The macosxhints Forums - Can I make the Top menu bar invisible ? Or dissapear ?

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- - Can I make the Top menu bar invisible ? Or dissapear ? (http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=16927)

Can I make the Top menu bar invisible ? Or dissapear ?

Title says it all.

Sometimes when I close all apps the menu title bar will turn invisable or dissaper . I know that it is a glitch but I love this glitch.
Can it be done all time with a haxie app like thing ?

Unsanity.com never returns my emails so they are no good for help...

It's pretty important to every app and the Finder.. having it invisible would make apps kinda useless. Not ever command in every app has a keyboard command associated with it..

But just being tranasparent would be soooo cool . And would remove the drab white border from my lovely desktop image. Could some brave soul try to make a theme again ? Maybe something has changed in Panther

TransparentDock gives you the ability to quit the Finder, leaving just your desktop, but, it comes back as soon as you do anything.

Here's a little app I made

Here's a little app I just made. VERY simple. The only problem is it is only for one app.... I will try to figure it out.

http://homepage.mac.com/samsprograms/MenuByeBye.zip

btw, the command used was [NSMenu setMenuBarVisible:TRUE/FALSE]

Re: Here's a little app I made

Quote:

Originally posted by srmc710
Here's a little app I just made. VERY simple. The only problem is it is only for one app.... I will try to figure it out.

http://homepage.mac.com/samsprograms/MenuByeBye.zip

btw, the command used was [NSMenu setMenuBarVisible:TRUE/FALSE]

Does not work. How the hell do you use the new console ? I want to give you a report but the thing updates really weird and It seems to not show what I need to tell you

I think that this is what you need

Command: MenuByeBye (/Users/joiceannhall/Desktop/MenuByeBye.app/Contents/MacOS/MenuByeBye)
PID: 2758
Thread: Unknown

Link (dyld) error:

dyld: /Users/joiceannhall/Desktop/MenuByeBye.app/Contents/MacOS/MenuByeBye can't open library: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ZeroLink.framework/Versions/A/ZeroLink (No such file or directory, errno = 2)

I don't know why that happened. Maybe something with 10.3. I will try to find why it won't work on your computer..... Please tell me what version of X you are using....

happy go lucky retail version. Also the expose blob will not work not yours but still just a thought

srmc, note that the goal here is to see the menu items but not the menu bar. Are you just putting the machine in kiosk or theater mode with your script?

td, there is a very active mac theming community that has been working on this for a long, long time. So far it's not been done to my knowledge. A lot of other things can be done, but Apple doesn't make it easy to mess with the menu bar. Just changing the text color on the menu bar is very difficult to impossible.

Here is one place to start if you are interested in themes and GUI modifications:

http://www.funmac.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=84

srmc if your mod works then you will be a hero to the theming community.

Yes you will ! Hear Hear ! Please make it work somehow ! Did it work for you on Panther ? Or are you still on jag ?

Sorry, I was just hiding the menu bar completely. U don't know why it didn't work for you, but it looks like it wasn't what you wanted anyways.

Quote:

Originally posted by srmc710
Sorry, I was just hiding the menu bar completely. U don't know why it didn't work for you, but it looks like it wasn't what you wanted anyways.

No no . I would like it in in anyfasion. The fact that you dd get it to work for you shows that it is there somehow. And all you need to do is rig it to do it for all apps and beable ot reveal it when at the very top of the screen

I hope that you can figure out whay it did not work for me

Why are you trying to hide the menu bar? Whenever it is hidden, nothing can be moved into the area where the menu bar was...

By the way.... Right now I have two programs that I have written. One makes the menu bar behave like the dock, and the other hides the menu bar completely. Which was the behavior you were looking for? I think I would be able to make it on all apps using App enhancer, but I'm not sure...

Just respond and I will post the app as soon as I can...

<EDIT>
Ahem. Just re-read the post above this one. I'm perfectly prepared to eat my hat. Bring the app!
</EDIT>

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

ahem. Sorry.

*adjusts tie. brushes down suit*

Now, where was I?

