I still remember the scene when the new Yosemite was announced at WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference) last year: “For Power Users, they want to focus on the window in the centre of the screen instead of being distracted by the white menu bar and Dock around them, so we introduced HazeOver. ”
HazeOver is now on Setapp
Setapp: an amazing platform that gives you access to hundreds of the world’s best paid software for a monthly fee.
Who it’s for
I turned this feature on immediately after updating Yosemite. The system-level dark mode is not only visually “cooler”, but also helps users to focus on the focus window and complete the task at hand. In my experience, it does work, and vice versa, but when I occasionally try the bright mode, the glaring white menu bar is always blinding.
The system-level dark mode only works on the menu bar and the Dock bar, and for users like me who have even set the Dock bar to auto-hide, the limitations of dark mode become apparent. Often people have more than one window open on Desktop at the same time, and system level apps such as Mail, Calendar, Notes etc. are all designed in a bright white colour scheme, so it is often the case that Desktop is ‘white’. Or, some users choose a bright desktop wallpaper, but in any case, even if the menu bar and dock bar are dark, we don’t get enough of it. That’s why HazeOver was created.
The experience
The effect of the application experience and the layering of the interface is still very visible, with all windows except the Front APP darkened to reduce visibility. The experience is illustrated in the video.
The author’s words Some users may think that HazeOver, which costs $18, is not worthy of this feature and that it is better to command+opt+H to solve the problem, but as the author said in his Weibo post, this is not only a difference in experience, but also a difference in the concept of functionality. So, whether you like it or not will depend on the user’s specific trial habits.
