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Safari Menu Bar Hiding... in Snow Leopard? Video linked.

For a brief moment today, Snow Leopard thought it was Lion and the Menu bar hid, but only in Safari. Here is a quicktime movie I made of the oddness:


http://www.midilifecrisis.com/SafariMenuBar.mov


After restaring Safari, the menu bar stayed in place, but I would LOVE to know how to do this in SL. If only I could do that in my other apps as well!


Any of you seasoned pro know what caused this? I am not running any 3rd party stuff like Windowshade.


Thanks in advance for all popsitive contributions to the thread.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Also MBP.

Posted on Oct 7, 2011 5:59 PM

Reply
15 replies

Oct 8, 2011 7:28 PM in response to TildeBee

Thanks for responding. Absolutely NO 3rd party system enhancements. The menu hiding (as you can see in the video) was smooth and consistant. It has not retuned and Safari has acted normally ever since. If it happens again, the only thing I can think of is to deactivate dock hiding to see if that has any effect. Also, it's not as if there was a particular problem. It's nothing I want to "fix" but rather something I'd like to have consistantly - without having to move to Lion as I would loose the ability to access some PPC programs I simply do not want to loose. It's also not like I'm a Mac novice and added something without realizing it. I am very careful about such things as I make my living from this machine.


The thing is, I don't think I've seen a 3rd party app that can hide and show Apple menus like that.


Thanks again for the reply. If it happens again, I'll post back.

Oct 9, 2011 7:39 AM in response to Michael Mortilla

Hello Michael, (and ~Bee, too. πŸ˜€ )


Unless your movie is showing the screen of a second display that is setup as an

extended (NOT mirrored) desktop as explained in this article,


  http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8378.html


I think that what you experienced is a glitch that can be cured by restarting Mac.


While in their full screen mode, a few apps like QuickTimePlayer & DVDPlayer hide Finder's menu bar. However, with these apps in full screen mode, no part of the desktop shows.


Moreover, other than while operating in the aforementioned Extended Desktop, I know of no way to hide Finder's menu bar while leaving any application window frame visible in either Snow Leopard or in Lion. However, that fact should not keep you from upgrading to Lion for other reasons if you so desire.



Finally, if you have enabled Safari's Developer Menu items and are using some of them, please include the particulars if any reply is required.






Mac Pro Quad Core (Early09) 2.93Ghz OSX 10.6.8 & 10.7.1   24" LED Cinema Display
MBP 15" i7 (Early'11) OSX 10.7.1                        13" MBP (Mid'09) 2.26GHz OSX 10.7.1

Oct 9, 2011 11:20 AM in response to EZ Jim

Thank you both for your replies and the links. I am using a two monitor system. The behavior in question was on the primary monitor.


The developer menu is not activated in Safari (as you can see in the video). The only reason the Quicklime player was shown first was because I had to launch it to record the video. The only apps active at the time were Safari, Quickeys, and Mail.


The glitch was cured by simply quitting Safari - a system restart was unnecessary. So the consensus seems to be unanimous.


I don't know.


Kind of strange and for once, a welcome anomaly! Too bad I can't get it back. I'd switch to Lion but cannot afford to loose a few PPC apps I still depend on (Acrobat Pro and the CS2 Suite). If the updated versions weren't so ridiculously overpriced by Adobe I'd certainly be in Lion today.


Thanks again. I'll leave the movie up a few more days in the event that someone may pop in with an idea.

Oct 9, 2011 2:08 PM in response to Michael Mortilla

You're welcome, Michael.


Thanks for the additional info. I am pleased that you found such a simple fix. However, I note that:

Michael Mortilla wrote:

... The only apps active at the time were Safari, Quickeys, and Mail....

The fact that you use the third party Quickeys app

http://startly.com/products/quickeys/mac/4/

is conflict with your earlier post that:

Michael Mortilla wrote:

... Absolutely NO 3rd party system enhancements....

I think ~Bee was on the right trail when she asked about third-party apps.


As reported in Quickeys' FAQs http://startly.com/support/faq_qkm4.html at least some users have reported conflicts. I doubt that you will again experience your anomoly if you uninstall Quickeys.



Michael Mortilla wrote:

... a welcome anomaly! Too bad I can't get it back...

If you still want to reliably use your unexpected menu bar hiding behavior, check your Mac's Quickeys > Help or visit the Quickeys Support Page: http://startly.com/support/ Perhaps you can find our how to make this happen from the dedicated Quickeys Community or directly from the developer's e-mail technical support.



Michael Mortilla wrote:

...I'll leave the movie up a few more days in the event that someone may pop in with an idea.

Good plan. We will watch with you for other ideas that provide reasolution of your problem or allow closeout of your topic.



