lukepistrol/TimeMachineStatus

✨: Improve menu bar layout/design

Opened this issue · 4 comments

Currently the menu bar item displays the icon as well as the current state as text. Except from when a backup is running where it will display the progress percentage.

I'd like to have a more pleasing approach. Maybe icons for the different states, maybe completely customizable.

Let's discuss how information should be displayed below.

I've been messing around with an xbar script for monitoring Time Machine, but TimeMachineStatus is a much better solution. Some personal thoughts based on my experience:

  • A percentage number visible while backup is in progress would be great. If an estimated time is available, even better!
  • My script has status displayed as a single word: "Preparing", "Mounting", "Finding", "Thinning", which saves some space.
  • Relatedly, if Time Machine isn't doing anything, the word "Idle" probably isn't needed, as long as an icon is still there.
  • I miss the old spinning Time Machine icon from previous versions of macOS. TimeMachineStatus could bring it back!

@blackketter Thanks for your suggestions! I will definitely have a look at those! 👍🏻

Ha ha! That was fast!

I don't know about how practical this would be but I'd love the option to only show one symbol at a time (no text) and to express the status with symbols comparable to e.g. the gobackward.45 for expressing the percentage, or arrow.3.trianglepath for tidying up.

Space on a MacBook Pro is really precious and showing text makes a quarter of my menu bar disappear for a brief moment.