WindowMizer 4

It's a wonderful program but I have one frustration with it which is that the window roll up occurs when I double-click outside of the toolbar as well. It makes using some programs difficult.

I am loving this so far. I am using Sierra and there is a bit of a problem. If I window shade a couple of windows they completely cover each other and I can't separate them. Instead, once I double click on the 'pile' they each get uncovered as the one on top is expanded. So I can't slide them around as window shades individually. Is this something to be fixed in future?

Hello ! WindowMizer don't works with JDownloader 2 BETA version (iMac with Lion configuration). Best regards from France.

4.2.1 downloaded today and it IS an improvement! The unroll time has been shaved to between 2 and 3 seconds, which beats the daylights out of 6. I think I can use this version all the time. It's been a wait, but thanks, you guys, for working on it so much!
iMac OS 10.10.3

very impressive. If you can improve the performance of the roll-up/roll-down modes (there's a slight delay) then you have my money

Used Windowshade for years and was sad when it tanked. Discovered Windowmizer and was again a happy guy. But along comes OS X Yosemite and (the good) Windowmizer quickly offers a free update and (the bad) windows close quickly but reopen VERY slowly. If you consider 6 seconds slow. Arghhh...

@Joan

Thanks for your review, even negative reviews are helpful. Before you completely dismiss WindowMizer as a replacement for windowshade, please try to adjust a couple settings to see if they improve your experience.


1) Setting WindowMizer preferences to use the "Windowshade effect" will hide window whooshing and provide the desired windowshade effect. Please review "Installation and Setup" in the User Forums for more details.


2) To prevent windows from filling your Dock with icons, you can enable the System Preferences > Dock setting for "Minimize windows into application icon".

Yeech! Am I the only one who doesn't think this is windowshade behavior? It minimizes the window to the dock; it does NOT "roll it up". Everyone saying this is a replacement for the defunct Unsanity Windowshade, driven by haxies; I installed it and it drove me insane just trying to figure out what was going on! Windows whoooshing into the dock- windows whooshing out of the dock- where was the windowshade?

What it does it minimize the window into the dock, THEN it creates a windowbar duplicate & puts it where the window was. Meanwhile, you have windows clogging up the dock, windows whooshing around the screen- way too distracting. Definitely not the solution for me. If you're looking for *actual* windowshade action, keep looking; this isn't it.

This is an essential tool for every crowded desktop... even a 27" iMac screen with an extra 24" attached get's crowded. This is a musthave.

Fantastic, "actively-developed" replacement for Unsanity's gone, but not forgotten haxie, Windowshade (which was based on Apple's original feature in the OS7/OS8/OS9 days that they dumped in modern OSX era).

Version 3.0 of WindowMizer is a great upgrade from v2.1, is snappier than before (with further improvements to come) and feature-rich. We bought multiple licenses in lieu of it's stability and the extra day-to-day functionality of not wanting windows to disappear into the Dock. Window-shading it just better. Period.

So just a few, tiny, initial .0 bugs to work out (doesn't work in Photoshop CC nor Entourage 2008 as of mid-Oct 2013) but the developer has assured me he'll get onto those during October/November as soon as the imminent (at time of writing) OSX 10.9 Mavericks inclusion is added in time for Apple to release it within the next 6 weeks. Can't argue with that.

I'm honestly SO impressed with it. Buy it now and reward this guy's hard work! We're fans.

A perfect replacement for the now defunct WindowShade software. On the upside it looks like the developer is actively maintaining this utility and works with current Mac OS. On the downside IT IS A LITTLE SLOW AND SLUGGISH to rollup and roll down. Especially when compared to the now defunct WindowShade, which was downright snappy.

So, Mr Developer Sir, if you are reading this, features and options are nice. But performance drives the workflow. Maybe you can put a little pep into this program.

Either way, the functionality of this software far outweigh any shortcomings. And it's faster than watching your windows sink and rise from the dock. Buy this software - it is a great find and I support it....

MacPro Tower, 3.33 6 core i7, 24g RAM

Nice looking app. For me the major feature missing is keeping the window on top. In fact Windowmizer prevents AFloat from working! So, you can have windows on top or windows rolled up but not both. I find this behavior suboptimal for my workflow. I love the way stickies work, and was hoping to finally find a way to use a real app to replace it, but alas I'm still stuck with stickies until someone comes up with a solution.

Awesome app. Restores the ability to collapse windows that Apple originated in the Classic environment an then inexplicably omitted from future OS. Once you've used it it's hard to imagine how you managed without it. WindowShade was a great app but doesn't work with the latest versions of Mac OS and is not being updated. The only (slight" drwaback I see with WindowMizer is that collapsed windows are aggregated under the WindowMizer menu bar, so if you have collapsed a window in, say, MSWord, the window menu shows you all of the open collapsed windows regardless of their Apps, rather than all of the open windows in MS Word. To get the latter, you have to go to the Word App or open the collapsed document window. Also, if the windowshade action could be just a smidge faster, that would be great. These are minor cavils--overall, this is an essential App. I highly recommend!

Works great! I now have it installed on both of my macbooks and will be recommending it to friends and family all around. Good to see such great program development!

Version 1.0.1. -

Had to fiddle with the settings a bit to get rid of the black screen effect (Turn on on the animation option.) Love being able to make the bars transparent! Can't say how much I've missed this feature!

It'd be great if it minimized when clicking the middle yellow button - or provided that choice.

Hey, this needs to work in every program - just like Windowshade. One of the main reasons I bought this was for Microsoft Entourage and it doesn't work with it.

