Application menu when using 2 screens

you can change the location of the menubar to be either one display or the other, but afaik you can't have it dynamically change depending on which monitor the current app shows up on.

 

In Displays Arrangements Pane of Monitors System Pref. Drag Menu Bar To Other Monitor

You understand how to move the menu bar to either screen by dragging it's little representaion in the Arrangements Pane from one screen to the other?

 

That is not the way OS X works. You can't disable the Apple menu any more than you can disable the Start menu and task bar in Windows. You're still thinking in Windows terms, where a window == a program. In OS X, the program can be running without any windows open, which I think logically makes more sense. That, and because of basic HCI guidelines, is why the menu bar is at the top of the screen.

You can't. That would be like having the Start menu on two screens simultaneously in Windows.

I know how you're feeling, because I first wondered the same things when I started using OS X. However, I mostly use keyboard shortcuts, so in the rare occasion I have to use a menu in the menu bar it's not a big deal.

 

technically this is possible but your going to hope you know how to program, and hope your apps are open source

 

I agree with you, having the menu 'stuck' to one screen but with application windows on both screens does seem weird and hard to get used to. And why should I have to get used to it?

 

Keyboard shortcuts are your friends.

 

Apple should make the menu bar dynamic. So that the menubar spreads across both monitors but if your active window is on the second monitor the menubar on that monitor becomes active and all the menu options display on that menubar. This would easily solve the problem.

 

Apple can't really make the menu bar different for each screen, based on which windows are in front on which screens, because what if one window covers both screens? Or a program has a window open on both screens?

In addition, menu-per-program is just plain ugly, in my opinion. Having a single menu bar is not a limitation unless you are using multiple monitors.

The only thing I can see Apple doing is either making the menu duplicate for both monitors, or allowing you to "drag off" a copy of the menu (just a red x button, perhaps a yellow - mutton, and then the menu items), and then you can use that. Perhaps you could even dock the new menu to different sides of the screen, so you could have the main menu at the top, a copy of it down the left side, and a floating copy of it in the middle of the second monitor.

I wonder if Apple will do it?