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uBar 4

dermeister

dermeister

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 19, 2003
458
96
Hi. I'm the developer of uBar.

uBar is the dock replacement for the Mac.

Version 4 is available at ubarapp.com - It is a 14 day trial and costs $30 to purchase. uBar 3 users can upgrade for $15.

products_ubar_image100.png


The idea for uBar is to be the Dock replacement for the Mac. It can be configured as either a task bar or dock. Hide titles and set windows to always group, and it is a dock. Show titles and set window grouping to always or automatic, and it is a task bar. uBar designed to be a macOS app before anything, which means it looks beautiful. When uBar is used as a task bar, it looks like it belongs on macOS.

I'm actively developing it and would love to hear everyone's feedback and feature requests. Just look at the release notes to see the huge number of features that are user suggestions!

The latest version is 4.0.0

Twitter: @uBarApp

uBar 3 thread (for reference): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ubar-3.1923796/
uBar 2 thread (for reference): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ubar-2.1750815/

Reviews:
 
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Hi ;-)
I'am a longtime ubar3 user and its nice that you go on with this great app.
Just install High Sierra from scratch and then buy ubar4. so far it works but I have a small problem:
After a while suddenly my ubar looks like in the screenshot that I attached...any Idea what the problem is??
If I shut down ubar and start it again it works normal and after a while this happens again...
Thank you in advance ;-)
 

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matzeli said:
Hi ;-)
I'am a longtime ubar3 user and its nice that you go on with this great app.
Just install High Sierra from scratch and then buy ubar4. so far it works but I have a small problem:
After a while suddenly my ubar looks like in the screenshot that I attached...any Idea what the problem is??
If I shut down ubar and start it again it works normal and after a while this happens again...
Thank you in advance ;-)
Click to expand...
Hey Matzeli,

That was a bug in 4.0.2, just fixed in 4.0.3!
 
Okay - I decided to check out uBar again, and I'm pleased to see that it features an option to hide apps with no windows. Great! Thank you! I've upgraded my license from uBar 3.
 
Never heard of it, but after checking out your website I have to admit that it looks amazing.
Very tempting to make use of the 14 day trial.

Can 1 license be used on multiple devices (being single user)?
 
MacGizmo said:
I would avoid this app like the plague if I were you guys...

View attachment 726520
Click to expand...
While I think the developer needs to address this, this is a practice a lot of advertisers are doing on websites. It isn't the app.
[doublepost=1508769106][/doublepost]PS. I've contacted the developer to ask them to address this concern, as I would like to hear what they have to say prior to downloading the software.
 
MacGizmo said:
I would avoid this app like the plague if I were you guys...
Click to expand...
Wyvernspirit said:
While I think the developer needs to address this, this is a practice a lot of advertisers are doing on websites. It isn't the app.
[doublepost=1508769106][/doublepost]PS. I've contacted the developer to ask them to address this concern, as I would like to hear what they have to say prior to downloading the software.
Click to expand...

That is very concerning. Thanks Wyvernspirit for alerting me via PM as I received an email alert and otherwise would have missed this.

As you say there is no way that is legitimately running on the website, but it is possible JS code to run it is being inserted through the multitude of JS APIs that run on modern websites (social media, analytics, etc). There is no advertising on the site, so I suspect an older JS API script may be targeted, so I am replacing it all with updated code.

If there is something running on the website, it wouldn't affect the app itself, which is of course code-signed.

I'm investigating to see if I can figure out what was happening. If someone can reproduce it, or even better see what is being loaded in the Resources tab of their browser, I'd appreciate a PM with details/screenshots as that would help figure it out!

Summary: Not sure how that is happening, but it's certainly not on purpose; Web JS being updated in case that is how it's happening; App is safe; Contact me if you have more info.
 
dermeister said:
Hi. I'm the developer of uBar.

uBar is the dock replacement for the Mac.

Version 4 is available at ubarapp.com - It is a 14 day trial and costs $30 to purchase. uBar 3 users can upgrade for $15.

products_ubar_image100.png


The idea for uBar is to be the Dock replacement for the Mac. It can be configured as either a task bar or dock. Hide titles and set windows to always group, and it is a dock. Show titles and set window grouping to always or automatic, and it is a task bar. uBar designed to be a macOS app before anything, which means it looks beautiful. When uBar is used as a task bar, it looks like it belongs on macOS.

