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Add preference: remove AltTab from the menubar #103

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fturcheti opened this issue Dec 31, 2019 · 19 comments
Closed

Add preference: remove AltTab from the menubar #103

fturcheti opened this issue Dec 31, 2019 · 19 comments
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preference Introduction of a new preference

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@fturcheti
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I don't like to keep lots of apps on the menubar, and AltTab has no crucial feature to be sitting there. Actually, I think it should "invisible" to the user, just showing up when activated to switch windows. So it would be nice to have an option to remove its icon from the menubar.
@lwouis
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lwouis commented Dec 31, 2019

That sound a bit extreme to me. An app that has no dock icon when active, and no menubar, means that the user has no conventional way to interact with it.

How would you quit the app? How would you change the preferences?

Let's say you can call a shortcut for both. What it you forgot the shortcut, how would you get unstuck then?

@nathang21
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nathang21 commented Dec 31, 2019 via email

@lwouis
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lwouis commented Jan 1, 2020 via email

@fturcheti
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fturcheti commented Jan 1, 2020 •
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That sound a bit extreme to me. An app that has no dock icon when active, and no menubar, means that the user has no conventional way to interact with it. How would you quit the app? How would you change the preferences?

There are other apps that provide this kind of experience. Often, they warn the user about this choice with some info about the consequences of this option (and generally they're target to "advanced" users). A way to interact with this apps is to "launch them", clicking on its icon in the Applications folder, in the Dock (if they're pinned there) or using Spotlight/Alfred/Quicksilver…

But another way to solve this issue would be to provide a selector "Show AltTab in" with the options "Menu bar" and "Dock". This way, user that like to have apps in the menu bar, including the ones that use apps like Bartender and Vanilla to manage them, could opt to keep things as they are now (that could be the default). But users that don't like to have lots of apps sitting in their menu bar could opt for moving the icon to their Dock.

@akx
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akx commented Jan 2, 2020

Let's say you can call a shortcut for both. What it you forgot the shortcut, how would you get unstuck then?

E.g. Dash has options for "No Dock Icon" and "No Menubar Icon". If you set both, it helpfully warns that you can re-launch the app, and it'll show the main window for you. I think we could do the same here.

@jpuris
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jpuris commented Jan 3, 2020 •
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As a workaround that may suit your use case, would be to use something like https://www.macbartender.com/. This is my currently preferred method.

I do agree that this is a welcome change and my thumbs up go for

  • Open menu preferences window, when opening the app while its already open

Similar or same behavior can be observed with following apps

  • Contexts
  • Alfred
  • ???

edit: phrasing
edit: wording. Thank you, Felipe Turcheti.

@fturcheti
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As a workaround that may suit your use case, would be to use something like https://www.macbartender.com/. This is my currently preferred method.

Yes. For that I'm trying Dozer, cited by @akx in another discussion in this project. It seems to work better than Vanilla and it is cheaper than Bartender ;)

I do agree that this is a welcome change and my thumbs up go for: Open menu window, when app is open again, while running

I think that's the best solution too. And that is what @akx suggested above when using Dash as an example. But just making things clear, this behavior would be better expressed as "Open menu window Preferences window, when app is launched again while running in background"

@lwouis lwouis added enhancement New feature or request L size labels Jan 20, 2020
@lwouis lwouis changed the title Add option to remove AltTab from the menubar Add preference: remove AltTab from the menubar Jan 24, 2020
@lwouis lwouis added preference Introduction of a new preference and removed L size enhancement New feature or request labels Jan 24, 2020
@davidbarton
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davidbarton commented Feb 12, 2020 •
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I understand your position on this issue but there are many people between us including me who have some kind of OCD. In this case to have menu bar extremely thin. I am trying to remove every single app there and keep only os essentials (and not even all of them).

From feature perspective it is much easier to navigate and achieve tasks when you remove all the noise from the menu and keep there only the apps you use frequently.

Just a though. Is it possible to simply have it open the preferences view
when launched from the Mac Applications menu? For exiting the application,
a quit button could be added in that UI.

This is a preferred way how to interact with the app when required. Mainly because this is setup once and forget kind of app for me and I do not plan to change anything ever.

Would be really happy for option to hide app icon from menu bar.

@mrc247-DE
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or exchange the "AltTab" lettering for a small symbol that does not take up so much space in the menubar

@lwouis
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lwouis commented Feb 15, 2020

or exchange the "AltTab" lettering for a small symbol that does not take up so much space in the menubar

This is going to be done with the release of v3, hopefully next week. The menubar icon is going to be discussed in #38

@lwouis lwouis mentioned this issue Mar 31, 2020
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@ghost
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ghost commented Apr 9, 2020

If/when this is implemented, it would be nice to also implement a shortcut to access the preferences though , while Alt-Tab is showing on the screen.

@lwouis lwouis mentioned this issue Apr 24, 2020
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@lwouis lwouis mentioned this issue May 27, 2020
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This was referenced Jul 10, 2020
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@L1cardo
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L1cardo commented Jul 10, 2020

Is there any PR about this problem? If non, I would like to do this feature.

@lwouis
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lwouis commented Jul 10, 2020

@L1cardo nobody has taken the task yet. You are very welcome to do it. In case you haven't seen, here are some contributing docs.

Regarding the UI, I had this in mind:

image

Regarding the UX, when the menubar icon is hidden, the user becomes unable to access its dropdown menu, so we need a way to let the user access its features:

image

Thus I suggest these adjustments:

  • Double clicking the app in /Applications displays the Preferences panel (only if the app is already running)
  • The Preferences panels already has ways to check updates, and send feedback. However, we need to let the user quit the app. I found the way Swish does it really nice:
    image

What do you think?

@L1cardo
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L1cardo commented Jul 10, 2020 •
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@lwouis
OK, it is done.
屏幕录制2020-07-11 上午1 04 09 2020-07-11 01_09_23

This was referenced Jul 10, 2020
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Closed
@lwouis lwouis closed this as completed in 6635117 Jul 11, 2020
lwouis pushed a commit that referenced this issue Jul 11, 2020
@semantic-release-bot
chore(release): 4.2.0 [skip ci]
4c25d01 
# [4.2.0](v4.1.7...v4.2.0) (2020-07-11)

### Bug Fixes

* further chinese and french localizations ([99668ae](99668ae))
* further chinese/korean/french localizations ([d638eb0](d638eb0))

### Features

* add preference to hide menubar icon (closes [#103](#103)) ([6635117](6635117))
@medeiroshudson
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@lwouis is this feature removed for the latest version? I miss it in mine preferences pane 😢

@lwouis
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lwouis commented Aug 7, 2022

@medeiroshudson no it's there. On the first tab, please click the icon dropdown. There you can select the row with no icon.

@medeiroshudson
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It's true. I didn't pay attention to that!
Thanks a lot @lwouis !

@Centaurioun Centaurioun mentioned this issue Mar 3, 2023
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@pastelApe
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@lwouis I want to say thanks for making this app 👍. I know this issue is closed, but looks like this is still an issue with the current implementation. I am not sure how it is better for the user than your idea from July 10, 2020 to have the option to hide the icon. Without your response in this thread to select a row with no icon, I would have probably uninstalled it...

@KingPsychopath
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KingPsychopath commented May 7, 2024 •
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@lwouis OK, it is done. 屏幕录制2020-07-11 上午1 04 09 2020-07-11 01_09_23 [ ![屏幕录制2020-07-11 上午1 04 09 2020-07-11 01_09_23]

Wanted to say Thank you again for this.

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