 6mo ago
  Was looking for this exact solution.
• selfawareMammal 6mo ago
  Cant see how this app would fit into a subscription.
• bradley_taunt 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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.
• sonofhans 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    It's a tiny market. Why would they bother if only 10 people will give them $10?
    • SyneRyder 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
        They can set whatever price they want. And in business... for a micro saas? Is that just... waiting?
    • comboy 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
        It's not economical. Lifetime sales for a lifetime unlock would probably be under $100. So not worth it for the developer.
• oa335 6mo ago
  I would pay $10 one time for this; a subscription seems excessive to me.
  • dd8601fn 6mo ago
    100%. A subscription is instant death for this. The good news is someone definitely will (or perhaps already has) done this without one.
• nxpnsv 6mo ago
  I am using BoringNotch, which is great. Is this somehow related?
  • randomeel 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
  Of coarse its a subscription...
• SyneRyder 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      This reminds me of when I got my Vaxx subscription after the 5th booster.
    • einherjae 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
        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.
• genbugenbu 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      > 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 6mo ago
  Is there some more expensive tiers to change the color or do I need to pay a premium?
• ssenssei 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  Looks nice, I'm forced to use OSX at work, but it's a hard no for another subscription.
• reacharavindh 6mo ago
  +1 to amplify the voice that hates a subscription to a taskbar. If it was €15 one time I would’ve instantly bought it.
• amarant 6mo ago
  Ah, good old Apple, where for only $9.99 a month, you can experience what Linux offered for free 15+ years ago.
  • cosmic_cheese 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
        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 6mo ago
          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.
• fii 6mo ago
  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 £34 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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    They're milking the final drops, before LLMs become so good that they'll write something like this in an hour
• harladsinsteden 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  “$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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      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)
    • 6mo ago
• ike____________ 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    Have a look at my app (https://lawand.io/taskbar/ 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
    • throwanem 6mo ago
      Little late through the door on this one, my guy. I bought OP's perpetual license and helped root-cause a bug yesterday. I do respect the hustle, though.
• vswaroop04 6mo ago
  Subscription ? Big No
• interstice 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    Thank you for mentioning Taskbar (https://lawand.io/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
• j0r0b0 6mo ago
  Thanks for sharing, added it to macOSWM.com: https://macoswm.com/wm/boringbar https://macoswm.com/wm/boringbar
• ricardobeat 6mo ago
  > 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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
    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 https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos
  • hk1337 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  Just adding to the pile to say that the subscription kills it for me.
• neuropacabra 6mo ago
  Gnome 2 anyone?
• ziml77 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• heyitsaamir 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  Subscriptions for apps that require absolutely no infrastructure to run make absolutely no sense to me. Hard pass.
• bloqs 6mo ago
  Fantastic work, but ubar is going to eat your lunch with that subscription
• theonemind 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  Forced subscription = immediate uninstall; would have gladly paid a decent one-time fee for the app.
• mwit2023 6mo ago
  I've always setup my macbooks with a custom json config using https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ 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 https://dockshortcut.com really quick and that kinda made the difference in how some people use their macbooks these days, but tough market, nobody likes paying for something that should come out of the box you should probably reconsider asking for a subscription, people barely wanna pay once, even if it would save them weeks a year
• AbraKdabra 6mo ago
  [flagged]
• a-ve 6mo ago
  OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app 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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
    Doesn't this make Personal licences about 6x the cost of Business licences?
  • 6mo ago
• fr4nkr 6mo ago
  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.
• jonhohle 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  It looks really good, what makes this different from uBar?
• fleeno 6mo ago
  Why does it need to talk to facebook.com, ntp.org, aws.com, cloudflare.com, google.com, and windows.com?
  • a-ve 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      Facebook is needed to check the time?
• rhubarbtree 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      > 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 6mo ago
  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 https://imgur.com/a/t0BDxuC PS: How to contact developer? I cannot find email. Neat idea!
  • a-ve 6mo ago
    Okay this is most definitely a bug. Have you enabled reduce transparency in macOS settings by any chance?
    • lmiller1990 6mo ago
      Yes. I can try turn that off but I really prefer no transparency
• danpalmer 6mo ago
  Why is the personal licence $20/yr and the business licence $3.49/yr? Unless I'm misreading the pricing here.
• matthewhartmans 6mo ago
  This looks really nice! I really like this panel, do you have a linux version config or dot files that is similar looking?
• TehCorwiz 6mo ago
  This would be perfect for me if it docked to the side in a vertical orientation, like Firefox tabs, or Windows XP.
