Has anyone tried out Say No to Notch on the Mac App Store?

[christlinah]

I mean I get where you're coming from but IMO this is only useful for people who absolutely can't stand the divided menu bar. Otherwise you're just going to lose screen space to eliminate a notch which isn't really visible anyway if you select dark mode.

 

[Fishrrman]

The "notch" is simply there.

It's not going away any time soon.

It is... what it is.

Might as well get used to it.

 

[azpc]

Not sure if my image was helpful. I know it compares the look to the 2018 model instead of the 2019 but maybe if you look at the picture and your 2019 from a similar angle you can compare the bezels.

With Mini-LED screens, black is truly black and looks exactly the same as if the display was powered off. So you can't see the difference between the part of the blacked out area that is notch and the part that is disabled screen space unless you get a lot of light shining on it. So it might as well be a real bezel at that point. I think you won't find the notch so bad once you have your purchase in hand but I can appreciate the need to have a plan B in case you find you can't stand it.

The app works by simply changing resolution. It is still handy if you want to go back and forth between notch and no notch quickly, but you can also just change the resolution yourself in the display settings, as DFBwin shared. The different resolution still seems to line up the physical pixels with software pixels so it's not blurred/filtered like you normally see with non-native resolutions. The overall look is what you'd expect the system to look like if Apple had not built it with a notch in the first place. The only issue I've noticed is that the resolution change seems to lose a few rows of pixels on the BOTTOM for some reason but it's a negligible amount.

It should be noted that a similar effect is normally done, with no third-party apps or changes to the default settings, if you switch an app to full screen. In that case though it's not a resolution change so you can still move your cursor up to the blackened area, and then menu bar content appears there. The resolution change we are talking about completely stops using the blackened area at all and makes the interface work like it does on a no-notch display.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions you have to help you. I could even measure the effective bezels if you want to compare that to your 2019 model. I have been in this situation myself with purchases and I can appreciate the need to have no surprises at all. You may want to have a look at how it works at an Apple Store. If that isn't practical maybe you could tell me what you'd try if you had the device in front of you and I could try to make a simple video for you showing the same thing.

Sorry people are being mean to you. Not sure what is up with this place.

Thank you! Your pictures and description helped clarify the issue.

When I teach an online class I like to make the Mac and Windows versions look as similar as possible. Too many differences in appearance might require the making of a separate class.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Why would I try something that does nothing except make my screen smaller?

 

[Luna Murasaki]

Thank you! Your pictures and description helped clarify the issue.

When I teach an online class I like to make the Mac and Windows versions look as similar as possible. Too many differences in appearance might require the making of a separate class.

It may be worth adding that if you are mirroring a display, that’s a different story. I usually use my MacBook like a desktop computer. To do this, I mirror the built-in display to the 4K TV I use on my desk like a computer monitor. The mirroring is set to be optimized for the TV, so when I do that, the notch and all interface adaptations for it are disabled anyway, as both displays show the shared 3840x2160 screen. So worst-case scenario, you could always just use an external display when recording your screen, with no special notch-disabling software needed. Using the same external display for both your Windows and macOS-focused lectures would ensure an identical screen resolution in both cases. You could also have a 16:9 aspect ratio that way which seems to be what people want for video if your videos are fullscreen.

I actually have a Windows tower PC connected to the exact same TV, mouse, keyboard, and speakers using a KVM switch. I have the UI scaling set to 200% for both environments so the experience is consistent across OSs.

 

[Tagbert]

If an app has more menu bar items then can spill over to the other side of the notch, meaning you can lose access to some menu bar apps entirely unless you switch to something else.
Notice how the last menubar app in Safari isn't visible in XCode.

Personally I'm not too bothered by it, I don't have that many menu bar apps, but if I did I can see how it would be irritating.

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View attachment 2312376

Oh, that is not unique to Macs with the Notch, just more likely. The menubar icons were always truncated if they ran into the actual menu areas. I have used Bartender for years to manage those icons. I don’t need or want all of them showing all of the time. With Bartender you can move less important icons to a secondary panel that only appears when you click on the Bartender icon. Unless you are an istat menu addict, you should be able to move enough icons off to not have the problem of losing important icons.

 

[azpc]

Update:

For those who don't care for the notch, if you like the notch read no further.


I went ahead and purchased "Say No to Notch". It is the best solution that I have found for dealing with the notch. It works seamlessly in fact, I forgot that the new Macbooks had a notch until I worked with a friend's Macbook.

Has anyone tried out Say No to Notch on the Mac App Store?

