My first try was to  set the JFrame undecorated, “always on top”, start at (x,y)=(0,0) and size=screen size, like this:

public class Window extends JFrame {
    Window() {
        super();
        // Not too important in this example
        this.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,1));

        // Start at top-left
        this.setLocation(0, 0);

        // Get screensize, set as window-size
        Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
        this.setSize(screenSize);

       // I don't want it to look like a window
        this.setResizable(false);
        this.setUndecorated(true);
        this.setAlwaysOnTop(true);

        // Woop-de-do
        this.setVisible(true);
    }
}

So when instantiating a new Window(), it will cover the entire screen. Almost. This will behave as expected in Windows (XP at least), but not in OS X. In OS X the dock will overlap, and the coordinates (0,0) will mean “first pixel _underneath_ the menubar” – obviously not what I want – and not ideal for this application.

The solution is to take over the entire screen, the same way as ie DVD Players, games and other presentation-apps. One way to do this in Java is like this:

import java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment;
import java.awt.GraphicsDevice;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        GraphicsEnvironment ge = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();
        GraphicsDevice[] gs = ge.getScreenDevices(); // There may be more than one screen-device
        // Can also get the default-screen directly with ge.getDefaultScreenDevice()
        window = new Window(); // Instantiating the class from above, to create a dummy-window
        // Setting device to full-screen
        gs[0].setFullScreenWindow(window); // In my case, only interested in the first screen
    }
}

I suppose this is the correct way to do it always for Windows XP etc as this will actually take over the entire screen, not just overlapping the existing one.

Thanks goes to Jan-Petter for giving me a push in the correct direction.

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• Opera (free) – my browser of choice, for development as well as everyday browsing.
• Transmit (!free, but well worth it) -I’ve yet to find a better FTP-client on any platform. It’s a reason for switching to mac all by itself.
• Quicksilver (free) – I didn’t understand what all the fuzz was about until I installed it myself. It doesn’t save the day, but it makes it all a little more efficient.
• OnMyCommand (free) – easily customize the context-menues. I.e. “Create new file here”. Although it’s a pity how, in Leopard, everything is grouped under “More”.
• Smultron (free) – a very neat text-editor and basic “IDE”. It has those code-features I need, and some more. No bloat whatsoever.
• Adium (free) – the sleakest and most well-featured IM-client so far – only missing webcam-support. It makes all other IM-clients look, feel and behave like garbage.Well, Digsby wasn’t that bad actually.
• SCPlugin (free) – os x-equivalent of TortoiseSVN
• OmniOutliner (!free) – well, an outliner, great for brainstorming, todo-lists, etc etc. Best of it’s kind as far as I’ve had the chance to test.

There are of course other apps I use, like Firefox, Skype, etc for my day-to-day business, testing (beeing a webdeveloper), but those up there are the single most important ones.

Update:

I’ve quite recently come across two other applications which have stood out regarding makeing my days a little bit easier:

• iGTD (free) – “Getting things done”, basicly a todo-list-app, but with great organization features and a quite sleek interface.
• Path Finder (!free) – Finder on steroids. It has support for tabs (my main reason for giving it a try at all), a great bread-crumb-system, and quite a bit of other useful features. It’s well worth a try!

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