Subtract until it breaks
The way of the minimalist
This is the philosophy which shaped the creation of Minimalist for Facebook and Gmail.
With each update, Facebook seems to introduce more and more clutter. The new features can be useful, depending on the type of user you are, but what I dislike about it is the inability to customize the layout of your Facebook. Not every user would like to use EVERY single feature that is introduced - I'm not much of a stalker myself - so it makes sense to allow more flexibility in choosing what does and does not appear on your Facebook page.
Today, I was browsing extensions for Google Chrome as I was bored to death staying at home on a Sunday. Initially I was looking for Ad Blockers to get rid of all those pesky ads on the sidebar. Eventually Minimalist Facebook caught my eye. I read the reviews, previewed the interface and decided to give it a go. It's free, why not? :D
The interface is extremely well-organized and clear. You can't really get confused at all (unless you're technologically impaired!) One thing that I REALLY liked was that a small preview pops up as you hover each option, clearly showing what you were about to change in case you weren't sure.
Anyway, straight to the point: Before and after screencaps!
Before:
After:
Damn different right? You can even change the colour of the menu bar as well as the background colour! The font colour changes according to the menu bar. Looks really good, imo.
Things I changed:
1. Completely hid the navigation bar
2. Completely removed the right sidebar, including ticker and adverts (you can also select individual elements to hide if you don't want completely remove the sidebar)
3. Changed theme colour to deep purple (my favourite!)
The old pop-up chat is there because I never had the chat/ticker sidebar in the first place. I ctrl+scroll/arrow up twice to increase the size of facebook in general so my chat appears as the old one did and the ticker just hovers on the right sidebar, above events and ads. Anyway, not having a ticker improves productivity by 300%, so just as well that it's gone. (Making a rough guess here, but who wants to bet I'm roughly right? XD)
If you're wondering whether it was inconvenient that my left navigation bar was gone, don't worry! Just by hovering your mouse over the left border line and clicking brings your navigation back. You can hide it again by doing the same thing. Super convenient, eh?
To access the Minimalist options interface to make changes again is super easy. The Minimalist icon is located next to the bookmark icon in the search bar. Clicking on it shows Options, which brings up the Options interface in a new tab; Toggle on/off, which allows you to switch between the original and modified facebook with a single refresh of the page; and PANIC! ...which I have no idea what it does. I would really like to find out though.
Furthermore, the Minimalist icon only appears when you're on the relavant page. That means the icon for Minimalist Facebook only shows up in the search bar when you're on Facebook, and the Gmail icon while you're accessing Gmail. I find this a really nice touch to an already well-planned app.
Being super pleased with the results, I searched for more apps from this guy. The only other one that I found that I could use was Minimalist Gmail.
Interface works the same. The subject lines of the emails have been removed for my privacy, heh. Otherwise it still shows. Here are some before and after screencaps:
Before:
After:
Things I changed:
1. Got rid of top menu bar
2. Drastically cleaned up left sidebar
3. Got rid of disclaimer and miscellaneous junk at the bottom of the screen
4. Changed attachment icons to show the type of attachment it is (jpg, pdf and etc)
5. Took away redundant Archive/Spam/Delete bar at the bottom of the screen (my list only shows 20 emails maximum so it was unnecessary)
6. Cleaned up email options bar
7. Removed Search Web and Filter Options/Advanced Settings beside the search bar
8. Removed border dividers between messages
DAMN CLEAN NOW RIGHT? Checking my mail is so much more pleasant now!
Both extensions are free and easy to install. Just click 'Add to Chrome' and that's it! The options interface opens automatically and you can start making changes straight away. Changes are applied as soon as you refresh your Facebook or Gmail.
So far, I've not seen any performance issues from my browser, (the creator does put a warning under certain options that might drain CPU usage so I would just avoid those.) I highly recommend trying these out of you're bothered by clutter like I am. :D
Also, note that these extensions are for Google Chrome. I have no idea if there are versions compaitble with other browsers, but you can try searching for it. If not, just get Google Chrome already! It's fast, the interface is clean and it is highly customizable. Why aren't you using it already? O:
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