What would you change about the menu bar?

What'd be really great is if when you have a dual monitor setup you could stretch the menu bar over both screens like you can the startbar in XP. This really pisses me off because I always find that I'm only using the screen with the menubar on it.

moros

Currently I have Spotlight, Fast User Switch, Clock, International (because I have to use Arabic input on a fairly regular basis), Battery Monitor, Wireless, MenuMeters (w/ CPU, Network, and Memory usage all being monitored), QuickSilver, and iScrobbler all running on my 15" PowerBook, which for most things, is plenty enough room, but if I'm running Photoshop, which has a fairly monstrous set of menu options, I could really use those extra two inches afforded to me by the 17" PB.

That comes to a grand total of 9 items in my menubar, a number of which I would like to be able to get rid of. I don't really need iScrobbler, QuickSilver, Spotlight and Fast User Switching to be there. I use QS mercilessly, but I don't ever use the icon. If it really needed an icon, I'd rather it be in the dock, not taking up any visible space since I always just com+opt+d it when I don't need it right at that instance. iScrobbler is great, but, again I never use the icon for any reason. I never use Spotlight (thank you QS). And I'm the only person to be using my computer, so it's just redundant for me to need to Fast User switch to my default Admin account, which I only need to use but once in a very blue moon. MenuMeters, Battery, International, Clock and Wireless all need to stay, however. If I had the option to be able to get the others to just go away, I would love who ever coded the program for me to be able to do that.

I would make the Spotlight and Apple icons tighter, e.g. wihout the extra space at the right/left.

I pesonally don't like the clutter in the right side of the menu bar (and I don't have much there - Script Menu, iChat, Volume and Time). I'd like to see items that wind up in the menu bar added to the apple menu instead, like the way Classic (or OS 9) used to have the old desk accessories and control panels.

My viewpoint is that items that operate at the system level (available to all applications) go in the apple menu.

Anybody ever try You Control from You Software? I've always thought Apple should buy/license this tech and incorporate it into an upgrade the way they did with Dashboard. It interacts cleanly with aall the Apple mainstay programs..iCal, Address Book, iTunes. I won't link their site cause I'm not selling anything. It just uses Menu Bar space very well.

I really hate those icons. The Apple standard oke, but please do not allow third party developers mess up your menubar. Only if the apps have an option to not display the icons. Otherwise, Apple has to make a System Preference where you can remove them, just like Dashboard.

Oh, the OS should ask you to delete the application totally, because it aren't very friendly applications then.

I would bid on this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8245772682&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT

Do you people yet see why I have repeatedly recommended a registration based system instead of having each post verified by email? I suppose it's time I take it up with Weblogs Inc, I know it's probably pretty much out of your control. With as much traffic as their sites generate, the bandwidth consumption alone in verification emails is appalling and irresponsible. And it only invites lunkheads like Bob here to abuse.

It seems to me that the menu bar icons are kind of redundant. I also don't like the way the dock works. It seems to me that The menu bar should only have menus in it and the dock should only have apps in it. Minimized windows shouldn't go to the dock. The trash should also not be in the dock. I don't know what should happen to minimized windows. But when you have a lot of them its hard to see what they are. Maybe minimized windows should go next to the icon for the app that opened them.

Menu bar icons should really just be dock icons.

All that being said, I've often thought it would be swell if you could replace the dock's functionaltiy with the menu bar, ie have icons for all your running apps and windows up there.

Great thread, thanks guys. I use Windoze at work and sometimes at home too. The system tray often becomes a cluttered mess. Most people I talk to probably couldn't tell me what half the icons in their system tray are for.

What I would really like for the menu bar is quite simple.

OS X is the slickest, prettiest GUI out there. It's delicious looking. Except for the menu bar icons, which are vintage 1980s monochrome, 2-D icons. If you install the Adobe Creative Suite, the Version Cue icon, with all of its glorious color, puts the rest of the menu bar iconlets to shame. Well, the new Spotlight icon is trying.

I wouldn't mind a tad bit of customizability, but for the most part it just works. It's just ugly. It's like a pimple on a super model's nose.