Originally it wasn’t even possible for third parties to add new menu extras using public APIs. That was something reserved for Apple. Third party devs had to use a tool called MenuCracker.

When Apple finally added the API used now, the intention for it was for full fat GUI programs to provide ephemeral menu item companions that disappear when the host app is quit. It was never intended to facilitate persistent third party menu extras.

So the issue hasn’t been fixed because in Apple’s view it’s a problem of third party devs’ own creation. If all third party menu items were ephemeral nobody would have enough for them to overflow into the notch area.

——

Personally I think they should offer a way to extend the Control Center and push devs who want persistence towards that. That would afford better organization for users and allow them to better control which are immediately visible (since some apps don’t offer an option to hide their menu item).

Windows solved this many many decades ago with their system tray overflow menu. Browsers solved it too, by letting you put extension icons in an overflow menu. It's not hard.

But nooo, macOS just silently hides applications from you, with no visible indication that there's anything hidden.

There's really no exception to this rule. For an (tiny) minority of applications, it makes sense to hide the dock icon, and to typically access the app via hotkey or menu bar widget. But those apps should still have an icon and should still be able to be invoked by opening it using any of the standard ways to do that. That's just how the Mac works.

It's such an easy problem to fix, with such incredible usability consequences, I just don't get the thinking.

https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice

Can anyone speculate on any rational if not good reasons for not solving this problem yet?

Shouldn't have to, but it might mitigate some of the stuff a FAQ won't catch.

  system.defaults.NSGlobalDomain = {  
    NSStatusItemSpacing = 2;  
    NSStatusItemSelectionPadding = 2;  
  };

Do you have anything else as useful as this? THis is perfect

Set up a US device as an exit node, and configure other devices to proxy through it.

By default it will leak your so-called “private” network behavior to Tailscale (connections on what port, from what node, to what node, opened when, closed when): https://tailscale.com/docs/features/logging

The interface is bad when it comes to provisioning but it can be done with a QR code and once it works the native experience of turning on the VPN was just stunningly fast. In this day and age you expect things to be slow with negotiation and various unreliable steps but it was just amazing that I tap the VPN button on iOS and it's connected in a fraction of a second.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47346079

Really depressing design dereliction and/or incompetence.

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.

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.

Investing in a visual redesign (Liquid Glass) but not an obvious UX issue of the notch hiding icons seems like a mis-prioritization.

This along with the tons of other paper cuts they've slacked on is tarring their brand.

https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice

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.

Note that this particular problem has existed for well over a decade. It's atrocious, but let's not pretend it's anything new.

[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/

Apple software sucks so bad!

I do exactly this! I keep Tailscale running my family's shared iMac, making it easy for me to remotely connect to it and screen share if necessary to help. I went a more complicated route[0] and installed Tailscale as a system background daemon that runs as root and starts up before the first user login. Which also means no GUI interface, so more protected from user error.

[0] https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/wiki/Tailscaled-on-ma... (the standalone variant is also entirely opensource, unlike their macOS GUI app)

There's a whole class of GUI apps that should run in the background until needed, and GNOME just has no solution here. I really don't get why they removed this functionality.

I don't want a "service" model where you start/stop gui apps via systemd. And I don't want to keep a window around for no good reason.

https://tailscale.com/docs/features/client/linux-systray

> As we noted at its September beta release, a windowed version of Tailscale’s macOS app doesn’t replace the menu bar app, but runs alongside it. It can be pulled up from the Dock or a Spotlight search, and makes a lot of Tailscale data and features more accessible.

Let people — not your app — decide whether to put your menu bar extra in the menu bar. Typically, people add a menu bar extra to the menu bar by changing a setting in an app’s settings window. To ensure discoverability, however, consider giving people the option of doing so during setup.

Avoid relying on the presence of menu bar extras. The system hides and shows menu bar extras regularly, and you can’t be sure which other menu bar extras people have chosen to display or predict the location of your menu bar extra.

Consider exposing app-specific functionality in other ways, too. For example, you can provide a Dock menu that appears when people Control-click your app’s Dock icon. People can hide or choose not to use your menu bar extra, but a Dock menu is aways available when your app is running.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

Apple’s opinion seems to be: running out of space happens to only a few people running tons of menu-bar-loving apps, so if you are dorky enough to run into this problem, you should be dorky enough to solve it yourself.

for example "tailscale" drop for free, share files between devices on your network

also https://tailscale.com/docs/features/tailscale-funnel which is cloudflare tunnel alternative, no more localtunnel or other things

so i am not surprized people like it as product, most good features are free.

> Eventually it got so bad Microsoft just baked it into the OS. Tailscale is on even worse footing here because Apple is even quicker to act when you destroy user experience.

So Apple are going to bake Tailscale into the OS? Also, read the blog. It's a response to Apple's bad user experience.

I use tailscale every single day.