HazeOver: Distraction Dimmer - Focus on one app by dimming all the background windows

@jfeldstein I'm curious if you use SizeUp or a different app to make fullscreen / window management easier.

@jfeldstein personally I prefer to maximize windows instead of full screen. I have Dock to the left, always at hand that way. I feel uncomfortable when I don't see the Dock. I wonder if there's a name for that.

@jfeldstein I had the same thought. I use full screen as well. But there is always room for options - different people like different things.

@pointum @jfeldstein OCD :D

@jfeldstein I used to. But with the Retina MBP, I'm able to run a bigger desktop (1920x1200 on my 15") which makes running full-screen app a waste of space.

@bramk ditto! I would never have thought that this would be useful until I tried it. Wow it's fantastic. The only question is how long until Apple co-opts this feature?

@arlogilbert @bramk agree with the "I didn't know I needed this til I downloaded it!" Just can't leave without this app.

@chrismessina Yup. HazeOver is definitely not a lone warrior in the noble battle with distractions. This might be a good place to tell a bit of the story behind HazeOver. Sit back. It was year 2007. I first got the idea for the app and the name back when I was developing apps for Windows. Here's the very first page of the Great Book of HazeOver story: http://web.archive.org/web/20070... Eventually the idea got shelved and I switched to developing Mac software instead. Few years down the road, when I gained enough experience and free time, HazeOver for Mac was finally brought into this world in 2011. It had had it's 15 minutes of glory on LifeHacker.com only to be completely forgotten a few short months later for the lack of any promotion and incentive. Fast forward to 2015. HazeOver is revived out of curiosity. And I'm happy it has pleased the product hunters.

@_benmerrill I know blur would be cool and tried to implement it. Alas it did not work out in terms of performance and overall experience.

@pointum @_benmerrill I imagine live update would be terrible. Thanks for trying!

@_benmerrill there's "vibrancy" blur effect in Yosemite, but Apple encourages using it sparingly. Constantly using it full screen would drain battery like crazy. I've specifically profiled HazeOver to use less CPU/GPU.

@pointum @_benmerrill Awesome, that would have been my only concern. Definitely giving this a go!

@pointum @_benmerrill yes, we implemented blur in Look Up and it's a memory hog, had to build an option into the new update to disable it. Older Macs have an especially hard time with it. Good choice keeping it out. "Vibrancy" isn't quite as bad as doing gaussian blur I think in terms of memory, but it's very heavy handed and hard to get a light blur with it that doesn't just obscure everything behind it.

@robertvhoesel the app does not interfere with mouse clicks or drag'n'drop

@paul_s_kemp thank you. It took a dozen takes to make this video as close to being in sync with the music as I could.

@bwishen thank you. That's exactly what I was aiming for.

@thibautdavoult thank you. Yeah, dealing with tabs is not as simple as covering them up with drapes.

@goldfirestudios Actually, that seems to be an issue when using it with Duet Display. With a real monitor it doesn't do that. However, if I have 2 full-screen apps open on each monitor, it would be nice to have a setting to allow disabling automatically in that case (I like to have code on one screen and the browser preview on the other screen).

@goldfirestudios more options for multi-monitor setup is one of the most requested features. I'm looking for a way to let HazeOver highlight each display separately.