I'm actively developing it and would love to hear everyone's feedback and feature requests. Just look at the release notes to see the huge number of features that are user suggestions!

The latest version is 4.0.0

Twitter: @uBarApp

uBar 3 thread (for reference): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ubar-3.1923796/
uBar 2 thread (for reference): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ubar-2.1750815/

Reviews:
Click to expand...

Discovered uBar for the first time. Cool app! It feels like Windows.:)

One problem I noticed is that when you switch between a desktop and a fullscreen app, the bar will flicker.

Another interesting effect is when a window is minimized, it will goes to a location unrelated to the current position of the app on the bar. I guess it is minimized to wherever the app is on the Mac dock.

Finally, people have been saying the dock has large portion written in Swift. Is uBar implemented in Obj-C or Swift?
[doublepost=1510156439][/doublepost]Also, bug report: the rounded outline of the bar is not clipped, you can sometimes see the gray view behind the VisualEffectView.

Steps to reproduce:
1. set position on screen = bottom, pinning = [.left, .bottom, .right]
2. uncheck bottom pinning
3. uncheck right pinning
4. uncheck left pinning

the left side of the bar is not clipped.
 
automactic said:
Discovered uBar for the first time. Cool app! It feels like Windows.:)

One problem I noticed is that when you switch between a desktop and a fullscreen app, the bar will flicker.

Another interesting effect is when a window is minimized, it will goes to a location unrelated to the current position of the app on the bar. I guess it is minimized to wherever the app is on the Mac dock.

Finally, people have been saying the dock has large portion written in Swift. Is uBar implemented in Obj-C or Swift?
[doublepost=1510156439][/doublepost]Also, bug report: the rounded outline of the bar is not clipped, you can sometimes see the gray view behind the VisualEffectView.

Steps to reproduce:
1. set position on screen = bottom, pinning = [.left, .bottom, .right]
2. uncheck bottom pinning
3. uncheck right pinning
4. uncheck left pinning

the left side of the bar is not clipped.
Click to expand...

Glad you like it! The flicker is an OS issue with CoreGraphics. The minimization animation goes to where the Apple Dock is. Apple doesn't provide an API to take over those functions, so there is no way to override it. I personally bury the Dock (using Dockless mode) on the same edge as uBar and use the Scale minimization effect, so I don't notice a difference. uBar is a mix of Obj-C and Swift. Some newer features are being written in Swift. API support for both is the same (they're both just languages over Cocoa), so it doesn't really matter (unlike Carbon vs Cocoa 17 years ago).

I can't reproduce that issue. Could you send me a Quicktime of it via the support system on the website? Thanks!
 
Hey, I just got uBar 4 after having it recommended to me by a friend. I love it so far, just one tiny thing that irks me. Is it possible to completely hide the uBar setting from the popup menu list? I'm trying to make it look as native as possible and this is the last bit that triggers my OCD haha. Thanks for a great product!
 
axelstromberg said:
Hey, I just got uBar 4 after having it recommended to me by a friend. I love it so far, just one tiny thing that irks me. Is it possible to completely hide the uBar setting from the popup menu list? I'm trying to make it look as native as possible and this is the last bit that triggers my OCD haha. Thanks for a great product!
Click to expand...

Glad you're enjoying uBar! Hmm there isn't, but you could override the uB icon with this:

https://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar/documentation#uBarDocumentationApplicationSupportIcons

The text itself... The is no real practical way at the moment. I've added this as an item on the todo list. What would you like it to say instead? Reason is that there has to be a way to access those items.
 
dermeister said:
Glad you're enjoying uBar! Hmm there isn't, but you could override the uB icon with this:

https://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar/documentation#uBarDocumentationApplicationSupportIcons

The text itself... The is no real practical way at the moment. I've added this as an item on the todo list. What would you like it to say instead? Reason is that there has to be a way to access those items.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your quick reply and for adding it to your todo list! I guess I'll have to settle for now.

