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 :)

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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....

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pketh

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. :)

August 10 2005 at 8:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eric J

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.

August 10 2005 at 6:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dan

Oh, I get it and I think the app is pretty neat too. I was just sharing information, that's all.

August 10 2005 at 3:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eric B.

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?

August 10 2005 at 1:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

davetron5000

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...

August 10 2005 at 1:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris Dolan

I believe the icon is intended to be similar to characters in the animated movie "Spirited Away". IMDB page

August 10 2005 at 1:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Laurie

But with this app - I don't have to hold down anything. Get it?

August 10 2005 at 1:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dan

Brian, I don't think you even have to hold down shift. Just CMD-OPTION click the program icon to hide all other programs.

August 10 2005 at 12:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Brian Pennington

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

August 10 2005 at 12:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply