Menu Bar Size

[Pndrgnsvc]

Like many others, I find the size of the text in the Menu Bar much too small on the 27" iMac. AFAIK, there is no way to fix that.

Does Lion accommodate such a fix, à la resolution independence or some such?

 

[3282868]

Like many others, I find the size of the text in the Menu Bar much too small on the 27" iMac. AFAIK, there is no way to fix that.

Does Lion accommodate such a fix, à la resolution independence or some such?

There are tweaks such as "MacPilot" or "TinkerTool" (not free and not sure if they modify the menubar text but they do for almost all system fonts and sizes). If you have good knowledge of OS X Core Services, you can modify the menu bar icons and fonts. There are guides online and resources. For example, some modified the MenuBar to be black or grey, which simply required changing the color code and resource file for the MenuBar icons (white instead of black). It can be done, only issue with size modifications is the bar itself becoming larger, which again should be modified.

Try google searching for "MenuBar" OS X mod's or colors or size. You should find guides.

Hope this helps.

 

[Pndrgnsvc]

I looked through TinkerTool System and MacPilot and struck out both times. I then did as you suggested (checked Google) and while I found a few hits, none of the suggestions actually worked. Arrgh, strike three.

Perhaps 'tis just a problem I must live with.

 

[buckers]

Is it just the menubar text that's a problem? Perhaps you could lower the resolution?

 

[Pndrgnsvc]

Is it just the menubar text that's a problem? Perhaps you could lower the resolution?

Yes, that is correct.

I tried lowering the resolution, and that helped, but I found the trade-offs not worth the benefit.

The Apple support site has a bit of discussion, but as yet, no true solution. I remain hopeful that Lion will bring joy. 'Til then, frustration reigns...

 

[potatis]

with the program OnyX you can make the menubar white like it was in Tiger, might help readability a bit

 

[jason221]

with the program OnyX you can make the menubar white like it was in Tiger, might help readability a bit

You can do that in System Preferences. Just uncheck "Translucent Menu Bar" in the Desktop/ScreenSaver preferences.

 

[kikuchiyo]

You can do that in System Preferences

I think the comment you're replying to means you can make the SL menu bar bright white, like it used to be in Tiger. The picture you posted just makes it non-translucent and light gray, which was introduced in Leopard.

 

[Pndrgnsvc]

You can do that in System Preferences. Just uncheck "Translucent Menu Bar" in the Desktop/ScreenSaver preferences.

Image

Thanks for the suggestion. While that helps, the text size problem remains.

I remain confused (and frustrated) re the rationale Apple uses in not making the MenuBar text size a user preference.

 

[philipjj61]

If you hold Command Option and scroll the wheel you get incremental zoom. Just got a 27" Quad and this is good for now. You need to make sure this hasn't been changed in system preferences/mouse settings for it to work, but a blessing, I also have centralize pointer activated which is a little tricky to operate but I'm sure if I can push my pet dinosaur out the way for long enough, I'll get used to it.
Phil.

 

[Mhkobe]

This solution kind of sucks because Xcode is huge, however, if you choose to enable HiDPI (available with Xcode) you can select a couple of resolution independent screen resolutions (only text at the moment images will come if Apple releases it to the public [won't happen for a while]).

 

[stewacide]

You can enable an iOS like pixel-doubling mode using Quartz Debug: essentially all the UI elements will be 2x the size: some elements and apps will take advantage of the quadrupled DPI and some won't but it shouldn't break anything since at worst it will map one pixel to 4.

See: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/14#hi-dpi

edit -- actually I just tried it out and except for the menu bar nothing I've tried, Safari included, seem to take advantage of the extra DPI: Apple needs to start pushing this with devs since 'retina' desktop and laptop displays will be in reach by the next OSX release.