Late last week I read a review of Blotter, a new application on the Mac App Store that puts your weekly iCal calendar just above your desktop background as an overlay. In many ways, this might seem like a way to surely increase the stress, however I find it to have some advantages for me.
First of all, it is very clean and simple. Sure, it works best on top of an equally clean and simple background, Blotter lays the calendar out in a very nice way. You get a good view of not just the current day, but the entire week ahead (which can be customized to only show workweek or full week, as well as show the coming 7 days instead of the current week). It will display all the different calendars that you tell it to, no more, no less and to some degree also keep the color coding, which is a must for me.
What I found particularly useful with this app is that it makes me use my desktop for something useful, while adding the ease of previewing what is coming up right now, without looking too far away. For me, seeing my calendar is not a way to get more stressed, but a way to become relaxed in knowing that I am in control.
What this app really needs!
I did mention that Blotter supported the color coding to some degree. I would like to see the color coding be spot on the same thing as in iCal. I have noticed a few of my calendars not retaining their proper color which is very bad for me since I use that to get a good overview of where I am expected to be and what I am expected to do. Basically, I live on color coding.
Secondly, I desperately want a way to get rid of the menu icon for this app. An option to put it in the menu bar would be appreciated as I prefer that for utilities compared to the dock. The best thing would be to run this in the background not having any icon, although I can see that being a problem in terms of development.
Conclusion
I’d recommend you trying out this app if you want the calendar on the desktop. At $9.99, Blotter isn’t too badly priced, even though the lack of trial in the Mac App Store makes it harder to justify when you are not sure it will do what you want. I however must say that it is fully worth all its $9.99 price tag.