OS X Menubar Abuse

[Simplicated]

Have you noticed a worrying trend of developers abusing the menubar recently? Some trivial apps that do simple, mundane tasks have their icons added to the menubar "for quick access", as some developers claim. Some even have these icons just for the Preferences windows.

This trend is alarming. I want my desktop to be as clutter-free as possible, but my menubar is being inundated by these superfluous icons. Hey, this isn't Windows. We have the damn Dock for the same ease of use!

What do you think?

EDIT: Here are the apps that have these unnecessary icons, although some of them can be disabled:
1Password
Dropbox
Growl
Xmarks

 

[maflynn]

I don't use growl, and dropbox's menubar is needed imo. I like to see what I'm consuming or pause the syncing.

I don't use the other apps you listed. Of the other apps that may use the menubar, I dont' see it as abuse. For instance little snapper is there and I use it on a daily basis.

 

[PlaceofDis]

i definitely don't understand why 1Password now has a menubar item. but as was said, i think the Dropbox one is good to have since it shows you when your stuff is syncing and when its done as well as how much space you have left. But i will agree that overall it seems that more and more apps are turning to the menubar for mostly useless reasons.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

As I understand it, it's due to app store rules. All running apps must display either a dock icon or a menubar icon. You can't have a background app running without a way to access it, and you can't add a preference pane for it either.

 

[sutherland]

As I understand it, it's due to app store rules. All running apps must display either a dock icon or a menubar icon. You can't have a background app running without a way to access it, and you can't add a preference pane for it either.

That sounds like something Apple would do, but I'm running Growl without a menubar or dock icon right now. I guess it's possible some apps were grandfathered in before that rule.

 

[robgendreau]

I wonder if I could get so many going that at some point the menubar would collide with the dock....

 

[stil]

I use Bartender.

It can completely hide menubar apps (including system apps) and/or you can hide them in a drop down menu that's displayed either by clicking on the bartender icon or by using a hot key.

Hidden

Drop down

There are still menubar items I completely hide that I don't need in the drop down menu.

 

[mus0r]

I use Bartender.

It can completely hide menubar apps (including system apps) and/or you can hide them in a drop down menu that's displayed either by clicking on the bartender icon or by using a hot key.

Hidden
Image

Drop down
Image

There are still menubar items I completely hide that I don't need in the drop down menu.

What are you using to mod your UI, may I ask?

 

[Cyrup]

I definitely see your point.

I once had around 4/5 app icons in the Menu bar, it gets hetic!
However, I'm one for aesthetics and ease of access, so I do like having -particular- apps in my menu bar sometimes.
I think ALL apps should have an option to remove their icon from the bar though, that seems like a reasonable thing for developers to do.
Or maybe they do, I'm not sure.

 

[Mal]

I use Bartender.

It can completely hide menubar apps (including system apps) and/or you can hide them in a drop down menu that's displayed either by clicking on the bartender icon or by using a hot key.

There are still menubar items I completely hide that I don't need in the drop down menu.

That's really cool, I just installed it, but it doesn't seem to work well with Spotlight. Unfortunately, it's also all or nothing for the System icons, so I can't hide some and still show Spotlight. That means all I can do is hide my third-party ones, which are the ones I'm more likely to want to keep visible. Needs more fine-grained control. Worth keeping an eye on, though.

jW

 

[stil]

That's really cool, I just installed it, but it doesn't seem to work well with Spotlight. Unfortunately, it's also all or nothing for the System icons, so I can't hide some and still show Spotlight. That means all I can do is hide my third-party ones, which are the ones I'm more likely to want to keep visible. Needs more fine-grained control. Worth keeping an eye on, though.

jW

Yeah, I should have mentioned that.

I use Alfred instead of Spotlight so I forgot.

 

[Ddyracer]

That's really cool, I just installed it, but it doesn't seem to work well with Spotlight. Unfortunately, it's also all or nothing for the System icons, so I can't hide some and still show Spotlight. That means all I can do is hide my third-party ones, which are the ones I'm more likely to want to keep visible. Needs more fine-grained control. Worth keeping an eye on, though.

jW

It's in beta though. But, it would be cool to see vertical positioning to give more control.

 

[stil]

What are you using to mod your UI, may I ask?

If you mean the colour of the icons, That's just how it looked when I took a screenshot. It looks normal on screen. For example the Dropbox icon is blue.

But I do use MenuBarFilter to turn the menubar dark. I like dark, sometimes black backgrounds and I find the light menubar distracting. It inverts the colour of the icons from black to white. Perhaps it had an effect on the screenshot.