Ghoster

Working on a computer all day might not provide the accuracy, or efficiency you need, especially with all distractions found on the information superhighway. Cutting access to the Internet doesn’t help either, and the solution might just be ignoring every other window. One simple way to do this is with applications like Ghoster, which dims everything but the thing you’re focusing on.

The effect is noticeable right from the start, since a transparent veil is placed all over the screen. The application doesn’t come with a main window to take up any desktop space, sitting quietly in the tray area so you can focus on your work. It gets fun at first, clicking different windows to change the dim area, so accommodation only takes a couple of seconds and mouse clicks.

Only the active windows is placed on top of the veil, to make focus easier. This is instantly done as soon as you select the window of interest. It also works with the desktop, and taskbar. Unfortunately, you can’t keep focus on more windows at a time, but since the veil is transparent, you can also keep an eye on different resources, or regions you need to monitor.

On the other hand, there are different options you can configure. Sure enough, all of these options are kept under an INI file, but each field you can modify is clearly explained, while modifying something merely requires you to write down a specific numerical value, while changes are visible in real time, but you still need to save the configuration file for changes to remain in effect.

Customization options might not be that abundant, but are enough to help you focus, but also make the veil stylish. One basic option is color of the veil, as well as the level of transparency. A picture can be used as veil, option which requires you to write down the full path, and file name.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that Ghoster is a practical application which aims to help focus on tasks at hand by simply dimming the rest of the space. You can switch focus at the press of a button, while customization options, even though pretty robust, allow enough diversity tweaks.