Menu zen
With a 1280x800 screen, I decided to put a little effort into reducing my menu bar baggage.
What I removed:
- BlueTooth: Useful, but not on a day-to-day basis.
- Time Machine: This system isn't backed up. What? No, really. Everything important on it is either in MobileMe or Subversion. All my other systems use Time Machine.
- MobileMe Sync: Knowing when MobileMe is syncing isn't really that useful.
- Keychain: Because I mostly use this to access Keychain Access, and I can just use Quicksilver.
- Fast User Switching: Because it's usually just me using this computer.
- Quicksilver: Because it functions just as well without the menu.
- Volume: Because there's keys on the keyboard.
What I'm keeping:
- smcFanControl: Because I want to run smcFanControl, but there's no way to turn off the menu.
- ExpanDrive: Again, no way to turn off the option.
- iChat: Because I want to be able to quit iChat and stay online, and keeping it in the menu is requirement. But I never use the menu.
- WiFi: Because wireless connections take just long enough to establish for this indicator to be useful.
- Battery: Obvious.
- Spotlight: Because there's no official way to remove it. If there were, I'd probably use Quicksilver to activate it, but as it is I use it a lot too.
What I may change:
- Add Script menu. Because it's cool.
- Display temperature in smcFanControl. Very anti-zen, but useful information. I'd prefer if the temperature was in the menu somewhere after you clicked it, like Apple's battery menu and the "battery remaining" time.
Mac OS X Hints describes how to make Leopard's menu bar opaque. Much easier on the eyes.
Ugly + opaque = still ugly.
Daring Fireball links to an Apple support document:
Some graphics cards, such as an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, may not have the necessary OpenGL capabilities to display a translucent menu bar even though they are compatible with Core Image. Those cards should render most effects, but not the translucent menu bar.
John Gruber muses:
So the irony is that you get a better-looking menu bar with a crappier video card.
Here's the view from Tiger, just for review:
And here it is from Leopard on my PowerBook G4 (which doesn't support translucency):
Here it is from my Core Solo mini:
Is the Leopard menu bar really more attractive without the translucency? I'd say it's quite debatable. The opaque one is very muddy looking, especially on a PowerBook with a so-so backlight. There's really nothing to love about it. On the other hand, it's possible to find the translucent one attractive. I don't, but someone else might.
Despite my initial thoughts to the contrary, the menu bar has grown on me a little. It's the 3d dock that I passionately hate.
Both Leopard menu bar variations are the ugly stepsisters of Tiger, so this really doesn't matter. It isn't just the translucency that sucks, it's the whole Leopard menu bar.1 It's enough to make me consider something like ShapeShifter, and I passionately hate APE.
John goes on:
It’d be the tip of the year if there were a hidden defaults preference to use the no-translucency menu bar no matter what.
If there is one, it definitely isn't in the Finder. I searched that one for strings. But, I suppose, it probably wouldn't be in the Finder? Where exactly would it be? It isn't usually that hard to find defaults strings in executables. And if it's built using XML that should be even easier.
- Of course, Tiger's menu bar with its subtle racing stripe was also a step backwards from Panther's. [↩]