Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, El Capitan Edition

Menulets = Tray

Most Windows fans refer to the row of tiny status icons at the lower-right corner of the screen as the tray, even though Microsoft’s official term is the notification area. (Why use one syllable when eight will do?)

Macintosh folks wage a similar battle of terminology when it comes to the little menu-bar icons shown in Figure 1-4. Apple calls them Menu Extras, but Mac fans prefer to call them menulets.

Figure 1-4. These little guys are the cousins of the controls found in the Windows system tray.

In any case, these menu-bar icons are cousins of the Windows tray—each is both an indicator and a menu that provides direct access to certain settings. One menulet lets you adjust your Mac’s speaker volume, another shows you the remaining power in your laptop battery, and so on.

Making a menulet appear usually involves turning on a certain checkbox. These checkboxes lurk on the various panes of System Preferences (Chapter 17), which is the Mac equivalent of the Control Panel. (To open System Preferences, choose its name from the menu or click the gear icon on the Dock.)

Here’s a rundown of the most useful Apple menulets, complete with instructions on where to find the magic on/off checkbox for each.

• Accessibility () offers on/off status indicators for features that are designed to help with visual, hearing, and muscle impairments. Chapter 17 has a rundown of what they do. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Accessibility.

• AirPort () lets you turn your Wi-Fi (wireless networking) circuitry on or off, join existing wireless networks, and create your own private ones. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Network. Click Wi-Fi.

  Tip

  Once you’ve installed this menulet, you can Option-click it to produce a secret menu full of details about the wireless network you’re on right now. You see its channel number, password-security method (WEP, WPA, None, whatever), speed, and such geeky details as the MCS Index and RSSI.

• Battery () shows how much power remains in your laptop’s battery, how much time is left to charge it, whether it’s plugged in, and more. When you click the icon to open the menu, you see how many actual hours and minutes are left on the charge. You can also choose Show Percentage to add a percentage-remaining readout (43%) to the menu bar.

  Sadly, OS X no longer lets you put a time-remaining display right in the menu bar. On the other hand, the Battery menu now shows something that can be even more useful: a list of the most power-hungry open programs (“Apps Using Significant Energy”). That’s handy when you’re trying to eke out every last drop of battery life for your laptop. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Energy Saver.

  Tip

  If you Option-click the Battery menulet, you get to see the status of your battery’s health. A Condition command appears. It might say, for example, “Condition: Normal,” or “Service Battery,” “Replace Soon,” or “Replace Now.” Of course, we all know laptop batteries don’t last forever; they begin to hold less of a charge as they approach 500 or 1,000 recharges, depending on the model.

  Is Apple looking out for you, or just trying to goose the sale of replacement batteries? You decide.

• Bluetooth () connects to Bluetooth devices, “pairs” your Mac with a cellphone, lets you send or receive files wirelessly (without the hassle of setting up a wireless network), and so on. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Bluetooth.

  Tip

  You can Option-click this menulet to see three additional lines of nerdy details about your Bluetooth setup: the Bluetooth software version you’re using, the name of your Mac (which is helpful when you’re trying to make it show up on another Bluetooth gadget), and its Bluetooth MAC [hardware] address.

• Clock is the menu-bar clock that’s sitting at the upper-right corner of your screen. Click it to open a menu where you can check today’s date, convert the menu-bar display to a tiny analog clock, and so on. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Date & Time. On the Clock tab, turn on “Show date and time in menu bar.”

• Displays () adjusts screen resolution. On Macs with a projector or second monitor attached, it lets you turn screen mirroring on or off—a tremendous convenience to anyone who gives PowerPoint or Keynote presentations. And if you have an Apple TV, this menulet also lets you turn AirPlay on or off—meaning that you can send the Mac’s screen image to a TV. The menulet turns blue when you’re projecting. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Displays→Display tab.

• Eject () is a relic of the days when Macs had DVD drives. There’s no checkbox in System Preferences to make this menulet appear. The fact that it even exists is something of a secret, but if you ever buy an external DVD drive, you’ll be glad to know that it exists.

