Plainview - A chromeless browser for OS X

http://www.barbariangroup.com/software/plainview_app_1_0

by grinich • 17 years ago

39 31 17 years ago

barbariangroup.com

DanHulton• 17 years ago

...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.

jawngee• 17 years ago

Well, believe.

cschep• 17 years ago

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.

Zev3• 17 years ago

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)

bouncingsoul• 17 years ago

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

Raphael_Amiard• 17 years ago

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

speek• 17 years ago

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

PStamatiou• 17 years ago

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

wheels3• 17 years ago

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

http://ianhenderson.org/megazoomer.html

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.

ruby_roo• 17 years ago

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.

Zev3• 17 years ago

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.

alabut2• 17 years ago

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.

alabut2• 17 years ago

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.

joshu• 17 years ago

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

I crave fullscreen Terminal.app

ja2ke• 17 years ago

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.

misterbwong• 17 years ago

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.

ryanwaggoner• 17 years ago

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

adammarkey• 17 years ago

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.

mdonahoe• 17 years ago

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

Plainview - A chromeless browser for OS X

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