Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

I am the target audience for this, from a UX and tech perspective. It addresses a problem I have and for which I periodically audition solutions.

A subscription for a menu bar, though, kills it for me. I have apps on Macs that are over 20 years old. Some of those companies don’t exist anymore. I’m not going to risk paying $100 for a decade of your app and hope that your company, or your goodwill, stays around that long.

While I don't use a Mac as my primary anymore, I'm surprised I like the look of this! It actually looks quite Mac-like as well.

Subscription is a big nope here, though. Especially for Mac software, I'd expect something where you pay for one major version, that is guaranteed to works on specific macOS versions, and gets minor bugfix updates too. But maybe the next macOS version requires a newer major version update to run, in which case you pay an upgrade fee to buy the next major version - or maybe the next major version has new features you might want to upgrade to as well.

My old Macs are stuck on 10.13, and I see Ubar mentioned elsewhere in this thread and that it's still compatible with 10.13. I might consider the $30 one off price to buy Ubar and keep it forever, but I wouldn't do a $10 subscription.

OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app

It’s now $40 for 2 devices and includes 2 years of updates. After that, you can keep using the version you have, or choose to pay for updates again later.

For businesses, I’m keeping the existing annual pricing.

A lot of the comments on pricing were fair, and I appreciate people being direct about it. I still care a lot about long-term maintenance for an app like this, but I think this is a better balance.

Subscription on something like this is goofy, and extra subscription per seat even for personal is goofier. For free, I can use Alfred/Raycast, Aerospace, and either sketchybar or zebar and have all this functionality executed even more skillfully and ergonomically. If you want to throw money into it, Alfred power pack is £34 and supports a great company with a lifetime purchase.

But I also understand I’m not the target audience for this, and some of my coworkers that wanted a Mac because “it’s a Mac” and now compare everything to Windows would probably use it. I’ll just have to feel bad for their wallets.

Hi!

Over the years, I've tried several of these dock replacement apps. The one that stuck the longest was uBar (which I used with a setup similar to what you have here, emulating a "windows taskbar".

I've hit issues with most of them that forced me to move back to the normal Dock, but the number one issue has always been around notification badges: they always seemed to break in strange ways.

For example, can your dock show badges for iMessage if the app isn't open? Does it get the updated badge count without me opening it? Say I receive a SMS/iMessage, does it instantly show a counter next to the unopened pinned messages app? None of the other apps successfully did this when I tried them...

I don't know if there are other apps like this, but iMessage was by far the biggest offender. Perhaps system settings too?

P.S.: Congrats on the launch :)

P.P.S.: As others have said, I think a subscription for this will rub many people the wrong way (I am one of them). If I'm paying for a subscription, I expect this to be pretty bug-free and have at least monthly updates. I wouldn't ask this of other subscription-based apps, but for one that replaces a system-level component and wants me to keep paying, you bet I am holding it to a high standard! I've wasted too much money on other replacements and gotten very little value out of that.

I love that you've made this, but in a world of never ending subscriptions, a subscription to a taskbar is just not something I (or many I imagine) can justify - no matter how low the price.

We really have entered the age of everything being a subscription.

Don't take it personally OP, but taskbar-as-a-service is objectively one of the funniest things I have ever seen posted on this site.

having to click somewhere is not a shortcut, seriosly who the hell switches the desktops with mouse scrolling or clicking? there is a real shortcut for that

One-time fee? I would be onboard instantly. Monthly fee? For what exactly? There is no recurring cost like server space or anything else. Nope, you lost me as a customer. For good.

I would pay $10 one time for this; a subscription seems excessive to me.

Ah, good old Apple, where for only $9.99 a month, you can experience what Linux offered for free 15+ years ago.

Looks excellent but I can’t wrap my head around how this is a subscription. Pricing the app even at a higher range ($40-50), one—time payment makes way more sense.

You could even require paying for “upgrades” for major updates in the future. (Similar to that of Sketch or some apps made by Panic)

I've always setup my macbooks with a custom json config using https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ to avoid the dock, but couldnt convince any friends to give it a try since its high effort, i guess

so i hacked together https://dockshortcut.com really quick and that kinda made the difference in how some people use their macbooks these days, but tough market, nobody likes paying for something that should come out of the box

you should probably reconsider asking for a subscription, people barely wanna pay once, even if it would save them weeks a year

I'm with other people here. Make this a one-time purchase. If a major macOS update requires significant changes to keep the program working, make that a new version that people need to buy. A pretty standard way to keep people from feeling screwed if the break happens right after they bought your software is to give them the next version of your software for free if you release it within 1 year of their purchase.

