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Firefox and Chrome have proven Apple right, in forcing a top-of-screen menu bar to appear whether the application wants it to or not. This was demonstrated to m

Firefox and Chrome have proven Apple right, in forcing a top-of-screen menu bar to appear whether the application wants it to or not. This was demonstrated to me recently when my parents couldn't figure out how to print on Windows in Firefox (because there's no standard menu on it—they know "file -> print" just fine) and called me for help. After a moment of confusion on my part as I remembered that FF doesn't have a normal menu anymore, then a brief and totally failed effort to talk them through finding the beyond-stupid, tiny, "everything" drawer button, I finally just told them to press the keys for the keyboard shortcut, which they won't remember and will have to ask me again next time.

ilamont 5y ago
I suspect many people reading this HN thread also serve as their family's tech support team. Every week I get calls or emails from my parents requesting help figuring out something that's not obvious from the UI, is accidentally triggered by users, deliberately activated (by the app) during a software update, or buried deep in some settings or submenu. This week's selection includes: - Turning off yet again the annoying computer voice announcing any navigation or volume change on my parents' new Samsung TV (accessibility option, not sure why it turned on, but it required me visiting their home in person again to turn it off) - Trying to help my father disable the "get Outlook for iOS" line that suddenly started to be appended to the bottom of his work emails. - Helping my spouse troubleshoot a Shopify app feature that prevents >1 item being subtracted from inventory at a time - Figuring out how to enable a social media save shared photos to her phone's photo album Yes, sometimes software is so complicated and feature rich these items have to buried deep in the settings. But often I find that the lack of obvious text labels for basic features and navigation items is the problem. Hamburger menus and the three dots "more actions" icon are a poor substitute for clear text labels and links.
- brimble 5y ago
  The thing about modern software that infuriates me the most, watching my parents struggle with it, are the damned screen-takeover or focus-stealing on-launch notices, usually about some update they don't care about. They opened the thing to use it, not to read your changelog or marketing shit. Coupled with auto-updating, it confuses the absolute hell out of them, and the way modern design (and Android especially) make it hard to tell what's a button and what's text, and inconsistent cutesy button labels, make it even worse (it often takes them a while to figure out how to make the thing they didn't ask for and never, ever want go away). Google loves to do this pretty much everywhere, and it's especially bad on mobile, but FF desktop's post-update new-tab-to-market-at-you-about-what-changed (nothing important, 95%+ of the time) is almost as bad. Hell, I don't like that stuff either (does anyone?) but it's just a minor annoyance for me. For them it can mean they give up trying to do whatever they wanted to do.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    > The thing about modern software that infuriates me the most, watching my parents struggle with it, are the damned screen-takeover or focus-stealing on-launch notices, usually about some update they don't care about. I would bet in almost all cases, these can be directly attributed to the developer company's poorly devised career incentives. Behind every full-screen "OMG CHECK OUT WHAT'S NEW" takeover or notification-spam lies a product manager or engineering manager whose bonus is tied to some vanity measurement of how many users are engaging with the new feature they launched. "How much of the user's attention and screen space can I take over in order to try to jam this unwanted feature down their throat and show huge usage numbers next performance review?"
- flutas 5y ago
  > - Turning off yet again the annoying computer voice announcing any navigation or volume change on my parents' new Samsung TV (accessibility option, not sure why it turned on, but it required me visiting their home in person again to turn it off) For this one, I don't think it's a software update but rather user error (though it's not clear even to me how). I myself have accidentally enabled it, there seems to be some combination of buttons on the remote that will enable it. Still not sure on the specific combo though.
layer8 5y ago
That’s anecdotal, but my mother who "grew up" on DOS and Windows was never able to grasp the relationship between the top menu bar and the application window on MacOS. I bought her a Mac in 2010 because they are supposedly more intuitive and I didn’t want to provide PC support anymore, but it was no better than Windows for her at all (also not worse overall I guess).
- brimble 5y ago
  I spent years thinking they [EDIT: Apple's always-top-of-screen application menus, that is] were dumb for that reason. It never occurred to me that major software vendors would be stupid and/or user-hating enough to ditch the standard top menu, when they have a whole bunch of stuff that should go in it.
  - layer8 5y ago
    The top menu made sense when computer screens were small and the mouse pointer thus never far away from the top, and applications were fullscreen most of the time anyway.
    - ziml77 5y ago
      To me it seems the top menu bar is a holdover from early Mac OS. I saw a demo of one of the early versions of the OS, and it made a ton of sense there. The OS could only run a single application at a time, but that application could have multiple windows. From that perspective it's very sensible that whichever application had full control over the screen would want a menu bar global to its own windows. Now though, it's just weird to have the menu bar at the top of the screen. And it's especially strange when there's no windows for the application left but the menu bar for it is still visible (something that wouldn't be strange in the single app at a time model)
      - dhosek 5y ago
        Except that in this scenario, the application is still running, it just has no documents open. It's a nice thing to have because you can close all the documents in say Word, do some other work, and then when you need to open Word again, it's there ready to go without having to load again. The Mac seems to do a better job of having apps hanging out in the background than Windows does.
rustyminnow 5y ago
I know this is besides your point, but in Firefox there is an option to turn the menu bar back on (at least until they remove the option :/). If you go to the "Customize Toolbar" page, on the bottom left where it says "Toolbars v" you can check "[ ] Menu Bar". Hope that helps (a little)!
- qwertox 5y ago
  Or right-click on any free space on the top row. There's an option in the menu.
  - rustyminnow 5y ago
    Oh you are right! That's how I was getting to the Customize Toolbar page too haha. Totally missed that!
  - anon_123g987 5y ago
    Or press the Alt button to show the Menu bar temporarily.
- brimble 5y ago
  It'd occurred to me there was probably a setting to fix it, but I've forgotten to check the last couple times I've been over, because I'm a bad son :-( Thanks for confirming my suspicion, will try to remember to change that setting for them next time.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    You can also tap "alt" to make it appear, I believe, if it isn't enabled.
babypuncher 5y ago
The way Apple does it is also better design than a conventional menu bar. I can see why FF and Chrome hide it by default. Most of the actions tucked away in it are either used infrequently, or have common keyboard shortcuts. Turning it on in Firefox makes the chrome feel cluttered to me. By exporting the application's menu bar to an OS-provided panel that includes other OS-provided functions (clock, status indicators, wireless controls), they enforce both a strong level of consistency while allowing for reduced window clutter.
JadedBlueEyes 5y ago
On Windows, and most Linux apps, pressing Alt reveals a menu similar to MacOS's global menu. It's basically impossibe to discover, but it's there!
- brimble 5y ago
  I knew that from long long ago adventures in mouseless Windows-using, for focusing it, but not for causing it to appear if there isn't one. Thanks.
thevoiceless 5y ago
In case it's helpful: You can also tell them to right-click anywhere in the main toolbar area aside from the URL field, select "Customize Toolbar...", and then drag the "Print" button to wherever they want it. Alternatively: Hamburger menu > More tools > Customize toolbar...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
slowmovintarget 5y ago
You can turn the regular menu on for them in the options. (Firefox: Right-click on tool bar, choose "Menu Bar" option to enable.)
HWR_14 5y ago
To help your parents, in FireFox simply pressing Alt once conjures the familiar menus (for now). They disappear as soon as they are first used or on first mouse click.