But there is a way to find that menu other than in the list no? By right clicking actual uBar I can find the same menu, right?

I just think it'd be neat to have it "hidden" for the average user you know :)
 
axelstromberg said:
Thanks for your quick reply and for adding it to your todo list! I guess I'll have to settle for now.

But there is a way to find that menu other than in the list no? By right clicking actual uBar I can find the same menu, right?

I just think it'd be neat to have it "hidden" for the average user you know :)
Click to expand...

It's the opposite:) Even though it's available through right-clicking the bar, the average user would have no idea how to find the Preferences if that item wasn't in the uB menu. I would get dozens of support emails a day just for that. You're the first person to request to hide it - which is fine, as I totally get the OCD thing:D
 
A bug report of sorts.. there's often ghost remains of apps that has been closed - for instance: System Preferences after changing a wallpaper. When uBar is resized the ghosts of apps goes away.
 
Last edited:
A bug report that goes something along the lines: the uBar menu(with Preferences and such) stops working entirely. As in clicking my beautiful face in the uBar dock does nothing after occurrences that I can figure out. The menu never returns and I must quit uBar.
 
Hi, thanks for developing this. Is it possible to disable uBar when in full-screen mode? I use spaces to switch to Parallels virtual machines and I don't want uBar appearing on top of my Windows task bar. I can see how access to uBar would be important to other full-screen apps, but in this case I want to give full control to the Windows environment.

As a weird side-note, in my current setup I have two monitors with uBar on the right side of the left monitor. In full screen mode, when I slide my mouse between the monitors, uBar appears on the left (which I would expect, though this is the functionality that I'd like to be able to turn off) and then briefly on the right side of the left monitor. That second brief appearance of uBar seems like a bug.
 
I'm making the switch to Mac for work, and this app is really helping ease my transition - thanks!

How do I add apps to the "Included Apps" list? I could swear Thunderbird was in there at one point, but now it's not. I did get it to show up in the task bar by making it a favorite, but I can't order it if it's not in the "Included Apps" list.
 
allan.nyholm said:
A bug report that goes something along the lines: the uBar menu(with Preferences and such) stops working entirely. As in clicking my beautiful face in the uBar dock does nothing after occurrences that I can figure out. The menu never returns and I must quit uBar.
Click to expand...
I can't seem to reproduce this.

ceswiedler said:
Hi, thanks for developing this. Is it possible to disable uBar when in full-screen mode? I use spaces to switch to Parallels virtual machines and I don't want uBar appearing on top of my Windows task bar. I can see how access to uBar would be important to other full-screen apps, but in this case I want to give full control to the Windows environment.

As a weird side-note, in my current setup I have two monitors with uBar on the right side of the left monitor. In full screen mode, when I slide my mouse between the monitors, uBar appears on the left (which I would expect, though this is the functionality that I'd like to be able to turn off) and then briefly on the right side of the left monitor. That second brief appearance of uBar seems like a bug.
Click to expand...
Detecting fullscreen is technically difficult because so many apps do it in non-normal ways (not using macOS APIs), and even macOS has changed the way fullscreen works in many releases. So that's a bug being worked on, but hard to iron-out.

Seeing uBar for a moment in that case is a result of uBar appearing and then sliding to the left monitor. It's a known issue, but not a priority to solve.

Emmulator said:
I'm making the switch to Mac for work, and this app is really helping ease my transition - thanks!

How do I add apps to the "Included Apps" list? I could swear Thunderbird was in there at one point, but now it's not. I did get it to show up in the task bar by making it a favorite, but I can't order it if it's not in the "Included Apps" list.
Click to expand...

All apps should be in either lists... Included or excluded. Try relaunching uBar?
 
dermeister said:
All apps should be in either lists... Included or excluded. Try relaunching uBar?
Click to expand...

There are lots of apps in my Applications folder that don't show up in the uBar list, even after relaunching. Is there something I'm missing in terms of what counts as an "app" on Mac in this context?
 

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Emmulator said:
There are lots of apps in my Applications folder that don't show up in the uBar list, even after relaunching. Is there something I'm missing in terms of what counts as an "app" on Mac in this context?
Click to expand...
They should be counted by uBar once they have run once.
 
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