Mac Bar Menu, Menu For Mac
The menu bar at the top of the screen has been with the Mac since the beginning. It’s one of the defining characteristics of the Mac, one that even Microsoft didn’t dare duplicate—in Windows, the menu bars go on the top of windows, not at the top of the screen. The Mac menu bar is a constant, a north star.
Things have been getting a little weird lately. Last year, Apple added an “Automatically hide and show the menu bar” feature to the General pane of System Preferences.
When that preference is selected—or you’re in full-screen mode—the menu bar only appears when you move your mouse to the top of the screen. It feels spectacularly wrong to me, but then, I’ve been using a Mac since George Bush was President. (The first one.) Apple also recently added a new “Use dark menu bar and Dock” mode, which flips the normally black-on-white menu bar into a design only Darth Vader could love: white text on a black background. It’s not my cup of tea, and flipping that setting doesn’t change the style of any of the other black-on-white windows on my Mac’s screen, but if you like it, more power to you. Even as someone who has committed plenty of keyboard shortcuts to memory, I find the menu bar incredibly valuable. And while it’s almost always in the faces of every Mac user, it’s too often ignored. The menu bar, is a place that make you a more efficient and informed Mac user.
The menus themselves The Apple menu in OS X El Capitan. Another uniquely Mac touch that has been with us since 1984 is the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen.
Back in the classic Mac OS days, this was originally the home for tiny apps called Desk Accessories, and System 7 transformed it into a menu you could customize by dropping any item in the Apple Menu Items folder inside the System Folder. When OS X arrived, Apple almost eliminated the Apple menu in the OS X Public Beta, but ultimately shipped OS X 10.0 with more or less the same version of the Apple menu today. Today’s Apple menu is a repository for all the stuff that Apple wants to give you quick access to, but that isn’t specifically related to the frontmost application. It gives you quick access to the System Preferences and App Store apps, a list of recently opened apps and documents in a submenu, and access to the Force Quit window. But perhaps most important is its integration of all the system power features which lived under the Special menu in the old days of Mac OS: Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down. As with so many things involving the menu bar, holding down the Option key will reveal a bunch of alternate options. If you want to restart or shut down without being asked if you’re sure, hold down the Option key while selecting those items.
If you’re trying to launch the System Information app without seeing the About This Mac window, the same method will get you there. Next to the Apple menu is the Application menu, though it’s not labeled as such—this is the menu that displays the name of whatever the frontmost application is. Most of the menu items here are controlled by the application itself, but there are a few interesting window-management tools here, allowing you to hide the current app, hide all apps except the current app, or show everything that was previously hidden.
More notable is that this is where the Services submenu lives. If you create scripts using Apple’s included Automator utility, this is where they appear. The Services menu is divided in two: Workflows that are available anywhere, anytime, and workflows that are particular to the app you’re currently using.
The Help menu has a search function that can be used to find a particular command. At the far end of an application’s menus is the Help menu, and if you fancy yourself a power user, you may have never used this menu. The Help menu is usually a place to view documentation, open web resources, or report a bug. But I use the help menu all the time, because of the powerful search function built into it. From the top of the Help menu, you can search the contents of every menu of the currently open app.
When I’m using a complicated app like Numbers or BBEdit or Logic Pro, sometimes I can’t remember where to find a particular command. And I don’t need to know: I just type a word from the menu item and move my mouse over the right result.
That menu item will activate and a big arrow will point right at it. You know, for education. You can also just click on the result to activate that command as if you had known where it was all along. Other items in the menu bar At the far right of the screen are a collection of icons supplied by Apple that give you quick access to information and other features of your Mac.
Exactly which items you see will depend on what kind of Mac you’re using (if it’s a laptop, you’ll see the battery menu-bar item) and how it’s configured. Many, but not all, of these items can be re-ordered by holding down the Command key and clicking and dragging the icons in question. If you don’t want to see one of them anymore, you can hold down Command and drag the icon out of the menu bar entirely. (Alas, the Spotlight and Notification Center icons at the far right of the menu bar are impervious to this sort of trickery.) It’s obvious how to use these menu bar items—you either look at them to garner information (like how much battery you have left, or what time it is) or you click on them to reveal a menu with more information or commands. But if you hold down the Option key before you click on a menu-bar icon, you may discover that some seemingly simplistic items have unexpected depths.