Ah yes. I really don't get this. I really don't get why people see this glitch when they force quit an app (ie app's menu bar goes away, but no other app gets brought to the front to replace it, so there's not "front app" with a menu bar) and then go ape begging people to make it a "feature".

I know it's all a matter of taste, but this has been covered soooo many times and I'm having a slow evening, so prepare for a quick resumé of the progress so far ;)

- This is a bug. In fact, it's not even a bug, it's a non-feature. As I've said before, seeing this and thinking that it's possible to make the bar transparent is like telling me you can make finder windows transparent by clicking on the little red blob in the top left. It's not transparent, it's not there! The menu bar isn't like the dock, it's not a separate app that can be turned on and off or fiddled with - it's part of the app that spawned it. When I launch Safari, the Finder menu bar is hidden, and the Safari one is launched and put in its place. Switching back to Finder reverses the procedure. When I quit safari, its menu quits as well. This is why if you use Duality to skin the menu bar, you have to restart apps that were running before the skinning in order to update their menu bar graphics.

- but AHA! you say! Duality can SKIN the menu bar! Therefore even if what you're saying is true, we can still change the source images for the bar! W00t! Make it happen! Just use some transparent images, or (even better), SEMI transparent images! BRING IT!

Okay, stop foaming. OS X has been out for (1..2..) 3 years now (including the beta). You reckon you're the first person to think of this? You reckon that, with hordes of screaming neophytes like yourself out there gagging on their restraints to have this feature, NOBODY'S TRIED THIS?

:D

*woah! I really need to lighten up here... mods, delete or censor this if you like, but I'm kinda on a roll here and I'm finding it a little amusing. Hopefully everyone else will get a chuckle from this "Bob the Angry Flower" style post. If not, sorry guys, this is NOTHING PERSONAL. As I said, I'm bored... ;) *

So, the reaon the transparent images won't work is that Apple simply has not implemented the code necessary for it to work. In order to make the menu bar render transparent images or alpha channels, you're going to need to make some fairly heavy duty changes to the way that thing is created. I'm not a programming guy by any means, but I suspect that means *completely rewriting parts of the Cocoa gui frameworks*. Installing Haxies should come with a health warning as they can destabilise your system. Doing something like THIS would be potentially suicidal, I reckon.

From what I've seen of the menu, it's a unseemly hack that seems to be well overdue an update. I think Apple *would* be better placed to implement it more like the Dock (ie one centralised app that alters depending on the frontmost app), but either it's more hassle than it's worth to change, it's too unstable to risk messing with it, or there are more subtle background reasons why it would be a bad idea.

In any event, at the moment this feature cannot be implemented by anything that I would consider letting within 500 yards of my setup.

Jeez. Why does this topic always get my hackles up? Probably becuase I'm actually one of the screaming neophytes at heart, and whenever I see a thread like this I start to believe that our Saviour has come ;)

One day it will happen. But I'm going to let Apple make it safe first...

Whew, that was a heavy post there! The question does get tiring after a while though. What about starting some kind of pool? How long do you think it will be before the next post asking for a transparant menu bar? That way at least one person would have something to smile about! :-)

ok here:
http://homepage.mac.com/samsprograms/MenuLikeDock.zip

(zip file from panther)
I will respond as soon as possible...

Quote:

Originally posted by srmc710
ok here:
http://homepage.mac.com/samsprograms/MenuLikeDock.zip

(zip file from panther)
I will respond as soon as possible...

EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:eek: :eek: :eek:
Almost purrrrrrrfect ! Just find a way give the option to not hide the dock as another choice .

YAYYAYAYAYYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYYA two years in the makeing for this silly happy go lucky feature ! THANK YOUUUUUUUU ^v^

Also if you don't mind. If you do not want to sell it. But still claim it as your own. Can you open source it ? As I do not want this app to dissapear one day. As this is something I will always use forever and I want to make sure I can get somebody to refix it if you dissapear from these boards.. ^v^ just want it to continue forever.

Unlike Apple taking away the great feature of Icon independant size. I will miss that one.

