It took me a seriously long amount of time to realize this wasn't software for MANAGING AN ACTUAL BAR/PUB. Must be frustrating as a Mac user to be locked into paying lots of money to have a desktop OS that works how you want
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Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
141–150 of 198 posts
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#142I use Hidden Bar ( https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden ) for this. It works well enough despite not being updated in a while, though there is a bit of jank. Just tried out Ice and it seems to be a nice, lower jank replacement!
I use Hidden Bar too, it's done the job for me, but if there's a reason to hop to another I'm all ears.
If it works, then there's no reason to change.
I stopped using Bartender (because of the recent news) and noticed that Hidden Bar was last updated in Jan 2022 and Dozer in 2019. Neither have a way (or plan to have something) to handle the notch.
Ice still lacks some features, but the developer is working on it and eventually it will be able to work around the notch (if you have too many icons, they'll be hidden by the notch... not sure what Apple was thinking). That's why I picked Ice.
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I trusted the old author’s reputation. I have zero trust in the own owner. As of now, I have zero trust in the old author too. The lack of communication is the fault of both parties. Ben Surtees has caused serious damage to their own reputation. Any new software released under that name will have a hard time gaining trust and traction.
And who are you to slander a named person and publicly question his reputation, for selling his own business that he created to somebody else? Your behaviour is not proportional to what has happened. It is an icon utility.
Which part of the statement is slander?
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#144It should be a crime that Apple hasn't seen the popularity of tools like Bartender, which is major privacy violation to begin with, and developed their own feature for this.
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#145My 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'…
That's on the roadmap: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice/issues/67
The dev is also working on a second bar (like Bartender has) that should fix the problem for macs with notches: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice/issues/1
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I trusted the old author’s reputation. I have zero trust in the own owner. As of now, I have zero trust in the old author too. The lack of communication is the fault of both parties. Ben Surtees has caused serious damage to their own reputation. Any new software released under that name will have a hard time gaining trust and traction.
And who are you to slander a named person and publicly question his reputation, for selling his own business that he created to somebody else? Your behaviour is not proportional to what has happened. It is an icon utility.
> And who are you
A paying customer of Bartender.
> to slander
It is not slander to say you distrust someone.
> a named person
Ben’s name was already public. Bartender was published under “Surtees Studios”, after all. Ben has also appeared in at least one podcast. Trusting Bartender meant trusting Ben, the developer, the person.
> for selling his own business that he created
That’s not what’s in question. No one is blaming Ben for selling Bartender, the complaint is that it was done in secret. And it would’ve continue to be a secret were it not for a feature in MacUpdater that someone noticed.
> It is an icon utility.
No, it is not. It is an app that requests Screen Recording, Accessibility, and Location permissions to do its job. Thus it is an app which requires a high degree of trust. That the new owners added an analytics framework to, and who knows what else. This case is awfully similar to when a developer sells a browser extension to someone shady because the profit is in the user-base.
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#147If anyone is looking for alternatives, I've been using Vanilla for a while and have ben happy with it. https://matthewpalmer.net/vanilla/
Seems to be a nice option, but the way it handles the notch... I think the second bar that Bartender has and Ice will eventually have[0] works better.
For now, I'll support Ice because it's open source. I'll donate more than the $10 Vanilla Pro costs just to have an open source alternative. It's nice to have alternatives though.
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I trusted the old author’s reputation. I have zero trust in the own owner. As of now, I have zero trust in the old author too. The lack of communication is the fault of both parties. Ben Surtees has caused serious damage to their own reputation. Any new software released under that name will have a hard time gaining trust and traction.
And who are you to slander a named person and publicly question his reputation, for selling his own business that he created to somebody else? Your behaviour is not proportional to what has happened. It is an icon utility.
...that has screen recording privileges on its users' systems.
It's not shady to sell a business. It's not shady to have screen recording privileges because that's legitimately needed to provide the functionality. It is shady to sell that product to some unknown group without notifying your customers.
I trust(ed) Ben Surtees to run his software on my machine with enhanced privileges. I'm not thrilled that someone else controls it now, and that I'd probably never have known that if I didn't follow tech news closely.
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could never get Hidden Bar to work correctly. I think it's because my MacBook has a notch. iBar (free at the App Store) so far does what I need.
You need https://apps.apple.com/us/app/say-no-to-notch/id1639306886?m...
That's an okay workaround, but you lose part of your screen and create a thick top bezel.
As a laptop user, I want to use all available space, so what I do is to use https://topnotch.app/ (or a dark wallpaper) which makes the background of the bar black and until now I was using Bartender, which would display the hidden icons on a second bar under the original one when we clicked the icon. I barely noticed the notch.
Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS
#150It took me a seriously long amount of time to realize this wasn't software for MANAGING AN ACTUAL BAR/PUB. Must be frustrating as a Mac user to be locked into paying lots of money to have a desktop OS that works how you want
This is an article about a free, open source tool. Running FOSS tools to tweak my desktop isn't frustrating.