All 100 ideasDesktop and OS
#58 of 100 · Desktop and OS
A faster app switcher and dock
Replacements for the switcher, dock, taskbar and menu bar: instant switching without animations, named desktops and saved app workspaces.
Asks per year
What the askers want
- Would pay10%
- Want it local or private40%
- Object to subscriptions0%
- Want it open source or self-hosted0%
- Want AI to do it0%
Share of the 10 asks that say so, as judged by Jev.
What exists on Show HN
Built, still asked for20 Show HN launches do this job, and 16 more do part of it. People still ask, so the launches are missed, unknown, or not what they want. Ask what they’re missing before you build.
- boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS2026 · 520 pts
- Tabber – Mac OS Windows/Apps Switcher. See Windows Contents Real-Time2019 · 11 pts
- Switcheroo, my Emacs-ido-mode-inspired alt-tab replacement for Windows2010 · 6 pts
- Made my own app switcher because ⌘-Tab wasn't cutting it [video]2025 · 3 pts
- Macscope – Cmd+Tab Are Wasting Your Time. I Built a Modern Approach2025 · 3 pts
- Steppewm stacking Wayland window manager2026 · 3 pts
- I built a grouped app switcher for macOS2025 · 2 pts
- GroupTab – grouped app switcher for macOS (TestFlight)2025 · 2 pts
Instead of: Windows, macOS
The idea, as matched
A replacement for the desktop shell's switching chrome: a faster app/window switcher without animations, named virtual desktops, saved workspaces, and better dock, taskbar, menu bar or start menu.
Jev first matched 10 requests to this idea; a second reader kept 10 of 10.
Every ask, newest first
Each line is an AI paraphrase of what the writer wanted. The link goes to their own words on Hacker News.
Reader’s note. Mostly macOS.
- Apr 2026Wants a tool that removes animation when switching apps with cmd+tab on macOS, not just spaces. Read it: a comment in “Native Instant Space Switching on macOS”
- Mar 2026Describes working with per-project desktops and cmd+tab habits, wishing for better desktop organization. Read it: a comment in “Make macOS consistently bad unironically”
- Sep 2025Would pay for a cmd-tab replacement on macOS that shows minimized apps, as the default does. Read it: a comment in “Show HN: Macscope – I decide to built a better Cmd-Tab replacement for macOS”
- Feb 2025Wants a way to manage the Mac menu bar when a notch hides many items. Read it: a comment in “macOS Tips and Tricks (2022)”
- Nov 2023Wants a Mac cmd-tab add-on listing each app's windows and not landing on Finder when cancelled. Read it: a comment in “Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS”
- Aug 2023Wants a Windows Start and taskbar replacement with new abilities, like delayed auto-hide and multi-row expansion. Read it: a comment in “Win11Debloat is a simple script that removes pre-installed windows bloatware”
- Apr 2023Wants an app that saves and restores all running apps for each project on Mac. Read it: a post: “Ask HN: Saving a Workspace on Mac”
- Sep 2021Wants macOS-style window switching shortcuts on Windows and found one imperfect tool. Read it: a comment in “AltTab: Windows Alt-Tab on macOS”
- Dec 2014Asks for OS X software to manage separate workspaces. Read it: a comment in “Ask HN: How to use small chunks of time productively”
- Aug 2013Wants an app to manage the Windows 8 Start screen without right-clicking icons one by one. Read it: a comment in “No More Notification Ads and Icon Ads in Android Apps”
Building this?
Read ten of the asks above first, because they say what the existing launches miss. If you ship it, post it as a Show HN so the next run of this list finds it.
Ship it like Vercel, on a server you own
This site runs on ShipTiffin. A push to GitHub deploys it, the way it would on Vercel, but the server is a Hetzner box in your own account. Postgres, sign-in, email, jobs and analytics are already on it, every project gets a hard limit, and nothing is billed by usage.
$19 a month per box, plus about $10 for the server at Hetzner. Open source, so you can also run it yourself for free.