
Mac Menu Bars - imd23
http://macmenubars.com/
======
the_mitsuhiko
What really frustrates me is how many apps that are useful in the menu bar do
not have monochrome icons.

Cisco's anyconnect is a super bright icon. Tunnelblick is either yellow or the
icon looks super washed out and does not work with retina displays. Dropbox
defaults to a colorful icon (why!?)

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k-mcgrady
I think a lot more apps might go colorful with Yosemite. If you switch to dark
mode the monochrome icons don't really work. So either go with a colorful icon
or design two (light and dark) monochrome icons. Not too sure if you can
switch the icon automatically based on the system theme though.

~~~
Lockyy
Well considering most of the time you have a flipped monochrome icon anyway
for when the icon is highlighted it'd just be a case of switching between the
two.

I'm definitely curious if you can switch automatically. It'd be a huge
oversight if you couldn't.

~~~
mrsteveman1
Bjango says[1] they've made iStat Menus 5 compatible with dark mode, I'd be
shocked if that wasn't automatic. And a project[2] on github has some
discussion about solutions to make it automatic, looks simpler than I first
assumed.

[1][http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/](http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/)

[2][https://github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-
Reverser/pull/11](https://github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-Reverser/pull/11)

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scraplab
Shameless plug: I made a silly little Mac menu bar app called Satellite Eyes
that automatically changes your desktop image to the satellite/map view from
overhead your current location. I just pushed out a version that supports
retina quality tiles, where available.

[http://satelliteeyes.tomtaylor.co.uk](http://satelliteeyes.tomtaylor.co.uk)

~~~
helipad
Is there a way to run the app but hide the icon?

~~~
scraplab
Not at the moment. The icon shows useful information like whether a map is
downloading or there's a location error. It's all open source, so happy to
accept a pull request though.

[https://github.com/tomtaylor/satellite-
eyes/](https://github.com/tomtaylor/satellite-eyes/)

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binaryanomaly
The content on the site seems rather old?

Anyway best app to manage the menubar is imho
[http://www.macbartender.com/](http://www.macbartender.com/) and well worth
the price.

~~~
cseelus
Yes Bartender really gives you back your clean menubar and enables you to
regain control over it. Here is mine:
[http://cl.ly/image/0s0U2V0B000m](http://cl.ly/image/0s0U2V0B000m)

I really don't like the approach of some OSX developers to ignore Apples
Interface guidelines regarding the menubar, either accidentally or at will,
maybe to elevate their apps inside the menubar with colored icons.

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Brajeshwar
Besides the usual suspects, such as Dropbox, TextExpander, Fantastical; I have
"The Clock"[1] which shows me time of cities I added. The Clock allows me to
slide the timer to see what time will it be anywhere in the world against
another clock or my local clock. Other utilities such as Spectable[2],
1Password[3] Helper stays totally hidden and is nowhere to be seen even in the
menubar.

All of the above menubar apps are managed by Bartender[4], which allows me to
show/hide, hide in bar but show in bartender or totally hide it.

1\. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-clock-the-best-world-
clo...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-clock-the-best-world-
clock/id488764545?mt=12)

2\. [http://spectacleapp.com/](http://spectacleapp.com/)

3\. [https://agilebits.com/onepassword](https://agilebits.com/onepassword)

4\. [http://www.macbartender.com/](http://www.macbartender.com/)

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riffraff
interesting, but appears to have been last updates 2 years ago.

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ropiku
I love iStat as a replacement for system controls: the clock, battery and
seeing stats for cpu, temperature, network.

[http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/](http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/)

~~~
allegory
Thanks for posting this - just what I needed!

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DonHopkins
The Mac used to plop down icons of the extensions it was loading as it booted.
Does anyone remember the "vanity icon" extension that you could put a lot of
other cool looking icons into, and it would plop those icons down, delaying
between each, as it booted?

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stevewillows
The worst part about the menubar itself is that you can't set it to be black
without an add-on.

Modifying dock icons isn't hard, but it shouldn't be necessary.

My menubar: Flux, Gmail, Twitter, Temperature, Network, Time.

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minimax
What do you use for temperature?

~~~
stevewillows
smcFanControl -- I use it on my old early-2008 MBP. It had a known issue with
the GPU. I had it replaced once, and live with the fear it will happen again.

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frantzmiccoli
Really good concept, I have already found some useful productivity apps. Maybe
we could throw similar approaches for sharing general configuration tips on
HN.

