Bartender Developer Explains and Apologizes for Quiet Acquisition

[paal (P. Boersting)]

@paal

@ddmiller

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing -int *X*
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding -int *X*

I am going to try this on my MacBook Pro. There is only one item that hides behind the notch. I have lived with a workaround which is to cmd drag another item to the left. This makes the one hidden appear. The other one disappears.

This is the settings I ended up with.
Spacing 9
Padding 6
Spacing 10 makes the leftmost disappear.
I am not sure if you need to set padding at all if the only thing you want is to change spacing. I am happy so I will not experiment further.

I have also noted that I can use these commands to check what my settings are. And that they are not set at all by Apple. Found this on Reddit.

defaults -currentHost read -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing
defaults -currentHost read -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding

And logout/login to have the changes take effect, as @ddmiller says.

[Sebby (Sabahattin Gucukoglu)]

@e51a2a5d

I don’t personally think Applause is a malware or spyware risk. I think they are what they appear to be: a business that buys up niche apps and then squeezes money out of them. But the kind of permissions Bartender relies on make trust in the app developer far more crucial than for the kinds of mobile apps Applause built its business model on. Applause’s other recent acquisitions have also not been without uproar: I wish Voice Dream Reader a bright future, but they have breached Apple’s Guidelines. Apple must protect consumers with swift action – Mosen At Large.

I just wanted to (respectfully but strongly) take issue with this.

I use VDR and don’t think there’s anything close to a credible alternative for some things that it does (SpeechCentral comes close, combined with Listen Later), so the acquisition/handover was a big deal for me. The fact that it’s sandboxed doesn’t make me any happier about the radical uptick in analytics data that it sends, regardless of whether Applause are bad people or not (and I agree, FWIW, that they are probably not) because I ultimately have to entrust sensitive data to it. And, of course, in that case, as in this, they bungled the communication horribly.

One may hope sincerely that they learn from this, continue to use their apps, and still be concerned about the increased risks… IMO, it’s not a question of how the app is technically limited, or the platform it runs on. It’s a question of whether you trust Applause, in spite of the concerns. I’m glad there are alternatives for Bartender users.

[dreh0602]

Hi. I wonder if you had a guide for moving from BT to Hidden Bar? I tried that on my M2 MBA which has a notch. The items I have as always showing in BT show, but all the hidden items can’t be found. Additionally, I don’t get either the chevron (>) or the vertical bar (|) in the menu bar. I’ve written the developer of Hidden Bar to see if they can shed some light but so far, nothing. I also tried Ice, from GitHub, but again, could show the always present items but couldn’t find the hidden ones. Thanks for any light you might be able to shed.

[neil1 (Neil Laubenthal)]

I found the same issue…so if you get some resolution please post it. For now, I just stuck with Ben’s last version 5.0.49.

[dreh0602]

Neil, I haven’t found something yet that works like BT (I’m stuck on v. 4 since I never upgraded to 5) handling the notch from within the app. I did find GitHub - zkondor/znotch: zNotch is for toggling (hide/show) your M1/M2 Macbook's notch which says it will hide and show the notch as to one’s choice. Haven’t tried it yet, as I prefer the way it’s all handled by the older versions of BT. Hope this helps!

[neil1 (Neil Laubenthal)]

Thanks, I’ve grabbed aNotch and set that as well to auto launch although TBH I probably don’t really need it. Maybe Hidden Bar will get fixed.

[dreh0602]

At this point, I’d recommend the beta, not the current, of Ice Bar on Github. Search for it. It’s currently free and the beta is so BT like, it’s amazing. The author is doing a lot of work since working with the stupid notch is at the top of most wanted features.

[neil1 (Neil Laubenthal)]

I’ll give that a try as well.

[neil1 (Neil Laubenthal)]

And I did…and it’s somewhat confusing. The settings don’t have (at least in 0.9.0 which I downloaded and it said it was the latest) the visible, hidden, and always hidden sections that the Read Me file shows. And on initial launch…everything was shown in the Hidden section and there were a bunch of icons that didn’t show up at all even in Hidden. I was able to add the divider and command drag things from hidden to visible which worked but even quitting and relaunching a couple times didn’t show the settings window that matched the Read Me or all of the existing items for me to move to the various sections. I’ll keep track on it…unless I’m must completely missing something…and see what the eventual 1.0 brings but went back to Ben’s last Bartender release for now. I also looked at zNotch which moves the menu bar below the notch at the expense of a little screen real estate but it didn’t look like something I would want to keep all the time although with a hot key I could switch to it, get to the icons in the notch, and then go back to normal menubar location.

[dlclaytor (DAVID CLAYTOR)]

I use the Uninstall feature in TrashMe 3. It does a splendid job of uninstalling the app and all of its supporting files in one fell swoop.

[nello]

MacStories published its review of Bartender alternatives:

Managing Your Mac Menu Bar: A Roundup of My Favorite Bartender Alternatives

[kk11 (Karsten Kr�ger)]

After reading the last communication from Applause it feels like - I don’t know - shall I trust them or not ? I trusted the old owner. Should I have trusted him ? If I switch to an alternative, can I trust them ?

Apparently the answer is “no” to all questions above. I should not hand over control of my computer to any one.

So LittleSnitch to the rescue ? How about trust to LittleSnich ?

[adieb]

I’ve removed it and installed the latest Ice beta, it’s very good and bartender like and no nefarious connections that I’ve seen with Little Snitch