You've a one of a kind Application in WindowMizer. Thanks for making working within Mac OS X vastly easier. To those like myself who remember the Classic Mac OS environment and dearly miss the ability to collapse windows in place this way. Thanks for enabling this feature again for post PowerPC Lion (10.7 ) & Mountain Lion (10.8). With WindowMizer, one has fine control over the animations involved, even the opacity of the collapsed window! That other Application for this purpose, (based on a Haxie, & only for PPC Macs) wasn't as stable as WindowMizer. Now that WindowMizer is here, if someone could find a way to put the 'Pinch to Zoom' Gesture back in the Finder in Mac OS X 10.7 & 10.8, all would be well again within my Mac Universe! My thanks go out to this developer for all the hard work so very well done. I highly recommend WindowMizer! You'll wonder how you ever managed your Desktops without it.

Version 1.0.1. -

There was a time when the Apple OS included the window shading. For some reason, it got left behind. It's great to have it back. Being able to keep the top band of each open item on the screen is a huge benefit when working with a number of programs and files. It works exactly as advertised on my machines. Service from RGB has also been top-notch.

Version 1.0.1. -

I love the idea behind the app. I read previous comments and then logged on the web site. The developers seem to be aware of the black screen that comes upon clicking of the title bar when the app is used in mountain lion. I will give five stars when this is taken care of.

Version 1.0.1. -

I very much miss WindowShade, so much that it is one of the reasons I'm still under 10.6.x (+ Rosetta of course...) Nevertheless, I purchased WindowMizer hoping it would be a decent replacement for WindowShade. But nope... Yes, WindowMizer works, but it works very slowly ! Worse, on my test machine (MBP 13" C2D 2.4 under 10.8.2) the whole screen goes dark/black for a few seconds everytime I minimize a window. This is NOT a normal behaviour and it MUST be fixed before I can reccommend purchasing this app. There is another WindowShade alternative that works faster than WindowMizer (Deskovery) but it's much too expensive ($28) and half it's "fancy functions" are useless... For now I'd reccomend to stay away from both apps, at least until WindowMizer gets fixed/improved or until Deskovery's price drops.

Version 1.0.1. -

You've a one of a kind Application in WindowMizer. Thanks for making working within Mac OS X vastly easier to those like myself who remember the Classic Mac OS environment and dearly miss the ability to collapse windows in place this way. My thanks to this developer for enabling this feature again for post PowerPC Snow Leopard (10.6), Lion (10.7 ) & even Mountain Lion (10.8). With WindowMizer, one has fine control over the animations involved, even the opacity of the collapsed window! That other Application for this purpose, (based on a Haxie, & only for PPC Macs) wasn't approved by the Mac App Store and certainly wasn't clean and stable like WindowMizer. Now that WindowMizer is here, if someone could only find a way to put the 'Pinch to Zoom' gesture back in the Finder in Mac OS X 10.7 & 10.8, in a similar manner then in this Mac User's opinion all would be well again within the Mac Universe! My thanks go out to this developer for all the hard work so very well done. I highly recommend WindowMizer! You'll really wonder how you ever managed your Desktops without it. This is certainly a must have Application.

Version 1.0.1. -

It does what it says it does. Yeah, it could be better and, yeah, there 's a slight delay when it's minimizing, but it does the job. It's weird that it runs as an app and not a haxie - but this might be a good thing so it's not screwing with your OS. The main thing this app does is confirm how annoyed I am by Apple removing this functionality in the first place. This is now the second app I've had to buy to get this seemingly simple function back. Dock minimizing is clunky and takes way too long. This is a much needed improvement over that at least.

WindowMizer works very well. It may be a little slower that that other window collapsing utility, but given that WindowMizer does not alter the OS nor inject code into other applications, I think it's a great application. The fact that it made it into the Mac App Store (on the first try) is a testament to it's goal of bringing collapse-in-place to Mac OS X, while following strict Apple guidelines.

Additionally, WindowMizer runs on Mac OS 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8, and it exists! It's not vapor-ware like that other utility.

Version 1.0.1. -

It used to work just as advertised (and still does to an extent),, but with 10.8 when double cliking on the titlebar, the whole screen becomes black for about 1/2 a second before it minimizes / expands back. It is very annoying, and caused me to stop using the product (a shame, because I really like it). I am using a MBP Retina with 16GB Ram, connected to two external monitors (in case the developer would like to try it). I tried to contact the developer, but the site is under maintanance, and not even the contact page is up. Will change to 5 stars once this is taken care of.

Version 1.0

windows need to snap up and down instantly, without several seconds of latency, as I am encountering on i7 iMac w/ 8gb ram. why am I paying to fix an omission in OS/X, anyways? Why is this not native, in the OS? on the right track, but its got to be snappier….look at any implementation of windowshade functionality under Linux

Version 1.01 - Doesn't work with CS6 InDesign or Photoshop but does work with CS6 Illustrator.

If they got it to work with all Adobe apps - I would be happy.

C

Version 1.0.1

以前 WindowShadeX を使っていましたが、OS を 10.6 → 10.8 にして使えなくなったのでこちらに乗り換えました。 10.8 でこのアプリを使えないかたは、もしかしたら過去に WindowShadeX を入れた時に一緒にインストールされた「Application Enhancer」をアンインストールすれば使えるようになるかもしれません。 ただし、タイトルバーをダブルクリックすると暫くの間画面が暗くなります（Ver 1.0.1） Preferences の「Behavior」で 「Show Animation〜」を選択すればアニメーション表示されて、画面が暗くなる問題も解消されます。 本家サイトでは 2.0 にアップデートされているようです。