

Show HN: My first Mac app, Foreman, free and on Github. Would love feedback - nonrecursive
http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/foreman/

======
Ensorceled
EDIT: Just to be clear, because I missed it, the app doesn't HIDE other
applications it _aggressively_ CLOSES other apps. Including some background
processes, system preferences etc. Luckily it doesn't shutdown dropbox and
backblaze. If you want that functionality (and can live with bug below) this
might be useful to you but I'm no longer interested.

So, the app crashed while I was configuring it. It shutdown ever app I had
added to Foreman, unsafely, and a few others I hadn't yet added (like
Terminal! WTF?).

DO NOT USE. It's a nice concept but not ready for prime time.

~~~
nonrecursive
I'm sorry that happened to you, Ensorceled, and I hope you didn't lose any
work.

The way it's supposed to work is, if you click on a horizontal row then it
opens all the apps in that row (if they're not already open) and closes any
apps that aren't in that row. So, for example, Terminal was closed because it
sounds like it wasn't in your app group.

About "unsafely" - it should behave just as if you had hit command+q in the
app. So if you have unsaved documents, the application should prompt you to
save them.

Sorry again for the frustration it caused you!

~~~
Johngibb
I'd be nice if you could just _hide_ apps not in the group, not kill them...
But I guess that would mean they still show up in command-tab.

It sounds like you're forcefully killing processes - can you at least kill
them more gracefully? Basically "kill" vs "kill -9".

~~~
mcrider
I wonder if there is a way to programmatically hide apps from the cmd-tab
switcher? I know some apps (e.g. apps that have a system-wide menu) let you
hide its open status from the dock (which in turn hides it from the app
switcher); Can you show app icons in the dock and not in the cmd-tab switcher?
I'd like to be able to access certain apps through the dock but don't want
them cluttering up my precious cmd-tab.

------
kenkam
I like the idea and congratulations on your first app. My only criticism about
the landing page are some of the superlatives put me off slightly (e.g.
Foreman Switches Your Apps Quickly _and It's Amazing_) -- I wonder if other
people got the same feeling?

Perhaps I don't have a sense of humour when I'm at work.

~~~
nonrecursive
Yeah, that was all meant to be over-the-top. Because... well it's a very
simple little app. Like, "This is why Steve Jobs invented computers" doesn't
even make sense. Maybe I should make it more ridiculous? Or maybe I should
just get to the point, ha. I'd love to know if other people had the same
impression.

And thank you for your congratulations :)

~~~
ANTSANTS
Don't let a few bores discourage you; the open source world needs more
tastefully done over-the-top humor. Most of the times I've seen someone try to
be funny in a landing page or a pull request, it's either obnoxious,
cringeworthy, or lame. This page made me smile enough to read the whole thing,
and I don't even own a Mac.

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks, ANTSANTS! It makes me happy to see that you and others appreciated the
humor.

------
numeral_two
Cool. If you are going to head towards a CLI version, consider a name change
though. Foreman is also the name of a very popular CLI based web development
tool (<https://github.com/ddollar/foreman>)

~~~
Karunamon
Seconded - it's also the name of an automation framework that uses Puppet
(<http://theforeman.org/>).

I got really excited for a minute upon seeing the headline thinking this was a
Mac native interface or somesuch.

------
king_magic
Might want to work on your website's copy. "What a pain in the ass!" and "Holy
smokes!!!!!" doesn't instill much confidence, to be frank.

~~~
tptacek
This comment is part of an annoying trend on HN lately, of people looking at
announcements for new companies or products and then picking nits with the
copy, the layout, the formatting, the SSL configuration, and screenshots, and
what- have- you to talk about the "lack of confidence" they have in the
announcement.

What makes this such a great example of that trend and how silly it is is that
you are here discussing the confidence you have... in a free app switcher.

~~~
edw519
It doesn't happen often, but I disagree with you on this, Thomas.

OP said, "Would love feedback" and king_magic gave it to him.

When someone posts their app here for feedback, we should be ruthless.
Nothing, not even the smallest nit, should be safe from scrutiny. Let OP
decide how important that feedback is to him, but we should not be holding
back how we really feel.

This reminds me of a phenomenon from my fraternity days, when we voted on
prospective members. It worked like this: 1. Positive comments. 2. Negative
comments. 3. Secret vote. Prospects were often blackballed even though there
were no negative comments, and people bitched about that. So what happened as
soon as someone made a negative comment? 1. Everyone jumped all over him. 2.
Someone would inevitably say, "That's why there are never any negative
comments."

