(10)
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Focus shows you the active application's icon. Because its function is that simple, I've thrown in the usual junk of customizability: size, transparency, position on screen and window layering can all be adjusted to your needs.
What's New
Version 2.7:
- Compatible with Spaces: icon is now shown on every Space
- New, more leopardy icon
Requirements
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
Focus User Discussion (Write a Review)
Overall:
(10)
(10)
Displaying 1-10 of 15
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Focus shows you the active application's icon. Because its function is that simple, I've thrown in the usual junk of customizability: size, transparency, position on screen and window layering can all be adjusted to your needs.
Copyright © 2012 MacUpdate LLC
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+152
gcoghill reviewed on 13 Oct 2007
Glad to see this updated to Intel, thanks!
+1
iGabe reviewed on 10 Feb 2007
+121
It would be nice if I could exclude the Finder icon, but keep the clock dials. :)
+121
I tried to use some of the memory analyzing programs in the Developer suite, but I'm not too sure how they works, so I used the old 'top' method in Terminal.
In normal operation, without moving the mouse or doing anything that affects Focus, it's between 0.6% - 1.1% CPU (never less, never more than this).
If I switch from the current program to another program, Focus goes up to about 4.5% CPU, and stays there for about 1.0 seconds.
Maximum CPU usage value that I've seen so far: 10.3% CPU.
At the time of this test, I only had Safari, Mail and Terminal open. Although, I'm using a lot of window-less apps such as iCalViewer, Zooom, Relaunch, MacMinder, etc.
I don't mean to say that Focus is a complette memory hog, not by any chance. :) But if it could help in any way, these are my statistics. Good luck with further improvement and thanks a bundle, for a very nice application! (I definitely intend to keep using it!).
Henrik
+121
hced reviewed on 22 Jan 2007
One note: it seems like it's a little hard on your CPU resources, but I guess that is the price you'll have to pay for eye candy such as this. :)
Thanks!
CPU usage is around 0.3% on my 1.5GHz G4 (10.4.8). Can you tell me how much Focus uses on your system, and what kind of system you're running?
+68
It's a nice app. But it's not actually useful in any sense. Just more eye-candy on the screen.
Anonymous reviewed on 24 Jun 2005
Anonymous reviewed on 02 May 2005
Anonymous reviewed on 22 Mar 2005
You can exclude screen hogging apps, like Photoshop and iMovie, so Focus doesn't display an icon. It would be nice if Focus automatically hid itself when a window (or pallete) of the front-most app were under it.
Focus DOES crash under one scenario: when an app you've listed as an exclusion has been moved/deleted since you lasted launched Focus.
You can either delete the entire plist file (akin to clearing the exclusion list), or edit the plist file - since it's just an XML list. To edit the plist, use Property List Editor (comes with Mac Dev Tools CD) or Plist Editor Pro (here on MacUpdate). [Standard disclaimer applies for non-techies who wish to fiddle without consequences!]
Another gripe is the performance of this vertiable eye-candy software. Regarding "exclusioned" apps, Focus still shows the icon for a split second before hiding it. So, in my setup, you get a glimpse of the QuickTime Player icon when switching to QuickTime Player. It makes the app feel jerky and I'm sure this could be revised in a future version.
A final gripe is that this app is psuedo-backgroundless. In other words, it should have been made as a preference pane extension(?) instead of an application. The only way to view Focus's preferences is on your first start-up (I think) and when you launch it when it's already launched. Plus the preference window is really a modal window (or is that pallete).
The sad news is that this app seems to be discontinued. The good news is that it's a nice accessory to a mac system that's fairly set and doesn't change much - else you'll get the exclusions-crash problem.
I use it and hope it gets revised some day. I wouldn't mind Apple somehow including this in their system either. Focus really goes well with a friendly mac and assists people who have difficulty using computers with visual cues.
I recommend you download the app and chuck it if you don't like it.
+334
Please contact me if you have an archived copy of this software... Thanks!
Anonymous reviewed on 24 Dec 2003