I think you're actually likely to make more money that way because people will pass on adding yet another subscription to the pile they have already.

+1 to amplify the voice that hates a subscription to a taskbar. If it was €15 one time I would’ve instantly bought it.

There are MORE apps that have a better reputation like sidebar , dock fix , active dock (has been around for years and years) , and a subscription does not make sense since most can be done for free like window previews with dock door , group windows by app is free in desktop and dock settings for Mission Control , the native dock can also do many things like notification badges, click to show desktop or use a hot corner or trackpad gesture , pin apps in the dock , there are a billion app launchers , spotlight is built in . Most people will stay away from subscriptions as I have observed in the comment below (Pls be nice I’m new here and I don’t know how to comment properly )

I use uBar for this: https://ubarapp.com but this looks like a nice lightweight alternative!

I know you’ve received plenty of feedback about the subscription being a dealbreaker. There would be no point in me adding that but I would say that I could see myself paying $50 for one version of this without upgrades. Maybe half price for upgrades if you have an existing license. So I probably wouldn’t necessarily mind paying $25 per year per se if it’s not a subscription. Like many other others here, I’m just not gonna go there.

Good luck!

Of coarse its a subscription...

> I built boringBar so I would not have to use the Dock

Does anybody really use the dock as a an app switcher? MacOS is built around shortcuts, alt-tab, show spaces, etc. The dock is there for starting apps – which you can also do via spotlight, and as a “favorites” list after you remove all the built-ins.

Cant see how this app would fit into a subscription.

I'm not the target market for a subscription for this, but I found it quite buggy - I had multiple browser windows open and couldn't navigate to more than one. I couldn't navigate to other spaces either (clicking on them did nothing) and scrolling through the apps menu was laggy.

The screenshots on the website look nice though.

I’m totally a target audience here. I’ve been trying so many different app switcher applications. My latest favorite one is “flashspace”. I would love that kind of functionality be part of this too if possible. Regardless I’ll give it a shot for a few weeks and see if it works for me. Thanks for sharing!

I'm not the target audience for this, but THANK YOU for putting a description in the title, instead of letting me eagerly click it thinking it might be a speeds/feeds/stickout calculator for a lathe boring bar or something.

Personally, I like the macOS dock so this wouldn't be for me. $10/year for a dock replacement is a bit much to ask for too, especially since this is a price per seat model. Maybe $15-20 as a one-time purchase per license? One of my favourite apps in the past few years is antinote and that is a one time fee of $5.

Forced subscription = immediate uninstall; would have gladly paid a decent one-time fee for the app.

I'll be trying this! I used uBar for a long time, and more recently taskbar as uBar was too buggy to ignore. My main issue with Taskbar currently is that it sits over non windowed fullscreen apps (eg Steam games). Other than that I prefer the design on yours based on a quick look through the page.

I‘d be happy to pay for an upgrade if future macOS changes break the functionality of this - cool - app, which would require the creator to update it. More work, which I would pay for. But not a subscription, sorry!

Plus, I‘d prefer to (but that’s impossible?) install via the App Store, to avoid a black box.

Fantastic work, but ubar is going to eat your lunch with that subscription

Take a look to Jotego's (mister FPGA) business model. I was the main maintainer of a distro so I can say that That's not going to work. Also I'm in love with your style.

Remember when we bought software, and owned the right to use it in perpetuity? Good times those were. Now fucking taskbars are SaaS. There is no end to rent-seeking behaviour. In a decade or two, I suppose we will not only be renting the right to use our computers, but also the mouse and keyboard will be time-gated rentals as well. Mousewheel and numpad only available on the Pro subscription, of course.

Just adding to the pile to say that the subscription kills it for me.

it looks great, looks clean, seems like people want it.

nobody's paying a subscription for a taskbar. The business model here is a one time sale.

Subscription ? Big No

Not a mac user, looks cool... but a subscription for a simple boring and static task bar?

