I would pay dollars for something that could hide my OS X menu bar in the same way that I can hide the dock. An added benefit would be to hide all my desktop icons (which I right-align) until I move my mouse to the edge of the screen.
Having tried a few isolation apps, I now wish more of that stuff was built into the OS itself.
I agree that the desktop is annoying, so that's why I forked out cash for Deskshade, from the makers of Espresso (a Coda competitor). A simple hotkey combo (for me it's command+return) triggers the show/hide.
I'm a cheap bastard and it's one of the few pieces of software I've paid for, which also feels good because it's an indie developer. Totally worth it, I feel like I can breathe again with the desktop hidden.
Have you ever looked into Visor by Blacktree (Same folks that did Quicksilver)? http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-visor/ - It allows you to show/hide a terminal with a key combo. Not the exact thing you want, but closer to it then any other plugin/app I know of.
Ack - Megazoomer requires SIMBL and I've been burned by that in the past. The Wikipedia page says the problems are in the past but I'd still be hesitant to install it. I had some kind of app that dimmed the menu bar on command and had to install SIMBL in order to get it to work, which ended up being a bit of a nightmare after a few OS X updates.
I've been using it for a year and not had any problems (but only with this one plugin). Could it be that there are plugins out there that are specifically crap?
I regularly flip between full screen Emacs.app (with the elisp below) and then have a fullscreen, tabbed Terminal.app. Throw in Freedom.app and it's like canned productivity.
Also, and please correct me if I'm wrong, when you hit F11 in Firefox or IE7 you can just hit escape and do whatever you want. I think part of the value is that you can "lock" it in full screen, asking for a password to exit that mode. Maybe you could modify Firefox to do that, but I don't think the functionality exists as of 3.0.8, or whatever is current.
Plainview is a Mac app. By default, F11 is an Expose keyboard shortcut on OS X, it sends all windows to the nearest screen edge and shows the desktop. However, even when you remap the Expose key to be triggered by a separate key, Firefox still doesn't go into full screen on Mac when you hit it. Not without a plugin at least.
And since its a Mac app, IE7 isn't a real option (short of virtualizing, Wine/Darwine or not running OS X on the Mac)
Every F[0-9]+ key is two things on the Mac. It's a function key, with its definition set by a carefully negotiated contract between the OS and the current application, or it's a non-changeable controller with a pretty picture (volume, screen brightness, etc.)
You do one by pressing the key, and the other by pressing it with the Fn modifier key. Which one is default depends on a pref setting in Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts.
Personally, I set it to use the F[0-9]+ keys as function keys, and use the Fn modifier to access the volume etc.
Sorry about that, I checked the box in the settings that reversed function in relation to F11 being pressed. My primary point, that it doesn't make Firefox go full screen, still stands.
Full-screen browsing really helps to stay on task when browsing the web. Usually after 15 minutes of browsing I have 8 tabs open and no idea why I started the browser in the first place :)
agreed. not only can they throw a good SXSW party but they can come up with a slick browser. loving the completely unique interface so far. might use it when making a screencast showing off my startup
I used Plainview a few weeks back for a small temporary kiosk setup at a convention we were doing. Worked really well. Obviously having a separate app is a little more cumbersome than just being able to grab a kiosk plugin to lock out basic browsing when F11'd in Firefox or whatever, but Plainview does do what it does more elegantly than a Safari or FF plugin would do, so I'll be using it again.
This is pretty cool but, as others have said, some of its functionality can be replicated using FF3 (on Windows). Examples:
1. Fullscreen mode - hit F11 in firefox. Address bar/tabs/buttons are all hidden
2. Hotkey sites - Use tab hotkeys in firefox. Ctrl+1 is the first, Ctrl+2 is the second, etc. This doesn't break out of fullscreen and would work well in a presentation.
That said, the other functions of Plainview, such as presentation recording and popup handling, are quite appealing.
http://ianhenderson.org/megazoomer.html
Combine that with "Hide Statusbar", "Hide Toolbar", "Hide Bookmarks Bar" and you've got a chromeless Safari.
I use Megazoomer a lot with Terminal.app.