#FF00AA

MacOS has a peculiarity quite peculiar: you often end up having to wonder which application is active. Of course, it’s so much worse when you’re a switcher, but I can’t imagine old-time Mac users wouldn’t be bugged by this once in a while. And they wanted OS X to be zen and smooth so much (well, expect for the Dock, and the colored beads, and the stripes… well, all of Aqua), they even removed the active application’s icon from the menu bar, replacing it with its name in bold letters. But reading an application’s name requires much more of a conscious effort than identifying its icon. (Before you have fun calling me lazy in the comments, try and learn a bit about ergonomics, GTD, and all that stuff.)

The ideal workaround would be a small utility displaying an icon over the desktop to say which application is active — especially since I’ve got a 20-inch iMac, so I can (and do) have a bit of my desktop always in sight. That would be so cool. And that exists: Focus does exactly what I want, with every option you can imagine, plus displaying a clock if you want. The only flaw I could find (well, I only just installed it, but how many hours do you have to test-drive that kind of thing?) is that the configuration window is a tool window, which disappears when you switch to another application, and that’s annoying when you want to test some options.

In short: you absolutely must install this. You’ll only be excused if you’re using a 12-inch iBook.

Boy, was that a long post for such a small program. But ergonomics are a serious business. Plus, I’m getting into the habit of writing long, technological posts. Because.

P.S. Ah, I found the first bug: Focus ignores Clutter. Actually, it’s not really Focus’s fault: it’s just that Clutter doesn’t become the active application when you click a CD icon. But the CD does become the active window, and will respond to upcoming keypresses. It’s happened to me a lot: hit F11 to show the desktop, double-click a Clutter CD, come back to NetNewsWire and read on, hit Cmd-W to close the tab I was reading, wonder why nothing happens, and only realize six hours later that I accidentally closed (i.e., deleted) one of my Clutter CD icons.

And that also applies to Sidenote, that OS X doesn’t consider the active application either when it’s in the front. Considering that the main point of Focus is knowing who will receive the next keypress, ignoring some programs is a bit annoying.

P.S. Fuck. The website and program haven’t been updated since 2003, and I find out on VersionTracker that an error message appears in the system console if you enable the clock: “Unfortunately, this app, or a library it uses, is using [an] obsolete function, and is thereby contributing to an overall degradation of system performance.” Damn. Fortunately, I don’t need another clock on my desktop, but still, damn. The one important problem will never be fixed.