

GTFO of my menu bar - zbowling
http://zacbowling.com/menu-bar

======
malandrew
When apps install in the menubar, my biggest concern isn't their visual
presence, but the resources they are taking up by being one of those apps. The
Adobe updater app for example doesn't need to be anything more than a cron
job.

I only tolerate the Adobe app because I use Illustrator and Photoshop, but I
certainly don't need the other crap like Behance and Typekit. the the
Google+ification of services everything. If you want to add a cloud component
to things, fine, just make sure it's 100% optional and that I only need to be
aware of that option at install time and never see it again if I choose not to
install it.

I really wish all things like these were first written at terminal CLI apps
first and that the GUIs were optional defaults that you could forego entirely.

~~~
GuiA
I don't think you get to complain about these sort of things when you make the
choice to use OSX.

~~~
malandrew
I'm on the verge of setting up my MBP to double boot to Arch or Debian and
slowly moving as much as possible to Linux.

Unfortunately, neither Illustrator or Photoshop are available on Linux. Are
their open-source equivalents anywhere near the quality of their Adobe
counterparts yet? I've yet to try InkScape, but I know that the last time I
used Gimp, it was excruciating. I would rather work via ImageMagick, RMagick
or node-canvas than subject myself to gimp.

~~~
w1ntermute
Just run those apps in a Windows VM. VirtualBox seamless mode is quite nice.

~~~
malandrew
I reckoned that was an option, but since migrating to OS X, I have never had
to have a Windows VM installed and couldn't be happier. Having to put a
Windows VM in order to migrate to Linux kind of turns my stomach a bit.

------
Pxtl
One thing Microsoft learned is to empower your developers...but also assume
they're absolute dicks. Since Vista, MS has learned to make the OS work around
all these terrible habits. Tray icons auto-hide. The start menu is scrollable
and searchable and actually digging through it is kinda discouraged. Apps that
require admin permissions get annoying uac pop-up messages.

~~~
poolpool
One of the biggest requirements iOS was designed around was "don't trust lazy
or shitty devs" and people still freak out about the huge amount of
restrictions placed on apps. I'm not sure there is any winning.

~~~
Houshalter
I think a decent solution is to allow users to give apps permission to do
things like that, but not have them by default and make the app work even if
it wants those things. For example I had some browser extension that wanted to
have access to my entire history, even though it didn't need it at all. If you
said no it wouldn't work at all. As opposed to giving it some default value
for history like "the only site I've ever been to is google.com."

You should be able to have control over small things too. Like "allow this app
internet access" or "allow internet access only when in use" and stuff like
that.

~~~
xfalcox
like you can do now on some aosp roms on android. Installing Facebook and
taking away all those permissions is awesome!

------
rpwilcox
The scenario sucks, and I really do like apps that give you the option
(display in the Dock or display in the menu bar).

There is Bartender
([http://www.macbartender.com/](http://www.macbartender.com/)), which lets you
shove all your non-critical menu bar items into a second menu bar like thing
that you can hide away. So, while I have 18?? some odd status item apps
running right now, by default I only really see the 6 or 7 most critical ones.

Bartender doesn't work with all status menu items, notably Chrome's
notification status menu (maybe it's changed in the month or so since I last
checked)... but Bartender "solves" the "GTFO out of menu bar" problem.

~~~
larrybolt
Bartender does even more than that, you can make certain icons reappear in the
menu bar when they change for a certain period to make you aware of them.

And combined with iStat menus I even make for instance my battery-icon hide
whenever docked and fully charged.

Also, quite some icons such as the WiFi, Volume, Bluetooth are only visible at
all times in my case because I need a quick and easy way to alter the settings
or be aware of them. This problem can be solved for me by automating these
settings by profiles or my location such as School/home/on-the-move. This can
be achieved by apps such as ControlPlane
([http://www.controlplaneapp.com](http://www.controlplaneapp.com)), you can
even dimm your screen, kill apps that need a network connection to work such
as Dropbox/Droplr/Twitter...

Very similar to what Llama
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llam...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llama))
does on my Android phone.

~~~
ballard
I use pretty much the same setup:

[http://screencast.com/t/qlSsmaUCp](http://screencast.com/t/qlSsmaUCp)

I have controlplane set DNS to dnscrypt-proxy after any captive portal
nonsense. (Opendns UI is slow and broken.)

