

Mac OS X’s Hidden Single-Application Mode - e1ven
http://db.tidbits.com/article/10624

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andybak
Multiple tiling windows is an idea long past it's prime and I've never been
keen on Apple's particular take on this model.

Quite often I find that bringing Finder to the front covers the whole screen
with the 16 or so Finder windows that I forgot that I had open and which bear
no relation to the task I am currently trying to perform. A single window
finder with a history and a way to split into two or four tiles might be
better.

Of course the tricky thing is making this work for naive users as well as
power users. This isn't an easy problem but naive users struggle massively
with the current model too and that's not especially optimal for power users
either.

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mjgoins
It almost sounds like you're wishing for an Apple version of the ratpoison
window manager, which was my primary working environment until recently:

<http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/>

Of course, that was in gnu/linux, but copying the style would be easy.

~~~
kd5bjo
At work, I run ratpoison on my Mac. About the only programs I use are xterm
and firefox, and they can both run under X11.

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sreitshamer
I wish there were a non-overlapping window manager like XMonad that I could
use with OS X. Spending time arranging windows feels wasteful.

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jsz0
A quick and easy way to get similar functionality is to use the "Hide Others"
option when you right click on the active window in the Dock (hold the Option
key to get it) Of course it only hides other applications -- not windows of
the same application.

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oliverkofoed
Another way is to hold down option when switching app by clicking another
app's window or dock icon.

This will hide the current app and all its windows, and it's already enabled
by default on os x.

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Timothee
If you like this option, you will probably like Isolator:
<http://willmore.eu/software/isolator/>

By default, it puts the focus on the current app by blurring whatever is
behind it. It's pretty customizable and can do things like hiding all other
apps automatically, putting a backdrop, etc. The blur effect might work better
than just hiding for some people.

One other nice thing is that it lives in the menu bar and can be called with a
keyboard shortcut. So, it doesn't have to be 'on' at all times.

edit: this or other utilities and shortcuts mentioned in the comments of the
article itself

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GeneralMaximus
I personally love Cmd+Opt+H, especially when I'm working with Interface
Builder.

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chrischen
Pretty nifty. Really does make it less cluttered. I usually have a bunch of
browser windows open each with like 10 tabs, email app, terminal, skype,
komodo, IM, itunes, ... list goes on.

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stuff4ben
It kinda reminds me of how my Amiga used to work. You used to be able to drag
full-screens by their title bar up and down and switch between them using an
icon at the top right.

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mwcremer
As noted in OP comments, cmd+opt click on dock icon hides others.

