by
Jörg Jacobsen’s $5 Eye-Friendly (Mac App Store link) is the third resolution-switching utility for the Retina MacBook Pro that I’ve looked at, after Pupil (
) and QuickRes (). In my quest to find the ideal resolution-switching app for my Retina MacBook Pro, is the third app the charm?
Eye-Friendly’s menu on a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro
Like the other two apps, Eye-Friendly appears only in the menu bar. When you want to change your display’s resolution, you click the Eye-Friendly icon and mouse over your display (the menu lists your laptop’s built-in display, as well as any external displays); a submenu appears with available resolutions. Resolutions that look the best on that display are denoted with an Eye-Friendly icon; choose the desired resolution to switch to it. If you use only the best-looking resolutions, the Eye-Friendly Modes Only option configures the app to show only those resolutions.
Eye-Friendly’s menu is much more elegant that QuickRes’s, though it’s not as flexible as Pupil’s, which allows you to not only select which specific resolutions you want to appear in the menu, but also re-label them. But since it’s not difficult to find a resolution in Eye-Friendly’s list—and, as I mentioned, you can narrow the list down to show only the best resolutions—this level of customization isn’t a feature I miss.
Eye-Friendly also offers convenient keyboard shortcuts: Just place your cursor on the display you want to change, and then press Control+Option+Command+Up Arrow to cycle up through available resolutions or +Down Arrow to cycle down. Eye-Friendly displays each resolution in a semi-transparent overlay on the screen; when you settle for a couple seconds on the one you want, the display’s resolution changes to match.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