• green-salt 6mo ago
  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_ 6mo ago
  Looks great but even $40 for a perpetual license with only two years of updates still seems excessive. Taskbar, Uber, etc. cost less and have unlimited updates. How is this better?
  • a-ve 6mo ago
    I've already used these apps and they did not serve my purpose well. - I forced myself to use uBar but it has another level of jank that doesn't sit right with me - it is not reliable on a multi-monitor setup, there's no guarantee it'll work after waking up from sleep. If you maximize windows they will sit behind uBar sometimes - all of which boringBar does better and is more reliable at. - Taskbar by Lawand is better than uBar but it has similar problems with multi-monitor support and wake from sleep. Apart from that their "start menu" app launcher is still in beta and you have to download a beta version from the developer's twitter page to actually use it. And obviously it's a subjective thing but the boringBar UI is a lot better - it integrates nicely with macOS.
    • Lawand 6mo ago
      Thank you for mentioning Taskbar (https://lawand.io/taskbar/ https://lawand.io/taskbar/). The multi Monitor bug was fixed in the recent macOS update, as it was a macos bug and not a taskbar bug. Also, the start menu update is almost done and will be out soon.
  • Lawand 6mo ago
    Thank you for mentioning my app (https://lawand.io/taskbar/ https://lawand.io/taskbar/). It is still free for the foreseeable future and once the paid version comes out it will be 25$ for a lifetime license, and I will not offer a subscription option
• villedespommes 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
    - 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.
    • villedespommes 6mo ago
      Sorry, I meant ubar : https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/ubar-4-toolbar-for-mac https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/ubar-4-toolbar-for-mac
    • villedespommes 6mo ago
      I eventually settled on DockDoor and a custom HS script that imitates Window's LRU behaviour.
• eddie-wang 6mo ago
  [dead]
• ofabioroma 6mo ago
  Amazing! I've been testing for the last hours
  • a-ve 6mo ago
    Hey - thanks for testing it out. Have you found any issues as of yet that I need to look into?
• msephton 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
  I appreciate a good UX improvement, and I respectfully appreciate you building this for your own use case. But Dawg? Really!
• saurabh-194 6mo ago
  Would have loved it if this was free!
• Barbing 6mo ago
  Love it!
• atymic 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    That feature is under development. Right now the windows are arranged based on which app was launched first.
• joongix 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  • a-ve 6mo ago
    It does! That's the USP here - it's present on all spaces and it only shows windows on that space. If you have multiple displays and have the "Displays have separate spaces" option disabled in macOS settings even then you can have the bar displayed on all displays from the boringBar settings.
    • joongix 6mo ago
      [dead]
• sbkg0002 6mo ago
  subscription. bye.
• xkbear89 6mo ago
  [flagged]
• nagonago 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    > 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 6mo ago
      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 6mo ago
        > FOSS communists That's a solid combination of ideas. If anybody is forming a group of FOSS comrades - count me in!
        • carlosjobim 6mo ago
          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!
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• disillusioned 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      Thanks! For context, this is how things look for me: https://i.imgur.com/V5vXq6t.png 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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    Technically it should - I tried using Amethyst with it for a few weeks before launch and it seemed to work fine for me.
  • armitage 6mo ago
    [dead]
• webprofusion 6mo ago
  You want me to pay for your UI coding subscription?
• gilhyun 6mo ago
  [dead]
• jbverschoor 6mo ago
  Nice attempt, but too slow for me
  • a-ve 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  Neat! I would love to also be able to give desktops names
• kombine 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  It's expensive for me. Sidebar is half the price (lifetime license): https://sidebarapp.net https://sidebarapp.net
  • a-ve 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
    I leave it there because I have a large screen and it looks pretty
• 00deadbeef 6mo ago
  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 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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
      Besides boringBar, the following are enabled: Claude, Dropbox, MacWhisper.
• bschwarz 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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.
• nagisa12321 6mo ago
  [dead]
• lapinovski 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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.
    • perplexa 6mo ago
      Regarding offline activation, maybe certificates from your own CA could work or something similar? I have found a few more issues meanwhile - e.g. folders inside Applications are not visible in the app menu. It would also be great to be able to access & empty the Bin from e.g. the applications menu as doing that without the dock is really inconvenient. It would be great if you could provide a way to send you these reports outside of HN, where I know that you will see them. :) Thanks for this software. I am really enjoying it so far and hope it'll continue to evolve!
• jetin 6mo ago
  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 Übersicht (https://github.com/Jean-Tinland/simple-bar https://github.com/Jean-Tinland/simple-bar) 6 years ago and then a standalone rewrite in Swift (https://github.com/Jean-Tinland/a-bar https://github.com/Jean-Tinland/a-bar) if anyone is interested. Though both bars require yabai or AeroSpace to work.
