Mac OS - lower the menu bar?

December 17, 2005 10:19 PM

Tiger 10.4.3 - Can I lower the menu bar?

I'm using a cool USB touchscreen with my Mac mini (Tiger 10.4.3). But the touchscreen is less responsive at the very top of the screen - right where the menu bar is. Can I lower the menu bar?

I'm using the mini for a very specific application and I really want to use the stylus with the touchscreen, not a mouse.
Any ideas?

posted by shino-boy to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

No. It cannot be done.
posted by nathan_teske at 10:34 PM on December 17, 2005

This'll be tough (unless there's some secret way that I don't know about). Here's a pointer, though. Look in /System/Library/Displays/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-xxxx/DisplayProductID-xxxx. It's a plist file (open with the XCode property list editor). There is a Resolution key in the plist, but I'm not sure how to format it. I'd guess that Apple has developer documentation on how to create monitor profiles.

What you'd do then is set the resolution to have X number of pixels less vertically, and set your flatscreen NOT to scale. The idea then is that you'd have a black strip on the top and bottom of the screen, and the menubar would be lower.

I'm not sure if you feel comfortable getting this deep. I hope someone can come up with a much better way to do this.

(Of course, you can always lower the resolution to 800x600 or something that makes the menubar adequately large to be easy to use with a stylus.)
posted by qslack at 10:35 PM on December 17, 2005

Uh. Don't mess around with stuff in /System. Just dont. You'll be asking for trouble when you try to do a system update.

Either lower the resolution of the monitor (just use the displays control panel) or use Quartz Debug (available as part of xcode) to change the resolution of the operating system.
posted by schwa at 10:49 PM on December 17, 2005

If you're really brave, and you have the Tiger developer tools installed, you can run the Quartz Debug application and turn on 'resolution independence'. That will allow you to make the menu bar several times larger than normal, but it will affect other UI elements as well (window borders, etc.).
posted by toddshot at 12:10 AM on December 18, 2005

Best answer: What are you accessing via the menu bar? If it's just a few things you're doing regularly, you could always stick aliases on the Desktop, or wee Applescripts to launch stuff...
posted by jack_mo at 3:55 AM on December 18, 2005

Apple specifically sets up their OS so that the menus are always, always at the top of the screen.

It'd be better to address the touchscreen manufacturer and ask them why their screen doesn't work well at the top.
posted by filmgeek at 6:14 AM on December 18, 2005

What about using a program that creates a contextual menu so you can click anywhere and get a menu with a bunch of information. I am not sure if Finderpop does the menu bar, but it adds much more functionality for the right(control) clicks.
posted by _zed_ at 7:57 AM on December 18, 2005

You might try turning on zooming in the universal access system preference, and zoom in just a bit, so the display will follow your cursor. But that may prove more annoying than helpful depending on what you're doing.
posted by scottreynen at 8:06 AM on December 18, 2005

Response by poster: Thank you for all the answers.

Whenever I change the screen resolution Tiger still fills the desktop to the top of the screen, so that didn't work.

And I am admittedly too chicken to fire up the Dev Tools.

Mainly what I want to do is quickly create new folders, so I'll see if Applescript/aliases can do that stuff.
posted by shino-boy at 9:57 AM on December 18, 2005

Best answer: Mainly what I want to do is quickly create new folders

I don't know if your "very specific application" precludes the use of a keyboard, but command-shift-n will make a new folder on your desktop or any finder window

Actually, if you open a finder window (by clicking the finder icon in the dock) you can create new folders without using the menus as follows: navigate to the desktop or whatever folder. Click on the "gear" button on the window toolbar. Select "new folder".
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:11 AM on December 18, 2005

Select View > Customize Toolbar and you can put a New Folder button in every window.
posted by cillit bang at 6:10 PM on December 18, 2005