Filed under: Software, Freeware
Neat app for neatniks
Apple Matters drew my attention to a wonderful little app that I have already fallen in love with since last night when I downloaded it. It's called SpiritedAway and all it does is "hide" any open applications that are running in the background after a user-specified period of inactivity. For neatniks like me, who tend to get lost in a sea of windows that are obscuring the windows (or desktop) I actually want to see, this is huge. Oh sure - I could just use Expose to locate what I need, but that involves an extra step on my part. I may be neat - but I am also quite lazy. With SpiritedAway, there is no user intervention required, and you can even opt to exclude certain apps from the hiding process using the SpiritedAway menubar item.SpiritedAway is free and the icon looks suspiciously like a Ghost from Pac-Man, which makes it totally worth it :)
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brian Pennington said 12:50PM on 8-10-2005
You know, if you hold down SHIFT-CMD-OPTION and click a program on the dock, it will hide all windows except that one. They stay hidden as long as you want. I use this trick more than anything else, except using Expose to see the desktop
Reply
Dan said 12:57PM on 8-10-2005
Brian, I don't think you even have to hold down shift. Just CMD-OPTION click the program icon to hide all other programs.
Reply
Laurie said 1:06PM on 8-10-2005
But with this app - I don't have to hold down anything. Get it?
Reply
Chris Dolan said 1:38PM on 8-10-2005
I believe the icon is intended to be similar to characters in the animated movie "Spirited Away".
IMDB page
Reply
davetron5000 said 1:43PM on 8-10-2005
What OS X should do is to dim out or make-transparent all applications other than the selected one. Only those with full brightness opacity are the ones relevant to what you have selected...
Reply
Eric B. said 1:48PM on 8-10-2005
Laurie, I get it. I dig this program! Yes, there are a 100 other ways I could accomplish the same thing. The point is this takes care of it for me. And we all like to be taken care of.. right?
Reply
Dan said 3:54PM on 8-10-2005
Oh, I get it and I think the app is pretty neat too. I was just sharing information, that's all.
Reply
Eric J said 6:14PM on 8-10-2005
I'd like this better if I could tell it to minimize apps instead of hide them.
ex. if it hides an email that's hanging around, and I click the Mail.app icon to restore it, it also brings up my email browse window, when all I wanted was the message.
Reply
pketh said 8:46PM on 8-10-2005
oh , to everyone out there in tuaw land , the following link really works awesome with this program:
http://creativebits.org/mac_os_x/semi_transparent_icons_for_hidden_apps#comment
so now when spirited away hides a bunch of stuff , you'll know what's hidden just by looking for the transparent icons on the dock. :)
Reply