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Any changes to menu bar icons in Mavericks?

parish

parish

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 14, 2009
1,082
2
Wilts., UK
One thing that annoys me about OS X is the lack of any real control over menu bar icons.

I have a lot of apps that use menu bar icons and if I have the Finder menu up I can see them all but longer menus overlap and hide some icons - the Safari menu hides 6 icons.

Cmd+drag only works for the standard OS X system icons such as WiFi, bluetooth etc. plus the icons for 3rd party apps are arranged randomly (probably in the order the apps start up).

What I would like to be able to do is drag any icon around on the menu bar and for OS X to remember the location. Also, functionality like the '>>' button on the Safari tab bar whereby overflow icons are in a drop-down list (which is managed dynamically as different menus hide different numbers of icons).

Does Mavericks go any way to addressing this? I have sent Apple feedback about it.
 
parish said:
That's perfect but, as you say, expensive. I'll try the free trial but, if I think it's worth the money, wait until 10.9 is out to make sure it still works (just in case Apple change anything )
Click to expand...

I think you'll find this App to be worth it. It's quite simply one of those little gems you can't do without IMO. It will even remove the Spotlight and Notification icons to give more room. (I use the keyboard shortcuts for these anyway).

$15 is pricey, eh? I think it's just about right and since this app isn't allowed in the App store (due to coding restraints), the developer needs a few extra bucks to make up for the lack of exposure. And I'm happy to give that.

Sadly, this is what the App Store has done to the perceived value of applications. Everyone seems to equate everything to a $5 copy of Angry Birds. :( I'm surprised there are any small time developers left that dabble with OSX apps these days.
 
Krazy Bill said:
I think you'll find this App to be worth it. It's quite simply one of those little gems you can't do without IMO. It will even remove the Spotlight and Notification icons to give more room. (I use the keyboard shortcuts for these anyway).
Click to expand...

I've installed the trial version and found a few issues with it. When waking from sleep, DropBox, Amazon Cloud Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, and Magic Prefs have all jumped back to the menu bar from the Bartender Bar. The only way I can seem to move them back is select Control Menu Bar items from the BT menu.

Also, Cloud Drive and Sky Drive icons keep moving back and forth (without sleeping). My guess is that whenever they do a sync check between the local folder and the cloud they move to the menu bar, then back again when the check is done.

Krazy Bill said:
$15 is pricey, eh? I think it's just about right and since this app isn't allowed in the App store (due to coding restraints), the developer needs a few extra bucks to make up for the lack of exposure. And I'm happy to give that.

Sadly, this is what the App Store has done to the perceived value of applications. Everyone seems to equate everything to a $5 copy of Angry Birds. :( I'm surprised there are any small time developers left that dabble with OSX apps these days.
Click to expand...

That's a very good point; hadn't thought about it like that. I guess the exposure of the App Store means apps costing only £0.69/$0.99 can earn the dev. big(gish) money.

P.S. I wouldn't install Angry Birds even if it was free - I don't do games :p
 
parish said:
Does Mavericks go any way to addressing this? I have sent Apple feedback about it.
Click to expand...
Well, so far, I'm seeing randomly rearranging menu bar icons in DP1 and DP2? Does that count? :p (I and others have reported it as a bug.)

(In other words, I boot up fresh, and all my menu bar icons line up as normal. When I go to click on them for the first time, some of them will jump to a new location in line. Once they they jump once, they stay put, and everything works. And this happens separately one time for each menu bar in a multi-display setup.)
 
jhfenton said:
Well, so far, I'm seeing randomly rearranging menu bar icons in DP1 and DP2? Does that count? :p
Click to expand...

No :p

I've found a major problem (for me) with Bartender. Whenever I start Aperture all the icons revert to the menu bar (and don't go back to the Bartender bar when I exit). I thought this maybe to do with dynamic graphics switching (I've got a retina MBP), but it isn't; I turned off dynamic (so it always uses the nVidia) but it still happens when I start Aperture.
 
parish said:
No :p

I've found a major problem (for me) with Bartender. Whenever I start Aperture all the icons revert to the menu bar (and don't go back to the Bartender bar when I exit). I thought this maybe to do with dynamic graphics switching (I've got a retina MBP), but it isn't; I turned off dynamic (so it always uses the nVidia) but it still happens when I start Aperture.
Click to expand...

I don't use Bartender, but I'm not surprised that there are cosmetic and functional bugs related to the new multiple-screen menu bar functionally. As I've seen, there are system glitches even without Bartender. I've also seen glitches related to the improved behavior of spaces too.

(The new behavior of spaces is the sole reason that--after extensive testing--I ultimately updated my personal development machine to 10.9. The ability to swipe from space to space on each screen independently is fantastic. Using the latest build Parallels 8 and DP2, I can run Windows 8 or Ubuntu 13.04 full screen on both monitors and swipe my way to an OS X desktop on either screen as needed. If need be, I can have a fully functional Windows 8 desktop on one monitor and a fully functional OS X desktop on the other monitor. It's glorious. :D)

Back to your original question, though, I'd like to be able to rearrange my menu bar icons by my perceived categories. But Mavericks doesn't seem to offer that, and it's not something that I've cared enough about to pay for.
 
jhfenton said:
I don't use Bartender, but I'm not surprised that there are cosmetic and functional bugs related to the new multiple-screen menu bar functionally. As I've seen, there are system glitches even without Bartender. I've also seen glitches related to the improved behavior of spaces too.
Click to expand...

I'm still running 10.8 - we (I) have gone off at a slight tangent since someone mentioned Bartender :eek:
 
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