Re:Show HN: What if your menu bar was a keyboard-controlled ...
by crazygringo on Sunday January 18, 2026 @01:08AM
(#46665234)
> Offtop: but is this the right question to ask?
Seeing as I'm not involved with developing macOS, I think it is?
> This is the first time I encounter a MacOS user who at least acknowledges the problem
Complaints about the menu bar icons are practically as old as the Mac itself. I don't know who doesn't acknowledge the problem. People have been complaining for decades now about having to buy Bartender to get around the problem.
Re:Show HN: What if your menu bar was a keyboard-controlled ...
by pugdogdev on Sunday January 18, 2026 @02:29AM
(#46665581)
Yes, the menu bar is a big issue.
So many useless icons and menus.
Because in macOS 26 it is easier to remove icons from the bar, I have added this "inline mode". A few users have already told me they removed everything and just put extra bar items, customized them however they want, so this makes it nicer.
Offtop: but is this the right question to ask?
Coming from Linux (involuntarily), the menu/tray implementation was one of the loudest UX issues I immediately discovered. Some functions can only be invoked from a system tray icon, and those actions can also be app/workspace-sensitive (like taking a screenshot with some special config using a screenshot tool). MacOS renders those functions inaccessible if the currently focused app has more than ~6 items in the menu.
Gosh, some apps even have menus so big, they don't fit on a single screen (btw, MacOS's solution is to compress the font, yeah, ask me how I know), leaving only the control center in the tray (which is completely useless in this scenario).
This is the first time I encounter a MacOS user who at least acknowledges the problem, albeit from a different angle: "you are displaying it wrong/your screen is too small".