Fucking omega lol. April fools was 11 days ago my man. Charge me $50 if you want but absolutely fuck subscriptions.

I am using BoringNotch, which is great. Is this somehow related?

Gnome 2 anyone?

Subscriptions for apps that require absolutely no infrastructure to run make absolutely no sense to me. Hard pass.

Is there some more expensive tiers to change the color or do I need to pay a premium?

Looks nice, I'm forced to use OSX at work, but it's a hard no for another subscription.

Show me a side-dockable vertical taskbar, circa Win XP thru 7 style - and a lifetime license for 10 years' worth of the subscription, which you may no longer even support by then - and you will have closed a sale.

Was looking for this exact solution.

“$9.99/year”. <closes tab>

C’mon, man, there’s not even a backend to support. Want more revenue next year? Release a new version that’s a compelling upgrade.

Wow this looks really neat. I am going to have to give it a try.

Wow, this looks very clean. I'm not the target audience, but if I was looking for a tool in this category, this would be highly attractive to me. Very subtle design that isn't distracting or busy. Well done!

Edit: Ok, feedback. Please know that I'm a junky for independent Mac apps that I find interesting. This is interesting to me.

This feedback is entirely meant to be constructive. I like the app so far and I want it to succeed. Also, as someone who is deeply familiar with the platform and the third-party software ecosystem, my hope is that I can help communicate the things that would make if feel intuitively correct to a majority of Mac users. What I mean is that I'm a nerd who thinks a lot about the platform and the choices devs make that are nuanced and subtle. I hope you find it useful.

1. Practically invisible on a background that's dark / black. The photo on my desktop background is black at the bottom and this thing is therefore invisible. I don't know the best way to address that. Maybe it should sample the colors behind it and default to a light mode at first launch?

2. Frosted glass only changed one tab / chip (the active focus one) and the rest remained black and invisible. Not sure if that's deliberate or not. I expected the whole thing to change. I do see that window thumbnails are now frosted (didn't try thumbnails before toggling).

3. Needs kbd nav. I hovered to get thumbnails and tried arrow keys. No effect.

4. Thumbnail selections would benefit from a border or other visual indicator. Having only traffic light window controls to show which is active isn't sufficient.

5. As I continue to poke around, disabling frosted glass to view thumbnails in dark mode didn't change the glass background for thumbnails. Again, I didn't check thumbnails before switching frosted glass on. I don't know if that's supposed to work that way or not. Seems wrong to me, but I don't know the intent.

6. Delay for hover to invoke tooltips or thumbnails is too long. It feels sluggish. However, the snappy responsive drawing of new content when sliding from one app's thumbnails to another is very nice and impressive. It'd be easy for that to suck, so well done.

7. Time opening / drawing the app menu after first click is too long. I have a bajillion (394) apps installed, might be why. Should be as fast as clicking the Apple Menu regardless of how many apps need to be listed. Wait, now I just clicked it again to check if it is faster after the first time. Looks like the app cached whatever info it had to pull the first time cause it's properly snappy. Maybe pre-fetch that info on first launch so it isn't slow on the first click.

8. The thumbnails for minimized browser windows are awesome! Much nicer than using the thumbnails from Dock windows / tiles. I like that so much that I would consider working this into my workflow despite not needing it otherwise. I probably wouldn't do so, but I like it a lot.

9. The desktop / spaces switcher should probably also have thumbnails showing the content of each space.

10. There should be a toggle that closes a window from the thumbnails. I see that right-click has an option to do so, but there should be a left-clickable toggle in one of the corners. I'm gonna go against typical MacOS idioms and recommend experimenting with putting that toggle at the bottom of the thumbnail because they're so tall relative to the taskbar height. It might be wrong when you test it out. It's one of those things that I think either it feels right or it doesn't. My first instinct, however, is that it ought to be in the upper-left corner.

At the end of the day, I like it. I'm not the target audience, as mentioned above. But I know there are a lots of people who are the intended audience and I want them to have nice tools. I hope this makes some people happy. I'd be happy to provide additional feedback on a future build if the above is considered useful. Email in profile. Fingers crossed this doesn't come off as critical of the app. I like honest and direct feedback and I hope I haven't bummed you out cause that's not at all the intent.

Looks great. Subscription? Big ol nope.