5 ms·

A nice little preview. I can see its appeal although I'm not sure I'm ready to make the switch. One little pet peeve though. Why do so many Mac apps want to cre

A nice little preview. I can see its appeal although I'm not sure I'm ready to make the switch. One little pet peeve though. Why do so many Mac apps want to create a menuling now? It's not the Windows system tray. There's no good reason why this mail client needs a menuling. It can communicate everything through its Dock icon.

Lewisham 16y ago
I personally roll sans-Dock, so I like it, but it should definitely have an option to turn it off. Seems like this one isn't even half-risen, let alone fully-baked, but it's tasty enough (extended metaphors are fun).
high5ths 16y ago
And through Growl.
cmelbye 16y ago
I definitely agree. The menu bar isn't for every app to clutter up with pointless menus like the Windows system tray is (was?)
- uxp 16y ago
  The Windows tray was never ment to store pointless menus, but there was a documented API and programmers started using it because it was convenient. Same situation here. As a side story, a friend sent me a VMWare image, but I run VirtualBox. Instead of converting the thing, I installed the trial version of VMWare Fusion on my Mac. Version 3 apparently has a menulette to access your VMs applications directly. After the trial expired I no longer have the option to remove the menulette, without uninstalling VMWare entirely. It used to be the case that a simple alt(option) click and drag would poof the icon away. More developers are failing to implement these "conveniences" properly.
  - cmelbye 16y ago
    I'm sorry, I meant to say what the windows task bar turned into. The developers probably meant well.
ROFISH 16y ago
For programs that sit in the background (ie. Dropbox), the menuling is better. However I prefer the black "Leopard" style menulings. I disable it if it has color because it's distracting.
kristofferR 16y ago
Well, the dock takes up a lot of space and for a lot of people it's not always visible. The menu bar is always there, ready to display information.
dgallagher 16y ago
menuling From a Cocoa perspective it's actually called an NSStatusItem (Status Item), appearing the NSStatusBar (Status Bar). From a user perspective (per Apple's Human Interface Guidelines), it's called a "Menu Bar Extra" appearing inside the "Menu Bar". Though I think that's a little bit stupid for a name. Apple does warn developers from making NSStatusItem's/Menu Bar Extra's: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGMenus/XHIGMenus.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000356-CHDFJEAC http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx... However, they tend to be more robust for certain applications than a Dock icon or Dock Icon Menu's. You can have clickable buttons, have single- and double-click behavior, display graphics, etc... On a downside, if you don't have enough screen space to show them, they'll start to disappear. They are ordered based on which app loaded theirs first and cannot be re-ordered. -------------------- Apple's "Menu Bar Extras" don't exist within NSStatusBar. These include the clock, battery icon, bluetooth icon, etc... They live in a private API of Apple's. Apple's always appear on the far-right, are the last to "disappear" if there's not enough space for them to fit. Unlike 3rd party NSStatusItem's, you can re-position Apple's by Control-Clicking on them and moving them around (except for Spotlight's). -------------------- Since 3rd party NSStatusItem's are not going away anytime soon, there's a need for a Mac app (or OS X update) that'll let you condense them into some sort of manageable GUI element. All NSStatusItems appear under a single instance of NSStatusBar. It would be possible to write an app that'll extend NSStatusBar's class (overriding it, swizzle it, etc...) which would allow you to do custom stuff with them. Perhaps add ordering support, hiding support, grouping them inside a mini-window accessible by a single "Menu Bar Extra" you click to access them. For example (excuse the crappiness - I mocked it up in 5 min, credit goes to Snippit for the window graphic): http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/menuBarMockup.jpg http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/menuBarMockup.jpg It would be nice to add "lesser-used" Menu Bar Extra's to something like that, hiding them out of the way.
- johnconroy2 16y ago
  Hold down command and drag to reorder
  - dgallagher 16y ago
Caged 16y ago
I agree that some applications have very little need to add an status bar item. Fortunately, most of the ones I use allow you to turn the feature off. On the other hand, I hide the dock on my laptop. Having a status bar item in application like this is pretty valuable for me as it allows me (in the case of Mailplane) to quickly navigate my accounts and see newer emails without focusing the main application.