Sound options from the menu bar. Take the Sound menu bar item, for example. It couldn’t be simpler—it’s just a volume slider. But if you Option-click on it, you’ll discover that you can quickly set new system input and output devices. Hold down the Option key and click on the Wi-Fi item, and you’ll get detailed information about your network interface, the status of the wi-fi base station you’re connected to, and extended information about any of the other wi-fi sources your Mac can see.
(To do that, just move your cursor over one of the other sources and wait a second for the pop-up message to appear.) Items not from Apple If you’ve installed apps beyond what Apple provides, you may discover that some of them add icons to the menu bar as well. Dropbox lives in my menu bar and provides feedback when it’s syncing files, and I can click on it to quickly see what’s been added to my Dropbox recently. Online backup tools generally put a status item in the menu bar, providing quick access to your backup tools. In addition to Dropbox, three of the other items I’ve come to rely on in my menu bar are:., which lets me glance at my forthcoming schedule and quickly create new calendar events simply by typing., a utility that lets me control what apps get to send data over my network connection. I use this on my MacBook Air when I’m tethering to my iPhone, so it doesn’t destroy my data allowance with stuff like online backup, and on my iMac as a way to ensure that only certain apps are using data when I’m doing a podcast or video conference., a free app that lets you put just about anything you want into the menu bar. I use it to display the current temperature from my backyard weather station, but you can script it to do just about anything, or just download one of the many pre-built plug-ins for it.
One item to rule them all Finally, I have to heartily endorse the $15 utility, which gives you unprecedented control over your menu bar. Bartender lets you hide menu bar items, show others, and relegate others (even Spotlight and Notification Center!) to a sub-menu, allowing you to de-clutter the menu bar. Bartender I love the control that Bartender gives me over my menu bar. Just as the menu bar is one of the defining features of the Mac, so is personalization. There are many menu bars out there, but this one is mine.
Menu bar from. In the, the menu bar is a horizontal 'bar' anchored to the top of the screen. In, the left side contains the Apple menu, the Application menu (its name will match the name of the current application) and the currently focused application's menus (e.g. File, Edit, View, Window, Help). On the right side, it contains (for example the system clock, volume control, and the Fast user switching menu (if enabled) and the icon.
All of these menu extras can be moved horizontally by -clicking and left or right. If an icon is dragged and dropped vertically it will disappear with a puff of smoke, much like the icons in the. In the (versions 7 through 9), the right side contains the application menu, allowing the user to switch between open applications. In Mac OS 8.5 and later, the menu can be dragged downwards, which would cause it to be represented on screen as a floating. There is only one menu bar, so the application menus displayed are those of the application that is currently focused.
Therefore, for example, if the System Preferences application is focused, its menus are in the menu bar, and if the user clicks on the Desktop which is a part of the Finder application, the menu bar will then display the Finder menus. Apple experiments in GUI design for the project initially used multiple menu bars anchored to the bottom of windows, but this was quickly dropped in favor of the current arrangement, as it proved slower to use (in accordance with ). The idea of separate menus in each window or document was later implemented in and is the default representation in most Linux. Even before the advent of the Macintosh, the universal graphical menu bar appeared in the in 1983. It has been a feature of all versions of the since the first Macintosh was released in 1984, and is still used today in macOS. Microsoft Windows The menu bar in is usually anchored to the top of a window under the; therefore, there can be many menu bars on screen at one time.
Menus in the menu bar can be accessed through shortcuts involving the and the mnemonic letter that appears underlined in the menu title. Additionally, pressing Alt or F10 brings the focus on the first menu of the menu bar. Linux and UNIX. Screenshot of 3.5 configured with a single menu bar and allow users to turn Macintosh-style and Windows-style menu bars on and off. Can have both types in use at the same time. The standard desktop uses a menu bar at the top of the screen, but this menu bar only contains Applications and System menus and status information (such as the time of day); individual programs have their own menu bars as well.
The desktop shell shipped with since version 11.04 uses a Macintosh-style menu bar; however, it is hidden unless the mouse pointer hovers over it, similar to the Commodore Amiga example below. Other and use a similar scheme, where programs have their own menus, but clicking one or more of the mouse buttons on the brings up a menu containing, for example, commands to launch various applications or to.
