[Feature Request] notch macbook support.

[jiengup]

Beneficial application!
Do you consider designing for a notch MacBook's built-in screen?
When we have so many menu bar icons, we can't see all the icons using ice's hidden strategy nowadays.
It's like:
On my 27 inch monitor:

But on built-in screen:

because of Apple's genius notch design.

[jordanbaird]

This is something that could definitely be supported, but I don't have access to a MacBook with a notch to be able to work on it. I'll add it to the roadmap for the time being, and hopefully it can happen soon.

[y-u-s-u-f]

I think it would be cool if we got an option like Bartenders "Bar" - Photo:

[jordanbaird]

I think it would be cool if we got an option like Bartenders "Bar" - Photo:

This is also on the roadmap, but can't be implemented until I work out how to implement individual menu bar item movement. Right now, Ice can only move items in sections. I have a semi-working implementation, but it's quite complicated with lots of failure points that need to be addressed.

[merken]

I'm waiting for notch support as well. Once this issue gets resolved, I'll try this app out!

[loranger]

Notch support would definitely be great: I miss some app icons behind it 😞

[Xytronix]

For those additional menu bars, its only possible to add them to the menu bar and then to be opened as far I know. This isn't that fluent, but a solution for Macbooks with a Notch

[Xytronix]

Beneficial application! Do you consider designing for a notch MacBook's built-in screen? When we have so many menu bar icons, we can't see all the icons using ice's hidden strategy nowadays. It's like: On my 27 inch monitor: But on built-in screen: because of Apple's genius notch design.

If its possible to show menu bar items on the left, then the width of the notch has to be recorded.

[blu-e-man]

Now that Bartender is exhibiting strange behavior, notch support from ICE would be great.

[HaigNalbandian]

Please move this to the top of the backlog. Many people want to move from Bartender at the moment, but this is a must-have.

[yonatankremer]

the people have spoken

[nweii]

Another space-efficient approach for when the notch prevents all extra items from showing could be for those extra items to replace the unhidden items when revealed, instead of showing in addition to those items. That creates some extra space to show hidden icons. I use it this way in bartender currently.

[jordanbaird]

I hear everyone. This is definitely in the pipeline. The main thing blocking this is that Ice needs to be able to move individual menu bar icons. When an icon is clicked in the secondary bar, it needs to be temporarily moved from whichever section it is in to the visible section so it can show its menu. I have this mostly working, but there are certain apps, such as BetterTouchTool, that block the proper events from being sent to the items. A temporary workaround could be to disable the feature when BetterTouchTool is running.

[jonasjelonek]

Is there anything we can support you with in this, besides the financial support?
This is currently the only thing that unwillingly prevents me from moving from Bartender to Ice, since I also have the Notch.

Maybe an alpha/beta release would be something? Since you said it's mostly working we could test it, and discover and sort out remaining issues.

[merken]

I would also like to volunteer as beta tester if that helps. MBP 14 with notch.
Would it not be as simple as providing a spacer at the coordinates of the notch? Are there any API's to leverage here?

[MoKhajavi75]

I can help in beta testing too. MBP 14 (M3 - Sonoma 14.5)

[HaigNalbandian]

Also willing to test on my notched 14" MB Air and on a 27" 1440p monitor

[gingerbeardman]

Would it not be as simple as providing a spacer at the coordinates of the notch? Are there any API's to leverage here?

My thoughts exactly. If so, we would need to figure out if the current display has a notch (hopefully as simple as an api call) and how big it is (are they all the same?)

[fifafu]

@jordanbaird developer of BetterTouchTool here, what kind of events are you seeing blocked by BTT? Would be happy to fix or help with that. (Bartender also seems to be able to do this while BTT is running, but I haven't checked the exact events it uses yet)

[kud]

It would be amazing to have this feat. I want to get rid of Bartender asap. 🙏

[jordanbaird]

@fifafu Thank you for the help! I haven't tracked down exactly which of these it is, but it's one (or all) of mouse down, mouse dragged, and mouse up. It results in an event tap that listens for these events timing out. Would you be able to email me at [email protected] so we can talk in more detail about what's going on?

[fifafu]

Sure I'll ping you!
But isn't the general problem that you can only target items that are "on-screen" with these events? I can easily programmatically move around the items that are visible, but the hidden ones that are pushed off screen by either setting the status item length to a high value or because there are just too many, these I'm unable to access using standard events.