Lewisham 16y ago

I personally roll sans-Dock, so I like it, but it should definitely have an option to turn it off. Seems like this one isn't even half-risen, let alone fully-baked, but it's tasty enough (extended metaphors are fun).

high5ths 16y ago

And through Growl.

cmelbye 16y ago

I definitely agree. The menu bar isn't for every app to clutter up with pointless menus like the Windows system tray is (was?)

uxp 16y ago
The Windows tray was never ment to store pointless menus, but there was a documented API and programmers started using it because it was convenient. Same situation here. As a side story, a friend sent me a VMWare image, but I run VirtualBox. Instead of converting the thing, I installed the trial version of VMWare Fusion on my Mac. Version 3 apparently has a menulette to access your VMs applications directly. After the trial expired I no longer have the option to remove the menulette, without uninstalling VMWare entirely. It used to be the case that a simple alt(option) click and drag would poof the icon away. More developers are failing to implement these "conveniences" properly.
- cmelbye 16y ago
  I'm sorry, I meant to say what the windows task bar turned into. The developers probably meant well.

ROFISH 16y ago

For programs that sit in the background (ie. Dropbox), the menuling is better. However I prefer the black "Leopard" style menulings. I disable it if it has color because it's distracting.

kristofferR 16y ago

Well, the dock takes up a lot of space and for a lot of people it's not always visible. The menu bar is always there, ready to display information.

dgallagher 16y ago

menuling From a Cocoa perspective it's actually called an NSStatusItem (Status Item), appearing the NSStatusBar (Status Bar). From a user perspective (per Apple's Human Interface Guidelines), it's called a "Menu Bar Extra" appearing inside the "Menu Bar". Though I think that's a little bit stupid for a name. Apple does warn developers from making NSStatusItem's/Menu Bar Extra's: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGMenus/XHIGMenus.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000356-CHDFJEAC http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx... However, they tend to be more robust for certain applications than a Dock icon or Dock Icon Menu's. You can have clickable buttons, have single- and double-click behavior, display graphics, etc... On a downside, if you don't have enough screen space to show them, they'll start to disappear. They are ordered based on which app loaded theirs first and cannot be re-ordered. -------------------- Apple's "Menu Bar Extras" don't exist within NSStatusBar. These include the clock, battery icon, bluetooth icon, etc... They live in a private API of Apple's. Apple's always appear on the far-right, are the last to "disappear" if there's not enough space for them to fit. Unlike 3rd party NSStatusItem's, you can re-position Apple's by Control-Clicking on them and moving them around (except for Spotlight's). -------------------- Since 3rd party NSStatusItem's are not going away anytime soon, there's a need for a Mac app (or OS X update) that'll let you condense them into some sort of manageable GUI element. All NSStatusItems appear under a single instance of NSStatusBar. It would be possible to write an app that'll extend NSStatusBar's class (overriding it, swizzle it, etc...) which would allow you to do custom stuff with them. Perhaps add ordering support, hiding support, grouping them inside a mini-window accessible by a single "Menu Bar Extra" you click to access them. For example (excuse the crappiness - I mocked it up in 5 min, credit goes to Snippit for the window graphic): http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/menuBarMockup.jpg http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/menuBarMockup.jpg It would be nice to add "lesser-used" Menu Bar Extra's to something like that, hiding them out of the way.

johnconroy2 16y ago
Hold down command and drag to reorder
- dgallagher 16y ago

Caged 16y ago

I agree that some applications have very little need to add an status bar item. Fortunately, most of the ones I use allow you to turn the feature off. On the other hand, I hide the dock on my laptop. Having a status bar item in application like this is pretty valuable for me as it allows me (in the case of Mailplane) to quickly navigate my accounts and see newer emails without focusing the main application.