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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

#61
post #39
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a way to switch spaces instantly. If anyone actually cares I’ll dig up my solution.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#62
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree. For work I use Windows 11 and even without any third party tools, its ability to easily group and align windows using either the keyboard or mouse is vastly superior to what macOS has. The only thing that macOS is still best at is Exposé. The smoothness, animations, superior Apple touchpads to make the gesture and then ths ease of picking the right window are second to none.

> Exposé KDE 6's new Overview effect works really well https://kde.org/announcements/megarelease/6/

Neither is even close to how smooth Gnome's overview is.

And macOS still renders only a single desktop for some reason.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#63
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. But it also seems like a lot of people don't. Frustratingly enough when discussions like that come up a lot of people respond with a "MacOS just works differently, you just need to get used to it" discussion killer. Yeah, I know some design principles are different. That doesn't always mean they are better or couldn't be better. In general I feel like UI/UX on MacOS for the most part has stagnated in…

> But it also seems like a lot of people don't. n=1... I'm one who doesn't care. I didn't like to have a lot of system tray icons when I used Windows, and I don't like having a lot of them in macOS. I turn off the ones I rarely use (when I can). However, I also feel Apple have reduced the usability of the menu bar icons in recent iterations. Their clickable area/spacing has enlarged, which is counter to having small…

The menu bar has now to have more icons than in earlier OSX as to run services like dropbox, 1password etc they now need to be in the menu bar whilst previously they were not needed there - now I suspect this might be the app writers fault as well as Apple's but it is an annoyance.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#65
post #58
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't found any apps on macOS the past 15 years where the "print" option wasn't where it's expected to be, would like an example just for the fun of it.

It doesn't matter, this is not a property of the OS or the menubar location, just an unenforced convention that you can adhere to on Windows as well

Given that the convention seems more often followed on macOS can't it be a property of the environment of macOS developers usually following the conventions better than on Windows?

Even if not an inherent property of the system it's an emergent one, something causes it if it's not restricted by the system itself but is still a property that apps developed for macOS are much more homogeneous in their menus UI implementation than the others.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#66
post #60
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…

I use Mac for work, Linux/Gnome for personal use, and have used Windows up to and including 11 both personally and professionally in the past (although a lot less recently). In terms of the desktop environment, I feel Mac is severely lacking behind. I know there are very mixed opinions on Gnome, but to me the Gnome UX feels extremely well thought out in comparison. The apple ecosystem might be very well integrated, b…

Not to disregard your remarks, I suspect they are valid, but they come from habits of uses of others systems, and there's also the good practice to avoid introducing too much ways to do the same thing, because it's dramatically augments your chances that it is known by all (in the end), works well and as expected.

Hence launchpad is only here to shortcut finding your apps in the finder or the dock, mission control just an increment over spaces. Those are not replacement for dock. So quitting app, aside the app shortcut and menu, goes through the dock, either by dock app menu or ⌘+Q on the ⌘+tab app switcher.

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#67
post #39
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> even basic things like moving windows between spaces

I don't really use spaces but I've got "Displays have seperate spaces" turned on and Rectangle Pro has "Next Display" and "Previous Display" which moves the foreground app to, unsurprisingly, the next and previous display (which seems to be a space).

Are you after something like "move this window to space Y" rather than just "next space"?

Re: Ice – open source menu bar manager for macOS

#68
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My MacBook Pro also has a notch and it is working fine so the notch isn't the problem

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious. I ran Hidden Bar for months and the hidden icons only became visible left of the notch after clicking > maybe twice, briefly, and I could never figure out what I did differently. iBar worked immediately.

Hm, I don't have enough icons for them to be left of the notch so that might be why I haven't noticed any issues ;)
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