Geek Posted February 24, 2011 Posted February 24, 2011 <div class="KonaBody"><p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/hide-mac-menu-bar.jpg" alt="hide-mac-menu-bar" title="hide-mac-menu-bar" width="620" height="388" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13126" /></p> <p>Want to hide the Mac menu bar? You can do that and set a few more options to automatically hide and show the menu bar with a free utility called MenuEclipse, the end result is pretty similar to the way you can automatically <a href="http://osxdaily.com/2010/12/10/hide-and-show-the-dock/">hide and show the Dock</a>. In the screenshot above, I have the menubar completely hidden, but it will activate if I move the cursor over the menu bar. </p> <p>If you rely on the menu bar often, hiding it from view isn’t the most practical thing in the world, so instead you can give it a subtle shade that automatically dims when it’s not in use. Below is the <a href="http://osxdaily.com/category/mac-os-x/">Mac OS X</a> menu in the dimly “hidden” mode, but it’s still visible:</p> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/auto-hide-mac-menubar-off.jpg" alt="auto-hide-mac-menubar-off" title="auto-hide-mac-menubar-off" width="619" height="45" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13118" /></p> <p>The effect is actually closer to auto-dimming and auto-highlighting of the menubar, since the menu bar shades and then brightens again when you hover over it with your cursor. Below is the screenshot of when the cursor is over the menubar, which brightens it up to be usable again: <span id="more-13117"></span> <img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/auto-hide-menu-bar-mac-on.jpg" alt="auto-hide-menu-bar-mac-on" title="auto-hide-menu-bar-mac-on" width="612" height="40" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13119" /> </p> <p>You can completely hide the menubar like the topmost screenshot, but it’s not too useful because you can’t reclaim that lost screen space, instead it’s best to just dim the menu bar when not in use.</p> <p>You’ll have to manually adjust the settings opacity a bit to get things right depending on your choice of <a href="http://osxdaily.com/2010/04/18/how-to-change-the-desktop-background-picture-in-mac-os/">desktop background</a>. I find the darker background pictures work fine with hiding it completely, but if you have a lighter desktop background set then just dimming it works best. You do this with the slider as you can see below:</p> <p><img src="http://osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/auto-hide-mac-menu-bar.jpg" alt="auto-hide-mac-menu-bar" title="auto-hide-mac-menu-bar" width="437" height="250" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13120" /></p> <p><a href="http://www.xybernic.com/menueclipse.html">MenuEclipse is a free download available from Xybernic.com</a>, version 1.3 is technically outdated (works fine in Mac OS X 10.6.6+) and there’s a new version available, but the features of the new version didn’t seem that useful to me.</p> <p>Check out some other ways to <a href="http://osxdaily.com/category/customize/">customize your Mac</a>.</p> </div> <p><a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9WQBonxNhg6wRqAaq9tn-PLtJtk/0/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9WQBonxNhg6wRqAaq9tn-PLtJtk/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"></img></a><br/> <a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9WQBonxNhg6wRqAaq9tn-PLtJtk/1/da"><img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9WQBonxNhg6wRqAaq9tn-PLtJtk/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"></img></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=c7udLVwkDv4:wdd7R_KatDk:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=c7udLVwkDv4:wdd7R_KatDk:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?i=c7udLVwkDv4:wdd7R_KatDk:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=c7udLVwkDv4:wdd7R_KatDk:D7DqB2pKExk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?i=c7udLVwkDv4:wdd7R_KatDk:D7DqB2pKExk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=c7udLVwkDv4:wdd7R_KatDk:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?a=c7udLVwkDv4:wdd7R_KatDk:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/osxdaily?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/osxdaily/~4/c7udLVwkDv4" height="1" width="1"/> View the full article
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