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Why Not Turn the Apple Menu Into a Menu Extra?
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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I was forced to use AOL the other day (I know, flame away) - it was my only resort. At one point the application froze, and while I was trying to click around, I accidentally invoked my menu bar clock and sound menu. At that point I had a tremendous idea: Why not make the Apple Menu into a Menu Extra so that it's always, globally available? The Apple Menu is supposed to be completely global under OS X, and the fact that it freezes along with the foreground application impairs that functionality. It would make much more sense to have it be accessible during a foreground application freeze, since then one could access the force quit menu item right from the frozen program.
I guess I'm really just requesting that the Apple Menu be totally global, rather than pseudo-global as it is right now; it doesn't necessarily need to be a Menu Extra. (Menu Extra's have issues of their own, of course - for instance, if you mouse over regular menus and then select a Menu Extra, then you can no longer mouse over the regular menus without clicking again.) Not an earth-shattering suggestion, simply something I think is worthwhile.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: somewhere in ohio
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Actually if the front app freezes, anything in the menubar is frozen as well. Its a Finder issue I'm sure, but all you really have to do when an app freezes is just click on the desktop if you can or the Finder icon in the Dock. Cheers!
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Seattle, WA
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That wouldn't work very well. The deal with menu extras is that they are basically mini programs that are accessed through their respective icons in the menubar. The reason that they remain accessible is because AOL was keeping the Finder tied up (holding it hostage just like in 9, hehe) but not other programs including menu extras. As for the apple menu, why would you need it in order to force quit somthing? Just use the force quit key stroke. There are lots of things the would probably prevent the apple menu from being solely a menu extra but it would be possible for somebody to write one while keeping the original.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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Originally posted by KaptainKaya:
<STRONG>Actually if the front app freezes, anything in the menubar is frozen as well. Its a Finder issue I'm sure, but all you really have to do when an app freezes is just click on the desktop if you can or the Finder icon in the Dock. Cheers!</STRONG>
Anything in the menu bar that belongs to the foreground application will freeze, true; that's why the Apple Menu freezes. Yet, you can check when a program is frozen by clicking on a Menu Extra - it will respond. They are applications separate from the rest of the menu bar, handled by their own server. I do understand that one can click on the dock/another application and then access the Apple Menu, but since it's supposedly global, it should truly be global.
Originally posted by Maelman:
<STRONG>That wouldn't work very well. The deal with menu extras is that they are basically mini programs that are accessed through their respective icons in the menubar. The reason that they remain accessible is because AOL was keeping the Finder tied up (holding it hostage just like in 9, hehe) but not other programs including menu extras. As for the apple menu, why would you need it in order to force quit somthing? Just use the force quit key stroke. </STRONG>
Actually, AOL didn't freeze the Finder up. I was just clicking around the menu bar in preparation of a command+option+escape when I accidentally invoked a Menu Extra. I don't see why the Apple Menu couldn't work as a Menu Extra or an equivalent. It's supposed to be global, so it should be supreme over every other application. I realize that the force quit key stroke is just as easy, at least for an experienced user, but it just seems counter-intuitive to not have the Apple Menu as a global item.
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: Big Mac ]
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Mar 2001
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Yeah Apple should give a user options to resurrect their computer in the event of a finder freeze. The current situation is untenable...makes the force quite option only partially effective.
And no, most of us are not Unix geeks who can telnet into OS X in order to kill the offensive app.
Unix "geeks" are probably Apple's salvation, and I use the term "geek" in the most respectful way. But most Mac users need simplicity and elegance, quick and effective control of their OS from a single computer, all aimed at a single user on a single Mac working environment.
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[FONT="book antiqua"]"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1816.[/FONT]
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Ireland
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Originally posted by OverclockedHomoSapien:
<STRONG>Yeah Apple should give a user options to resurrect their computer in the event of a finder freeze. The current situation is untenable...makes the force quite option only partially effective.
....</STRONG>
does cmd-opt-esc work when the finder has frozen? I would test it but my finder hasn't frozen in ages.
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All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Chicago
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The Apple menu should not become a menu extra. There are necessary options in the Apple menu that cannot be accessed any other way (hidden keyboard shortcuts and terminal commands don't count). Making it a menu extra would make it too easy for the typical user to accidentally remove it and have no idea how to get to these commands.
Moving the Apple menu to the far right side (with all the other universal menus) wouldn't be a bad idea, however.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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I'm not proposing that it has to really be a Menu Extra, just that it should function globally and not be tied to foreground applications. I don't mean that it should be "poofable" - it should always be resident, and it should always be accessible. That's what I mean.
If the Finder goes down - when you're using iDisk, for example, then even force quit doesn't help because when the Finder comes back up, it usually continues to hang. For even more severe freezes that screw over the graphical layer, it would be nice to be able to switch to console and kill off processes in question.
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: Big Mac ]
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Senior User
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Bolingbrook, IL, USA
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Well I don't like the idea of the apple menu crashing, so I vote "NAW."
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: chicago
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is it even possible to disagree with Big Mac? How can someone say that, minus technical reasons, the apple menu (a seemingly global menu) should not behave as a truly global menu. Its not possible, I swear. Are you guys even reading what he is saying? Right now, the apple menu is tied to whatever application it is in. Give me one good reason, technicalities aside, why the menu should not be served from a global application (like Menu Extras)? ( And also, I mean application in the sense that the dock or the window server is an application)
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justin
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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Originally posted by justinmilo:
<STRONG>is it even possible to disagree with Big Mac? How can someone say that, minus technical reasons, the apple menu (a seemingly global menu) should not behave as a truly global menu. Its not possible, I swear. Are you guys even reading what he is saying? Right now, the apple menu is tied to whatever application it is in. Give me one good reason, technicalities aside, why the menu should not be served from a global application (like Menu Extras)? ( And also, I mean application in the sense that the dock or the window server is an application)</STRONG>
Thank you for the concurring post, justin - very cogent points there. I don't see how anyone can possibly disagree with me, either.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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