alt Hacker NewsI haven't had enough menu bar icons to run into this but is it really the case that the notch just hides whatever icons happen to be behind it? Like, the OS doesn't handle this incredibly obvious edge case? Why not just put an overflow dropdown next to the notch (something Windows XP managed to figure out 25 years ago)? I know software quality has been going down in recent versions of macOS but this is absurd.
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Yep, and there's no indication that anything is hidden, no dropdown/etc.
This is genuinely shocking that Apple is not handling that. Talk about quite a decline in one of their flagship products.
It's not even an edge case. It should have been considered an inevitable case.
Really depressing design dereliction and/or incompetence.
I run into it when using Rider. I have text size increased on my Macbook and Rider has 8000 menu items, so my menu icons (all of which are default macOS, no third-party stuff) will be hidden to make room for Rider's stuff. I have to switch over to another workspace or window (i.e. away from Rider) if I want to access one of them. It's annoying but I'm not sure who I blame here; Rider I guess, for having a zillion menu items.
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.
If you're visually impaired, you can hit it even with just a few icons on a 14" laptop. Fonts anything other than tiny + overloaded menus + even a handful of app icons means I always hit this unless I'm docked.
Hacky menu bar modification tools are basically an accessibility requirement for me, and my vision isn't even that bad. (Best corrected is 20/30 or 20/40 or so.) People with serious impairments are totally screwed by this on macOS, sometimes even with large external monitors.
Yeah, I was surprised that something this obvious wasn't addressed.
Investing in a visual redesign (Liquid Glass) but not an obvious UX issue of the notch hiding icons seems like a mis-prioritization.
With some apps, I can't remember if tailscale is one I don't think so but another vpn we use is, it's even worse because opening them only creates the menubar icon. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out why the vpn wouldn't start before I realised it was just hidden. No feedback at all
Yes it is genuinely infuriating that this is the case for a company that for so long was praised for their superior UX.
This along with the tons of other paper cuts they've slacked on is tarring their brand.
It was Windows 7 when Microsoft added an overflow for tray icons, not XP.
Just take Ice's source and have Claude whip you up the features you want. Keep it to yourself. Takes an afternoon and doesn't have other people calling you a sloplogist.
To be clear: this is not really new with the notch. It's been menu bar icon behavior for decades where if there isn't enough space for all the menus plus menu icons, menu icons disappear with no way to get to them. The notch just acts like the last menu item now (albeit even if there's space between the last menu item and the notch, for applications without a ton of menus).
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.
> I know software quality has been going down in recent versions of macOS
Note that this particular problem has existed for well over a decade. It's atrocious, but let's not pretend it's anything new.
One of the mentioned apps, Bartender, was sold to a third party [0].
[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/
It is ! I’m “solving” it with an app called bartender. It’s hacked and sometimes doesn’t work but was the only way I could manage this problem…
Apple software sucks so bad!
Yes, it's terrible and something even Windows handles better. It's one of those utterly bizarre Apple things which make me wonder which old product guy has dirt on everyone else at the company.
This is a real problem, but when I complain about it I get told to just "hide the icons you don't care about" as if that's a solution.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47346079