ilamont 5y ago

I suspect many people reading this HN thread also serve as their family's tech support team. Every week I get calls or emails from my parents requesting help figuring out something that's not obvious from the UI, is accidentally triggered by users, deliberately activated (by the app) during a software update, or buried deep in some settings or submenu. This week's selection includes: - Turning off yet again the annoying computer voice announcing any navigation or volume change on my parents' new Samsung TV (accessibility option, not sure why it turned on, but it required me visiting their home in person again to turn it off) - Trying to help my father disable the "get Outlook for iOS" line that suddenly started to be appended to the bottom of his work emails. - Helping my spouse troubleshoot a Shopify app feature that prevents >1 item being subtracted from inventory at a time - Figuring out how to enable a social media save shared photos to her phone's photo album Yes, sometimes software is so complicated and feature rich these items have to buried deep in the settings. But often I find that the lack of obvious text labels for basic features and navigation items is the problem. Hamburger menus and the three dots "more actions" icon are a poor substitute for clear text labels and links.

brimble 5y ago
The thing about modern software that infuriates me the most, watching my parents struggle with it, are the damned screen-takeover or focus-stealing on-launch notices, usually about some update they don't care about. They opened the thing to use it, not to read your changelog or marketing shit. Coupled with auto-updating, it confuses the absolute hell out of them, and the way modern design (and Android especially) make it hard to tell what's a button and what's text, and inconsistent cutesy button labels, make it even worse (it often takes them a while to figure out how to make the thing they didn't ask for and never, ever want go away). Google loves to do this pretty much everywhere, and it's especially bad on mobile, but FF desktop's post-update new-tab-to-market-at-you-about-what-changed (nothing important, 95%+ of the time) is almost as bad. Hell, I don't like that stuff either (does anyone?) but it's just a minor annoyance for me. For them it can mean they give up trying to do whatever they wanted to do.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  > The thing about modern software that infuriates me the most, watching my parents struggle with it, are the damned screen-takeover or focus-stealing on-launch notices, usually about some update they don't care about. I would bet in almost all cases, these can be directly attributed to the developer company's poorly devised career incentives. Behind every full-screen "OMG CHECK OUT WHAT'S NEW" takeover or notification-spam lies a product manager or engineering manager whose bonus is tied to some vanity measurement of how many users are engaging with the new feature they launched. "How much of the user's attention and screen space can I take over in order to try to jam this unwanted feature down their throat and show huge usage numbers next performance review?"
flutas 5y ago
> - Turning off yet again the annoying computer voice announcing any navigation or volume change on my parents' new Samsung TV (accessibility option, not sure why it turned on, but it required me visiting their home in person again to turn it off) For this one, I don't think it's a software update but rather user error (though it's not clear even to me how). I myself have accidentally enabled it, there seems to be some combination of buttons on the remote that will enable it. Still not sure on the specific combo though.

