Quicksilver menubar positioning doesn't work

[JadeMatrix]

Quicksilver β54, OS X 10.5.8

I'm trying to reposition the Quicksilver menubar icon to replace the
Spotlight icon (which I've disabled). However, the "Left" and "Right"
options in the Qs prefs don't work, and when set on "Normal" it can't
be repositioned with command-drag like other icons. I seem to
remember a previous version working, though (at that time I thought
this feature was annoying :) .

I tried this first on a G5 iBook, and then on an Intel iMac.

[Jon Stovell (a.k.a. Sesquipedalian)]

Unfortunately, that's not possible. Menu bar icons exist in three
classes: the Spotlight icon, the various OS X native icons, and third
party icons. The three cannot be mixed together; it is only possible
to rearrange icons within their respective groups. It has been this
was since at least Tiger (when I first entered the Mac world).

On Aug 29, 7:16 pm, JadeMatrix <jadematrix....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Quicksilver â54, OS X 10.5.8

[JadeMatrix]

What I meant was, as I disabled Spotlight, the Spotlight icon is no
longer in the menubar. I want to reposition the Qs icon to be the
rightmost of the third-party icons, so it seems to replace the
Spotlight icon. It's that I can't reposition it at all. When I try
to command-drag, the drop-down menu appears; when I try this on other
icons, it allows them to be re-ordered.

Something to note: command-drag also doesn't work on Visor's icon.


On Aug 30, 8:24 am, "Jon Stovell (a.k.a. Sesquipedalian)"

[Jon Stovell (a.k.a. Sesquipedalian)]

Apparently Quicksilver is your only third-party menu bar icon, and all
the others are built-ins.

Things like the clock, Airport icon, Volume control icon, Time Machine
icon, etc., are built into Mac OS X. Apple uses a special method for
those icons (which, among other things, allows them to be reordered by
Cmd-dragging). In the interest of preserving system stability, Apple
makes non-Apple software use a different method to put icons in the
menu bar. This means (1) that such icons cannot be mixed in with the
Apple ones, and (2) that Cmd-dragging does not work as a method to
reorder the icons within this group.

The groups of icons in the menu bar are always drawn in this order
(from right to left): Spotlight icon, other built-in icons, third
party icons. Within each section, it is possible to reorder the icons
by various means, but it is not possible to move icons from one
section to another, or to change the order of the sections.

So what Quicksilver's setting does is allow the Quicksilver icon to be
the rightmost icon in its section, but it will still always be to the
left of the built-in icons. And since Quicksilver is your only third
party icon, being first or last on a list of one makes no difference.

In short, only Apple could change this, and they aren't likely to.

[Rob McBroom]

On Aug 30, 2010, at 10:38 AM, Jon Stovell (a.k.a. Sesquipedalian) wrote:

> The groups of icons in the menu bar are always drawn in this order
> (from right to left): Spotlight icon, other built-in icons, third
> party icons. Within each section, it is possible to reorder the icons
> by various means, but it is not possible to move icons from one
> section to another, or to change the order of the sections.

I don't know if this is always true. I have items from iStat Menus mixed with built-ins and I can command-drag them all. The things that are stuck to the left and undraggable seem to be "applications", such as Quicksilver, Dropbox, and Viscosity.

--
Rob McBroom
<http://www.skurfer.com/>

[Jon Stovell (a.k.a. Sesquipedalian)]

iStat Menus has hacked their way into Apple's private API. This is
possible to do, but unsupported. See here for more info and some good
links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menu_extra

[JadeMatrix]

OK, I see how it works now. Something for me to look at working on, I
suppose.

Well, it was only a cosmetic thing to begin with.


On Aug 30, 10:13 pm, "Jon Stovell (a.k.a. Sesquipedalian)"