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Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

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Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#31

Post by d3ckard »

xlii wrote: post #26

Offtopic, but am I the only person surprised how badly Apple stalled when it comes to window management and UX on MacOS? I feel that today, as a power user/professional, MacOS wouldn't be usable without applications like Bartender, external window manager such as Rectangle/Divvy etc. I feel strong attraction coming from yabai, but disabling SIP is too much for me. Personally I'm reaching the point where I'd migrate t…

Totally in the opposite camp, in the sense I think it’s preferable to customize your experience using 3rd party apps and it should be encouraged model by vendor.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#32

Post by freehorse »

omnimus wrote: post #23
anileated wrote: post #21

I am not the target audience for macOS menu bar managers like Ice. You can drag-reorder icons in pure macOS without any third-party software, and the additional options seem unnecessary.

Why would anyone write comment like this? Like does it add anything to the discussion? Who cares that you dont use menubar apps so you dont need Bartender.

Because some people may just need this so it is good for them to know, in conjunction to this

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/16lpfg5/hidden_prefe...

> to change the spacing in the menubar and I found out it changes two preferences:

```

    defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing -int X

    defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding -int Y
```

> which can be reverted with

```

    defaults -currentHost delete -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing

    defaults -currentHost delete -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding
```

I learnt about these in a similar topic here. I do not need anything more from a bar app really, so I do not need to install an additional app for sth that I can just handle through a couple of preferences changes in the terminal. For people who do need more functionality, they can get one of these tools.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#33

Post by Vilkku »

My biggest need for managing the icons in the menu bar is to prevent them from getting lost behind the notch on my 14" MBP. I recently discovered this question on StackExchange on how to change the icon spacing and padding and that has kinda resolved the situation, but it doesn't look visually as good.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/465674

Perhaps the padding and spacing adjustment could also be brought to Ice?

I'm happy to see that alternatives to Bartender exist! I guess this is not the most straightforward thing to do, as there seem to be many apps for this, but most are no longer in development.

As an aside, there are options in macOS to move some icons like bluetooth and wifi to the control center away from the status bar, but for some reason they always seem to come back.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#34

Post by kevsim »

kstrauser wrote: post #3

Not the submitter, but I installed this a couple days ago to replace Bartender. For those not following along at home, the Bartender author just sold it to some sketchy app mill. It’s an app that legitimately requires screen recording permissions to work. I trusted the old author’s reputation. I have zero trust in the own owner. Ice isn’t as good yet. It’s not nearly so configurable. For example, you can either hide…

Why do these apps require screen recording permissions to work? Just curious.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#35

Post by suneater92 »

xlii wrote: post #26

Offtopic, but am I the only person surprised how badly Apple stalled when it comes to window management and UX on MacOS? I feel that today, as a power user/professional, MacOS wouldn't be usable without applications like Bartender, external window manager such as Rectangle/Divvy etc. I feel strong attraction coming from yabai, but disabling SIP is too much for me. Personally I'm reaching the point where I'd migrate t…

This extends across the system - Safari is great for battery life and hit or miss for performance, but it has an infuriating bug where it zooms out every webpage in Split View. There have been so many Stack Exchange and forum posts since 2013 on this issue and no action. Other WebKit browsers like Orion don’t do the same thing; it’s not a browser engine issue, so the only recourse is through Apple’s stupid feedback process that spits out autogenerated answers to everything. Windows is no better, but if Adobe, Affinity and a few medical anatomy apps opened the doors to something similar to Proton… jeez.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#36

Post by eviks »

kevsim wrote: post #34
kstrauser wrote: post #3

Not the submitter, but I installed this a couple days ago to replace Bartender. For those not following along at home, the Bartender author just sold it to some sketchy app mill. It’s an app that legitimately requires screen recording permissions to work. I trusted the old author’s reputation. I have zero trust in the own owner. Ice isn’t as good yet. It’s not nearly so configurable. For example, you can either hide…

Why do these apps require screen recording permissions to work? Just curious.

To get information about other apps' icons

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#37

Post by eviks »

jorvi wrote: post #22
ars wrote: post #4

I know some people like it, but I find the top menu bar on a mac extremely non ergonomic. The argument goes that it's an easy spot to hit: Just move your mouse to the top. But they forget that in order to use the menu bar you have to activate the app! In other OS's, if you want to pick an item from an inactive app, just click - it will activate the app, and pick the item from the menu bar at the same time. Not so wit…

People like the menu bar because of the global menu - no more hunting and pecking for a print or save option, with every application using disparate or bespoke UI kits having those aforementioned options be different places both visually, physically and logically. MacBooks are absurdly overpowered as a layman’s computer, but the global menu means they only need to learn the OS once.

How do you "learn it once" if the dev can put "print" option anywhere using UI kit?

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#38

Post by atmosx »

kstrauser wrote: post #3

Not the submitter, but I installed this a couple days ago to replace Bartender. For those not following along at home, the Bartender author just sold it to some sketchy app mill. It’s an app that legitimately requires screen recording permissions to work. I trusted the old author’s reputation. I have zero trust in the own owner. Ice isn’t as good yet. It’s not nearly so configurable. For example, you can either hide…

Thanks for the heads up. I use bartender, I will replace it with this app.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#39

Post by Vuska »

d3ckard wrote: post #31
xlii wrote: post #26

Offtopic, but am I the only person surprised how badly Apple stalled when it comes to window management and UX on MacOS? I feel that today, as a power user/professional, MacOS wouldn't be usable without applications like Bartender, external window manager such as Rectangle/Divvy etc. I feel strong attraction coming from yabai, but disabling SIP is too much for me. Personally I'm reaching the point where I'd migrate t…

Totally in the opposite camp, in the sense I think it’s preferable to customize your experience using 3rd party apps and it should be encouraged model by vendor.

Sadly Apple picked neither option. 3rd party apps cannot meaningfully interact with Spaces for example, even basic things like moving windows between spaces or adjusting the animation speed so it's not nauseating on ultrawides.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#40

Post by vmladenov »

kstrauser wrote: post #3

Not the submitter, but I installed this a couple days ago to replace Bartender. For those not following along at home, the Bartender author just sold it to some sketchy app mill. It’s an app that legitimately requires screen recording permissions to work. I trusted the old author’s reputation. I have zero trust in the own owner. Ice isn’t as good yet. It’s not nearly so configurable. For example, you can either hide…

Thanks for sharing this note, I completely missed this development. Sad to see what has become of this app.
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