Put Claude or ChatGPT over the app you are in

I make Overlay. Claude or ChatGPT can sit over a fullscreen Mac app, and the same shortcut puts it away. You don't switch to a browser window, and you don't leave the Space. I'm not a model, and I'm not between you and theirs. The panel loads their site.

Can Claude or ChatGPT sit over the app you are in?

Yes, including when that app is fullscreen. Open the site in a tab. Option-Space shows the panel and hides it. A second tab can be the doc you're asking about, the dashboard with the number, or the page you don't want to paste from memory.

The second tab is the part that matters. A desktop chat app is a fine place to type. It's a bad place to hold the thing you're asking about, unless you upload it or paste it. In the panel the chat is on the left and the page is on the right. You read the error, you ask, you look back. The editor underneath never left fullscreen. Drag the boundary when the page needs to be wider than the chat.

A link in the chat can open beside the conversation instead of replacing it. Docs links, mostly. A chat that navigates away to show a doc is how you lose the answer you just got.

Several models are several tabs. Claude, ChatGPT, a local web UI if you've got one. No router. No "ask all of them." You switch tabs. If you want a product that fans one prompt out, buy that. This is a window.

Those sites can raise Mac notifications, and the click brings the tab back. Useful when a long reply finishes after you've gone back to the editor. Mute the tab if the site won't shut up about things you don't care about.

When is the official desktop app the better install?

When you only want that one chat, with its own window, its own shortcuts, and whatever they added to the desktop app this month. Overlay is extra for a single site. It pays off when the chat sits next to other pages, or when you won't drop out of a fullscreen app to reach it.

A second display with the chat always visible is also better, same reason as a spec beside Figma. Overlay hides. If you're talking to a model for an hour while you watch the code, you want the chat to stay put. Use the display. Use Overlay for the questions that interrupt, not for a session that is the chat.

Franz goes the other way. On the paid plans the AI is aimed at replies in the messengers and the mail. A draft, a translation, a summary of the thread. Overlay won't read WhatsApp and suggest an answer. Open Claude in the panel and you're still the one looking at the page. Franz is for people whose work is the threads. This page is for people whose work is the other app.

Longer note on fullscreen, including when to install nothing: keep ChatGPT open while you work. Docs plus the chat plus the issue: here.

macOS 14 or later. $12 once, after 30 days. Two Macs per code. No account. Whatever Claude or ChatGPT charge you is their bill. I don't resell it.