Show HN: A macOS clock that stays visible when coding or binging in fullscreen

I’ve never ever liked working with the full screen mode. Very hard to do multi tasking with it. Curious to see how much people use it

That’s the appeal to me. I like to _focus_ sometimes without distractions. I work with a single 5k 27” monitor. I accept that i’m human and do better work when i limit my distractions. Especially when writing code.

Research shows that almost everyone performs worse when they multi task, even if they THINK they are doing things better / faster. It’s an illusion. The hilarious thing is everyone thinks it only affects other people. They’re a special snowflake or something haha.

But sometimes multi tasking is needed, like if you’re in a zoom meeting, referencing docs, slack messages, graphs, etc. In that case i’ll just have multiple windows on my desktop and resize them as needed. Or if it’s just for a few seconds, then i’ll jump between full screen windows.

Actually, I also don’t use it very often. Sometimes I turn on full screen mode when recording or watching videos. My reasons are quite similar to yours. Switching to other apps when there is an app in full screen mode is so inconvenient. However, after the product launched, I realized that more people use full screen mode regularly than I expected.

But I set the menu bar and dock to auto-hide to create a less distracting, more focused workspace. Therefore, Corner Time is very important to me, as it allows me to check the time without repeatedly hovering over the menu bar.

Fullscreen (or, as is my preference, "hide menu bar automatically" and "open window to maximized not true fullscreen mode") is useful for presenting a full display cleanly, when the contents to present is exactly 16:9.

Otherwise, the menu bar makes the contents not truly 16:9 or awkwardly shows distractions/leakage in the form of the menu bar.

Critically, if contents being presented is true pixel perfect 16:9 ratio and the window is not "fullscreen" or "maximized with hidden menubar", then the aspect ratio gets messed up, ruining what is otherwise perfection through a slice of "missing" content along one edge.

Indeed, more for presenting than actual task work IME.

Nice thing is this clock can show on other displays, too, in multi monitor setups, e.g. when auto-hide-menu is enabled. So sweet.

> Very hard to do multi tasking with it.

I think that's one of the appeals to full-screen mode: the ability to focus with limited distractions. I don't think it's designed for multitasking.

No, many of my colleagues do this, using desktops. They use the four finger swap left/right to switch between the different fullscreen apps. It's their main multitasking method.

I think it's partly because alt + tab does not exist on Mac. Command + tab is between applications rather than windows. Command + ~ is between windows within an application. I had to downloaded HyperSwitch to get the same functionality.

edit: HyperSwitch is free. HyperDock is what I paid for.

https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ (free, GPLv3) is one of the first things I install on any macOS setup.

(and of course, ⌘ ` opens the terminal on all of my machines)

Three/four finger swipe is unbearably slow for me. I'm ready to interact with 0.3s but then I have to watch the image slide the last 10 pixels for another 0.3s before focus switches (and if I use the keyboard before it's finished switching the input goes to the now-99%-invisible app that was previously focused!!)

[numbers made up, I don't know the exact values, but the general point still stands, and you can't change the speed!!]

In full screen mode, there’s even a split-screen feature.

I use shortcuts to split windows with rectangle app all the time it’s really more powerful than split screen

Fwiw I discovered rcmd a few years ago and it changed my workflow to attribute an app to a shortcut. I switch through cmd-tab less often and I’m really more productive. I can’t live without it now

https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/

Losing right cmd isn’t great IMO (e.g. if you want to press ⌘ P, you need both hands now). I’ve tried doing both cmds for launching apps, but settled on ⌘+⌥ (and use it for very common apps only: browser, mail, Telegram, Finder).

Both variants (and of course an rcmd-like setup) are easy to do with Karabiner (free, Unlicense): https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/

Edit: looks like rcmd also includes a quasi-modal app switcher - if it works like I imagine (type the name of the app you want), that’s pretty neat. But not that different from just typing it into Spotlight I guess?

Yes I sacrificed the right ⌘ but the gain I have all day compensate for the few times I have to do ⌘ + p in one hand. You can cycle through and have a switcher yes. It’s really instantaneous to switch apps for me and I gain so much time for the main apps I use. You can summon them from any screen and virtual screen and it goes right to it without an other modal in the middle. All other tools I tried didn’t offer the same flawless UX

Agreed. I personally reduce distractions and maximize screen space by setting the dock and menu bar to auto-hide, and by maximizing windows to achieve a full-screen-like effect while still allowing quick window switching with Cmd+Tab.

the full screen animation when you want to jump back and forth between apps is such a time waste. when I see people swiping across multiple full screen apps I just think you are not a serious person.

