[HardwareGrowler] Removing / Hidding Dock Icon

[guimers8]

Hello world,

I just installed HardwareGrowler, and I really enjoy it, I've been looking for such a software for years.

HardwareGrowler is good, but the Dock Icon instantly made me think "Damn, why is there an icon ?".
Now, reading the ReadMe file, I can see this :

Bugs: It should probably have the option to run without appearing in the dock.

Well, I don't think an option is enough. There just should not be a dock icon. That kind of application is not supposed to have an icon and a menu, it's supposed to be useful and invisible to users. This kind of app is called an Agent, you can read here what Apple says about (hidding) them.

As this appears in the "Bugs" section, maybe you don't know how to hide it ? It's really simple, just add these two lines at the end of the Info.plist file in HardwareGrowler bundle (you can use Smultron or Property List Editor) :

Code: Select all

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

Like this :


I hope this will help some of you, and that it will be integrated to next versions.

Bye !

[The_Tick]

This is still an application, it's both a proof of concept and an end user application. End user applications should just not go hiding with no way to quit them. How do you propose addressing that?

[guimers8]

Why is it an end user app ? It just provide a "Show connected devices ... starts" checkbox . There could be agent running in background, and an app that would allow you to start/quit the agent, and to adjust the settings.

Have a look at MacFreePOPs, it works exactly the way I explained above :



The app launch at login, start the agent, and go away leaving the agent running in background. The "Extra" arrow allow you to set up everything.

What do you think about such a solution

[The_Tick]

It's an end user app because end users use it. I'm not a fan of that solution so much as setting up a preference to have a menu item or dock icon, and then preferences to enable/disable certain things from being notified about.

[guimers8]

If end user use it, then what can he do using this app ? A checkbox that you will check (ot not) only once in months (or years) ? That's not really a feature users often use, is it ?

I thought this could be a good solution to start/quit an agent from the app, and allow user to quit the app leaving the agent running in background. Because it seems a lot of people are looking for that. And if I couldn't hide it I would certainly not use it. I asked a few people, and they told me they wouldn't too.

Well, of course, if you don't like it, it will be fine anyway, I still can do this just for me.