~~~
ballard
Ditched controlplane bc the shell evidence source hangs. Using a shell script
which is just a loop via a library launchdaemon instead.

------
hablahaha
Speaking of menu bars... I really dislike how the current application's menu
bar can infringe on the icon bar on OSX. I realize that on Windows, icons also
minimize, but on OSX you can't just show all the icons like you can in
Windows. If I'm in an app with a lot of menus, I have to switch to a less menu
intensive app to get to an icon I want (usually Hangouts) (is there some way
to change this? - Google returned nothing). Back when I switched to OSX from
Windows, I was baffled by the one bar to rule them all approach. While it has
it merits, allowing the bar to show infinite icons and letting apps control
their menu/options width detracts from its 'cleanliness'.

~~~
yaks_hairbrush
There's this app...

[http://www.ortisoft.de/en/accessmenubarapps/](http://www.ortisoft.de/en/accessmenubarapps/)

Essentially, "knock" the top of the screen twice with the mouse, and it'll
switch to this application which has no menus. "Knock" twice again and it'll
go back to your app.

------
dmak
Every application should provide a monochrome icon!

~~~
geetee
Just got a MacBook Pro and the Dropbox icon has been bothering me. Sure enough
there was a setting for this! Thanks :D

~~~
lylebarrere
I wish the monochrome icon for Dropbox would do a better job showing me when
the app is syncing or in sync. That's the only reason I still have the color
icon.

~~~
ballard
One approach might be to photoshop hack the color icons to greyscale. They're
usually in the resource bundle.

~~~
lylebarrere
That's a great idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

------
downer94
And so, as Microsoft Windows continues its precipitous decline, that bastard
abomination known as the Windows systray icon finds a way to ride the mass
exodus to Mac OS, much like small pox found its way to The New World across
the ocean.

~~~
kunai
Except for the fact that there's no mass exodus to OS X. Market-share values
have remained mostly stable for the past couple of years. This is more
attributable to the amount of apps developed for the Mac as more developers
switch to it instead of Windows machines.

~~~
ballard
Apple lost a little ground to Windows 8 and tablets, where it of course
dominates with iPad. This makes sense because some people were able to ditch
their laptops almost entirely.

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/09/mac-shipments-
cont...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/09/mac-shipments-continue-to-
shrink-as-apple-loses-ground-in-us-pc-market)

------
tomasien
I make Coffitivity.com and our Mac App is a menu bar app, and people love it.
I'm not here to talk about that - we've never had a complaint about where it
lives, where it lives is (as far as we can tell) is flawless in the menu bar.

What is shocking is how many users report bugs about the app because they
think nothing happens when they open it, even though we alert them precisely
to where it is with a dropdown. To a TON of users, that dropdown means nothing
- there's no precedent to them for an app living there so it seems like just
something to "find the x" to get out of.

Pretty interesting UX thing. Hush (coffitivity.com/hush) has the same issue.

~~~
superamit
I hadn't seen Hush before -- neat idea! I only wish it'd let me silence
notifications forever, or for days at a time.

~~~
tomasien
You can! Just hit "continue without timer" and le poof!

------
moonie1
Hold cmd-option and drag it out. Problem solved.

~~~
cryowaffle
Cute but doesn't work with all icons.

------
ChikkaChiChi
Isn't the better option to just not install crap on your computer? This sounds
like complaining that you don't like television shows on a certain channel
when you have a thousand to choose from...

~~~
harlanlewis
Not everything that puts crap in the menubar is crap. The Google Chrome
Notification is an egregious offender - it appeared without warning, ugly and
unretinafied, and can only be (temporarily) removed by (1) doing everything it
asks, (2) then quitting and relaunching Chrome. It's highly-visible systemwide
placement for minor system-oriented tasks, and unnecessary given how much
interface Chrome already has to work with. It sucks, but saying "you just
shouldn't use Chrome" is a pretty weak solution for the small but conspicuous
blemish.

That said, the menubar is a legitimate place for lots of things. It's great
for services (eg dropbox), status (eg battery), and shortcuts (eg wifi).

It's a useful distinction from app icons in the Dock, which generally use more
traditional desktop windows. I always like it when an app in the grey area (eg
Twitterific) lets users choose where the icon lives. Like the author, I resort
to Bartender to manage them all.

I wonder if menubar apps will eventually be moved into OSX's Notifications
sidebar. I don't want them there, but I'd guess Apple prefers shoving into a
drawer rather than sherlocking Bartender.

[edited a li'l so it made more sense]

