UI Improvements for OSX Yosemite

[Cyterstp 1]

Just switched to AirVPN because it seems like it has the best functionality.

 

But, we need a dark mode icon for the menu bar, and the ability to hide the icon from the dock. I would like to be able to access the main window from just the menu bar.

[Staff 9972]

Hello!

 

About the Dark mode, it's a new Yosemite feature that's not well documented.

From what we understand, in Dark mode, only AirVPN app still remains with the menubar in Light mode because it's running with elevated privileges. When you specify the Dark mode in System Preferences > General, it will be valid only for the standard user, not the elevated user.

You can try to run

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceStyle Dark

to enable Dark mode on ALL users, after that AirVPN will start in Dark mode. The icon will not be visible, sorry. The next version will have an icon compatible to both Dark and Light mode.

We currently don't understand well how this impacts the standard user settings. If you notice problems, revert with

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceStyle Light

To view the current setting:

sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleInterfaceStyle

 

About the ability to hide the icon from the dock: it seems not possible to show/hide that icon at runtime. Do you know an application that have this kind of options in its preferences? For example uTorrent has this option in Windows, but not under OS X.

 

Kind regards

[zhang888 1066]

Hello Staff,

It can be accomplished on OS X this way:

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/prevent-an-applications-dock-icons-from-showing-in-os-x/

 

 

uTorrent does that on purpose, to show download speeds etc.

 

An example for an app that doesn't use any Dock icons is - Viscosity, NZBget (Probably many others, I just can't remember right now) 

[psychlops 27]

Some apps that hide the dock icon:

WeatherBug (Free) http://weather.weatherbug.com/weatherbug-apps.html

smcFanControl (Free) http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol

Cookie (Demo) http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/37084/cookie

 

But this might provide the most help... I use a mac program called SpamSieve http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/9116/spamsieve

and by default the dock icon is visible. Here are their instructions for hiding it:

 

How can I hide SpamSieve’s Dock icon?

Hold down the Control key and click on the SpamSieve icon in the Finder. Choose Show Package Contents from the menu. Open the Contents folder, and then open the Info.plist file using TextEdit. At the bottom of Info.plist, change:

<key>LSUIElement</key>

<string>0</string>

to:

<key>LSUIElement</key>

<string>1</string>

(That is, just change the 0 to 1.) Then save the Info.plist file and relaunch SpamSieve. You may need to temporarily move the SpamSieve application to the desktop and double-click it there in order for Mac OS X to notice that you now want the Dock icon hidden. To make SpamSieve’s Dock icon visible again, change the Info.plist file back; that is, change the 1 back to 0.

Hope this helps!

[Staff 9972]

The improvement has been addressed in the latest experimental build. Please check it: https://airvpn.org/topic/13002-experimentalbeta-release/