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Apple really needs to just build this functionality into macOS already. You shouldn't need to pay someone else to shove icons into a drawer. And on the new Mac

by hbn 2y ago

Apple really needs to just build this functionality into macOS already. You shouldn't need to pay someone else to shove icons into a drawer. And on the new MacBooks with a notch through the center of the menu bar, it always seems like the icons on the right and the menus for the focused app on the left are ever encroaching towards that space.

wlesieutre 2y ago
Especially for people using larger sizes for accessibility, the insufficient menubar space is a silly problem that's been around for years and they've recently made much worse by adding the notch and expanding the spacing between menuextras. It's usually OK if you're in an application that only has File, Edit, View, Window, Help, but once you get into real productivity software you're going to have menu items overflowing to the right side of the notch and your important menu extras (like VPNs) become totally inaccessible when you run out of space.
- dpedu 2y ago
  Eh. I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't. I remember back on windows xp, it felt like every darn app needed its own tray icon for some reason. To be fair, windows xp did have the ability to hide and show certain icons built-in.
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    > I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't Well clearly that's not working because every app has a tray icon. It's time to catch up with Windows XP and let users control which ones are important and which ones get hidden. And the hidden ones should still be accessible. Bartender really nailed all that and it's sad that a 3rd party has to come in and fix this.
    - dpedu 2y ago
      We'd be more likely to see Apple apply their infamous restrictions here, as opposed to opening things up more and lettings developers go hog wild. Bartender exists because it's a solution to a problem.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Almost 100% of the apps with tray icons don't really need them. They're basically marketing: If you're in charge of brand management for an app company, and there is a way to get your brand on the user's screen at all times for free, you're going to always do it, regardless of whether or not the user needs it there. Just stick some kind of context menu on the icon so you can at least justify it. I'd love to know the actual end-user click rate for these tray icons. I bet many are near zero.
      - dpedu 2y ago
        What's comical about this is that most apps ALREADY have a persistent icon on the screen - the Dock icon. From what I've seen, most mac users don't enable dock hiding, so it's always there. It's just bad design.
        3D30497420 2y ago
        Somewhat. I have a corporate laptop that include a bunch of system admin/security/network apps, plus others that don't show in the dock (Meeter, Magnet, etc.).
        wlesieutre 2y ago
        Ironically, a lot of the menu extras are 3rd party utilities for window management, display management, power management, hotkeys, search, etc. being used to supplement parts of the OS with limited built-in capability, but then to fix all the menu extras you have to install another one because macOS sucks at that too These types of things tend to not have a dock icon, because they run in the background and don’t have their own windows that you common interact with or need to activate
paulirwin 2y ago
> Apple really needs to just build this functionality into macOS already. ... or at least allow API access for third-party/OSS apps to do this without needing full screen recording permissions!
oidar 2y ago
They do have it built in - but only for the default menubar items - like battery, wifi, bluetooth - etc. You can shove all of those into the control center. It works well enough for me that I don't think I need bartender anymore.
- iamcreasy 2y ago
  But then you need to click on control center to see those icons...I just want to know if I am muted with a quick glance.
- hbn 2y ago
  Those are the ones I want visible though. The stuff I want to hide is infrequently used things, stuff like icons for passively running background apps, stuff like the JetBrains toolbox updater, zscaler on my work machine, etc.
brtkdotse 2y ago
I’ve tried switching from Windows to MacOS three times over the past few years and each time I run up against the wall of having to research, choose and purchase small utilities to fix things that I never in a million years would’ve guessed would be an issue. Windows management. File handler. Menu bar organizers. The list goes on.
- jmuguy 2y ago
  Well some of this is just getting used to MacOS though - Finder is a pretty huge adjustment (and honestly just not as good as Explorer). I agree that window management was probably the biggest sticking point for me. That being said - beyond being able to drag and snap windows side by side in Windows, I wasn't aware of any built-in management (or at least - thats all I missed when I switched a while back) that was missing in MacOS.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    Yeah, a lot of the friction comes from macOS being one of the only surviving major desktops that isn’t based on a Win9X paradigm, instead being a blend of classic Mac OS and NeXTSTEP (both dating back to the 80s) with a smattering of modern Apple. For longtime Mac users, Windows (and winlike Linux DEs) present almost as much friction.
  - djhn 2y ago
    I’m so used to column view as a metaphor for my files and directories that I don’t understand how non-mac people deal with essentially being forced to memorise their directory structure and hierarchy.
    - eviks 2y ago
      DOpus has a collapsible tree view with a few big issues remaining (don't think it has columns, but I don't find them useful on a Mac either, also use tree view there)
- bityard 2y ago
  If you hold down an alphanumeric key in MacOS, it automatically pops up an emoji selector. This is fine, except if you are someone (like me) who occasionally holds down keys to take advantage of key repeat _and_ uses vim keybindings in a few specific non-terminal applications. There is no GUI to disable this behavior, you have to drop to a terminal, run a command, and then reboot the machine. This is the example I now use whenever a Mac user says Linux is a pain to configure.
eviks 2y ago
They won't be able to make as powerful of an app as illustrated by plenty of other advanced customization apps touching on almost every "core" OS features that they've already built in So instead they should make it easier to achieve this icon management without too invasive permissions

by hbn 2y ago

wlesieutre 2y ago

Especially for people using larger sizes for accessibility, the insufficient menubar space is a silly problem that's been around for years and they've recently made much worse by adding the notch and expanding the spacing between menuextras. It's usually OK if you're in an application that only has File, Edit, View, Window, Help, but once you get into real productivity software you're going to have menu items overflowing to the right side of the notch and your important menu extras (like VPNs) become totally inaccessible when you run out of space.

