Deeper, System Personalization Tool

very good
key review info
application features
  • see changes without having to restart
  • (1 more, see all...)

Apple has always left the OS with plenty of room for improvements so that the third party developers can have something to do. Likewise, they have always had options and features that were simply not accessible to the average user. The developer community has been making plenty of programs to address this, and unlock or tweak some of the hidden features in OS X. There are lots of such tweaking programs, each with strengths and weaknesses. Some of these, such as Onyx have become very well known and popular, and over time have grown to a rather comprehensive tool that handles personalization of the system as well as optimization and maintenance. Because it has grown so large in both scope and function, the developers of onyx have decided to offer a smaller program that offers everything that Onyx does, but from the customization department only? Deeper.

What it does Deeper is a very small and simple program that allows you to customize the appearance and functionality of your system. From the format that the screenshots are taken in, and where they are placed by default, to the way the arrows are placed in the scroll bars, Deeper lets you change the way your Mac works to better suit your taste.

Working with it Once you download and install Deeper, you notice how very small the program is. There is no bloat in it and no extraneous features. Opening it up reveals a toolbar with the main categories of options and clicking on any of them will load the individual settings. The categories are General, Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Expose, Safari, Login and Misc.

The options available in each category vary greatly, from as little as two in the case of Dashboard, to tens in the case of Finder. Most of the options are quite self explanatory, and for those who have used such a program before they will be quite familiar. In fact, those who have used Onyx, will find this to be an exact copy of it. Much like system preferences, there are no additional windows or menu commands to bother with. Every option in the program is available from within the main window with the exception of the automatic update check that can be found in the preferences.

Instant Unlike other such programs - which achieve the same results - but make you restart in order to see the changes, Deeper has a different approach. Every option is instantly activated, without the need for a restart. If you make any changes to the Dock, the dock is automatically reset by the applications and the change is visible, same with the Finder or Safari. Of course, changes to the way the computer starts up, can only be seen after you restart, but that is beside the point. The instant-on way Deeper applies the changes is simply great.

However, there are moments when it can become a pain. Instead of having to restart once, in order for all the changes to take effect, you now have to wait for the dock to be restarted every time you make a change. While this is great for experimenting, if you already know what everything does and how you want it to be, it would be so much better to just have the dock restarted once at the end after you are done.

What does this button do? As with all such applications, when you know what you are doing, everything is peachy. However, for new users, many of the options might not be as immediately obvious from the first time you use the program. Fortunately, Deeper, despite its size, comes with documentation that - while not extensive - is very well structured and easy to navigate.

You can find out what any of those options do with just a couple of clicks, and because there is only one small window to this application, you can easily keep both it and the documentation open side by side at the same time.

The Good

Small and specific, very easy to use and well documented. The instant-on activation of the options makes it great for experimenting without having to bother with restarts.

The Bad

Because this is quite separate from Onyx and clearly focused on the customization of the system, it is sad to see that there are no additional options.

The Truth

Those familiar with Onyx who don't need the maintenance and optimization features will love this program.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:

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user interface 4
features 3
ease of use 5
pricing / value 5


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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