Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

andretan · Feb 12, 2005, 04:25 AM

<rant>

OS X is supposed to be elegant. But the more I use it, the more cluttered my menu bar gets.

To make things worse, my screen is only a 12" (1024x768).

I've got:
-Konfabulator
-Gmailstatus
-language
-menumeters (x2)
-sound
-battery
-airport
-date (shortened)
-fast user switch

And when I use most apps (eg; Safari), quite a few of the menu apps get hidden.

Before I switched to OS X, I kinda liked that OS 9 utility bar that was always hidden away at the bottom left corner...

Konfabulator is nice, but it's kinda slow sometimes, and to view the widgets at one go, I gotta press a button to activate that Konposé thing. :bugeye:

</rant>

Is there anything like that for OS X?

Sorry if something like this has been posted before.

Randman · Feb 12, 2005, 04:49 AM

You're ranting because half of the items in your menu bar were added by you?

Puh-leeze.

You have Konfab, so you can download a gmail widget or simply have gmail forward to your Mail.app and use something like the EyeCandy widget for Mail and gmail. That takes care of one.

Slim battery monitor is better than the normal battery monitor.

I prefer CalendarClock as well.

MenuMeters can be edited to save space.

WinSwitch is free and easy to use FUS. Can change the name of the users, or een use an icon. Saves much space, lah.

OSX is elegant. You're using a lot of third-party apps.

Angus_D · Feb 12, 2005, 05:39 AM

Apple deliberately doesn't expose the API for Menu Extras for precisely this reason - the menu bar is not the best place for this sort of stuff to go.

In Tiger, I imagine several of those things could move to be on the Dashboard.

andretan · Feb 12, 2005, 08:20 AM

Originally posted by Randman:
You're ranting because half of the items in your menu bar were added by you?

Puh-leeze.

You have Konfab, so you can download a gmail widget or simply have gmail forward to your Mail.app and use something like the EyeCandy widget for Mail and gmail. That takes care of one.

Slim battery monitor is better than the normal battery monitor.

I prefer CalendarClock as well.

MenuMeters can be edited to save space.

WinSwitch is free and easy to use FUS. Can change the name of the users, or een use an icon. Saves much space, lah.

OSX is elegant. You're using a lot of third-party apps.

Well, it's a rant mah.

Yeah thanks for the tips!

But I still miss this:

Simon · Feb 12, 2005, 08:26 AM

Originally posted by andretan:
But I still miss this:
...

I don't.

The problem with that was:

jamil5454 · Feb 12, 2005, 08:46 AM

I miss the good old days of using Linux when I got fed up with Microsoft (not just Windows in particular). Now that I'm spoiled by OS X I can't get myself to use it anymore. I've got Suse 9.2 64-bit on my athlon64 right now but I find myself using my iBook as my main machine all too often.

When is Slackware gonna be 64-bit?

Superchicken · Feb 12, 2005, 10:03 AM

I get so sick of menu apps not being like Apple's menulings I don't use any. I just have iChat, battery, Clock, sound and FUS. It gives me no problems. Stop trying to store all manner of useless stuff in your menu bar and you'll be fine.

Ji Eun · Feb 13, 2005, 03:04 AM

all those menu items needing to load will also slow down your startup time substantially.
keep it minimal.

Randman · Feb 13, 2005, 04:15 AM

Originally posted by Ji Eun:
all those menu items needing to load will also slow down your startup time substantially.
keep it minimal.

Depends on ram. And most people just wake from sleep.

I have no problem with startup or processor speed.

From left, I have F10 (application launcher)
Konfabulator
Slim Battery Monitor
WinSwitch (for fast user switching)
Sound
Menumeters
AirPort
Bluetooth
More Menumeters
.Mac Menu (gives access/info on my .Mac account)
iSync
CalendarClock

PurpleGiant · Feb 13, 2005, 04:28 AM

Originally posted by Randman:
have no problem with startup or processor speed.

You do seem to have a problem with uglyness though.

Randman · 04:41 AM

Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
You do seem to have a problem with uglyness though.

Nope, just people who have nothing to contribute and even less to say ... kinda like your post, mate.

Simon · Feb 13, 2005, 04:55 AM

Umm, Randman, I think he was referring to your crappy screenshot and not you personally.

Chuckit · Feb 13, 2005, 05:04 AM

Originally posted by Simon:
I don't.

The problem with that was:

There isn't anything about the concept of a control strip that makes crashes more likely.

PurpleGiant · Feb 13, 2005, 05:22 AM

Originally posted by Simon:
Umm, Randman, I think he was referring to your crappy screenshot and not you personally.

Bingo. From what I see of Randman in his sig he seems to be quite an attractive fella

That menu bar is a sin, however.

paully dub · Feb 13, 2005, 09:00 AM

that is one ugly as menubar.

And won't most of those disappear anyway when using photoshop or some other app with a wide menu?

Randman · Feb 13, 2005, 09:11 AM

No. On a 12 maybe, but on my PB17, I've not had that problem with any app.

That said, the shot was from a couple of months ago (and not corrected in PS obviously). My current menu bar is a little cleaner, using Apple Myriad and adjusting the colors a little more closely (I was switching themes frequently back then and had gone from a dark theme back to a light one).

Still, getting back on subject, the menu bar can be made to be quite useful and functional. I prefer it over the OS9 dockling.