
Hidden Bar: macOS utility to hide unused menu bar icons, written in Swift - luckman212
https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden
======
gtmtg
For anyone who's wondering how it works: key line of code seems to be here
([https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden/blob/develop/hidden/ViewC...](https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden/blob/develop/hidden/ViewControlllers/StatusBarController.swift#L102)),
where they make the "separator" element really wide to push the icons to be
hidden offscreen.

~~~
tyingq
Apparently that trick is used in other, similar tools:
[https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer/blob/master/Dozer/StatusIc...](https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer/blob/master/Dozer/StatusIconClasses/HelperStatusIcon.swift#L10)

------
bflesch
Happy MacOS users.. In linux land, we have gnome shell which simply removed
support for menubar icons and have never re-added the functionality since.
Goodbye dropbox, slack, skype menubar icons. Try using some hacks to see their
icons again.

I'm very bitter about this.

~~~
noisem4ker
Unhappy Linux users, start appreciating the variety of choices you have in
terms of desktop environments. You don't have to suffer because you feel
subjugated by GNOME. I suggest trying KDE for a while, if you want to know
what being treated as a competent user feels like.

~~~
BoorishBears
Unhappy Linux users, try a MacBook!

POSIX without being a POS

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments or take HN threads into flamewar. We
don't want that here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
BoorishBears
Oh please.

It was clearly a humorous comment with the "substance" OSX enjoys a lot of
developer support a-la-Linux ... because of POSIX support (amongst other
things)

Anyone who uses such obvious satire as an excuse to start a flamewar could
start a flamewar over a lot less, I was under the impression I don't have to
write with petulant children being my target audience.

-

I think the most annoying thing about this is plenty of people got that
without issue, the comment existed for hours with plenty of useful discussion
from people who understood the satire...

Then some upset person taking it as a personal slight flags the post and now
it's hidden, how silly.

~~~
dang
Your intention wasn't obvious, the joke wasn't funny, and it was guaranteed to
land as a provocation with someone, since it's basically a trollish remark.

There's nothing wrong with humour per se, but most people overrate the humour
in their own comments. scott_s said it best:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289)

It looks like you've been breaking the site guidelines in other comments as
well. Would you mind reading them and sticking to the intended spirit of the
site when posting here?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
BoorishBears
"the joke wasn't funny" is your opinion, and clearly it's own kind of bait.

The comment was upvoted and well received, and even generated an actual
discussion until it was flagged and people jumped on the bandwagon.

There was nothing wrong for people who approached the comment and "assumed
good faith"

------
stinos
Reading the title I interpreted this as "utility which figures out which icons
you hardly use and puts them away". That's not what this does, but it is an
interesting idea nonetheless. I wonder if this has been implemented somewhere
(don't care which OS). I.e. I see a lot of desktop software which defaults to
discoverability (well, I think that is the choice made): show the user a
wealth of menus and buttons and status bars. Then in reality the user uses 1%
of these buttons, and the rest is just there eating screen space. For writing,
programming and graphic design this can be quite a lot of space. Automatically
shrinking that space by removing buttons the user never used after months
could help some users a bit I think. It's not the first time I encounter
people complaining about screen estate while sitting in front of an
unconfigured Visual Studio instance with menu bar, 2 rows of buttons and
status bar all on. That's like 5 lines of code, depending on font. (and if you
point to random icons and ask 'what does this button do?' they don't know, so
it really is a waste)

~~~
_jal
Personally, I hate it when applications seemingly randomly alter the
interface. It breaks my memory of where things are; I have to stop and stare
at things to figure out what happened and where that icon went.

It is like having a "helper" who hides your tools.

~~~
kzrdude
Most annoying is when it happens immediately.

The natural example in this context is of course the moving status items, in
Windows 10, which might move just after you use them once or even on hover.

But even any list which is sorted by a volatile criteria works like this. Like
the most recently used bookmarks. Maybe you want to open item 1 & 2, so you
click item 2 first and then go for clicking item 1, only they have now already
traded places because of the first click...

------
Angostura
I just commmand-drag the ones I don't want to the Trash and they're gone.

~~~
crazygringo
What, what?! You're right... how have I used Macs for decades and never known
this!

Does that always work for third-party icons too? They don't get re-added every
time you start up or anything? (Curious what you do if you change your mind
and want one back.)

~~~
npongratz
> (Curious what you do if you change your mind and want one back.)

If you want to add an application's icon to the dock, find it in the Finder
and drag the icon onto the dock.

~~~
dmd
The dock is not the menu bar.

~~~
npongratz
Ah, thank you! I forgot the context. I am sorry!

------
sbr464
I use bartender, it's worked great. Will check this one out also. Hard to go
back to clutter after using tools like these.