• hk1337 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  Actually pretty good. I wish it would not minimize applications when switching. (a sick workaround would be to hide single window applications)
• oldandboring 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    I do the same, to the point that I avoid updating the OS so Apple can’t break my flow/heart.
• rohanm93 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 https://i.imgur.com/OqnZCUT.png
• Y-bar 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  Have you heard the good gospel of Asahi? https://asahilinux.org/ https://asahilinux.org/
• gwbas1c 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  Great idea. But, I'm will to wait for the AI sloppified OSS version of this.
• swah 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  I thought this was about hole making for a second. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_bar 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.
• takahitoyoneda 6mo ago
  [dead]
• lorenzowood 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  Looks really cool. just downloaded it will definately give it a try. nice UI btw
• s-y 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 https://boringbar.app
    • brandon272 6mo ago
      > 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 6mo ago
  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.
  • subpixel 6mo ago
    Came to request the auto-hide feature as well!
    • s3r 6mo ago
      [dead]
• InfraScaler 6mo ago
  There is a natural law that says all operating systems, if they survive and evolve for long enough, become a Windows clone.
• mebizzle 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
    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 6mo ago
  Can you change the photos on the website to short videos? I don’t really understand how it works
• elahd 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  $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 6mo ago
  Trial link is giving a 404
  • Chrisszz 6mo ago
    I've just tried it seems to work
• Chrisszz 6mo ago
  This is tremendously cool
• adi_kurian 6mo ago
  I use lawand's taskbar and have found it be very good.
  • Lawand 6mo ago
    Thanks for mentioning Taskbar (https://lawand.io/taskbar/ https://lawand.io/taskbar/). I'm glad you found it useful :)
• randomeel 6mo ago
  https://github.com/nagisa77/OpenBoringBar https://github.com/nagisa77/OpenBoringBar Only one day after the release … so far I know two oss alternatives to boring bar
• danish00111 6mo ago
  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 6mo ago
  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. :)
• dmitrygr 6mo ago
  Very nice. There was an older similar app I had used for a while, but it broke on latest OS update. this one looks good. will give it a few days and then buy. thanks. two requests: 1. some windows do not show up in the list, eg: this very app's settings window, when open, does not show up. 2. "group by app" is a bit much, since i like a full window list, but "order by app" would be nice (so all Sublime windows are next to each other in the list), this avoids: "sublime file a, sublime file b, finder, sublime find c" which is messy
• hahahahahaha123 6mo ago
  Asahi Linux is free yet Mac users will still pay $40 for a taskbar. iToddlers BTFO
• starwalkn 6mo ago
  Memories from the KDE days
• sercanov 6mo ago
  Already started trial and loving it so far but there's one annoying bug/QoL improvement. It should set active window not only by clicking to boring bar but also clicking on active application. For example, iTerm open over Arc. When I click to Arc, iTerm goes to back to I can still see iterm is active in the bar. I need to double click to minimize it and bring to foreground again. Also a user feedback/contact method in settings should be your first priority
• anArbitraryOne 6mo ago
  I made this acct to hate on MacOS but this is like shooting fish in a barrel
• dumdellidum 6mo ago
  If that fails, just let me run it anyway. I'm having hard time accepting that I shouldn't be able to run something I'm about to purchase if YOUR server is down.. "Connection Error boringBar could not contact the activation servers. Reconnect to the internet and try again."
• dobroezlo 6mo ago
  Any plans to have an option to keep icons for active window in the center of the screen? The only that stops me from adopting it right now
• rolisz 6mo ago
  @op: I tried BoringBar, I like it, but I run into a weird bug: I have two external monitors for my MacBook. BoringBar on the MBP display is fine, but on external screen 1 it shows the apps from screen 2 and vice versa. I couldn't find your email on the site or in the app.
• onemiketwelve 6mo ago
  I got around to installing it today after being fed up with this new worktree workflow I've started using and couldnt differentiate between too many windows open. First, I can't figure out how to open the settings of the app. Is there any? Right now I have your bar on top of the regular macos dock. Obviously that's not the correct behavior. I also can't figure out how to have it display on two monitors, and if it's like windows where it only shows apps that are active on that monitor in the bar? Lastly, where's the contact or any other information for people with pretty standard questions like me? Also it would be nice to not have to give screen recording permissions becuase I dont care about previews. EDIT I stumbled on the right click menu. I have no further gripes. This is amazing. Thanks for the great work. Smooth out the onboarding and I think you'd have a pretty polished user experience.
• itemize123 6mo ago
  can you also add a way to allow it to be used without screen-recording permissions?