layer8 5y ago

That’s anecdotal, but my mother who "grew up" on DOS and Windows was never able to grasp the relationship between the top menu bar and the application window on MacOS. I bought her a Mac in 2010 because they are supposedly more intuitive and I didn’t want to provide PC support anymore, but it was no better than Windows for her at all (also not worse overall I guess).

brimble 5y ago
I spent years thinking they [EDIT: Apple's always-top-of-screen application menus, that is] were dumb for that reason. It never occurred to me that major software vendors would be stupid and/or user-hating enough to ditch the standard top menu, when they have a whole bunch of stuff that should go in it.
- layer8 5y ago
  The top menu made sense when computer screens were small and the mouse pointer thus never far away from the top, and applications were fullscreen most of the time anyway.
  - ziml77 5y ago
    To me it seems the top menu bar is a holdover from early Mac OS. I saw a demo of one of the early versions of the OS, and it made a ton of sense there. The OS could only run a single application at a time, but that application could have multiple windows. From that perspective it's very sensible that whichever application had full control over the screen would want a menu bar global to its own windows. Now though, it's just weird to have the menu bar at the top of the screen. And it's especially strange when there's no windows for the application left but the menu bar for it is still visible (something that wouldn't be strange in the single app at a time model)
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Except that in this scenario, the application is still running, it just has no documents open. It's a nice thing to have because you can close all the documents in say Word, do some other work, and then when you need to open Word again, it's there ready to go without having to load again. The Mac seems to do a better job of having apps hanging out in the background than Windows does.

rustyminnow 5y ago

I know this is besides your point, but in Firefox there is an option to turn the menu bar back on (at least until they remove the option :/). If you go to the "Customize Toolbar" page, on the bottom left where it says "Toolbars v" you can check "[ ] Menu Bar". Hope that helps (a little)!

qwertox 5y ago
Or right-click on any free space on the top row. There's an option in the menu.
- rustyminnow 5y ago
  Oh you are right! That's how I was getting to the Customize Toolbar page too haha. Totally missed that!
- anon_123g987 5y ago
  Or press the Alt button to show the Menu bar temporarily.
brimble 5y ago
It'd occurred to me there was probably a setting to fix it, but I've forgotten to check the last couple times I've been over, because I'm a bad son :-( Thanks for confirming my suspicion, will try to remember to change that setting for them next time.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  You can also tap "alt" to make it appear, I believe, if it isn't enabled.

babypuncher 5y ago

The way Apple does it is also better design than a conventional menu bar. I can see why FF and Chrome hide it by default. Most of the actions tucked away in it are either used infrequently, or have common keyboard shortcuts. Turning it on in Firefox makes the chrome feel cluttered to me. By exporting the application's menu bar to an OS-provided panel that includes other OS-provided functions (clock, status indicators, wireless controls), they enforce both a strong level of consistency while allowing for reduced window clutter.

JadedBlueEyes 5y ago

On Windows, and most Linux apps, pressing Alt reveals a menu similar to MacOS's global menu. It's basically impossibe to discover, but it's there!

brimble 5y ago
I knew that from long long ago adventures in mouseless Windows-using, for focusing it, but not for causing it to appear if there isn't one. Thanks.

thevoiceless 5y ago

In case it's helpful: You can also tell them to right-click anywhere in the main toolbar area aside from the URL field, select "Customize Toolbar...", and then drag the "Print" button to wherever they want it. Alternatively: Hamburger menu > More tools > Customize toolbar...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

slowmovintarget 5y ago

You can turn the regular menu on for them in the options. (Firefox: Right-click on tool bar, choose "Menu Bar" option to enable.)

HWR_14 5y ago

To help your parents, in FireFox simply pressing Alt once conjures the familiar menus (for now). They disappear as soon as they are first used or on first mouse click.