~~~
GuiA
Chrome is becoming worse and worse, just to push Google's interests further. I
don't get why there are still hackers who don't use just Chromium by now.

~~~
Khaine
Because Chrome has flash built in and auto-updated. Chromium does not. If you
need to use flash, and want to minimise security issues, then Chrome is the
browser of choice.

------
baby
Especially now that there is this apple-like bar in Windows 7 and 8.
Applications like Skype or Evernote don't need to be in the task bar anymore.

For things like Google Music, I'm glad it is in the task bar since it is
actually doing a background job that kind fuck with you (if you're squatting a
slow wifi for example). Not having the visual reminder just makes me forget
that it is actually running.

EDIT: I just noticed that they removed Skype from the task bar. Now I'm not
complaining anymore :)

------
bjeanes
So much yes. This is why I installed bartender yesterday and now my menu bar
only has: CPU meter, battery, time. At the very end is a "..." that I can
click to expand out to everything else, should I need it. So nice.

EDIT: link for bartender
[http://www.macbartender.com/](http://www.macbartender.com/)

------
beefsack
I'm not sure being ignorant of things running inconspicuously in the
background is much better than having an icon there.

~~~
malandrew
The background one that bugs the heck out of me that keeps returning is the
"iTunes Helper". I still don't get why that even exists on OS X. It's so un-
Apple-like to have something like this exist as a Login Item in system
preferences.

------
busterbooth
I develop in Qt4, and when you want to use cross-platform notifications
without packaging the Growl API within your bundle, it is easiest to use the
QStatusBar class. I haven't found a more reliable way to display notifications
on all three major desktop platforms.

Unfortunately it clutters up your status bar.

------
gamesurgeon
Relevant: [http://www.macbartender.com](http://www.macbartender.com)

------
jscheel
Evernote is my annoyance. When I quit the app, I don't expect a menu bar to
suddenly appear.

~~~
ballard
Yup. I got tired of all the weird quirks and security issues with Evernote, so
I used cloudhq to migrate Google Drive. The quality of the resulting migrated
notes was surprisingly good.

------
vehementi
Skype on Android has a permanent icon there. That team should be ashamed of
themselves.

~~~
TillE
Maybe. But I think it's their way of saying "Skype is running and killing your
battery."

~~~
Too
Yep, android has no other mechanism of showing if a program is running or not,
except for opening the process manager. Some apps die as soon as you switch to
another and some keep running even if you select the explicit exit-button
provided by the app itself.

One could argue that the skype should be located under the common sync-
settings though, such as email. But i don't know if that allows fast enough
update rates for IM.

------
john2x
Another top offender is F.lux. You set it up one time and forget about it, and
yet it doesn't have the option to remove it from the menu bar.

~~~
thisisnotatest
FWIW, I adjust my F.lux setting all the time! When the sun sets at 5pm but I'm
still working in a brightly-lit office, I hit "disable for an hour." When I'm
in a completely dark room, I switch it all the way to the dimmest "candle"
setting.

~~~
MarkTee
The newest version has keyboard shortcuts (on Windows anyways)!

------
tonylemesmer
Also concerning is that apps like dropbox and adobe phoning home every time I
power on my computer. Little Trojans just sitting there.

------
dkoch
I never would have noticed that the Dropbox icon was the only colorful icon up
there if I hadn't read this article. Oh well.

~~~
tylerlh
You can change it to be monochrome in your Dropbox preferences.

------
SmileyKeith
This drives me insane. As long as applications let me remove them I'm good to
go though.

------
csmuk
Well the Windows System tray crapshot makes a reappearance again!

------
Double_Cast
#firstworldproblems

------
Zoomla
you always have the option to not install those apps...

