WindowShade X5.0.7

Before you dash out and buy WindowMizer (since there's no demo), you should be aware of several matters. First, it's not going to give you the Unsanity experience. Windows do not merely collapse; the collapsing is always preceeded by the screen going completely to black and then returning with your minimized window. (I was tempted to shout "ta dah!" when it happened.) Second, the command keys do not always work. Although I can windowshade when double clicking the toolbar, I have yet to find any key combo that will windowshade. The "restore" key works okay, though. (However, Unsanity allowed the exact same key combo to windowshade and unwindowshade.) Also, any key combo I tried that involved the letter "M" minimized the window to the dock. Finally, if you use any kind of program that modifies the screen color, etc. (such as RedScreen), WindowMizer will shut it off or otherwise override it. In short, the program is far from the elegance you experienced with Unsanity. At the same time, I recognize that it's in its infancy and could perhaps overcome these problems. That's why I'm opting to comment instead of rating it at this time.

I found a replacement for Windowshade named WindowMizer. It works with OS X Snow Leopard(10.6), Lion(10.7) and Mountain Lion(10.8). It is available at Mac App Store or from the developer's website: http://www.rgbworld.com/windowmizer It is the best replacement for Windowshade that I have been able to find that works with Mac OS X and is reasonably priced.

So Mountain Lion is out and this utility is dead. From an idea in OS6 bought up by Apple and used in 7.5 it died with OSX except Unsanity brought it back. How hard would it be for apple to have this in the OS along with tabbed (edge of screen windows). RIP unless you want to communicate with us all and tell us different.

Ask anyone who made a "good faith" donation to MacTheRipper how that turned out. Or to "Synergy Advance." Thanks, but no thanks. Unsanity has a product and a customer base. They either develop their product and trust their customers, or they go out of business. Check out Deskovery. http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36082/deskovery No, it is not as full-featured as Unsanity's program. Yes, it is more costly. No, I do not work for them or get kickbacks. I've ripped on them as much as I've praised them. But they are, at least, responding to comments and e-mails, and they are, at least, actually working on their product. Their latest alpha release is mostly good; they're working with me on some programs that have a few problems. For the most part, their program will do basic windowhading. (It has other features that might well interest others.) I find windowshading critical to the way I work, so I was willing to pay the higher price. But I'm optimistic.

I got an early morning email from Unsanity stating "Currently, none of our products are enabled to work on Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion." Any developer knew that since Lion's release in BETA in 2010 - I suppose Unsanity doesn't care to pay the small price to be an Apple Developer and just noticed. Well the really odd thing is the email says Lion version will be worked on but to encourage development they want us to purchase the current version of our favorite Haxies NOW (at a discount) even though those still won't work. Give them $$$ in advance and then not had to "pay again" for the updated version. (Last time we got "donation nags.") Seems rather shady / risky to me. The old "take the money and run" or as I often wonder about the developer "take the money and die again never to be heard from." I really have depended on WindowShade and FruitMenu for many years and many versions but I have no respect for Unsanity as developers or their lack of support.

What I miss most from WindowShade (since Lion made it stop working) is the click-to-hide option for the minimise button. I'm still doing this automatically, and then having to retrieve the app from the dock again! Does anyone know an app that allows the same configuration? I can live without the other things WS does, but this is a hard habit to kick.

I do wish they'd fix this. Deskovery is useless in Lion. If you shade a window, you can't do anything unless you unshade it. Can't scroll background windows. Can't even leave the unshaded window to go elsewhere. What's the point of it? I like Unsanity's version better. Sigh.

Unsanity can very easily update APE here for Lion. Despite appearances APE does not depend on Rosetta. The site's not written very well there. Since APE 2.6 all APE modules and hence Windowshade have PPC code , Intel code and 64 bit Intel code in their module. They need to have that otherwise APE won't load their module. No what's happening is APE is seeing there's a new major point update to the system and is automatically turning itself off. All Unsanity need to do here is update APE with a new key certifying that a module can run an Lion and update Windowshade with that key. Work of an afternoon IMHO.

In knowing from past history how each new Mac O/S breaks Windowshade, this time around I'm "not" updating to O/S X Lion until there is a new updated Windowshade for it. For me, its just not worth upgrading to a higher O/S if I don't have Windowshade (Its a feature Apple should never have dropped since O/S-9). - Russell

WindowShade X is once again broken in the new Lion update. Found out via this link: http://roaringapps.com/apps:table

I'm torn. I bought a license for Deskovery, but I ended up going back to Unsanity. First, there are limits to what Deskovery can do. It cannot minimize in place; it doesn't shadow a windowshaded window, and that can make it difficult to discern which window is which; and I like being able to hit the command key twice to quickly shade a window. I've also had Deskovery quit on me at times, not sure why. A quick restart gets it up and running again. On the whole, it's a decent program, and as I said, I did find it useful enough to buy a license. The Deskovery people also told me that their program is Lion-ready, which is particularly important for a lot of people. That's where the biggest dilemma comes in for me. We know that Unsanity will take forever to come out with a Lion version, if they do it at all. (Lion will lack Rosetta, and I don't anticipate a third-party Rosetta program for some time.) And it will be too much to even ask Unsanity if they plan to do a Lion version. Their last website blog goes back to 2010. Still, they have had updates to this and their other programs, so they are doing something out there. Guess we'll see.