If someone asks for feedback, we should fire away. Better they hear it from us
than their prospects out there in the real world.

This applies to all apps, even free ones. Remember, it's not "Practice makes
perfect," but "Perfect practice makes perfect". king_magic may have done OP a
much bigger favor than any of us can see right now.

~~~
nonrecursive
I definitely appreciate the honest feedback provided, even if I don't act on
it. Plain, honest feedback of your own experience is very valuable.

------
mukaiji
I think it's a great idea! It definitely has issues, but keep at it because
it's a great start. Here's another feature idea: when I'm using xcode, i don't
want other distraction to come in; so maybe find a way to make it harder for
me to open browsers and other distraction (i see you, hn & reddit).

~~~
rodly
"when I'm using xcode, i don't want other distraction to come in; so maybe
find a way to make it harder for me to open browsers and other distraction"

How is that related to his application? Your idea would probably make more
sense as a separate application.

------
arikrak
I think you should spend a paragraph giving a more clear explanation about
what it does. The superlatives should be separate from a clear explanation.

------
bluetidepro
I tried using it on OSX 10.8.1 but I can't seem to get it to work. It doesn't
let me drop anything into the box where it says "Drag Apps Here To Create New
Group"? It just does the typical "delete from dock" _poof_ animation.

~~~
nonrecursive
Thank you for the feedback - this is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking
for. You have to drag the icons from finder, not from the dock. Does that
work?

~~~
bluetidepro
Yeah, that worked! Could you see if you could get it to work with dragging
from the dock? Also, when you switch groups, I didn't realize it "exits" all
of your other apps. It may be a good idea to just hide the other apps.
Thoughts?

~~~
aparadja
I think dragging from the dock always just removes the apps from the dock. At
least that's the default behavior, and I have not found a way around it.

------
sfaruque
I really like this app. My current way of doing this is keeping everything
inside Launchpad folders and opening them individually. Foreman seems to solve
this daily issue.

My only real suggestion is that you change the text on the right side:

    
    
      Click on an app group and Foreman closes all apps not in that group and opens the apps in the group.
    

To something simpler, like:

    
    
      One click to Launch all Grouped Apps & Close everything else!

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks! I'm totally going to steal your suggestion. I was trying to come up
with something simpler but couldn't, so thanks again.

------
ehsanu1
Another way to save app-switching sanity: Get 9 or 10 work spaces. Set up
command+number keyboard shortcuts to switch to that number. Use a single app
on every workspace. Scales well to 10 or so apps open simultaneously.

Basically, I configured OSX to imitate XMonad to some extent. It's not as
good, but it works and is a lot better than using the mouse or command-tab.

~~~
fusiongyro
I did the same thing with KDE and have been very productive with it.

------
jentulman
Looks like fun, and I'll have a play in a while.

A couple of things from the top of my head; Alfred integration would be cool,
currently I keep nothing in my dock (other than finder and trash) and launch
everything via Alfred, being able to launch a group by name in Alfred might be
cool.

On switching groups, when it's choosing what to close, does it only close
app's that are explicitly listed in other groups? How does it cope with tray
apps like dropbox? When I (infrequently) fire up Steam/games I tend to
manually kill off a few of the background servicey apps like dropbox I'd
otherwise leave running all day.

~~~
nonrecursive
It will close any open app not listed in the app group that you just clicked
on. So, for example, if I don't have Excel in any of my app groups and I click
on an app group that has Emacs and Terminal, then Excel will be closed.

It only closes apps that appear in the dock. It won't close dropbox or alfred
or any background processes.

edit: And I also want Alfred integration :) I was thinking it could create
.foreman files which you could then open with Alfred. Foreman would then
handle it the way it handles clicking on an app group now.

~~~
jentulman
Ah that makes sense, and it's probably the way the majority of people using it
would want it to happen.

I'm not sure how widely used this would be, but would it be possible to have
it launch bash scripts as well as apps? That way I could manually deal with
anything 'special'. (just tried it before I asked and it didn't seem to let me
drag them into a group)

------
pjbeardsley
Very cool, looking forward to trying it out.

I would start versioning your releases—even if you start at something like
0.1.0. Then add a changelog to the site and drop tags in git corresponding to
each release.

------
beshrkayali
Wow, great idea!

I haven't tried the app yet, but if it immediately shuts off other
applications when switching to a group, I think that needs to change, or at
least provide a setting to just keep all the apps running but hide them from
the tab switching menu some how (i know it could be a memory killer, but for
my own personal use, which usually doesn't require a lot of apps running, i
think it would be perfect).