Mac Pro Quad Core (Early09) 2.93Ghz OSX 10.6.8 & 10.7.1   24" LED Cinema Display
MBP 15" i7 (Early'11) OSX 10.7.1                        13" MBP (Mid'09) 2.26GHz OSX 10.7.1

Oct 9, 2011 2:15 PM in response to EZ Jim

Not really in conflict with my post as my intention was to indicate I was not using third party apps that affect (or effect) menu bar operations. Quickeys doesn't have an option to hide menu bars in any app. That is not to say that somehow it didn't magically effect the behavior, but as it is not a feature of the app that developer and community would have less of a clue than we are finding here in Apple Discussions.


It's OK. It was clearly a one time occurrence and apparently no one else has ever seen it. I'm just glad Apple provided an easy screen capture so I could actually show you what happened. Beyond that, I'm just calling it a ghost in the works. But you have to admit, it is pretty odd behavior and like nothing I've seen in the 25+ years I've used Apple products.


Once again, thank you both for your ideas and links.

Oct 9, 2011 3:54 PM in response to Michael Mortilla

Michael Mortilla wrote:

...Once again, thank you both for your ideas and links.

You're certainly welcome, Michael.


Here are a few thoughts on your other comments.



Michael Mortilla wrote:


Not really in conflict with my post as my intention was to indicate I was not using third party apps that affect (or effect) menu bar operations. Quickeys doesn't have an option to hide menu bars in any app. That is not to say that somehow it didn't magically effect the behavior, but as it is not a feature of the app that developer and community would have less of a clue than we are finding here in Apple Discussions....

Quickeys is not an Apple product. By definition, that makes it third party software. I still see the conflict. Without your statement that you had no third party system enhancements, ~Bee might have helped you to a quicker resolution.


Regardless of your intent or Quickeys' options, it is clear from the FAQs that Quickeys' developers recognize at least some possible user problems with its software. I do not know whether your condition arose from some unintended interaction between Quickeys and another system element, but it is at least possible.


Notwithstanding, if the Finder/Safari menu bar never again disappears while you are using Quickeys, or if you do not mind the occasional Safari restart to correct the condition, there may be no need to consider uninstalling Quickeys.



Michael Mortilla wrote:


.... you have to admit, it is pretty odd behavior and like nothing I've seen in the 25+ years I've used Apple products....

It may be odd behavior related to using Quickeys. However, on properly working Macs that do not have third party system "enhancements," it is easy to make the top menu bar disappear if more than one display is connected and working.


The top menu bar is never visible when a display is used as an "extended desktop". However, whenever the display is changed to "mirrored display" using the System Preferences > Displays settings checkbox, the top menu bar appears (so both displays look the same.) Clicking repeatedly in the checkbox will toggle the top menu bar on and off.



Anyway, it is nice exchanging ideas with another old-timer. (I have been using Apple for 33+ years.) As long as things keep changing and new product introductions continue, I guess we will keep seeing new things to keep us interested.


Regards,

Jim



Mac Pro Quad Core (Early09) 2.93Ghz OSX 10.6.8 & 10.7.1   24" LED Cinema Display
MBP 15" i7 (Early'11) OSX 10.7.1                        13" MBP (Mid'09) 2.26GHz OSX 10.7.1

Jan 23, 2013 10:53 AM in response to Michael Mortilla

I do experience that same behaviour right now: Safari auto-hiding menubar in Snow Leopard 10.6.8.


As it seems this has to do with full screen plugins used within Safari, I did browse flickr to show some photos at full screen, where menubar and dock get's hidden (which is normal).


And if you now, by accident and just at the right moment, go out of full screen mode, Safari just doesn't get it fully ... the web page get's displayed as normal (in window mode), but the menubar of Safari stays hidden.


Regards,


Markus

May 29, 2013 9:24 PM in response to Crissa

I've neen on Mountain lion for quite a while now and that is normal for full screen. I suspect that since the code is built into the app (Safari) in this case) that the "potential" to hide the menu a la full screen is also there and if the app hooks into the right code at the right time (or is that the right code at the wrong time?) perhaps the menu will go bye-bye.


That said, I sue my apps in full screen where available and have grown quite used to it. It reallt solves clutter problems. Also, ML is quite stable. Much more that Snow Leopard was on my oldish (but newish to me) Mac Pro 8 core 3,1. The first Mac Pro, AFAIK, that can actually run ML.


If you can run ML, I would personally recommend it as long as older apps don't break the bank in terms of paid updates/upgrades. Quickeys is working great, although not offically supported last time I checked. Quicken too, with the patch for ML.

Safari Menu Bar Hiding... in Snow Leopard? Video linked.

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