Optional dock/menu icon

[robotpukeko]

Hi,

I would really like to be able to have NV appear as a small icon in my menu and have the ability to disable the dock icon. I think then it would be a great background app for keeping track of notes!

Thanks,
Steve

[scrod]

Would you mind providing a proposal or illustration of how NV's interface would be modified to accommodate all the functions that are currently accessible only from the menu? In particular, how do you imagine the Bookmarks feature would work in such a configuration?

[robotpukeko]

I wouldn't do anything about moving the application menus to the menu icon, just the options that are available when you command-click the dock icon. The NV menu functions would be made available when the main window gets focus, actioned by either :

• clicking within the main window
• clicking the menu item and selecting to view the main window
• using the Activate NV Shortcut

[scrod]

Remember that an application's menus are always hidden when it's running in the "background" (e.g., its dock icon is hidden). The menu bar can't be selectively enabled; this behavior is set at launch time.

[fuzzy76]

Since I am satisfied with using NV with the keyboard only, hiding the menu items as a submenu in the menubar icon would be enough for me.

[yafp]

Some improvement-ideas i had after some weeks of using NV

• new optional menubar icon
• preference: hide menubar icon
• preference: hide dock icon
• add text via drag & drop to menubar item (in case it is visible) - as it works already for the dock-icon.

Those settings would fit as checkboxes into Preferences - General

No must have features - but somehow nice-to-have - at least for some users.

[pla-zz-ces]

menu item only operation / optional hiding of the dock icon would be incredible.
i believe an elegant solution for missing menus would be:
left-clicking the NV menu item could show/hide the NV window and right-clicking would show menus.
5 stars:)

[yafp]

@places

well you could just manually hide the dock icon right now - as the app-window itself can be opened via keyboard shortcut.

but yeah - offering some more options regarding presentation (dock vs menubar vs nothing) might be a nice option - no doubt.

greetings
fidel

[ashcroft]

+1

@macfidelity: manually hiding the dock icon through Dockless or an edited Info.plist sadly also kills accessability through all common keyboard-based app-switchers (like Dock's Cmd-Tab, Witch and LiteSwitch X). It also removes the menubar.

[scrod]

Just remember that if you're going to modify the Info.plist file or any other part of the application, you'll need to either strip NV's code-signature, or re-apply one that's valid. Otherwise you'll run into this problem.

[pedrocc]

NV appear as a small icon in my menu would be a killer feature

[touann]

I agree with the proposition of @macfidelity! option to have a menubar icon instead of a dock icon would be perfect! But anyway, this software is really great, thank's!

[williamsjj]

I'd like to see the ability to have Notational Velocity show up as a menubar icon instead of a dock icon. Honestly, all it needs to do is hide/show the NV main window.

[rxw1]

You can hide the dock icon like this: "defaults write /Applications/Notational\ Velocity.app/Contents/Info LSUIElement 1". Beware, the menu will also be gone.

HTH

[raggi]

I'd be happy to just have a non-activating mode, similar to twitter.app or launchbar.

Some notes on doing this kind of thing are here:

http://www.neilinglis.com/2010/02/07/maattachedwindownon-activating-panel/

Equally, the option to leave the app running, combined with the hotkey will be nice if the app goes into the background after closing the window (that is, it goes to the end of the focus/cmd+tab list, rather than remaining in front).

[dsc]

Other applications that dispensed with the dock icon (and hence have the menu-bar issue) have offered HUD-style panels containing the menu items. (I'm just going to call it a HUD, even though it doesn't necessarily need to be one, visually or UX-wise.)

To help the mouse-clickers, it seems apps usually add options to make the HUD persistent (even when the app loses focus, as HUD-style panels usually hide), and to float on top of all other windows. We keyboard critters can still get miles out of these features, as they could also optionally provide a visual reminder of hotkeys. (I think it goes without saying that we'll need to be able to toggle HUD visibility with the keyboard.)

I actually think this is a bigger point of promise than mere aesthetics: visual clutter is mental clutter.

Keyboard-focused applications have a powerful weapon to reduce UI/UX clutter; a modal UI is one of the best ways to get more miles out of our best keys. But modal UIs are hard to find your way around at first, and their discoverability is wretched. Improving discoverability improves navigability. I'd love to experiment here, simply for this reason alone. (If I get some free time soon, I promise I'll even do some mockups.)

+1 to the enemies of clutter.

[netizen313]

I just started using NV and love it's minimalism. I don't like it running as a foreground application though and it would be terrific if it had an option to run it as a background process and accessible by keyboard shortcut only (similar to launchers like quicksilver).

I don't care for any other features except note taking and searching notes. Thanks a ton for a great product