I like WindowShade but the arrogant absence of any kind of support or any response to emails with detailed descriptions of problems makes Unsanity into a huge suck and bunch of a..holes! Therefore just half a star to bring the average down a little.

This is the only app of its kind in OS X. If you want to windowshade windows or pin them on top with quick shortcut keys this is your program. Very handy. This version seems quite solid. Let's hope the Lion version comes out in a timely way.

Interesting. Check this out: http://macupdate.com/app/mac/36082/deskovery It's not as full-featured, of course, but it does allow rudimentary window shading. For free.

Bummer. OS X Lion comes out in summer, 2011, which means the Lion-compatible version of Windowshade comes out in fall, 2013.

This one quote from the developer really troubles me. "The depression is not as crushing, but I do want to sleep for 15-20 hours." I would hope this person is getting treatment for their depression as it may explain why he behaves the way he does.

Warning Warning Will Robinson Haxies are dangerous to your system. They are not stand alone applications. When the install they install in one place they have no business fooling with: THE SYSTEM. I did an install of APE. After having problems with my Mac I did an archival install. Once done I had to go through every major system to make sure they match what was in my previous system folder. Before doing that I did an uninstall of APE and a one or two or Haxies made by Unsanity. It seems for some reason they are about the only company that write Haxies. Anyhow as I scanned my System Folder I still found pieces of Ape and other Haxies that were made by Unsanity. Nobody who writes utilities has no business writing SW that places unauthorized material in the System. To me, the System is hands off to any third party developer unless they work for Apple or are an Apple developers. You have no Idea the damage that can be caused when unauthorized components are placed in the System. What if a System Upgrade comes up and those part are incompatible with the upgrade? It can begin to make your Mac to act strange, freezes, Kernel Panics and more. It has happened on my Mac when I was first green to Haxies. Unsanity should be boycotted for placing unauthorized components in the System. They do not belong there and I for one will never use an Unsanity product until they can get it through their brains to stop putting components in the System because somewhere down the road you will get bit. The only company that should do ANY MODIFICATION to the System is APPLE. End of line...

Unsanity ignored their customers while failing to fix their haxie to work with Snow Leopard for so long that I just got used to living without them. Unsanity's insistence to charge an upgrade fee for a previous lifetime purchase after being AWOL for nearly a year was the final slap in the face. I deleted all remnants of their old System 7 app and my computer runs just fine. Who do they think they are… Micro$oft?

For home users, who cares. For enterprise, not on your life. If you call Apple, one of the first questions they'll ask you is "Are you using haxies". If you are, you'll need to remove them before any troubleshooting. Read between the lines... Don

Doesn't work with Firefox, iTunes, Google Chrome, Quicken, Adobe Reader, and the list goes on. And of course no reply from Unsanity--they got my money, so why should they care.

The issue I have with Unsanity is that I am pretty certain when I paid the shareware fee that they had said they would never charge for upgrades. If I am correct, they are therefore violating that pledge. I can see changing that policy for future customers, but not for those who purchased on the condition of no future charges.

Luv it. No problems, very stable. It's worth twice as much as the $10-15 upgrade fee, especially when you consider that some lesser utilities charge upwards of twice as much. BFD that it uses Rosetta. /eyeroll

One word to all the enthusiasts : Rosetta

How do you upgrade for $10?

For all the nay-sayers and anti-Unsanity brigade, you'll be over the moon to hear (not) it's stable and works a treat on Snow Leopard (running on MacPro 1.1): Tried it with: Final Cut Studio - check CS4 suite - check Quark 7.5 - check Toast Titanium - check Font Explorer X Pro 2.5 - check OmniWeb - check Office 2008 suite - check All my old Classic soundsets loaded back in from Tiger and worth the wait. Upgrade fee (To the folks knocking them for asking for payment -- when was the last time you paid them anything? I got 6 great years out of my original $7 bucks a pop. Do the begrudging naysayers expect 20-30 years of updates for free?) already paid both for this and Xounds... with thanks. Hopefully Unsanity will now have a chance to restore proper Customer Service (and credibility with the masses) with regular updates for the rest of us who have always and (now) will continue to still support them now that they've hopefully got their house in order. I, for one, welcome them (and their product) back with open arms and my few dollars show my appreciation. If I get a few more years out of a $10 piece of (to me anyway - essential) productivity software (Final Cut Studio has been a bitch to use without Windowshade) I'll be delighted. Just Fruit Menu and Menu Master to go now for me and my joyful days on Tiger OSX will be a distant memory for me and I'll fully embrace my other Snow Leopard partition.

