Notes

Acknowledgements

Certain patterns are provided courtesy of Brian Foster.

Compatibility

Menu Bar Pattern has been tested under System 6.0.7 and System 7.0.

There are a number of software products that do things in the menu bar.  Menu Bar Pattern has been tested with the following:

MICN 1.8, by Mark Valence — MICN is a utility to conserve menu bar space (or just make it look cool) by replacing standard menu titles with small icons.  Icons that have been defined in color display perfectly, but icons defined only in black&white, display with the menu bar pattern showing through.

Notification Manager (Apple System software) — Programs that need to display an alert from the background do so with the Notification Manager, which can flash an icon over the Apple or the Application Menu icon.  Most programs using this provide only a simple black&white icon; if such an icon is flashed, it will be surrounded by a white square (or whatever color the menu bar’s background would be without Menu Bar Pattern).

PopChar 2.5.1, by Günther Blaschek — PopChar is an excellent replacement for the KeyCaps DA.  When you click the mouse at a certain hotspot in the menubar, a window pops up allowing you to select a character in a certain font.  PopChar is significant here because that hotspot is optionally marked by a small white square containing a red “P”.  With Menu Bar Pattern active, the little PopChar icon continues to be visible in the corner of the menu bar.  It has a white background, so it is still easy to see.  An interesting “feature”:  if the System font size is increased to the point that the menu bar is taller than the title bar of PopChar’s pop-up window, then Menu Bar Pattern’s patch routine is fooled and the pop-up window’s title bar is filled with the menu bar pattern.

SuperClock 4.0.4, by Steve Christensen — SuperClock is a handy utility that keeps a digital clock running in the menu bar, which when clicked changes to the date and then to a stopwatch.  SuperClock continues to display in the appropriate color, with the menu bar pattern showing through it.  However, in versions earlier than 4.0, SuperClock’s stopwatch icon will be surrounded by a white square (or whatever color the menu bar’s background would be without Menu Bar Pattern).

TypeIt4Me 3.2, by Riccardo Ettore — TypeIt4Me is a utility that’s one up on most glossaries, in that it is global, and you don’t have to select a glossary command.  It does however have a command menu, which drops down from an icon at one end of the menu bar.  With Menu Bar Pattern active, the icon remains visible, but the menu bar pattern shows through it.

Zipple 1.5, by Christopher Suley — Zipple replaces the menu bar’s Apple logo with the user’s choice animated icons.  Unfortunately, the icon will have square background of a solid color.  This will be one of the colors of your bar pattern, but which color depends on how your pattern lines up with reference to his arbitrary test pixel.  I have communicated with Mr. Suley, but at present there doesn’t appear to be any efficient way to resolve this dilemma.

escapade 1.3.2, by Christopher Wysocki — Although this does nothing to the menu bar, it is worth noting that it will not allow the Pattern Editor to use an eye-dropper mouse cursor.  If you click the eye-dropper icon while escapade is installed, the mouse will change to an eye-dropper for a fraction of a second, and then go back to an arrow (depending on what kind of Mac you have, the change may be too fast to notice).  The mouse will still pick up colors properly, however.  One would think that if “Show i-beam cursor” is not selected in the escapade Control Panel escapade would do nothing at all to the mouse, but it forces it to an arrow anyway.  I hope Mr. Wysocki fixes this.

Version History

1.0 — Original release. (Think C 5.0.3)

1.01 — Fixed a problem with incorrect colors in the Pattern Editor. (Think C 5.0.3)

1.02 — Fixed a problem with the Installed pattern not being saved as such. (Think C 5.0.3)

1.03 — a) Changed the traps being patched in order to have a much smaller effect on overall system performance. [However, this causes the Finder, when launching an app, to display the app name on a white menu bar instead of a patterned one.]  b) Corrected a bug in the way patterns are saved after editing [especially noticeable on 8x8 patterns].  c) Truncate patterns that are larger than 32x64. (Think C 5.0.3)

1.04 — The trap change of 1.03 had some displeasing effects, especially in relation to SuperClock, so reverted to original scheme. (Think C 5.0.4)

1.1 — a) Conserve memory by disposing patterns that are not visible.  b) Exact colors used in Pattern Editor.  c) Color Picker used in Pattern Editor.  d) Import Wallpaper™ 1.x patterns.  (Think C 5.0.4)