Fantasktik... Switching between windows has never been so easy. Fantasktik shows all your windows in a smart and stylish way, giving you a 1-click access to any of them.
Fantasktik unleashes the power of Leopard with a pure Core Animation Interface. Sleek animations and gorgeous transparent effects all contribute to an amazing user experience.
What's New
Version 1.5:
Snow Leopard support
Added hotkey support to hide/show the bar and switch between windows
Option-click to move applications and windows icons
New option to add a delay before showing previews
Increased max preview size
Fixed French translation
Fixed an application icon bug when the bar height was increased
Actually the first Snow Leopard build has an issue because it didn't support 32 bits and this seems to break on some Macs. I really don't know why as these Macs are Core 2 Duo and shouldn't have any problem running 64 bits.
Anyway, if you have SL you can download 1.5 again. It should work now.
The Leopard build is still not fixed though.
Whew! Thanks for the quick response with the 1.4 version. I tried using Time Machine to get it but that 1.4 version wouldn't work either. Your 1.4 version did work which is really puzzling. Whatever the case I know you folks are actively working hard to keep things working and unlike Unsanity you actually respond to problems. Too bad Unsanity won't just sell out to you folks. ;-)
--
Fails to load on my 10.5.8 OS. Reverting back to version 1.4 and it works again...
I'm a registered user. I will be contacting the developer to help determine what's wrong.
Finally the app is coming into it's own. I bought this app a long time ago due to its potential and I am now finally running it as a startup item. I knew it would soon be a staple. Thank you for the excellent updates! Nothing compares, using another app in fantasktik's place is like spitting into the wind, just not a good idea.
Nice application that needs a customizable Apple menu like Fruitmenu provided and needs a fix for the icon display problem under Snow Leopard. The icons are too tiny in the task bar and nothing in the applications settings will fix it. I had no problem with this under Leopard.
I like this, despite its similarity to the Windoze taskbar. :-)
I am using it on a Mac Pro with dual 30-inch monitors. My left monitor has the menubar at top and the dock at the bottom. My right monitor now has Fantasktik at the top. When I'm working on the right monitor and want to switch windows or apps, my mouse now has an alternative to the dock that requires less movement to reach.
I like how Fantasktik provides an always-on display of which apps are active and what windows are open, even windows that have been minimized to the app's dock icon. The preview feature is nice, but the way it is coded means that previews of short wide windows appear much larger than previews of tall narrow windows. I have the preview size set as large as possible, and checking into the plist file I see a figure of 275, which appears to be the maximum height of the preview image in pixels. The developer should code it so that this number applies as a maximum to both the height and width of the window, and should allow for sizes of up to, say, 500 pixels. This change would better "equalize" the size of preview windows, regardless of how narrow or wide, short or tall they are.
I like that the colours of the Fantasktik bar can be adjusted. I fiddled around with them, and discovered that I can turn off the background colour by making the opacity of it 0%, which allows windows under the bar to show through. This is particularly useful, as on a 30-inch monitor my Fantasktik bar is often only half full. There's no point obscuring part of the screen with a blank bar.
I also like that all the windows of an app can be collapsed into an app's icon in the Fantasktik bar by double-clicking the icon. I use this for apps for which I typically only have one window open, like Path Finder and 1Password. Fantasktik can be set to remember the collapsed/expanded state of every app, so Path Finder and 1Password will always appear collapsed into the app icon (unless I choose to expand the windows out of the icon).
There's so much to like, but there's one glaring omission. As others have requested, Fantasktik desperately needs a hot-key for keyboard access, and the ability to navigate between windows with the keyboard. If this feature was incorporated, I would assign the hot key to one of the buttons on my Logitech mouse, and would use SteerMouse to assign the scroll wheel to the arrow keys (or whatever) to allow me to navigate between windows. It may already be possible to use the scroll wheel this way, but if so, I couldn't figure out how to do it.
The current version of Fantasktik is not without bugs. I experienced weird behaviour when I right-clicked and selected "Exposé" or "Close Window." Some of the time this would work, but other times it caused A Better Finder Attributes to launch (huh?) or some weird window I've never seen before to open.
Despite these glitches and the lack of a hot key, I'll probably buy Fantasktik when my 15-day trial period ends. It already offers enough functionality to justify the $10 price. If a hot key and keyboard navigation are added, and if the weird behaviour on right-click is fixed, it will be a great deal at $10.