I use the mac app sizeup to get actual keyboard shortcuts to properly maximize a window, and also get split left/right top/down etc too. Mainly use it for legacy "fullscreen" convenience.

I use fullscreen mode a lot.

For work I will have VS Code and a web browser side-by-side. Every ticket I work on gets its own instance. I find it keeps me organized so I can focus on the work.

If Apple ever got rid of fullscreen mode I could probably just do this with normal virtual desktops. But this is slightly better than that.

Makes sense. My colleague also uses the IDE in full screen mode to keep focused.

If you stick to 16:10 monitors you have space for the menu bar, dock and a 16:9 content window.

Of course you don't get 12k pixels at 4800 fps or other large numbers and can't be blinded by misguided HDR, if you care about that.

full screen + multiple virtual desktops is the way. I do it on windows most of the time, and its helped my multitasking experience.

not sure if windows' virtual desktop is different from macOS's space, but the cmd+tab experience on macOS is not good when in full screen.

This. Multiple desktops and full screen plain just doesn't work if you're used to getting around an OS with the keyboard.

LOL, it is as if 2011 and people are still doing 100 lines of code MAS apps for $1.99

In meantime I have became so frustrated and disillusioned with Apple breaking API and walled garden model that I refuse to even open Mac App Store.

Guess how many similar apps are still functional and maintained there released way back, as many as nearly zero.

Could have been 100 lines widget for https://tracesof.net/uebersicht-widgets/

Meantime there is things like this out there, free as air https://github.com/Jean-Tinland/simple-bar

I like it, it looks really nice.

I wish there were a way to adjust the positioning, maybe change the corner, change the margin from the edge of the screen, or a add a background?

https://i.imgur.com/BxanupM.png

*EDIT* It seems to work okay for the main macbook pro display. I'm guessing because something in the fullscreen is automatically handling bumping it down for the notch for you but on the second monitor I do not have the notch.

Thank you!! I do need to optimize its positioning on the external monitor. I’ll prioritize adding an optional background to improve readability to ensure the experience on monitors without a notch.

Is there another corner where you’d like to place it?

Bottom right or left maybe. I cannot think of much that occurs on macOS at the bottom corners on either the laptop screen or an external monitor.

Thank you for replying.

Something similar for GNOME: https://github.com/ghi59/floating-mini-panel

Been using it for a couple weeks now and find it really nice. Tried some auto-hide panel extensions before, but this is much better.

like a decade ago there were an xosd library for xorg which were dead easy to use. I used it to show song information and the time on one display. It was very no disruptive. I used a fifo to pipe information to it but the xosd_fifo/ruby library eventually broke.

I should investigate if there is something similar now

I will check it out. I'm curious about its extensibility and non-disruptive experience.

Hey, this is really good for when "automatically hide and show menu bar" is enabled.

The only problem with "automatically hide and show menu bar" was that the clock was not there.

Which is actually very nicely solved now.

Well done!

You set a keybinding for hiding/showing the menu bar too. I keep mine hidden and show it when I need it.

Done and done. Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it! It means a lot to me. That’s exactly why I made this app.

Reminds me of the SuperClock days: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/superclock-404

There is so many devices this is an issue on.

Different states that garmin watches get into, that you just can't see the time. I feel a watch should just always show the time somewhere on the screen haha.

Happens on IOS too.

I noticed that sometimes live activity on the dynamic island will cause the time to disappear.

AGREED. But I haven't noticed this happening on iOS.

Nice little app, even though I don't use fullscreen ever. Side question: what "stack" did you use for the website? It's beautiful!

Thanks! If you set the menu bar to always auto-hide (not just in full screen), it works just as well. This is actually my use case. This website was built using Next.js, with Tailwind CSS and shadcn/ui for styling, Motion (formerly Framer Motion) for animation.

why is there a press kit for a clock app? also it triggers me a bit that the clock is not exactly aligned with the MacOS clock

Because some media outlets that also advocate for digital minimalism have shown interest in the app. That’s why I prepared it. For example, it has been featured on websites like: ifun.de, digitalminimalist.com and apptisan.substack.com

Are you referring to the position not being exactly the same? It’s true that the alignment isn’t perfect yet at the moment, especially for MacBooks without a notch.

If you’re willing, could you share a screenshot or screen recording?

huh I didn’t expect the price to be $1.99

it’s less, but good for me :)

Thanks! How much do you think it would be?