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Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

9to5mac.com

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Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#101

Post by zimpenfish »

atommclain wrote: post #59

I've been using Dozer for some time with no complaints, I'm not sure how much of the feature set overlaps as I use it primarily hiding extraneous menubar items. https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer (For what its worth it looks like it hasn't been update in 3+ years)

One of the great features of Bartender is that it can unhide icons when they change or match a particular state. Handy for, e.g., hiding the battery until you're down to 30% or hiding your VPN icon whilst you're not connected.

(let's hope some other apps pick up these features if Bartender turns out to have gone down a dark path)

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#102

Post by ronyeh »

fifafu wrote: post #19

In case you are already using my BetterTouchTool app: I have created a little tutorial & example preset here on how to use it for status item management: https://community.folivora.ai/t/bartender-controversy-tutori... You can add feature requests there, it should be pretty simple to extend BTT to support the remaining required features. I have also recently been approached by shady companies trying to buy my app (I'd…

Your BTT is always one of the first two apps I install on any Mac I buy. Thanks! (The other is Keyboard Maestro.)

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#103

Post by trauco »

radlad wrote: post #56
trauco wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This permission request predated the change of ownership of Bartender.

Yes, but you had to re-enable it due to the cert change. Bartender doesn't explain this is what happened and simply states "there's a known issue where certain apps, including Bartender, might not receive Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions properly, despite the user granting them in System Settings." https://www.macbartender.com/Bartender5/PermissionIssues/

I agree the communication about this change of ownership has been far from ideal.

But issues with permissions (e.g. the user needing to disable/re-enable some macOS permission after an update, even if the cert doesn't change) are fairly common.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#104

Post by HumblyTossed »

sspiff wrote: post #9

> Future plans for the app remain unknown, but users have a right to know what’s going on behind the scenes. Do they though? You buy a license for a piece of software, and as far as I understand that doesn't include any fundamental rights involving insight into company policies, direction, business strategy, ... Regardless, this is of course quite a dubious takeover.

If you bought a "license", don't you have a right to know who you are doing business with?

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#105

Post by bloopernova »

jwells89 wrote: post #69
bloopernova wrote: post #31

Sort of related question: is it possible to display the date in the macOS menu bar in the format 2024-06-05 10:18

The free Itsycal[0] can display whichever date pattern you prefer. It’s what I’ve been using for several years now. [0]: https://www.mowglii.com/itsycal/

Perfect, works great and almost exactly how I want it. Thank you!

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#106

Post by bityard »

magnio wrote: post #100
SebastianKra wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false and while you're here, check out these other fixes: expand the save dialog by default: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode2 -bool true don't save .DS_Store to network locations defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true…

Thanks for the helpful tips. Tangential but is there any free way to change the scroll direction of trackpad and mouse independently and to disable scroll acceleration? I have tried Mac Mouse Fix but it is not free.

I used LinearMouse to disable scroll wheel acceleration.

https://github.com/linearmouse/linearmouse

I also know of this, but have not tried it: https://github.com/emreyolcu/discrete-scroll

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#107

Post by dpedu »

wlesieutre wrote: post #90
dpedu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't. I remember back on windows xp, it felt like every darn app needed its own tray icon for some reason. To be fair, windows xp did have the ability to hide and show certain icons built-in.

> I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't Well clearly that's not working because every app has a tray icon. It's time to catch up with Windows XP and let users control which ones are important and which ones get hidden. And the hidden ones should still be accessible. Bartender really nailed all that and it's sad that a 3rd part…

We'd be more likely to see Apple apply their infamous restrictions here, as opposed to opening things up more and lettings developers go hog wild. Bartender exists because it's a solution to a problem.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#108

Post by ryandrake »

wlesieutre wrote: post #90
dpedu wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't. I remember back on windows xp, it felt like every darn app needed its own tray icon for some reason. To be fair, windows xp did have the ability to hide and show certain icons built-in.

> I like that this discourages usage of tray icons, which is a good thing. Your app doesn't need a tray icon, almost all apps don't Well clearly that's not working because every app has a tray icon. It's time to catch up with Windows XP and let users control which ones are important and which ones get hidden. And the hidden ones should still be accessible. Bartender really nailed all that and it's sad that a 3rd part…

Almost 100% of the apps with tray icons don't really need them. They're basically marketing: If you're in charge of brand management for an app company, and there is a way to get your brand on the user's screen at all times for free, you're going to always do it, regardless of whether or not the user needs it there. Just stick some kind of context menu on the icon so you can at least justify it.

I'd love to know the actual end-user click rate for these tray icons. I bet many are near zero.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#109

Post by k310 »

narcomo wrote: post #38
k310 wrote: post #18

I dropped Evernote when it was bought and the entire U.S. staff was fired. Replacing it with another, preferably free and open source. (search going on at this time)

Try anytype.io it’s free and open source.

It totally fails on safari (I even disabled extensions) but looks OK on Opera (chrome engine). Thanks, will look into it. (but not with safari)

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#110

Post by harlanlewis »

SebastianKra wrote: post #97
bityard wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you hold down an alphanumeric key in MacOS, it automatically pops up an emoji selector. This is fine, except if you are someone (like me) who occasionally holds down keys to take advantage of key repeat _and_ uses vim keybindings in a few specific non-terminal applications. There is no GUI to disable this behavior, you have to drop to a terminal, run a command, and then reboot the machine. This is the example I no…

defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false and while you're here, check out these other fixes: expand the save dialog by default: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool true defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode2 -bool true don't save .DS_Store to network locations defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true…

There are a ton of useful preferences like these that make OS X behave in ways that I find more natural. TinkerTool (https://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool) has a nice “missing system preferences” GUI for configuring them. I’ve been using it for at least 15 years, but you can still download old versions for support all the way back to OS X Public Beta in the year 2000. It was one of the first things I always installed way back when defragging hard drives and occasional clean system installs were routine maintenance.

I know we’re talking about this in the context of much-loved utilities going sideways, but if tweaking system prefs is your thing it gets a strong recommend.

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