I theoretically "lose" that much height but gain a) zero notch b) non-rounded top corners and c) a traditionally heighted menubar instead of the giant one that is so big only to cater for the notch.
+ I thought this was thanks to BetterDisplay but it turns out no third party tool is needed and it's all first party probably because someone at Apple is as annoyed by the notch as I was and so that's their solution.
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/8y0QbZN
The gap between "Run" and "Tests" is the notch, which I don't usually notice is there unless I'm in Rider.
This along with the tons of other paper cuts they've slacked on is tarring their brand.
And yes, it's completely bizarre that macOS doesn't provide an overflow menu. Instead, again yes for decades, you've had to buy/use something like Bartender for this. It is utterly bizarre and inexplicable.
With Tahoe, Apple has finally provided a half-solution, which is that in System Settings you can entirely hide select running menubar utilities to regain some space. But of course that's only helpful for utilities you never need to look at or click.
tl;dr: yes this is utterly absurd but it's been absurd for decades. It's nothing to do with recent versions of macOS.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40584606
I think they've cleaned it up since then [1], but in the age of supply chain attacks, very concerning. Personally, even as a paying user of Bartender, I moved to the open source solution, at least I can watch the github for changes.
[1] https://www.macbartender.com/b5blog/Lets-Try-This-Again/
https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice/releases/tag/0.11.13-dev....
Note that this particular problem has existed for well over a decade. It's atrocious, but let's not pretend it's anything new.
The notch has just made menu bar space more scarce than it used to be.
If I open Xcode today on a 14" MacBook, two menu items extend past the notch, and they still hide your menu bar icons.
This has been the case for a long long time, and it's always been an obvious failure case.
```
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing -int 2
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding -int 2
```
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 pocket.
I recently helped my brother launch a simple app for making any window a PiP window (https://lowtechguys.com/pipiri) and in the first two days, half of the sales turned into refunds exactly because of this issue. People had so many menubar icons that they thought the app just doesn't work. Not an encouraging launch for his first app.
Not to mention the fact that the best solution that helped alleviate this, the Bartender app, was completely broken by Apple's internal API changes in macOS Tahoe.
This could have been handled better.
Can anyone speculate on any rational if not good reasons for not solving this problem yet?
Windows solved this many many decades ago with their system tray overflow menu. Browsers solved it too, by letting you put extension icons in an overflow menu. It's not hard.
But nooo, macOS just silently hides applications from you, with no visible indication that there's anything hidden.
access to my home server
ability to stream US TV when abroad (by exiting from my home network)
ability to make it easy for others with non-tech backgrounds to connect with their devices (parents, kids, etc)
ability to have remote linux servers connect automatically on boot. This one is because I can't get OTA TV at home and want to set up a simple streaming box at someone else's house to do it that connects back to my house, so we can stream off all of our devices.
I'm guessing tailscale will be a part of this setup which is why I ask here.
By default it will leak your so-called “private” network behavior to Tailscale (connections on what port, from what node, to what node, opened when, closed when): https://tailscale.com/docs/features/logging
Set up a US device as an exit node, and configure other devices to proxy through it.
The interface is bad when it comes to provisioning but it can be done with a QR code and once it works the native experience of turning on the VPN was just stunningly fast. In this day and age you expect things to be slow with negotiation and various unreliable steps but it was just amazing that I tap the VPN button on iOS and it's connected in a fraction of a second.
But am I misremembering this?
As a Linux user and fan of good GUI apps, it always bums me out I'm stuck with the CLI-only options for apps like Tailscale. Even for a simple tray icon I have to resort to buggy GNOME extensions.
I understand the fragmented ecosystem and small user-base on the desktop Linux side make it hard to justify, but I hope that changes one day!
Guess I'll just stick with CLI only for now (via darwin-nix)
but not being able to interact with an icon is DISfunctionality, though yes, a simple one. So that principle can't explain the bad design either.
I guess I'll find out soon enough once I update, but I didn't see any specific callout in the article.
Mullvad, your turn next please
My recommendation is to rethink it to work like apps like 1Password, Default Folder, Keyboard Maestro, Ice, etc., where I can always easily open a configuration app, but the service must be intentionally/knowingly quit via either the configuration app or the menu bar utility.
TLDR: Please separate the service from the new configuration app.