“The menu bar in OS X doesn’t just contain the menus for the application you’re currently using; it can also hold all sorts of helpful extras that can be accessed from any application with just one click. Here are a few of those extras, plus some handy tips for use in the menu bar,” Josh Sunshine reports for GigaOM.
“There are a few icons that are in the menu bar by default, such as the Wi-Fi menu, the date and time display and the volume menu. There are also a lot of built-in system menus available, but not shown by default. To find them, navigate to System > Library > CoreServices > Menu Extras in the Finder,” Sunshine reports. “Here you’ll find even more menu items, such as an Eject item, which lets you eject CDs and DVDs from your optical drive, and Universal Access menu. To add one to the menu bar, simply double-click it in the Finder.”
Sunshine reports, “Another way to find additional menus for the menu bar is in the Mac App Store. There are hundreds available, but here are a couple which really stand out.”
Read more in the full article here.
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras
Double click Eject.menu so you can easily eject a second DVD in a dual DVD system.
Or you can just download Ejector for Mac. Lives on your menubar and does the same thing more elegantly.
Option Eject accomplishes the same task.
I can’t speak for Mail in Lion but the Snow Leopard Mail app seems to be to be overly driven by menubar items as compared to MS Outlook 2003 which has icons for ordinary tasks like moving, copying and assorted other stuff like formatting text and choosing fonts.
I found this rather sparse approach rather difficult to adjust to given how easy the Mac was supposed to be to use. But Apple seems to have hidden away common tasks in menubars whereas Microsoft prefers to embody graphical representations of them on the icon bar.
I find I’m still less productive with Pages and Mail on a Mac than I should be because the paradigm shift in the way how icons are displayed with the Inspector is something that needs adjusting to given how ingrained I am in Windows iconology.
Sounds like Ballmer’s Left Nut has got dislodged to your brain.
@Ballmer, I agree Mail is lacking in the icon driven approach. As a long time Mac user, font selection is especially annoying. Instead of icons, Apple’s approach seems focused on keyboard shortcuts. After memorizing my favorite manuvuers’ shortcut keys, my productivity increased noticeably.
My bitch (similar to this) has always been about TextEdit and how jacked up font and text formatting has always been. Thankfully, Apple has amped up TextEdit in Lion.
Step 1: Right Click on MenuBar
Step 2: Click on customize tool bar
Step 3: Add your favorite icons
Ummmm….the author was talking about customizing the system menubar – not an application’s menu bar.
Josh Sunshine?
Could there be a happier sounding name?
How does a boss get mad and yell at someone with a name like that?
“Sunshine, get your ass in here!!!”
“G-dammit, Josh!!!”
Reminds me of Steve Martin trying to sing an unhappy song on the banjo. Even the lyrics “Oh death and grief and sorrow and murder…” come out sounding positive.
Mac OS X ships with over 25 available menu bar items. That’s enough to fill up the entire bar. Then you can add those from dozens of other apps. I currently have 19 third party menu bar items running.
THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM:
So how do you access all those menu bar items when they’re overflowing the menu bar? I have yet to find any solution.
Of course, this is precisely why Apple never wanted third party menu bar icons in the first place. They spent YEARS fighting them by changing and hiding the menu bar icon APIs. For awhile, every new version of Mac OS X heralded another third party hack to allow non-Apple menu bar icons.
So what’s an over-active menu bar icon geek to do?!
The only half-solution I ever found was the simple NoMenuBar app, obtainable here:
http://www.jeb.com.fr/en/nomenubar.shtml
Its only menu is its name. This provides maximum space for menu bar icon access. If that’s still not enough room, you gotta kill some off! And for a power user, that’s just sad. 😥
If anyone knows a better solution, please post!!!
Holy crap…. 19 3rd party menu bar items?
Actually Im afraid to count… But I hardly doubt I have that many.
I may have 10 total.. Between apple and 3rd party apps. (hmm… 10-12 maybe?)
I try and keep it small. I’m not at my iMac, just trying to remember off the top of my head.
Caffeine
Main menu
Date/time
Volume
Wifi
you control iTunes
Little snitch
Pinpoint
And drawing a blank now…
I could run more on my iMac, but my MBP would be cramped with 10+ (i try and keep them the same)
What’s an “Optical Drive”? 😉