Posted on: February 4, 2011 Posted by: Jesse_Hayges Comments: 0

Not too long ago Apple released the Mac AppStore, and just this week they finally gave in and let developers produce Promo Codes. So, I took it upon myself to dive through the Mac AppStore and find some Apps that I thought would make life as a Mac easier for our readers. First to answer the call was Divvy. Mizage, a small team of developers, put out this small, but extremely useful tool. Today on the short list I will be looking at what Divvy can do for you, how it works, and it’s value to all us Mac’s out there who read our reviews.

So, just what is Divvy, and what can it do for you? I’m glad you asked. Ok, so it wasn’t you, but the little voices inside my head, but the voices never lie, right? Anyway, Divvy is a windows management App for both Mac, and Windows. I am only testing the Mac version here for the moment, but I could imagine that the App runs mostly the same on windows. Once you open up Divvy it gives you a nice greeting, and tells you that clicking on this icon has been proven to reduce frustration by 87%, and I tend to think that is true. I have only been using it for the better part of an hour, and I am already seeing how this is going to be working it’s way into my everyday workflow.

To get things started, all you have to do is run some Apps, or open some windows. Once you have those you can, for the most part, have Divvy tell them where to stick it. If you need a bunch of windows running at once because you have to, absolutely have to, multitask while working, Divvy will resize, move, and arrange your windows with ease.

The voices tell me that now they want to know how Divvy does this. They also tell me they want a pastrami on rye. Too bad all I can offer is the how Divvy does it portion. Divvy runs in both your dock and in your menu bar, so for those of you who like to hide your dock– you’re covered. Click on either icon, top or bottom, whichever you’re closer too, and a little see through window will appear. In the top of the window will be the current window or name of the App you’re running, and beneath of that will be a grid of small little windows. You can go into settings and change how many grids there are, but by default there is a 6×6 grid in place. Simply click on one of the little grids and your window will shrink down to fit into that grid. Not sure where the little grid inside the tiny dialog is going to relate to the actual screen real-estate? Don’t worry, Divvy thought of that too. When your mouse hovers over a grid a translucent blue/grey block appears on your monitor to tell you exactly where Divvy is going to stick your App. So, say you’re like me and wanna see the big picture, but only on one side of the screen. Yup, Divvy did that one too. Just pick a starting point, say the top right corner of the screen and drag your pointer to the length and height that you want your window or App to occupy, and Divvy does the rest. This works great with having many chat windows open in iChat. You can quickly rearrange where your buddy list goes, and where the video chat with Uncle Remus takes place, along with your text chats that you are carrying on with your friends that are helping you keep sane as Uncle Remus tells your for the fifth time about his feet problems. You can also set up hotkey shortcuts as well. Say you have an App that you know you will either want to occupy the left or right half of screen every time you open it. You can make a new short cut in the settings panel to do just the. You just select the grids you want the App to occupy, name the shortcut, and then give it a series of key commands that make sense to you. I, for example, used ALT+Command+R for my right side shortcut, and ALT+Comm+L for the left. You can use whatever suits your fancy though.

Quickly, before the voices take me away to some far off place, I have to talk about value for a moment. Priced at $14 for either Mac or Windows, or at $21 for a bundle, Divvy won’t ruin your pocket book, but it can save your sanity. Divvy is fairly priced and easy to get a hold of in the Mac AppStore. There are a few other Apps out there that do window management, but none that do it as well as Divvy, or has the amount of customization that Divvy has.

In my final thoughts, before the voices completely take over I have this to say. ALT+Command+1! Ah… Now the voices are contained in the tiny little cell I’ve made for them. Thank you Divvy. Anyway, my final verdict for Divvy is a perfect 10 out of 10. From its’ simple to use UI, down to its’ modest price tag, all the way up to its’ ability to reclaim the wild windows on my desktop, this App reigns as king of screen real-estate.

App Receives 10 out of 10 possible points.

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