Plainview - A chromeless browser for OS X | Hacker News Reader

Plainview - A chromeless browser for OS X

barbariangroup.com

39 pointsgrinich31 comments

Or you can just use Megazoomer which will make any Cocoa app fullscreen:

Combine that with "Hide Statusbar", "Hide Toolbar", "Hide Bookmarks Bar" and you've got a chromeless Safari.

I use Megazoomer a lot with Terminal.app.

I would pay dollars for something that could hide my OS X menu bar in the same way that I can hide the dock. An added benefit would be to hide all my desktop icons (which I right-align) until I move my mouse to the edge of the screen.

Having tried a few isolation apps, I now wish more of that stuff was built into the OS itself.

Have you ever looked into Visor by Blacktree (Same folks that did Quicksilver)? http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-visor/ - It allows you to show/hide a terminal with a key combo. Not the exact thing you want, but closer to it then any other plugin/app I know of.

I agree that the desktop is annoying, so that's why I forked out cash for Deskshade, from the makers of Espresso (a Coda competitor). A simple hotkey combo (for me it's command+return) triggers the show/hide.

http://macrabbit.com/deskshade/

I'm a cheap bastard and it's one of the few pieces of software I've paid for, which also feels good because it's an indie developer. Totally worth it, I feel like I can breathe again with the desktop hidden.

Ack - Megazoomer requires SIMBL and I've been burned by that in the past. The Wikipedia page says the problems are in the past but I'd still be hesitant to install it. I had some kind of app that dimmed the menu bar on command and had to install SIMBL in order to get it to work, which ended up being a bit of a nightmare after a few OS X updates.

Yeah, there's no way I'm touching SIMBL.

I crave fullscreen Terminal.app

I've been using it for a year and not had any problems (but only with this one plugin). Could it be that there are plugins out there that are specifically crap?

I regularly flip between full screen Emacs.app (with the elisp below) and then have a fullscreen, tabbed Terminal.app. Throw in Freedom.app and it's like canned productivity.

  (defun mac-toggle-max-window ()
    (interactive)
    (set-frame-parameter nil 'fullscreen (if (frame-parameter nil 'fullscreen) nil 'fullboth)))

  (global-set-key [?\A-f] 'mac-toggle-max-window)

This function doesn't work for me. :-( I use Emacs.app compiled from CVS (maybe a week ago). Anything I need to get this working?

You might need this:

  (setq mac-command-modifier 'alt)

My full ~/.emacs is here:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/364670/wheels.emacs

I use function by M-x, not a hotkey. ;-) So it's definitely not a problem. Looks like this happens because I've switched to Cocoa version of Emacs.

I've been bitten by that (loved my fullscreen emacs). It only worked in the carbon version; CVS now uses cocoa as far as I know.

Granted it hasn't been updated in a while, but I found iTerm's full-screen mode quite workable.

http://iterm.sourceforge.net

I use MacTelnet instead of Terminal.app, and it does full screen with either text zoom or resize.

...no Mac browser supports F11?

Seriously, I've been taking advantage of browser built-in fullscreen for years now.

I mean if this fills a need, that's all well and good, but I have a hard time believing this is actually a problem.

Well, believe.

Also, and please correct me if I'm wrong, when you hit F11 in Firefox or IE7 you can just hit escape and do whatever you want. I think part of the value is that you can "lock" it in full screen, asking for a password to exit that mode. Maybe you could modify Firefox to do that, but I don't think the functionality exists as of 3.0.8, or whatever is current.

Plainview is a Mac app. By default, F11 is an Expose keyboard shortcut on OS X, it sends all windows to the nearest screen edge and shows the desktop. However, even when you remap the Expose key to be triggered by a separate key, Firefox still doesn't go into full screen on Mac when you hit it. Not without a plugin at least.

And since its a Mac app, IE7 isn't a real option (short of virtualizing, Wine/Darwine or not running OS X on the Mac)

On my Mac, F11 is Volume Down. They keep changing this based on machine model and keyboard model, it seems.

This is a default setting. I believe you should be able to modify it on System Preferences>Keyboard and Mouse>Keyboard : Use F1, F2 as standard keys.

Yes, I know. I was responding to "By default, F11 is an Expose keyboard shortcut on OS X", which is not the case with every released Mac or keyboard.

Sorry about that, I checked the box in the settings that reversed function in relation to F11 being pressed. My primary point, that it doesn't make Firefox go full screen, still stands.

Every F[0-9]+ key is two things on the Mac. It's a function key, with its definition set by a carefully negotiated contract between the OS and the current application, or it's a non-changeable controller with a pretty picture (volume, screen brightness, etc.)

You do one by pressing the key, and the other by pressing it with the Fn modifier key. Which one is default depends on a pref setting in Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts.

Personally, I set it to use the F[0-9]+ keys as function keys, and use the Fn modifier to access the volume etc.

Opera supports fullscreen browsing on Mac. But, yeah, that's it.

Well i checked and to my surprise, at least FF3 can't fullscreen on macs !

On a pc you could probably do the same thing with firefox and a few plugins : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4650 for the slideshow abilities

and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1659 for full-screen locking.

Also : [From the Plainview FAQ]

How much does Plainview cost?

Plainview is free. Enjoy.

Really?

Yup.

[End]

Well, seriously, what is that surprising about a free browser ?

Besides that, the browser just looks very nice. I like the multi-windows approach, it could certainly have it's charm on bigger screens

Full-screen browsing really helps to stay on task when browsing the web. Usually after 15 minutes of browsing I have 8 tabs open and no idea why I started the browser in the first place :)

Kudos.

I love the barbarian group. Everything they touch turns to awesome.

agreed. not only can they throw a good SXSW party but they can come up with a slick browser. loving the completely unique interface so far. might use it when making a screencast showing off my startup

I used Plainview a few weeks back for a small temporary kiosk setup at a convention we were doing. Worked really well. Obviously having a separate app is a little more cumbersome than just being able to grab a kiosk plugin to lock out basic browsing when F11'd in Firefox or whatever, but Plainview does do what it does more elegantly than a Safari or FF plugin would do, so I'll be using it again.

Also, the milkshake icon is a nice touch.

This is pretty cool but, as others have said, some of its functionality can be replicated using FF3 (on Windows). Examples:

1. Fullscreen mode - hit F11 in firefox. Address bar/tabs/buttons are all hidden

2. Hotkey sites - Use tab hotkeys in firefox. Ctrl+1 is the first, Ctrl+2 is the second, etc. This doesn't break out of fullscreen and would work well in a presentation.

That said, the other functions of Plainview, such as presentation recording and popup handling, are quite appealing.

Good thing this is for OS X, then, and not Windows.

how long before my entire OS is just a fullscreen web browser?

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