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Customize the Menubar

L

LemmycautioN

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 29, 2008
84
0
Seattle
Lately I've been noticing that my menubar is getting very crowded. When I'm using most applications I can't see a few of my menubar items. I can see all of them when I'm in Finder, but most other apps force a few of the menubar items out. I don't want to have to get rid of my menubar items, I use all but 3 of them on a regular basis, and even those three serve some useful function. What are my options. I really want to find an application that allows the menubar to be split into 2 rows, one on top of the other.

I included a picture of the menubar when I'm in the Finder. I have a few applications that cut out the 10-12 left-most items.

Any ideas?

Screen%20shot%202010-09-27%20at%201.40.34%20PM.jpg


Screen%20shot%202010-09-27%20at%204.58.37%20PM.jpg
 
My only suggestion is to remove them and find another way to access the functionality. Like the blue-tooth, icon. Do you really need that all the time, why not access that via the preference pane. The same goes with the international (american flag) settings.
 
maflynn said:
My only suggestion is to remove them and find another way to access the functionality. Like the blue-tooth, icon. Do you really need that all the time, why not access that via the preference pane. The same goes with the international (american flag) settings.
Click to expand...

I really don't want to have to do that. There are literally twelve that I would need to remove and there are a couple others that pop up when i'm using certain apps - like my proxy etc. I saw a piece of software that moves the upper left stuff into the application window like in windows. I don't really want to have to do that, but there are so many customization apps there has to be some solution.
:eek:
 
Gregg2 said:
Don't think you're gonna find that, but I don't go looking for such things.

So, what size is your monitor? How good are your eyes?
Click to expand...

LemmycautioN said:
I'm on a 15 inch macbook pro, the resolution is 1440 X 900 (the max for this screen)
Click to expand...

Good job! You deciphered that well. So, the obvious solution probably hasn't escaped you either. I imagine funds are an issue, as they are for most of us.
 
Gregg2 said:
Good job! You deciphered that well. So, the obvious solution probably hasn't escaped you either. I imagine funds are an issue, as they are for most of us.
Click to expand...

The obvious solution is to find an application that creates two rows for the menu bar or a small floating window below the menubar for third party menubar items. There are applications that create multiple docks, so one that creates an additional menubar isn't too far fetched.

Getting a new computer, or an additional monitor for my laptop, would be like buying a new car because the dash-panel isn't bright enough.

I have found applications that darken the menubar, double the menubar across two monitors, move the left half of the menubar into application windows; so doubling the menubar in one window is not a stretch at all.
 
Agree with maflynn. That's "too many" menubar items, not only does it bloat your display but it also adds to CPU activity, which I would avoid on a laptop for the sake of preserving battery life in the long run.
 
Bernard SG said:
Agree with maflynn. That's "too many" menubar items, not only does it bloat your display but it also adds to CPU activity, which I would avoid on a laptop for the sake of preserving battery life in the long run.
Click to expand...

Alright, that's great but it isn't really helpful. Most of those menubar items function ONLY in the menu bar. iStat menus for example doesn't run outside of the menubar and with what I use my computer for I NEED to know what my processors, RAM, and Hard Disks are doing. I also need to know my processor's temperature and fan speed (sometimes I have to kick up the fan speed manually and letting a processor exceed 200° F is not smart). DropBox, Hyperspaces, Blast, Awaken, iStat menus, and a few others don't offer you a choice to take them out of the menubar. Also, I need to see my battery status, etc etc etc.

It absolutely does not bloat your display. The menubar takes up the same amount of space regardless of how many items are in it. And if it's an aesthetic question I couldn't care less what people think of how it looks. I'm more interested in functionality. Also, processor speed? Combined they use less than 5% of my processor, some of them - like iFreeMem - don't use any of the processor until I utilize them.
 
Tell you what. Develop your own solution or search the internet for what you want.

You can break a lot of that stuff out. For example, you can use GeekTool or Nerdtool to get stats on the desktop. You don't need growl in the menubar.

You can get dropbox updates from Growl.

Do you really need access to scripts from the menu bar?
 
All I can say is wow.... wow...

I've seen PCs with that many icons in the tray area, but never a Mac. I have my power, speaker icon, wireless, time machine, bluetooth, clock, and spotlight. Why in the world do you need all the others??

The only extras I have are on my work iMac; Logmein and Remote Managament indicator.

I know we have crazy ridiculous processing power nowadays and it doesn't matter like it did just a short while ago, but every little extra doo-dad takes memory and slows down your machine.

Just my opinion of course... please don't be offended.

EDIT: Seconded on the iStat widget from below...
 
Drop the istats or whatever you have telling you fan speed and everything else you dont need to know and use smcfaccontrol, shows fan speed and allows you to change speed. There you just saved like 5 spaces and use the istat widget if you really need to know everything else.
 
js81 said:
All I can say is wow.... wow...

I've seen PCs with that many icons in the tray area, but never a Mac. I have my power, speaker icon, wireless, time machine, bluetooth, clock, and spotlight. Why in the world do you need all the others??
Click to expand...

My own thoughts exactly! Have you considered widgets?
 
I hate widgets, I try very hard not to use them.

SMCfancontroller gave me serious problems and was extremely unstable. It also required a whole terminal procedure to fully uninstall it.

Widgets use memory whether they're being used or not too. (assuming they're in not docked in the dashboard)
Check your activity monitor for dashboard client.
They use almost as much RAM as my menubar items except I can always see them and I can always interact with them.

I really don't understand why you people don't want a lot of menubar items. They don't take up nearly as much RAM and CPU as you guys are imagining.
That space is completely wasted anyway and having that area to interact with system controls and dockless apps is extremely useful.

Also, just because a few people have never heard of an app that does this doesn't mean one doesn't exist. There are thousands of apps out there that I'm sure none of us have heard of. Did you guys know that there's an app that you can use to start and stop TomCat without having to use command line in the terminal? There are so many apps out there, just because you guys haven't heard of it doesn't mean there isn't something out there?
 
LemmycautioN said:
There are so many apps out there, just because you guys haven't heard of it doesn't mean there isn't something out there?
Click to expand...

Correct. Yet several respondees in this thread have been forum members for years and have thousands of replies. I'm a little surprised spinnerlys and/or GGJ haven't chimed in yet and maybe they'll think of something, but I have never heard of anything that will double the height of the menu bar to allow for a second row of menu bar items.
 
I've had worse on other Macs. This one actually is pretty orderly.
 

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LemmycautioN said:
Finally somebody that understands the power of the menubar when utilized!!!!
Click to expand...

I also use my menu bar for plenty of things and the truth is that I sometimes run out of menu bar space. I've searched the web looking for some kind of solution, but found nothing yet.

I think writing an app to double the height of the menu bar and allow a second row of menu bar items is a great idea.

I hope something good comes up soon.
 
Instead of an entirely additional menubar, how about something that will allow you to scroll through the icons in the menu bar? Something that will let you move them around horizontally with the swipe of a finger or two, just like everything else.
 
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