dpedu 2y ago
Eh. I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't. I remember back on windows xp, it felt like every darn app needed its own tray icon for some reason. To be fair, windows xp did have the ability to hide and show certain icons built-in.
- wlesieutre 2y ago
  > I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't Well clearly that's not working because every app has a tray icon. It's time to catch up with Windows XP and let users control which ones are important and which ones get hidden. And the hidden ones should still be accessible. Bartender really nailed all that and it's sad that a 3rd party has to come in and fix this.
  - dpedu 2y ago
    We'd be more likely to see Apple apply their infamous restrictions here, as opposed to opening things up more and lettings developers go hog wild. Bartender exists because it's a solution to a problem.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Almost 100% of the apps with tray icons don't really need them. They're basically marketing: If you're in charge of brand management for an app company, and there is a way to get your brand on the user's screen at all times for free, you're going to always do it, regardless of whether or not the user needs it there. Just stick some kind of context menu on the icon so you can at least justify it. I'd love to know the actual end-user click rate for these tray icons. I bet many are near zero.
    - dpedu 2y ago
      What's comical about this is that most apps ALREADY have a persistent icon on the screen - the Dock icon. From what I've seen, most mac users don't enable dock hiding, so it's always there. It's just bad design.
      - 3D30497420 2y ago
        Somewhat. I have a corporate laptop that include a bunch of system admin/security/network apps, plus others that don't show in the dock (Meeter, Magnet, etc.).
      - wlesieutre 2y ago
        Ironically, a lot of the menu extras are 3rd party utilities for window management, display management, power management, hotkeys, search, etc. being used to supplement parts of the OS with limited built-in capability, but then to fix all the menu extras you have to install another one because macOS sucks at that too These types of things tend to not have a dock icon, because they run in the background and don’t have their own windows that you common interact with or need to activate

paulirwin 2y ago

> Apple really needs to just build this functionality into macOS already. ... or at least allow API access for third-party/OSS apps to do this without needing full screen recording permissions!

oidar 2y ago

They do have it built in - but only for the default menubar items - like battery, wifi, bluetooth - etc. You can shove all of those into the control center. It works well enough for me that I don't think I need bartender anymore.

iamcreasy 2y ago
But then you need to click on control center to see those icons...I just want to know if I am muted with a quick glance.
hbn 2y ago
Those are the ones I want visible though. The stuff I want to hide is infrequently used things, stuff like icons for passively running background apps, stuff like the JetBrains toolbox updater, zscaler on my work machine, etc.

brtkdotse 2y ago

I’ve tried switching from Windows to MacOS three times over the past few years and each time I run up against the wall of having to research, choose and purchase small utilities to fix things that I never in a million years would’ve guessed would be an issue. Windows management. File handler. Menu bar organizers. The list goes on.

jmuguy 2y ago
Well some of this is just getting used to MacOS though - Finder is a pretty huge adjustment (and honestly just not as good as Explorer). I agree that window management was probably the biggest sticking point for me. That being said - beyond being able to drag and snap windows side by side in Windows, I wasn't aware of any built-in management (or at least - thats all I missed when I switched a while back) that was missing in MacOS.
- jwells89 2y ago
  Yeah, a lot of the friction comes from macOS being one of the only surviving major desktops that isn’t based on a Win9X paradigm, instead being a blend of classic Mac OS and NeXTSTEP (both dating back to the 80s) with a smattering of modern Apple. For longtime Mac users, Windows (and winlike Linux DEs) present almost as much friction.
- djhn 2y ago
  I’m so used to column view as a metaphor for my files and directories that I don’t understand how non-mac people deal with essentially being forced to memorise their directory structure and hierarchy.
  - eviks 2y ago
    DOpus has a collapsible tree view with a few big issues remaining (don't think it has columns, but I don't find them useful on a Mac either, also use tree view there)
bityard 2y ago
If you hold down an alphanumeric key in MacOS, it automatically pops up an emoji selector. This is fine, except if you are someone (like me) who occasionally holds down keys to take advantage of key repeat _and_ uses vim keybindings in a few specific non-terminal applications. There is no GUI to disable this behavior, you have to drop to a terminal, run a command, and then reboot the machine. This is the example I now use whenever a Mac user says Linux is a pain to configure.

eviks 2y ago

They won't be able to make as powerful of an app as illustrated by plenty of other advanced customization apps touching on almost every "core" OS features that they've already built in So instead they should make it easier to achieve this icon management without too invasive permissions