[jordanbaird]

@fifafu I've found a workaround for that. But yes, that was a problem early on.

[lint2015]

Thanks again for the updates @jordanbaird. With beta 5, my previous issues persisted initially, however instead of the zero-sized Ice Bar, I got a pop up saying something like "Unable to display menu bar items. Try switching spaces."

Happy to report that once I did this, used Ice on that other space, then switched back to my original space, both the Menu Bar Items section of Preferences and the Ice Bar itself are functioning as intended.

I'll post again if I encounter any serious bugs relating to the Ice Bar.

[dploeger]

Beta 5 works fine with the Ice bar for me. However, the "Menu Bar Items" settings look like this:

Maybe a permission is missing here?

[jordanbaird]

@dploeger What happens if you switch to another space? I've found that sometimes a space seems to become "invalid" for offscreen window capture. Once you switch to another space, you can switch back and it works again.

[dploeger]

@jordanbaird Closed the settings window, switched to another space, opened settings again. Same error.

[jordanbaird]

@dploeger Hmm...does the number of question marks correspond to the number of visible items in your menu bar?

[dploeger]

@jordanbaird Yes. And the feature actually works. I can move around the question marks and the items in the menu bar are reordered.

[jonasjelonek]

With beta 5 I have some issues again with the Ice Bar and a second screen. If I open the Ice Bar on the main screen after Ice's first start, its height is too low so that the icons are cut off. But after a second or two this fixes itself. However, when I open the Ice Bar on my second screen it and the icons within are displayed extremely large (see below). Sometimes, there are also some temporary issues with the icon sizing but they usually resolve after closing and reopening the Ice Bar one multiple times.

Apart from that, that the item is clicked when it is selected in the Ice Bar now works perfectly fine for me. I also don't experience the issue that I just see question marks in the Menu Bar setting.

[sweetppro]

@jordanbaird beta5 is working great for me. thanks!

[T-Specht]

At this point what I would like to know is how close this feels to being ready for release. If there are some breaking bugs, we'll obviously have to address those, but if it's just down to small inconsistencies or missing features, those can be added or fixed later.

Thank you for your hard work, beta 5 works great for me, too! Also, the workaround for Magnet that you implemented has fixed the issues I was having previously.

[BryanWall]

When I tried beta 5 coming from 0.9.0, none of my icons were displayed and all of the sections of "Menu Bar Items" in settings were blank (screenshot attached). The Ice menu bar icon wasn't even there. I rolled back to 0.9.0 and then it wouldn't work either. I used CleanMyMac to remove Ice and all of its settings. After purging all traces of Ice and reinstalling beta 5, everything is working as expected. Maybe there is an issue converting some settings from 0.9.0 to the latest versions?

[CzarHey]

Bartender refugee here. The Ice Bar is coming along nicely, though I noticed an issue where Ice doesn't hide the application's menu bar items when using the Ice Bar, even when "Hide application menus when showing menu bar items" is selected. This issue doesn't appear if the Ice Bar is disabled; application menus will be hidden normally in that instance.

2024-06-24_15-05-27.1.mp4

[kishaningithub]

For notch support UX i you can also take inspiration from ibar (screenshot below). The only con i see with ibar is that it is closed source.

[jordanbaird]

@gingerbeardman Did the coloring issue ever get fixed for you? The Ice Bar is supposed to be roughly the color of the menu bar on the active screen, and the menu bar items should match the color of the items on that same screen.

[gingerbeardman]

I'll try the beta again later today and let you know

[gingerbeardman]

@gingerbeardman Did the coloring issue ever get fixed for you? The Ice Bar is supposed to be roughly the color of the menu bar on the active screen, and the menu bar items should match the color of the items on that same screen.

@jordanbaird

No, still a problem in light mode:

light mode

• icons are white (would expect them to be dark!)
• bar is roughly the menu bar colour

dark mode

• icons are white
• bar is roughly the menu bar colour

I also see two other problems

1. i have two displays - MBP which is retina and external display (set as main) which is not
   • bar shows up tiny on retina MBP display
   • bar is normal sized on external/main display
2. "unable to display menu bar items. try switching spaces
   • but i do not use spaces at all
   • seems very temperamental whether or not the bar will appear

[jonasjelonek]

@jordanbaird I probably noticed a similar issue again. When I change my wallpaper (I do that regularly with an app) and the menu bar color changes, the background of the Ice bar changes properly too, but not the icon color (again). IIRC this was working in the last beta, at least for me.

