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Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

github.com

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Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#11

Post by sevg »

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…

100% agree. Not having those menu buttons visible until you focus means an extra click (and you can't even see what the menu headings are for that app until you click, so it also delays your thought process).

Ok so you get more screen space I guess, but IMO it's not worth the trade off.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#12

Post by allenbrunson »

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…

having one menu bar at the top of the screen made sense when macs had nine-inch screens. it saved some screen real estate, which was at a premium at the time. but the bigger the screens get, the less sense this makes.

apple should have switched to menu bars in each app when they introduced mac os x. we were all forced to make so many changes at the time, one more wouldn’t have been a big deal.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#13

Post by omlitt »

nobodywasishere wrote: post #10
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…

You can always show some icons by moving them to the right of the open/close icon

This only works when you don’t have many icons. You can’t see ones that are hidden behind the notch. If you can, I missed this.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#14

Post by draven »

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…

True. On the other hand I like that the menu is on top on the screen so I can just throw the pointer up (I use a trackball) and it will end up on the menu, no precise targeting required.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#17

Post by tomphoolery »

This is awesome for folks who don't use their own custom status bar! Personally, I use SketchyBar and Yabai for window management. SketchyBar is shown almost all the time, but the status bar is set to hide unless I have my cursor at the top of my monitor. I like this because it's a good combo of having my "status bar items" all compacted on the right, with the useful information I want on the status bar at all times...such as battery level, current weather, volume, the date/time, as well as the focused window.

For those who don't want to install a custom status bar, this seems like it would solve similar problems of the status bar getting way too big with all these programs running in the background.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#18

Post by skrebbel »

ninjin-carh wrote: post #8

I would love to try this but hesitant as I couldn't find a privacy policy. Can it be added or maybe I just couldn't find this?

It’s open source. A privacy policy implies that the author is willing to make themselves liable to broken promises. Most OSS authors work for free and do not want to put their ass on the line like that.

The license says “you figure it out”:

> THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

“Without warranty of any kind” also excludes any warranty wrt your privacy.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#19

Post by KronisLV »

I got a MacBook for a freelance development project (also needed to build an iOS app) and I have to say that the OS itself feels pretty good. Very much a walled garden and normally perhaps outside of my budget (and the button order on the keyboard feels odd), but in general it's pretty smooth so far!

Nice to see various customization options, BetterDisplay was also pretty useful when dealing with an external monitor (sadly I never figured out why there's no proper anti-aliasing on the external monitor).

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#20

Post by nobodywasishere »

omlitt wrote: post #13
nobodywasishere wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always show some icons by moving them to the right of the open/close icon

This only works when you don’t have many icons. You can’t see ones that are hidden behind the notch. If you can, I missed this.

Ah yeah that's a good point. Don't know if this covers that use-case yet
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