'Registration information for WindowShade X version 3.5 and up..' I paid for all Unsanity's Haxies back in the day, and while I know they regret it - they said 'all future upgrades would be free'

I agree about the upgrade fee being wrong, particularly given the total absence of customer support (at least in terms of update progress notices) and the inordinate amount of wait time between updates. On the other hand, I just gave this a spin, and I have to say that it's very responsive and seems a lot more stable than any version I ever tried under Leopard. It actually seems to work, and to work properly. This may be the 5th sign of the apocalypse.

I've stopped using this only because it has not be available for snow leopard users. Now that is here I'm perplexed as to why the charge? Maybe my memory is going but I'm pretty sure it used to be a 1 charge fee for life? I'm I wrong?

Hooray! At last. I wonder how many other people have been waiting for Unsanity to announce upgrades before installing Snow Leopard. It is probably unrealistic to expect a small company to combine public relations skills with those required to write nifty software, but it sure would be nice if someone with some sense of how to quell the anxiety's, and often expressed angry frustration, of their customer base would contribute a couple of paragraphs that they could post on their website to explain the difficulty Unsanity has in trying to stay abreast of Apple.

The download link to Windowshade 5 beta is available on Twitter. http://www.unsanity.org/archives/betas/betas_twitter_and_wtf.php

Night after night I check out MacUpdate to see if Unsanity have at last got their fingers out and released a Snow Leopard compatible version of my beloved WindowShade- and night after night I am, unsurprisingly, disappointed. How can such brilliant software be the exclusive possession of such a bunch of... well, supply your own expletive. I apologise for my uncharacteristic rudeness, Unsanity, but really... we'll be welcoming in OS X 10.7 before you lot get off your useless arses to release an update for 10.6. Really. Surely they mst be another developer out there who could take on creating something that does the same job? (are you listening Apple? For God's sake- you had it and threw it away, you idiots). Make a decent go of it, charge a reasonable fee and we'll come flocking in our thousands. You'll be a rich man- or woman- before you know it. I wish I had the technical expertise. And then we can all collectively extend two fingers (an English gesture- for Americans, just one will suffice I gather) in the general direction of Unsanity that they so richly deserve.

wow... this is what makes you not want pay for shareware. This kind of attitude is going to bite unsanity in the @@s

Out of curiosity, and I'm probably out of my league here, could the PowerPC only version of Windowshade (from days of yore) possibly work via Rosetta? I don't have that anymore, but maybe someone who does would be willing to try?

I have a proposal. Given how long Unsanity took to get this program to even start to work in Leopard, and given their current (apparent) indifference to Snow Leopard, I hold very low hopes of seeing any development in at least several months. (That's not unrealistic; look back on how long it took to get a Leopard version.) And even after several months, I don't expect a fully working version. Even their last Leopard version still had bugs despite their claims to the contrary. And it seems we are all tired of this. So, there must be a slew of competent developers out there who could also come up with some means of window shading. I don't know if we could have all of the bells and whistles. For myself, I just need the ability to collapse the window with either a hot key or double-clicking the title bar; but I do recognize that others like minimize-in-place and so on. Anyway, I doubt that any one of us has the money to pay a developer, but perhaps if we could arrange some kind of PayPal (or something) donation, then collectively we could entice someone to take on the project. Honestly, I don't know if this is even a plausible or good idea, but if you think it has any merits, let me know which developer(s) you think would be trustworthy and up to the task, and I would be willing to contact them with the proposal. I can't see that we'd have much to lose by asking.

Running 10.6 Snow Leopard and windowshade doesn't work. I was hoping for a smooth transition (concerning the move from Leopard to Snow Leopard) concerning WindowShade but of course that wasn't the case. Why Apple never carried the windowshade feature from O/S 9.X to OS 10.X to begin with is beyond me.

Well, APE works in Snow Leopard, but WindowShade et al all say this has not been tested in 10.6 and has therefore been disabled. Let's hope the wait isn't very long - I'm on autopilot using the amber blob for Hide.

Wasn't this just released a week ago? What's the deal?

Count me as another that has never had an issue with any A.P.E. add on. Of course, the fan boi's already knew that. I'd be really interested one day to see your Transmission running, Clip Menu, 1000 Safari plug in Mac's. I'm always up for a good running joke.

This along with FruitMenu and PathFinder have finally allowed me to realize my dream of killing off the Dock and Finder. I'll be registering tonight! Awesome. (Wings3D is the only app I have had misbehave so far.)

Does not align windows properly along the left edge of my screen. Unsanity apps used to be great, but the developer has left the users in the cold for too long now. Years without proper updates and support have forced me to deinstall APE and all Unsanity apps. Buyer beware!!

Years back, this used to be a GREAT program. Now for several years, the developper has stopped providing any support, or even any simple answer to emails. I spent several hours installing and uninstalling the program and ape under Mac OS X 10.5.6, but am still unable to make it "windowshade" at all. Dont spend your money for nothing!

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. Had no problems with any of the beta stages or this final release of my all time favourite OSX add-on. Wish Apple never took it out, but glad Unsanity brought it back! As for the people complaining about crashes with programs most of us never heard of or used, use the exceptions options to turn it off for them, simple and easy. Thanks for the best OSX software line-up Unsanity!