Screenfocus

When a lot of things are happening on your desktop at the same time, it can be difficult to concentrate on a certain part of the screen.

Screenfocus is a straightforward and lightweight utility that can help you out in this scenario, as it enables you to dim an area of the desktop around a user-defined selection box. It is easy to install, but it features some important design flaws.

The initial configuration process is remarkably simple, as you only need to follow a few basic steps in order to install and launch the program. It is minimized to the system tray automatically, and its main function can be triggered with a customizable hotkey.

Screenfocus is not likely to get in your way when performing other tasks, as the application runs silently in the background when you have no need to dim the desktop.

Once the program has been launched, you can bring up the highlighting frame with the aid of a simple keyboard shortcut (CTRL+ALT+F is the default combination, but it can be customized). The selection box is displayed in the top-left corner of the screen, and you can move and resize it freely.

Sadly, if a certain application is selected when enabling the highlighter, you will not be able to move it outside of this window. Also, the last position of the frame is not saved when shutting down the utility.

Most importantly, however, it becomes impossible to access any content both within and outside the highlighted area. If you wish to, for instance, read an article and need to scroll down, this is a major inconvenience.

To sum up, Screenfocus is a straightforward tool that enables you to dim a certain area of the screen in order to highlight something in particular. It does its job well enough, but it does not allow you to access your desktop when active, and it could use a couple of other small improvements.