‎Say No to Notch

‎Say No to Notch is an application that can fully disable the notch* that present on the MacBook Air (2022 and later) and MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″ models. Just turn on the switch and enjoy the "notchless" all-new MacBooks. The app will push down the menu bar below the "notch". Features: • Moves...

apps.apple.com

Features:


• Moves the menu bar down below the "notch"


• Brings back the full-width menu bar from edge to edge


• Works well with professional apps with a long list of menus

• Makes the long list of menu items visible

• Quickly toggle the notch via menu bar icon

• Hide Dock icon

• Double-clicking the notch area to disable the notch

• "Always Disable Notch" Mode

• Shortcuts app support


If you have tried it, did you like it?

Thank you

 

[shenfrey]

This is dumb. You're effectively doubling the thickness of the menubar because you don't want to see the notch? So instead, you are left with a useless black strip all the way across the entire width of the screen?

What you said is dumb.

You're not doubling anything. You are changing the colour of the menu bar to black, so that it obscures the notch. You are gaining no space, but you are not losing any space either.

 

[jmkeuning]

The issue that almost everyone is missing, is that menu bar managers like bartender and ice have two settings for your menu icons: shown and hidden. Hidden icons are hidden and only show if the user invokes and option, and they’re not the problem with the notch.. The problem is with the shown icons. If you only show as many icons as fit to the right of the notch, you’re losing a lot of functionality when you’re running an external monitor. My set up is optimized for an external monitor, but I do a lot of work on just a laptop. So I need more icons shown than fit to the right of the notch. Which is a problem when I’m running just my laptop, because the missing icons stay missing. The menu bar managers don’t have an option to send your shown icons to your hidden bar when the shown icons are obscured by the notch. So your choice is to either use very few shown icons, or just get used to not being able to access those menu items when you’re on laptop only. What this app here does is solves that problem by making sure that no icons can never disappear behind the notch. I haven’t tried it, but I’m going to, because I’d rather have access to all of my show menu items than have that bit of real estate.

 

[Tagbert]

The issue that almost everyone is missing, is that menu bar managers like bartender and ice have two settings for your menu icons: shown and hidden. Hidden icons are hidden and only show if the user invokes and option, and they’re not the problem with the notch.. The problem is with the shown icons. If you only show as many icons as fit to the right of the notch, you’re losing a lot of functionality when you’re running an external monitor. My set up is optimized for an external monitor, but I do a lot of work on just a laptop. So I need more icons shown than fit to the right of the notch. Which is a problem when I’m running just my laptop, because the missing icons stay missing. The menu bar managers don’t have an option to send your shown icons to your hidden bar when the shown icons are obscured by the notch. So your choice is to either use very few shown icons, or just get used to not being able to access those menu items when you’re on laptop only. What this app here does is solves that problem by making sure that no icons can never disappear behind the notch. I haven’t tried it, but I’m going to, because I’d rather have access to all of my show menu items than have that bit of real estate.

What Bartender does is let you toggle between two sets of icons by tapping the “…” icon. It also gives you you an option to show the second “spillover” set of icons on a small temporary panel beneath the main menu bar.

 

[daabido]

I like the notch. How else would people know I have the latest and greatest at SFO?

What's the point of having a Honda, if you can't show it off?

 

[jlc1978]

Update:

For those who don't care for the notch, if you like the notch read no further.


I went ahead and purchased "Say No to Notch". It is the best solution that I have found for dealing with the notch. It works seamlessly in fact, I forgot that the new Macbooks had a notch until I worked with a friend's Macbook.

Glad it worked for you, but to me it appears to be a solution looking for a problem. As others have pointed out, changing resolution does the same movement of the menu bar, and if you want a black stripe to hide the notch you can change modes or do what I did and use a black desktop, which I prefer anyway; or just add a black stripe to the top of the desktop image you use.

A simple automater action could do the same thing.

It may be useful by making it easier, but if the notch really bothers you how often will you change resolution?

 

[jzuena]

My work machine is a MBP and only one time did I have a problem with a menu item being "lost" under the notch. I used BetterDisplay to pick a resolution that that had the same effect as Say No to Notch. Once I was done I set the resolution back to include the space on either side of the notch. Since I run with BetterDisplay anyway, Say No to Notch wouldn't be helpful to me.

 

[Tagbert]

My work machine is a MBP and only one time did I have a problem with a menu item being "lost" under the notch. I used BetterDisplay to pick a resolution that that had the same effect as Say No to Notch. Once I was done I set the resolution back to include the space on either side of the notch. Since I run with BetterDisplay anyway, Say No to Notch wouldn't be helpful to me.

I assume by “menu item” you mean one of the app icons in the menu bar? Since actual menus automatically avoid the notch area.

I wish that Apple would implement a built-in system to better manage those icons. If you have lots of apps and are using a small screen, like a laptop, you would sometimes have icons that don’t fit on the screen even before the notch appeared. I use Bartender to move rarely used icons to a spillover panel but I’d rather that be built into the OS.