Other than that, it's a great little app, put it on the AppStore for some cash
:) (and add a screencast)

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks! I wish I could add it to the AppStore but unfortunately I can't
sandbox it, so it would never get accepted.

One nice thing about Mountain Lion (not sure if it's true for Lion) is that if
you quit an app it's usually kept running anyway, so when you reopen it it
should start quickly.

------
silentific
Love the idea. Congrats on launching.

I've tried a number of apps to manage OSX's clunky alt+tab, but none have
worked out long term.

The only thing that keeps me from trying Foreman is the "closing" of other
apps. Like many other users here, just because I want apps out of the way,
doesn't mean I want them closed. Is there no way to filter them from the task
list instead?

You do make it clear on the site that Foreman closes apps, but I did come back
to HN to confirm via the comments.

~~~
nonrecursive
Thank you :)

As far as I know, any app that's active on the dock will show up in the task
list. You might want to try out Witch - I'm not 100% sure that it does what
you want, but it might. Good luck!

------
coley
This is great. I'm excited for the CL version so I can integrate it with
Alfred.

By the way, I knew exactly what this app did 2 seconds after page load.

Cheers.

------
enduu
The concept is really awesome and I'm excited about what the app could turn
into. My suggestions would be to fix the force closing issues, and to turn
this into a taskbar style app which stays opened all the time, instead of
having to open/close every time you want to switch to a different environment.
Also, a more polished ui/ux would be apreciated, I don't like the way you add
apps to the group. But for starters, good freaking job.

------
city41
I've always wanted to write a Ruby app launcher, like QuickSilver but the
language the end user uses is Ruby. So you could define sets of apps like
web_dev = [:macvim, :chrome, :iterm], and then web_dev.launch to launch them.

This app tackles that aspect of my launcher, and makes me wonder if my
launcher idea is even necessary. Maybe this app is enough. I'm looking forward
to it maturing some more (based on other comments)

------
leamoisset
I've been looking for a way to solve that exact problem for a long time. I'm
not 100% sure this is going to improve my current workflow though. Will try...

~~~
nonrecursive
Eventually I'm going to release a command line utility that does the same
thing. You'll do something like define a .foreman file with

design "Photoshop CS5" "Google Chrome"

and then do "macforeman design" and it will act just like the gui app.

------
tzaman
One big mistake, you show a screenshot without any _real_ information. Wow!
Awesome!.... What the fuck is it good for?

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks. I do have a description further down, but I've also added a
description in the screenshot caption.

~~~
tzaman
Great, I have actually found the description - tried to point out there were
no apparent benefits at first glance, which should be the main focus on sites,
trying to sell something.

------
tigroferoce
Very nice app. I would add the possibility to drag from the dock and a group
for never closing apps (such as mail or browser).

Many thanks for sharing on github. BTW, would you consider using a well known
license (e.g. GPL or MIT)?

~~~
nonrecursive
Thanks, and thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure how to get it to work when
dragging from the doc but I'd like to. A "never close" group is next on my
todo list :) And it does in fact use the MIT license:
<https://github.com/flyingmachine/foreman/blob/master/LICENSE>

------
ktusznio
I'd add some good use-cases for this. They're outlined in the screenshot and
the blurb next to it, but a couple paragraphs below the fold going over your
workflow would provide a more illustrative example.

------
peterhajas
Can you please sign the app with a developer certificate?

------
nonrecursive
I've updated the app so that you can now define a list of apps that won't ever
be closed.

------
mgkimsal
i guess i'm doing it wrong, but dragging any app from dock or /applications
does not work. icons just zip back to where i dragged them from. snow leopard
10.6.8. :/

------
dalacv
it crashed Outlook. Also, it would be nice if it stayed open in the menu bar
up top.

------
taligent
Get rid of the text as much as you seem to love it. The screenshot already
explains everything.

All you need is one screenshot. One download button. One donate button. One
mention that it's free.

~~~
bluetidepro
I can only imagine that if it was JUST a screenshot, I would see this exact
same comment but saying to add text because a screenshot doesn't explain
everything. But that's more of irony on HN comments. Haha

However, this seems like a nice/simple app and I'm excited to try it out!

EDIT: My 1st joking point is perfectly demonstrated by tzaman's comment below.
Haha

~~~
nonrecursive
There was a whole section in there which was nothing but silly, "atmospheric"
text which was meant to be ridiculous and jokey, but which didn't add any
information. I've taken that out, so hopefully it's tighter and more
informative while still retaining the overall tone.

