Caffeine 1.01: Now with Improved Menubar Icons!
Freshly brewed from developer Lighthead Software comes the Caffeine 1.01. It wasn’t all that long ago that we first highlighted Caffeine here at MacApper, but I assure you, this app is so great it warrants another mention.
Caffeine is one of many simple, little apps available for the Mac that does one thing and does it well. In this case, Caffeine prevents your Mac from dimming your screen, activating your screensaver, and going to sleep.
First off, let me just tell you the big news, the menubar icons–they’ve been totally redesigned! Say goodbye to the boring ZZZ’s that once shamed your menubar and say hello to a friendly little coffee mug! When the cup is empty (default) your Mac retains its normal, energy-saving (aggressive) sleep mode behavior.
Click on the the icon to fill up the coffee cup and prevent your Mac from sleeping when you want it wide awake. I find this particularly helpful when watching a video clip on YouTube that’s longer than 15 minutes long. I hate having to jiggle my mouse just to keep the screen bright.
Incredibly lightweight, Caffeine registers in at just 44k so you don’t need to worry about it taking up valuable hard drive real estate. Additionally, with this new release, Caffeine has also redesigned its Preference Pane. The best part of this is that you can now opt to have Caffeine start automatically at login.
Caffeine is a terrific single-purpose app. It won’t make toast, but it will prevent your Mac from going to sleep. Caffeine is freeware and can be downloaded directly from Lighthead Software.
The icon metaphor is a little confusing. Does a filled cup mean that you have or have not drank the coffee and are therefore awake or not awake. Not as intuitive as the developer might think.
I agree that the icons are a little unintuitive and/or confusing. Simply put, the full cup means that your system will not go to sleep. An empty cup means that your Mac will use its normal power saving settings.
Funny – they spelled their own applications name wrong in the preference pane…
“Automatically start Caffine at login”
Yeah, I noticed that “Caffine” snafu, too. I know there’s no excuse for not running a spellcheck, but at least now they have something to work on for version 1.02.
What are those other menu bar icons in the article
From left to right:
3rd Party Stuff
Adium – Multi-service IM client
Skitch – Screenshot captor du jour
iScrobbler – Last.fm client
Quicksilver – Ubiquitous Mac productivity app (not just an app launcher)
Overflow – App launcher
VirtueDesktop – Virtual Desktop Manager (for those of us who haven’t upgraded to Leopard yet)
CoverSutra – iTunes controller
Awaken – Alarm Clock
Caffeine – Read the above review
Ejector – Easy eject
Apple Stuff
BlueTooth
Wireless Network
Volume
Location
Excellent for Skype, too.
Here is a better icon: http://macthemes2.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16783806
By the way, why do you use ejector when OS X has a menu item built in?
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2002083005561895&query=eject
Love the replacement icons! I use Ejector because I didn’t have to dig in any system folders to find the built-in menubar widget that, until you mentioned it, I had no idea existed.
It’s always great to have fresh perspectives on existing programs. Someone from the Macthemes forum inspired the new Transmission look, I think.
And yeah, the eject button is not well documented. I wonder why?
Hi. I’m the developer of Caffeine. Thanks for the heads-up on the spelling mistake. If you use Caffeine, please ‘vote’ for it on iusethis! http://osx.iusethis.com/app/caffeine
Thanks for the review! Glad you like it.
Tomas, welcome to MacApper! Always a pleasure to get comments from a dev. Thanks for your work on Caffeine, and even more thanks for keeping it free
Same idea as Jolt:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/jolt.html
Jolt looks like it has a few more features and might merit a closer look if you need more control over your energy settings. That said, Caffeine is free and does what I need it to.
[...] Caffeine 1.01 – I’m not a coffee drinker, so luckily this little app has nothing to do with actual coffee. Caffeine is an app that does one thing – and does it well. Caffeine prevents your Mac from dimming your screen, activating your screensaver, and going to sleep… and now all from the menu bar. [...]
After downloading Caffeine, it put the icon on my desktop, not my menu bar, and the cup is already full, not empty. Clicking on it does not toggle anything. ????????????
My bad. I found it!
Stratumseind…
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