Put them in any order you like.
Here’s a quick tip from my Tiger book that I didn’t remember until I stumbled on it today. More proof that writing a book about something doesn’t mean you remember everything in it.
You can change the order of the icon menus on the far right end of the menu bar. Just hold down the Command key and drag the icon to the left or right. The other icons will shift to make room for it. The screenshot here shows me moving the battery icon on my MacBook Pro to the left.
The only menu icon you can’t move using this technique is the Spotlight menu.
It seems one can not move the airport disk utility icon either.
You mean the one to select an AirPort network? That’s weird, because I can move mine.
On my machine, ByteController (for controlling iTunes) and Meteorologist will not move. However, the eject key, volume control and MenuMeters icons will move.
Interesting to note is that by trying this, I noticed that selecting any of the ByteController buttons will start iTunes, and selecting “Play” will start iTunes and start playing the first song.
You can command-drag some of the icons off the menu bar as well — such as the Displays icon.
What if you move an icon off the bar? How can you get it back??? I lost my airport radar! Not that I really need it, but still…..
Steve, in Mac OS X Tiger, open the Network preferences pane, display AirPort settings, and turn on the Show AirPort status in menu bar check box at the bottom of the window.
Thanks but there’s no AirPort settings tab, menu or option to be found! I am running tiger but my machine’s a G3 with an airport installed, not standard. Could this make a difference? I can’t see why it would!
Ha, nevermind, the top hit in spotlight took me to network utility, not network preferneces. I got it back now. Guess that’s what I get for being lazy! (Using spotlight)
Thanks for the tip.
Peace
Steve
How can I ADD icons to the menu bar? Specifically I want to add the mail button there.
Thanks!
Liz,
The only way I know of is to create an Applescript, and put the Applescript icon in the menubar. Mail appears to be scriptable; you’ll find some help here:
http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html
Also see this free app:Mail Scripts 2.7.13, available here:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9178
Getting the Applescript icon in the menubar is easy. Navigate to Applications:Applescript:ApplescriptUtility. Open the utility and check the box labeled “Show Script Menu in Menubar”.
How about the icons that don’t move? Any chances of hacking them up? I use Charlotte 1.0 and want to move it right next to spotlight, for aestetic purposes.
Cool – been wondering how to do this for a while – thanks
This is old by now, but still useful! Thanks!
Brilliant. Thank you.
Thanx for the tip, i was seeking this one :p you rock
Brilliant information, exactly what I needed to get me out of a panic when I saw my date and battery time icons had suddenly swapped places.