Window manager menus in Linux are typically configurable either by editing text files, by using a desktop-environment-specific Control Panel applet, or both. The menu bar of AmigaOS 3.1 in its opened state.
Holding the right mouse button down opens the menus in the menu bar, and releasing the button over a menu item selects that item. Each application can have its own separate menus. The used a menu-bar style similar to that of the Macintosh, with the exception that the machine's custom graphics chips allowed each program to have its own 'screen', with its own resolution and colour settings, which could be dragged down to reveal the screens of other programs.
The title/menu bar would typically sit at the top of the screen, and could be accessed by pressing the right mouse button, revealing the names of the various menus. When the right menu button was not pressed down, the menu/title bar would typically display the name of the program which owned the screen, and some other information such as the amount of memory used. When accessing menus with right mouse buttons pressed, one could select multiple menu entries by clicking the left mouse button, and when right mouse button was released, all actions selected in the menus would be performed in the order they were selected. This was known as multiselect. The Workbench screen title bar would typically display the Workbench version and the amount of free. An unusual feature of the Amiga menu system was that the Workbench screen would display a 'Workbench' menu instead of a 'File' or 'Apple' menu, while conforming applications would display 'Project' and 'Tools' menus ( projects and tools being, respectively, the Amiga terms for what in other systems are called files or documents, and programs or applications).
Keyboard shortcuts could be accessed by pressing the 'right Amiga' key along with a normal alphanumeric key. (Some early keyboards had a Commodore key to the left of the spacebar instead of a 'left-Amiga' key.) The filled-in and hollowed-out designs, respectively, of the left- and right-Amiga (or Commodore and Amiga) keys are similar to the closed-Apple and open-Apple keys of keyboards.
NeXTstep. NeXTSTEP's menu implementation The NeXTstep OS for the NeXT machines would display a 'menu ', by default at the top left of the screen. Clicking on the entries in the menu list would display submenus of the commands in the menu. The contents of the menu change depending on whether the user is 'in' the Workspace Manager or an application. The menus and the sub-menus can easily be torn off and moved around the screen as individual palette windows. Power users would often switch off the always-on menu, leaving it to be displayed at the mouse pointer's location when the right mouse button was pressed.
The same implementation is used by and conforming apps, though applications written for the host operating system or another will use the menu scheme appropriate to that OS or toolkit. Atari TOS The TOS operating system for the Atari ST would display menu bars at the top of the screen like Mac OS.
Rather than being 'pulled-down' by holding the mouse button, the menu would appear as soon as the pointer was over its heading. This was done to get around an Apple patent on pull-down menus. RISC OS In, clicking the middle button displays a menu list at the location of the mouse pointer. The RISC OS implementation of menus is similar to the of other systems, except that menus will not close if the right mouse button is used to select a menu entry. This allows the user to implement or try out several settings before closing the menu. Ease-of-use In both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems, in other similar desktop environments and in some applications, common functions are assigned (e.g.C or -C copies the current selection). Microsoft-style bars are physically located in the same window as the content they are associated with.
However, former employee of and professional, claims that the Mac OS's menu bars can be accessed up to five times faster due to: because the menu bar lies on a screen edge, it effectively has an infinite height — Mac users can just 'throw' their mouse pointers toward the top of the screen with the assurance that it will never overshoot the menu bar and disappear. This assumes that the desired menu is currently enabled, however. If another application has 'focus', the menu will belong to that application instead, requiring the user to check and see which menu is active before 'throwing' the mouse, and often perform an extra step of focusing the desired application before using the menu, which is completely separate from the application it controls. The effectiveness of this technique is also reduced on larger screens or with low curves, especially due to the time required to travel back to a target in the window after using the menu. On systems with multiple displays, the menu bar may either be displayed on a single 'main' display, or on all connected displays. The classic Mac OS, and versions of macOS prior to displayed only a single menu bar on the main display; Mavericks added the option to show the bar on all displays.
Mac Os X Menu Bar
Some applications, e.g. 2007, 7 (by default), and and 4 in Windows and Linux, have effectively removed the menu bar altogether by hiding it until a key is pressed (typically the 'alt' key).
Mac Like Menu Bar For Windows 10
These applications present options to the user contextually, typically using to select actions. See also. – the standard that defined several aspects of menu layout commonly used by Windows and several Linux desktop environments today. – where a pop-up menu is beneath a button. References.