@gingerbeardman Just out of curiosity, is the color of the menu bar influenced by light/dark mode on your system? For me it isn't, but only depends on the background that is used. I also have auto mode for light/dark activated but my menu bar color only changes when I change the wallpaper.

[gingerbeardman]

My menu bar colour changes along with light and dark mode.

[jordanbaird]

@gingerbeardman This is how it looks on my system while switching between light and dark mode with a dynamic wallpaper:

Screen.Recording.2024-06-25.at.7.49.44.PM.mov

Note that in macOS, the menu bar item color is influenced by the color of the menu bar, not the specific system appearance. They might not always change colors between light and dark mode, since some people might not use dynamic wallpapers. So it isn't an easy check to determine which items to show. The way I've been dealing with it so far is to just capture the current item windows. To be honest, I have no idea why it isn't capturing the right ones for you.

On the "try switching spaces" message:

Menu bar item capture, in my experience, isn't reliable at all on some people's machines. What seems to be happening is that a space can end up in an "invalid" state of sorts and suddenly, none of its menu bar items can be captured. The reason for the "try switching spaces" message is because that's the only way I've been able to figure out to get a space out of this state. If anyone has ideas for this, I'd love to hear them

[vr8hub]

Installed beta 5 (on Sonoma 14.4.1, M3 MBP); the background color of the Ice Bar is fixed for me (now light like the main menu), but clicking on any of the icons in the bar still doesn't open the associated app. It does lighten the icon for a few seconds then goes back to normal, but the app doesn't open. True for every icon in the bar (I have eight).

[jordanbaird]

@vr8hub Good to know. Still work to be done on that front, I suppose.

[apotenza92]

Beta 5 works super well for me thanks so much for your efforts @jordanbaird! One minor suggestion I'd like is a downwards facing chevron as an icon! Would compliment the Bar well.

[gingerbeardman]

dynamic wallpapers

I don't use dynamic wallpaper.

And I will record a video of how the transition from light to dark is handled for me

[fleytman]

Thank you, overall it has become more stable, I almost completely switched to ice bar!According to the latest beta and compared to ibar.

1. Left mouse click now opens the app menu, thank you. But it doesn't work in full screen mode (fn+f)
2. The right click didn't appear. I know that ibar doesn't have it either. Whether there is any organichenie on right click mouse?
3. If in ice settings that shows iknoku of record of the screen. In ibar, the icon appears less frequently (or does not appear at all)
4. New elements are added to autohide, although it is more logical to add them to the second panel
5. As I mentioned earlier, in ibar you can change the size of icons, it is worth it [to implement] (https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2023/12/16/macbook-notch-and-menu-bar-fixes/)
6. The znotch function is also not bad to add, sometimes you need to place more icons in front of your eyes

[vr8hub]

I don't know if anything is feasible, but…
Fantastical shows text for your next appointment next to its icon in the menubar when the appt gets close (within an hour? 90 minutes?). This of course pushes everything else to the left, which means (for me) at least one and sometimes two icons next to the notch get pushed underneath it and are no longer visible. The Ice Bar doesn't help in that circumstance, since the icons aren't in the hidden section. It would be nice™ if Ice could include those in the Ice Bar for as long as Fantastical is taking up extra room.
As I said, maybe not feasible, but I thought I'd ask just in case.

[Xytronix]

Bug: when closing an app and reopening it, ice doesn’t remember its position. Instead it is added to the menu bar.

[gingerbeardman]

On the "try switching spaces" message:

Switching spaces still doesn't get the icon bar to appear for me, I still get the message.

I use an external display, portrait, that is sometimes retina sometimes not.

Right now I'm unable to see the ice bar, even restarting the app doesn't help.

[Xytronix]

Icon doesn't show up under Ice for a reason. It gets removed every time I terminate the app as well.

[jordanbaird]

@Xytronix what icon are you referring to?

[Xytronix]

@jordanbaird the top left icon next to the dots