menus

The OS X system menu's support for menu extras is a convenient way to access system and application settings and services. While a default set of menu extras such as the time and date, volume, wifi indicator, Time Machine status, and Spotlight menus are enabled, others can be turned on in their respective system preferences or application settings. Usually these menu extras stay to the right and out of the way of application and system menus, but in some instances they may run into the menus of various applications and be hidden.

Menu extras can usually be moved around … Read more

MenuEverywhere helps power users--and anyone else with multiple monitors, or just a very large monitor--get quick access to an application's menu bar, from any window or any screen.

MenuEverywhere works in the background, with a slim CPU footprint and an extensive set of preferences to control its appearance and behavior. You can set MenuEverywhere to put a complete menu bar on the top of every window associated with an app (for example, the Photoshop menu bar on every Photoshop window, no matter which monitor the window appears in), or you can have it just place a single "Menu&… Read more

After our recent article that discussed some confusion Windows switchers might have with closing windows versus quitting applications in OS X, another key difference that a few people have mentioned is the difference between the location of application menus in OS X and Windows.

The difference is simple: While Windows includes menus in each application Window, OS X places all application menus in the system menu bar, though some applications have document-specific menus that appear in a window's tool bar (e.g., the font and formatting options in TextEdit windows). While this difference is basic enough and pretty straightforward, … Read more

In setting up OS X one of the convenient options is to add menu extras to the right-hand side of the menu bar, providing convenient access to system settings as well as functions provided by third-party utilities (virus scanners, activity monitors, etc). Sometimes, however, some or all of these menu extras may become nonfunctional and show the spinning color wheel when you mouse over them.… Read more

CaptureXT Screen Capture allows users to take standard screenshots, but also provides tools to customize them. With a large collection of options and high usability, this program really excels.

The program's interface was incredibly simple thanks to a nice layout and excellently labeled commands. In addition, the program's initial screen is a three-step instruction on operation, and there is a nice Help file for bigger questions. The program begins offering users a little something extra right from the get-go. By clicking on the Capture button, users are given options for standard items like full-screen, windows, or a rectangular … Read more

One of the better ways to get Google Chrome or Internet Explorer-style compacted menus in Firefox is Personal Menu. The add-on comes loaded with options, so for a one-trick wonder it's pretty slick.

It adds an icon to your toolbar customization window which you can then drag-and-drop onto the toolbar of your choice. I stuck it on the Menus Toolbar next to my navigation and refresh button, because Personal Menu comes with the option to hide the menu bar. By getting rid of the Stop Loading button, because I use that even less than I use the forward button, … Read more

I'm a big fan of my browser's contextual menu. This menu, which can most easily be pulled up by right-clicking your mouse is commonplace for really useful extensions that are polite enough not to clutter your browsing experience with extra keyboard shortcuts or UI.

Firefox extension SimpleSearch is a really good example of this concept. Once installed it lets you search from a handful of sites like Wikipedia, IMDb, Google Maps, and dictionary search engine Definr. You just highlight the word or phrase you want to search and do a quick right-click to hop to the results.

The … Read more

If you're visually impaired or legally blind, living in the age of the MP3 player can be frustrating. Small screens, tiny fonts, complicated menus, and imprecise controls make the majority of MP3 players very difficult to use. Until now, visually impaired users often resorted to counting scroll wheel clicks and memorizing menus, or installing and configuring third-party firmware, such as the open source Rockbox (a project not recommended for the technologically timid).

By adding a Spoken Menus feature to their fourth-generation iPod Nano, Apple is one of the first manufacturers to dramatically improve the usability of their MP3 players … Read more