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Tailscale's new macOS home

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Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#231

Post by cosmic_cheese »

dieulot wrote: post #228
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason things are this way is that in Apple’s view, third party devs are effectively misusing menu items. Originally it wasn’t even possible for third parties to add new menu extras using public APIs. That was something reserved for Apple. Third party devs had to use a tool called MenuCracker. When Apple finally added the API used now, the intention for it was for full fat GUI programs to provide ephemeral menu i…

There’s no statement or action (such as banning menu-bar-only apps from the Store or even changing the APIs) supporting that Apple still wants menu bar items to be ephemeral.

If they wanted to enable persistent third party menu extras they’d open up the same APIs that Apple themselves use.

Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#232

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

toraway wrote: post #129
bredren wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an unknown issue at the fruit co. Can anyone speculate on any rational if not good reasons for not solving this problem yet?

Probably the same response I just saw someone reply with in this very thread: "You shouldn't have so many utilities running" It's the go-to Apple user response to anything the OS doesn't support or does poorly: "Why would you want to do that?"

TBF, there isn't a computer on earth that will solve that problem perfectly. At some point, "you shouldn't have so many utilities running" is perfectly acceptable advice.

Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#233

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

richardlblair wrote: post #50
corlinp wrote: post #27

Every time I get a new Mac, I run these commands to reduce the spacing between menu bar icons. Lets you fit at least 2x the number of items in the menu bar. ``` defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing -int 2 defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding -int 2 ```

This was always my biggest gripe about using a mac, the OS that "just works". I ended up a bunch of commands I had to run and a stack of apps I needed to install for it to feel usable.

I just wish we could get these settings in nice plain text files so we can version control them and edit them easily.

Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#234

Post by bayindirh »

saagarjha wrote: post #224
sysworld wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also abused by soo many devs, just wanting there app to be seen 24/7 by the users, regardless if there app gains anything from being in the menu bar. That's why many users run out of space. Most people don't look at settings or ways to remove them (if they even give an option), so they quickly fill up the menu bar. Back in the day without a notch, people would have so many that some menu items would disappear to…

I am so glad that macOS Tahoe just lets me banish those apps to the shadow realm

I believe being able to remove these icons were possible since Leopard/Snow Leopard days.

Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#235

Post by bayindirh »

sysworld wrote: post #203
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason things are this way is that in Apple’s view, third party devs are effectively misusing menu items. Originally it wasn’t even possible for third parties to add new menu extras using public APIs. That was something reserved for Apple. Third party devs had to use a tool called MenuCracker. When Apple finally added the API used now, the intention for it was for full fat GUI programs to provide ephemeral menu i…

It's also abused by soo many devs, just wanting there app to be seen 24/7 by the users, regardless if there app gains anything from being in the menu bar. That's why many users run out of space. Most people don't look at settings or ways to remove them (if they even give an option), so they quickly fill up the menu bar. Back in the day without a notch, people would have so many that some menu items would disappear to…

A couple of my colleagues have so many applications running at the menu bar, so they have to use Bartender to be able to have anything resembling a functional menu bar.

I understand power users, but I don't understand these users.

Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#236

Post by inopinatus »

longislandguido wrote: post #123
inopinatus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That phrase "just works" speaks more to vertical integration than it does to any more specific claim about UX, alignment to preferences, or immediate productivity, and to demonstrate how foundationally this is encoded, you implicitly alluded as much in that opening phrase "a mac, the OS" that directly conflated the hardware and the software. Frankly, I prefer the mac because there's so little arsing around with drive…

> Frankly, I prefer the mac because there's so little arsing around with drivers All Windows laptops come preinstalled, there's no arsing about with drivers there either. Unless you install the bare OS from scratch. Apple bundles the drivers for their hardware with their OS. Good luck with plugging in anything non-Apple branded or not using standard USB audio or Ethernet CDC and you're 100% having to muck about with…

> Unless you install the bare OS from scratch

This caveat is doing enough heavy lifting for an Olympic podium.

Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#238

Post by jiehong »

The new window is nice and useful, but I find the window’s header to be on the very thick side.

Nowadays, that whole header should probably leave in the sidebar itself, and the sidebar could probably be more "Liquid Glass"-like.

Re: Tailscale's new macOS home

#240

Post by jwr »

alin23 wrote: post #53

The notch hiding menubar icons is such a stupid problem to have. I waste hours every week trying to help people who send me frustrated emails because they bought one of my apps and they say: "it doesn't launch" or "why doesn't it have any interface??" No amount of FAQ will help these people. And this also results in hasty refund requests and even worse, chargebacks that take 2x the amount the users paid out of my poc…

I never understood the logic behind the thinking there. Why would you ever want to place menubar items UNDER the notch, if you know it's there and they won't be visible?

It's such an easy problem to fix, with such incredible usability consequences, I just don't get the thinking.

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