  GEM IN THE ROUGH: Mysteries of the Battery Menulet

  If you’ve got a laptop, don’t miss the checkbox in Energy Saver called “Show battery status in the menu bar.” It puts a handy status indicator () in the menu bar.

  Without clicking the menulet, all you see is an icon that represents the battery charge. If you turn on Show Percentage from the menulet’s actual menu, then the menulet can also show how much charge remains, in percentage form.

  Here’s what the menulet icon may show:

  Lightning bolt in the battery. The laptop is plugged in and the battery is charging or charged.

  Superimposed X. The laptop is plugged in, but the battery isn’t in right, is missing, or isn’t getting a charge for some other reason.

  Emptying black battery. The laptop is on battery and has at least 25 percent power left. (The width of the bar reveals how much charge is left.)

  Emptying red battery. The laptop is running off of battery power but has less than 25 percent charge remaining.

  A nearly invisible red bar means you have less than 9 minutes left. Save those documents, buddy.

  If you click the menulet, you see an estimate of actual time remaining on your battery charge, in hours:minutes form. (If the battery is charging, then you see how much time remains until the battery is fully recharged, like this: “0:24 Until Full.”) Either way, the readout is counting down (or up) to that joyous moment.

  The menu also offers a terrific list: Apps Using Significant Energy. When your battery is running low, it’s a great way to see which apps are guzzling down your juice.

  Finally, if you Option-click the menulet, you get a health report for your battery. It might say, for example, “Condition: Normal.” When the condition needs your attention—when it says “Service Battery,” “Replace Soon,” “Replace Now,” or “Check Battery,” you don’t have to press Option. You’ll see that message every time you open the menulet.

  To make it appear, open your System→Library→CoreServices→Menu Extras folder, and then double-click the Eject menu icon. That’s it! The menulet appears.

  You’ll discover that its wording changes—“Open Combo Drive,” “Close DVD-ROM Drive,” “Eject [Name of Disc],” or whatever—to reflect your particular drive type and what’s in it at the moment.

• Messages () is a quick way to let the world know, via the Messages application (Chapter 13) and the Internet, that you’re away from your keyboard, or available and ready to chat. Via the New Message command, it’s also a quick way to open Messages itself. To find the Show checkbox: Open Messages; it’s in your Applications folder. Choose Messages→Preferences→General.

• Remote Desktop () is a program, sold separately, that lets teachers or system administrators tap into your Mac from across a network. In fact, they can actually see what’s on your screen, move the cursor around, and so on. The menulet lets you do things like send a message to the administrator. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Sharing, and then click Remote Management.

• Script Menu () lists a variety of useful, ready-to-run AppleScript programs. To find the Show checkbox: Open the Script Editor program (in your Applications→Utilities folder). Choose Script Editor→Preferences→General.

• Text Input () switches among different text input modes. For example, if your language uses a different alphabet, like Russian, or thousands of characters, like Chinese, this menulet summons and dismisses the alternative keyboards and input methods you need. Details are on Formats. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Keyboard→Input Sources.

• Time Machine () lets you start and stop Time Machine backups (see Editing the Share Menu). To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Time Machine.

• User () identifies the account holder (Chapter 15) who’s logged in at the moment. To make this menulet appear (at the far-right end of the menu bar), turn on fast user switching, which is described on Fast User Switching.

• Volume (), of course, adjusts your Mac’s speaker or headphone volume. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Sound.

• VPN () stands for virtual private networking, which allows you to tap into a corporation’s network so you can, for example, check your work email from home. You can use the menulet to connect and disconnect, for example. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Network. Click the name of your VPN.

• WWAN () is useful only if you have a cellular modem from Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, or T-Mobile. This menulet lets you start and stop that connection. To find the Show checkbox: Open System Preferences→Network. Click the name of your cellular modem.

Note

A few other items may lurk in the Menu Extras folder: PPPoE, Ink, IrDA, and ExpressCard. Most are relics of an earlier age, when laptops had features like card slots and infrared lenses.

To remove a menulet, ⌘-drag it off your menu bar, or turn off the corresponding checkbox in System Preferences. You can also rearrange menulets by ⌘-dragging them horizontally.

These little guys are useful, good-looking, and respectful of your screen space. The world could use more inventions like menulets.