Oh it's a really simple program. Simple enough to even post right here. It's fully documented on apple's web site. Here are the addresses:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2002/tn2062.html
http://developer.apple.com/documenta...es/NSMenu.html
I will post the code in the following post(s?)
There are probably some little things that should be better but I'm just a beginner who looked at the documentation

Code:

//

//  MenuHider.h

//  MenuLikeDock

//

//  Created by Sam McCandlish on Wed Nov 05 2003.

//  Copyright (c) 2003 SamsPrograms. All rights reserved.

//





@interface MenuHider : NSObject {

    BOOL dockLike;

    BOOL visible;

}

    - (IBAction)hideMenu:(id)sender;

    - (IBAction)showMenu:(id)sender;

    - (IBAction)dockLike:(id)sender;

    - (IBAction)notDockLike:(id)sender;



@end

(Edited to make the accidental smilies go away)

Code:

//

//  MenuHider.m

//  MenuLikeDock

//

//  Created by Sam McCandlish on Wed Nov 05 2003.

//  Copyright (c) 2003 SamsPrograms. All rights reserved.

//



#import "MenuHider.h"





@implementation MenuHider



- (void)awakeFromNib {

    dockLike = TRUE;

    visible = TRUE;

}



- (IBAction)hideMenu:(id)sender {

    if (dockLike)

        SetSystemUIMode(kUIModeAllHidden, kUIOptionAutoShowMenuBar);

    else

        [NSMenu setMenuBarVisible:FALSE];

    visible = FALSE;

}



- (IBAction)showMenu:(id)sender {

    SetSystemUIMode(kUIModeNormal, nil);

    [NSMenu setMenuBarVisible:TRUE];

    visible = TRUE;

}



- (IBAction)dockLike:(id)sender {

    dockLike = TRUE;

    if (!visible) {

        [self showMenu:nil];

        [self hideMenu:nil];

    }

}



- (IBAction)notDockLike:(id)sender {

    dockLike = FALSE;

    if (!visible) {

        [self showMenu:nil];

        [self hideMenu:nil];

    }

}



@end

Code:

//

// Prefix header for all source files of the 'MenuLikeDock' target in the 'MenuLikeDock' project

//



#ifdef __OBJC__

    #import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>

    #include <Carbon/Carbon.h>

    #import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

#endif

Neat !
Sooo from all of that I must ask. Can the immpossable be done for all apps ?

:D Are you m@d l33t enou©h ? :D

And still be able to use the dock ????

Please and Thankyou

^v^

As far as I can tell this only confirms that you can hide the menu bar only on an application by application basis. In fact the documentation you refer to clearly says:

As mentioned earlier the SystemUIMode and SystemUIOptions specified are only in effect while the process which called SetSystemUIMode is frontmost.

Download and noodle with this demo (be sure to hide the menu with it then bring some other app forward).

Quote:

Originally posted by rusto
As far as I can tell this only confirms that you can hide the menu bar only on an application by application basis. In fact the documentation you refer to clearly says:

As mentioned earlier the SystemUIMode and SystemUIOptions specified are only in effect while the process which called SetSystemUIMode is frontmost.

Download and noodle with this demo (be sure to hide the menu with it then bring some other app forward).

It does not work in Panther ! waaaa :(

oh well

I have panther and it works for me!

it did not work for me, but i reall, really want it, could u send it to my email? It is trevstrotz1@hotmail.com

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by trevstrotz1 (Post 392059)

it did not work for me, but i reall, really want it, could u send it to my email?

It is an extremely bad idea to install software from strangers! (And people that you know only by their nickname on a forum such as this count as strangers) You have no idea what it really does and you are really inviting someone to send you a "trojan horse" or other such malware.
This is especially true of software that asks for your admin password.

Sorry, pressed the wrong key. Anyway, thanks to lespaulio
04-13-2007, 12:32 AM. After 3 days of 'not' finding the problem solution on my own. THANK you. By the way I have a eMac version 10.3.9 Does all I need :~)
Happy day to all.
Jean H