Disable Menu Bar in Caption Area

[Kaelri]

I understand the logic behind this change, but having the menu bar in the caption area is really not appropriate for all Windows themes. On my system, for instance, it looks like this:



I would really appreciate the option to either restore the traditional menu bar, or perhaps to have the new menu bar hidden unless the Alt key is pressed (consistent with Windows Explorer's menu behavior in Vista/7).

[Steven]

i suspected some people might not like having the menus done this way.
One option i am considering is to auto-hide the menu so it only appears when the mouse in the caption bar area (for both skinned and non-skinned borders) - i dont think the menu is so commonly used that it would inconvience doing it this way. I dont think using the Alt key being pressed would work well as thay can be used as part of a hotkey.
Does anyone have any strong views or suggestions on this? Of course i could just add an option to have the menu not displayed in the caption bar

[mikebo]

Maybe a menu button like in firefox and opera

[Alexis]

I like Mikebo's suggestion.  Seems like a number programs taking that approach.  The skins I use work well with current configuration, but seems like the suggested approach could address it very well.

[ma_t14]

+1 but make it optional

But when enabled make it so that tabs appear in the title bar to conserve space, that is the next natural step I think.

[Kaelri]

One option i am considering is to auto-hide the menu so it only appears when the mouse in the caption bar area (for both skinned and non-skinned borders) - i dont think the menu is so commonly used that it would inconvience doing it this way.

I think this is a fine solution.

I'm not as wild about the button idea. To me, the point of not skinning window borders in the first place is to make MusicBee more visually consistent with the rest of Windows. Having any elements in the caption area detracts from this goal. However, a button would certainly be smaller and less conspicuous than the whole menu.

[Blinghound]

Viewing this thread made me realize that the skin setting 'AutoHideMenu' does not function as it used to, is this due to the recent changes made to the caption bar? Thank you

[Steven]

Viewing this thread made me realize that the skin setting 'AutoHideMenu' does not function as it used to, is this due to the recent changes made to the caption bar? Thank you

its only enabled that way when the player panel is on the top but i am going to change it so the menu docking is configurable from the View menu (dockable in the caption bar, below the caption bar or auto-hidden)

[Steven]

this has the customisation for the menu dock
it can be set in the Layout preferences or the View main menu

also should show the menu text clearer than before when docked in the windows glass caption area
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

[Kaelri]

Perfect! Thanks so much for responding to our feedback. I know your time is limited these says.

Only one small bug to report: when the menu bar is set to auto-hide, the MusicBee caption appears to be a little below-center, and the white glow around the letters is enforced even when the theme doesn't require it. Here's a screenshot (with a Notepad caption for comparison).

[Steven]

its easy to draw the text without the glow but i dont know how to determine if the theme should have text drawn without a glow.

[Kaelri]

In that case, I would suggest simply removing or reducing the glow. (It's not even used consistently by Microsoft applications in Aero default, so I doubt it would be missed here.)

[Steven]

i dont agree with having the text not glow for most people and it doesnt work when you have the window over a background of similar color to the text.
I have taken a guess at a condition for when text should not glow, so could you try this:

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/Patches/MusicBee.zip

if it doesnt work, could you let me know how you managed to get the caption bar a solid colour without using the windows basic theme so i can test it myself

[Kaelri]

No difference, unfortunately:



This wasn't an issue before the menu bar change in last week's beta:



That's why I assumed that it must have been a simple change. If it's not, though, I understand if you'd rather not spend time on it; this is kind of a niche issue, I realize.

I'm using the third-party "Shadow" theme for Windows (here), which requires patching a system files (patcher here). I can vouch for the safety of both of these utilities.

[ma_t14]

...
I'm using the third-party "Shadow" theme for Windows (here), which requires patching a system files (patcher here). I can vouch for the safety of both of these utilities.

Does that mean that conventional themes won't exhibit this problem? If that is true, I think that having clear text in menu items is more important...