So you’ve got your brand-new Mac with a shiny widescreen display; acres of space sits between the Help menu and Apple’s handful of default menu extras, begging to be used to the full.
Below, in no particular order, are ten of the very best tiny, indispensable (and mostly free) applications for making the most of your menu bar.
1. iStat menus (donationware)
iStat menus provides succinct monitoring for CPU, memory and drive usage, along with network traffic, all from the menu bar. Drop-down menus provide advanced information and a date and time module betters Apple’s clock by a country mile.
2. iTunesMenu (free/$1.99)
Dozens of iTunes notifiers exist, but they usually float over and obscure other apps. iTunesMenu sits in the menu bar, displaying the artist and title of your currently playing track. Optional Growl notification is built-in, and a two-buck shareware fee unlocks hot-key support and playlist selection from iTunesMenu’s menu.
3. I Love Stars (free)
Rating tracks in iTunes opens up possibilities for filtering via smart playlists, but few people rate tracks, because it’s a hassle. I Love Stars makes the process simple—just click/drag in the menu bar to add/change a rating. Optional alerts for unrated songs and the ability to hide I Love Stars when playing podcasts or user-defined genres add to the greatness.
4. Desktoppple (donationware)
If you want to hide your Desktop clutter to take grabs (or because you just can’t stand a mess), Desktopple enables you to do so via a single click or prod of a hot-key. Options exist for changing the colour or picture used, and a $17 Pro version adds window clearing, cover sets, menu dimming, multiple screen support and more.
5. Isolator (donationware)
Billed as a ‘concentration application’, Isolator enables you to block out background apps, to focus on what you’re working on. The tint strength and filter can be amended, or you can ‘remove’ background apps entirely by auto-hiding other apps when a new one is focussed.
6. Caffeine (free)
Energy-saving controls built into Macs are useful for prolonging your computer’s life and reducing the power it uses. Sometimes, though, automated screen dimming is annoying, such as when reading web pages or watching a movie. Caffeine forces your Mac to stay awake for a user-defined time period or until Caffeine is disabled.
7. Simple WindowSets ($12.95)
It’s hugely irritating when you open loads of Finder windows to access project files and then have a Finder crash wipe out your set-up. Simple WindowSets eradicates this problem, enabling you to define Finder window sets and launch them from the menu bar. The app also includes shortcuts to handy Finder window management features.
8. InstantShot! (free)
Despite some clunky UI elements, this screen-grab app betters Grab in several areas, providing you with plentiful screen grab options, including timers and format settings. Preferences in InstantShot! enable further refinement, such as setting a save path, toggling cursor visibility in grabs, auto-scaling saved images, and defining hot-keys for various grab actions.
9. MainMenu (donationware)
Various scripts and tools for keeping your Mac running smoothly are sprinkled around the system. MainMenu enables you to access them from a convenient centralised location. The app also provides ‘hidden’ Finder options (force-empty Trash, toggle invisibles, relaunch) and a handy ‘batch’ tool for quickfire activation of multiple scripts.
10. Butler (donationware)
The extremely configurable Butler enables you to populate your menu bar with all manner of items, including running apps, menus for accessing addresses, bookmarks and volumes, recent pasteboards and more. Items can have triggers (hot-keys/hot corners/abbreviations) and alternate icons applied, and Butler also includes a Quicksilver-like ‘intelligent’ abbreviations-based launcher window.
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(Via TechRadar: All latest feeds.)
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