BenCrowder.net

Continuing on with the minimalism trend in my last post, I’ve stripped my Mac’s desktop bare:

Update: If you want the wallpaper image I used here (which I made in Photoshop), you can get it from Flickr — I’ve posted it in 1920×1200 (which I use on my iMac) and 1440×900 (which I use on my MBP).

Less really is more here. This feels so much less cluttered and so much more productive than it did when my desktop was full of files.

What I did

I’ve turned off all desktop icons (no more using the desktop as a storage area), gotten rid of as many menubar status icons as I could (I’m keeping battery, clock, and Spotlight because I use them, but I haven’t yet figured out how to get rid of Dropbox or JustNotes), and trimmed my dock (which has been on autohide for a while now) so it’s just a list of apps that are running.

Also: I used the Secrets prefpane to move the default screen capture location from the desktop to ~/Documents/Screenshots. Works like a charm.

How I get by

To launch apps and get to folders, I use Quicksilver and Finder. I also have Visor, which lets me pull down a terminal at any time (I’m using Control-. for the shortcut) (I’m also using Control-< and Control-> to move between tabs in Visor).

The future

I wish I could autohide the menubar the same way I do the dock. (MenuShade looked like a solution until I realized it doesn’t work on Snow Leopard.)

I also want to figure out how to get rid of the menubar icons for Dropbox and JustNotes. Update: I used Dock Dodger to get rid of the JustNotes dock icon and set JustNotes to hide the menubar icon. (Thanks to Wade Shearer for the tip.) Second update: I found a screencast on hiding the Dropbox menubar icon. But I’m not sure anymore that I actually want to get rid of it — it’s useful for seeing if things are fully synced. Hmm. We’ll see.

I’ve thought about using GeekTool to put a clock straight on my desktop, but that really just goes against the whole minimalism philosophy. If I can get my menubar to autohide, then I don’t want to see anything on the desktop.

Next on my agenda: figure out a file organization scheme that actually works.