[https://www.macbartender.com/](https://www.macbartender.com/)

------
givinguflac
This is great! Bartender works well but I never wanted to buy it for something
so trivial. Thanks dev!

~~~
gregoriol
Bartender is a big bit more advanced than this implementation, but it's nice
to see some competition!

------
shadowsock
Dozer ([https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer](https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer))
is also open source

------
cerberusss
I wonder what happens if you drag the | button past the > hide buttom and then
click hide :)

------
Corrado
This looks really cool, not quite as functional as Bartender but definitely
more affordable. However, I'm really looking for a way to hide app icons in
the Dock and/or fast switch dialog. Things like my VPN connection or Anti-
Virus program are always showing up when I Alt+tab between programs and it's
annoying. Is there a simple, native way to hid those things?

------
jakobmi
Tiny improvement suggestion: remove the "collapse" button and show the
residual items on mouse hover of any of the top right menu bar area
automatically. Save me the extra clicks. That would be exceptional user design
:) Right now, it's not worth the extra 2 clicks for "a cleaner look", so I did
not download

------
gattilorenz
AppStore link: [https://apps.apple.com/it/app/hidden-
bar/id1452453066?mt=12](https://apps.apple.com/it/app/hidden-
bar/id1452453066?mt=12)

If the author is reading: the link on top of the github page is broken.

------
reimertz
This looks like a light version of the Vanilla app [1] but free and open
source.

Also, a clever solution to hide the unused icons!

[1][https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/](https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/)

~~~
saagarjha
I don’t think this one hides icons.

~~~
xwowsersx
It doesn't hide _unused_ ones, but it does hide menu items.

~~~
saagarjha
Ah, so it does. I just didn’t see the end of the GIF.

------
mshafer
Love how you've hacked the purpose of menu bar buttons to create such a simple
user interface - no separate menus or configuration, just drag things around!

------
nyxtom
Haha, I’m glad I’m not the only one who wanted this! Nice work

------
docdeek
An alternative to Bartender?

~~~
saagarjha
This just seems to add spacers.

Edit: it apparently hides icons as well, though it does them differently than
Bartender.

------
samat
brew cask, anyone?

------
milani
Why "written in Swift" is of any importance to be in the title?

~~~
_jal
Same reason you see engine details mentioned when talking about cars at car
forums.

~~~
wingerlang
Engines are part of the user experience in the car though, ObjC/Swift wouldn't
matter here.

~~~
wander_homer
Of course the choice of programming language can be part of the user
experience. It directly affects CPU time and memory usage, it hints at how
well the platform integration is and how big the download size is going to be.

If the title said "Hidden Bar: macOS utility to hide unused menubar icons,
written in JS (Electron)", I wouldn't even have considered clicking the link
to read more about the project, let alone install the software, because an
Electron based software to do such a minor thing like hiding menu items is
never going to deliver an acceptable user experience for me.

~~~
milani
Although I got down votes, but I dont regret my question. Now I know why it is
important for people to mention the language of a project. It makes sense now.

------
Copenjin
Thanks for making the code public, but since it's the first time I see
something like this, I don't see why you shouldn't slap a $5 price tag on it
on the Appstore :)

~~~
WaltPurvis
Maybe the author doesn't want the hassle of supporting commercial software or
just feels like giving it away.

At any rate, Bartender has been around for years, works great, and has a ton
more features.

~~~
Copenjin
My comment was an _invite_ to monetize, regardless of the motivations he could
have, right now.

------
toomim
Wow. What I always _liked_ about MacOS was that there weren't too many menubar
icons to begin with.

Back in the days of Windows 98, it became typical for every application you
installed to make a little icon in the "System Tray". Each app wanted to
advertise itself and its (usually useless) features. The System Tray became a
dustbin of crap. Eventually windows had to auto-hide them, just like you do
with a dustbin.

Windows also burdened users with useless notifications, for things like
"Battery charged!" and "Battery at 80%", that would constantly distract you.
This happened so much that PhDs in Computer Science wrote entire dissertations
and approaches to use machine learning to determine the optimal time to
interrupt the user with notifications, in an attempt to intelligently unburden
users from this nonsense. ([http://reports-
archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/hcii/CMU-HCII-06-...](http://reports-
archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/hcii/CMU-HCII-06-100.pdf))

OSX solved this problem by abstaining from those useless notifications and
icons to begin with. They didn't provide an API for app developers to add
menubar icons. So few did. But then developers wrote hacks to do so. Now there
are so many that they've become a dustbin again, and we need a new app to hide
them. It's Windows 98 all over again.

Here's an idea -- if you are noticing useless menubar icons, get rid of them.
Don't invent a new icon, that has the ability to hide other icons, and then
try to come up with a UI (or machine learning system) to discern which icons
need to be shown and hidden. Just get the design right in the first place.

Ahh... I know I know... Steve Jobs is dead... and now the whole philosophy of
getting the design right is a minority opinion. _sigh_

~~~
wlesieutre
NSStatusItem has been in OS X since at least 2008

[http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.24/24.07/NS...](http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.24/24.07/NSStatusitem/index.html)

So I have a hard time seeing how you blame menu bar icons on Steve Job’s
absence.

