Overlays! For Mac

Overlays! is a minimalist Mac OS X application designed to help you read large chunks of text by applying an overlay on top of your desktop. The utility works system wide, so you do not have to worry about its compatibility with other applications.

Upon launch, Overlays! puts a horizontal transparent panel that covers the entire desktop length on top of all your windows. The Overlays! bar can be easily moved around the screen with the use of your mouse: simply move the cursor around.

However, the mouse scroll button will not move the Overlays! panel: the action will actually scroll the page visible in the app active right beneath the transparent bar.

When you do not need to focus on text documents, you can easily enable or disable the Overlays! bar by accessing its status bar menu. The bad news is that Overlays! does not come with a hot-key for enabling or disabling the service, which can make switching between various apps in which you do not need to use this function fairly disruptive.

Within the Overlays! Preferences window, you get to adjust a number of parameters in order to personalize your experience. You get to change the color used by the Overlays! panel, the transparency level, the bar height, and its distance from the mouse cursor (the Overlays! panel can be placed right on top of the mouse, but also higher or lower).

To conclude, if you are looking for a simple Mac app that can help you focus while reading large pieces of text, Overlays! might be exactly what you need, but, on the other hand, the app’s functionality is fairly limited.