Moving the Mac menu bar just boosted my productivity
At my home office, I’ve been using a MacBook Pro for my "desktop" since March. I’m a huge proponent of using secondary monitors so in addition to the 15.4-inch notebook display, I connect the MBP to a 19-inch monitor that’s raised up to eye level. Instead of a more traditional side-by-side config, I find that this method works great for me. I keep communication apps like Skype, Twitter and Outlook on one display, while my web browser is dedicated to the other one. This arrangement keeps me productive because it separates my activities with the two monitors and groups like activities together. There’s only one annoying problem and I’ve had it since day one…until today.
The issue has to do with auto-complete functionality in Firefox, which is my browser of choice in Mac OS X. I keep the browser in the upper monitor. When I start typing in a text field within Firefox, the auto-complete feature kicks in as expected. The problem is that the auto-complete suggestion appears under the menu bar on the other display. This adds a bunch of unnecessary navigation to my day, as I have to move the cursor from one display to the other. I probably waste a good 30 minutes daily with all of this back and forth; not to mention it’s extra strain on my eyes and my hands.
This morning I had an "a-ha!" moment by finding the oh-so-simple solution that eluded me for five months. Actually, I might classify this as a "duh!" moment as well; the answer was right there the whole time and I missed it.
Just as you can in Windows, you can customize your monitor arrangement in Mac OS X. If you want the side-by-side config, you just go to the Displays option in System Preferences, click the Arrangements option and move the two monitors next to each other. I have a top-and-bottom arrangement and this is where I told Mac OS X about it. When I looked there this morning, the solution was staring me in the face:
All I had to do was read the screen where it tells you how to relocate the menu bar. In the above pic, I already have it moved to the top external monitor. For the past five months, the menu bar was at the top of the bottom monitor; sure enough after moving the menu bar the auto-complete function is working exactly where it’s supposed to. Yes….I think it was more of a "duh!" moment, but thought to share in case anyone else missed the menu bar movement directions like I did. In fairness, I didn’t realize the impact of having the menu bar in the bottom monitor. ;)
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Simple pleasures are the best. :)
Thanks for the tip. You are not the only one with a MBP with a monitor above it ;). I put in a Samsung 906BW with is almost the same size and has the same pixel resolution. It makes for a great companion to the MBP 15″. I had also missed how to move the menu bar and now I know.
Paul
My variation on this theme is to use multiple computers. Here’s my workspace: http://urltea.com/185m
Correction. Here’s the link to my desktop. I run my 19″ Samsung LCD off my Mac Mini with my BlackBook and Q1 to either side.
http://urltea.com/185o
I’ve run into that issue with firefox as well – I’ve found that if you quit firefox and reload it *after* the second monitor is connected, the autocomplete seems to show up in the proper place.
I have a similar setup, vertical is WAY better for me than having the monitors side by side. I hated dual monitors until I went vertical. I have a 15″ MacBook pro, and a 21″ CRT above it. I put the Menu bar in the “middle” like you do, at the top of the LCD. Since I use Quicksilver to launch my apps, I don’t use the dock so much so I have it at the TOP of the top CRT monitor, hidden. You have to go into the terminal (or use Onyx like I did) to put the dock at the top, give it a try, I love it this way.
in opera you can move things around a lot easier than in other browsers.
Interestingly enough, I did this waaay back in 1987 when I bought my first Mac II (running Mac OS 7.5.5).
I filled the 6 NuBus slots in my Mac II with video cards and plugged in 6 Apple 13″ RGB monitors and amazed my colleagues playing Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer surrounded by monitors with one on top of the other in front of me showing forward and down views, and left and right on two other monitors and spotter plane and control tower views on the other monitors. This was in the days before accelerated graphics cards and GPUs though so the flight simulator program ran pretty slowly(!), but run it did. :-)
It still amazes me that this all worked flawlessly and in such a scalable, friendly manner way back in the late 80s. Microsoft took more than a decade to come anywhere close to the beautiful friendly way that Apple invented for arranging monitor locations and menu bars.
-Mart
Had this happen to me a couple weeks ago, when using an iMac with an LCD projector. It was driving me nuts, then I noticed the text on the page and had a Simpson-eque ‘Doh moment!
I have 2x 19″ LCD’s side by side, and the only problem I have with Apple’s approach, is when I have an application window (Firefox, Parallels, etc) open on the window without the toolbar, it makes it a hassel to use any of the menus.
On XP, the menus are attached to the app window, so they’re always available without mousing all the way from the far left to the right of a dual screen setup just to click on a menu.