It feels like a guilty pleasure. It's a little too much like the Windows Task Bar to feel really "Mac-like," but it does do the job well. Very nice to be able to navigate to individual windows crisply, seeing what's in the window before I land there. I've always use 'Witch" for this kind of navigation in the past. If it had a hot key to move between windows ... more people would use Fantasktik.
Sorry about that, there's an issue with the Leopard build.
For those on Leopard, you can revert to 1.4 that can be downloaded from:
http://www.docklandsoft.com/dl/Fantasktik-1.4.dmg
Please login or create a new MacUpdate Member account to use this feature
Watch Lists are available to MacUpdate Desktop Members Upgrade Now
Download and auto-install
using MacUpdate Desktop. Save
time moving folders and cleaning-up.
Fantasktik... Switching between windows has never been so easy. Fantasktik shows all your windows in a smart and stylish way, giving you a 1-click access to any of them.
Fantasktik unleashes the power of Leopard with a pure Core Animation Interface. Sleek animations and gorgeous transparent effects all contribute to an amazing user experience.
+14
Kioshi reviewed on 12 Mar 2011
+14
+14
-17
i suppose ur machine even with snow inside runs @32bit...
Anyway, if you have SL you can download 1.5 again. It should work now.
The Leopard build is still not fixed though.
+17
Screentom reviewed on 21 Dec 2009
+92
+100
Fails to load on my 10.5.8 OS. Reverting back to version 1.4 and it works again...
I'm a registered user. I will be contacting the developer to help determine what's wrong.
+398
Fishscale reviewed on 19 Dec 2009
+92
Mac007 reviewed on 04 Oct 2009
+264
I am using it on a Mac Pro with dual 30-inch monitors. My left monitor has the menubar at top and the dock at the bottom. My right monitor now has Fantasktik at the top. When I'm working on the right monitor and want to switch windows or apps, my mouse now has an alternative to the dock that requires less movement to reach.
I like how Fantasktik provides an always-on display of which apps are active and what windows are open, even windows that have been minimized to the app's dock icon. The preview feature is nice, but the way it is coded means that previews of short wide windows appear much larger than previews of tall narrow windows. I have the preview size set as large as possible, and checking into the plist file I see a figure of 275, which appears to be the maximum height of the preview image in pixels. The developer should code it so that this number applies as a maximum to both the height and width of the window, and should allow for sizes of up to, say, 500 pixels. This change would better "equalize" the size of preview windows, regardless of how narrow or wide, short or tall they are.
I like that the colours of the Fantasktik bar can be adjusted. I fiddled around with them, and discovered that I can turn off the background colour by making the opacity of it 0%, which allows windows under the bar to show through. This is particularly useful, as on a 30-inch monitor my Fantasktik bar is often only half full. There's no point obscuring part of the screen with a blank bar.
I also like that all the windows of an app can be collapsed into an app's icon in the Fantasktik bar by double-clicking the icon. I use this for apps for which I typically only have one window open, like Path Finder and 1Password. Fantasktik can be set to remember the collapsed/expanded state of every app, so Path Finder and 1Password will always appear collapsed into the app icon (unless I choose to expand the windows out of the icon).
There's so much to like, but there's one glaring omission. As others have requested, Fantasktik desperately needs a hot-key for keyboard access, and the ability to navigate between windows with the keyboard. If this feature was incorporated, I would assign the hot key to one of the buttons on my Logitech mouse, and would use SteerMouse to assign the scroll wheel to the arrow keys (or whatever) to allow me to navigate between windows. It may already be possible to use the scroll wheel this way, but if so, I couldn't figure out how to do it.
The current version of Fantasktik is not without bugs. I experienced weird behaviour when I right-clicked and selected "Exposé" or "Close Window." Some of the time this would work, but other times it caused A Better Finder Attributes to launch (huh?) or some weird window I've never seen before to open.
Despite these glitches and the lack of a hot key, I'll probably buy Fantasktik when my 15-day trial period ends. It already offers enough functionality to justify the $10 price. If a hot key and keyboard navigation are added, and if the weird behaviour on right-click is fixed, it will be a great deal at $10.
+1
+21
It feels like a guilty pleasure. It's a little too much like the Windows Task Bar to feel really "Mac-like," but it does do the job well. Very nice to be able to navigate to individual windows crisply, seeing what's in the window before I land there. I've always use 'Witch" for this kind of navigation in the past. If it had a hot key to move between windows ... more people would use Fantasktik.
-17
+1
For those on Leopard, you can revert to 1.4 that can be downloaded from:
http://www.docklandsoft.com/dl/Fantasktik-1.4.dmg
Wizeguy rated on 21 Mar 2011