Mac users have one thing in common. Screens. Get. Messy. After half a dozen apps and various windows open up on screen, it becomes difficult to figure out where anything really is. Mac OS X Lion’s Mission Control helps you find open apps, but not specific windows. For that, Mac app developers came up with window managers.
A Breeze To Manage Windows With Breeze
My latest find is one of those inexpensive little screen utilities that should be built into Mac OS X in the first place. Breeze is a simple Mac app that simply remembers where app windows are and makes sure they stay there.
Once you place an app’s window where you want it, Breeze remembers it. It’s called a window state, and Breeze then knows the size and position of the app’s window on your Mac’s screen.
Open an app’s window, place it on screen where you want it to stay (Safari, this means you). Select the Breeze Menubar icon and select Save State As… and give it a name. You can also give it a keyboard shortcut (for Mac power users who remember such things).
That same window state can be assigned to other app windows. From then on, it’s easy to make sure windows stay where you want, so they’re always easy to find.
Breeze works with most modern Mac apps and their windows. There’s an option to restore window state and rescue stray windows which disappear. App windows can also be set for split screen and full screen mode.
Philosophical Window Management
Breeze is a handy app, rather inexpensive, and tends to reduce messy screen clutter, but I have a philosophical issue with screen window managers in general.
As long as I’ve been using a Mac, about all I can handle is one screen at a time, one app at a time. I might bounce back and forth quickly between any number of apps and various windows, but it’s not multi-tasking. It’s one screen at a time, one after the other.
The Mac’s simple Command-Tab option brings up all open apps, so it’s easy to find any app and all their windows, even when the screen is crazy crowded. So, why use a window manager at all, other than to reduce clutter, or find stray windows?
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