[crazygringo]

How does this work on laptop screens? E.g. running Chrome on my MBA with a notch, the Chrome menus take up 3/4 of the screen width, and then the remaining ~6 icons there is space for are utilities I need. There are even a couple more icons I regularly use and have to switch to Finder to access them, just because it has less menus. The idea is interesting, but it's not clear at all from the homepage how/if this works on laptops as opposed to large monitors, when you're using an application with lots of menus.

I'm also curious how this compares to other similar solutions -- QuickCMD, Raycast, Keyboard Maestro, Command Keeper, etc. It seems clear that its featureset is different, but it's hard to figure out which ones do which things. If you included a comparison features chart it might be helpful so potential customers can see what makes this one unique -- i.e. it's the only one that does X and Y and Z, because every other app only does 2 but not all 3.

[pugdogdev]

Good question! For that I built the floating mode for the app (You can see an example on the website) You can hide and show it on demand with a simple hot key, of course, so it will be visible only when you need it.

Regarding the similar solution, we don't replace them, instead, we make them much more accessible and integrate with them amazingly well. A lot of our users are saying that this app is the missing part for Keyboard Maestery and also a huge improvement for Raycast.

Because everything works with Deeplinks, it's super easy to integrate, and with the keyboard-only navigation options, everything is much faster.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask

[crazygringo]

Thanks. I think you just need to make this all clearer on the homepage!

The app looks cool but I think the big challenge is in demonstrating what makes it unique/better. You spend time comparing with icon managers, but that is not the competition. It would be much more helpful to me in understanding how it differs from the actual competition. And saying that it is the "missing part" or a "huge improvement" doesn't tell me anything factual.

Don't some of the competitors use keyboard triggers? Do they not also allow you to create deep links? Don't some of them also sit in the menu bar? This is why it's not immediately clear to me what specifically makes your product better. I'm assuming you have an answer, but that's where a feature comparison chart would really help.

[pugdogdev]

Ok, I will try to explain this better The main power of this app is that I am not trying to compete with them. I work together with them. For example, I put my ExtraBar RayCast deeplinks into a logical menu structure so they are easy to access and remember. Instead of opening Raycast, looking for the actions, sometimes RayCast is opened on a different screen, so I need to go back, etc. I just put the most used action on the ExtraBar menu and use simple keyboard navigation to trigger it. The same goes for Keyboard Maestro. I have this Reddit post that someone posted on ExtraBar: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1q0aqu6/extrabar_i... That has some explanation of how he uses it, so this may be helpful to get more usecases example

[crazygringo]

Ok that's definitely helpful. At this point I'm not really asking questions here for you to answer on HN -- just more pointing out that these are the kinds of things your site needs to explain. What this competes with vs. what it works together with is a great angle.

I assumed ExtraBar was intended to be its own all-in-one solution for executing commands. Now that you say it also works together with other utilities, that changes my perception completely.

[pugdogdev]

Thank you so much for the feedback, Your questions are totally helpful, I will make it clearer on the website based on your feedback

[koiueo]

> How does this work on laptop screens?

Offtop: but is this the right question to ask?

Coming from Linux (involuntarily), the menu/tray implementation was one of the loudest UX issues I immediately discovered. Some functions can only be invoked from a system tray icon, and those actions can also be app/workspace-sensitive (like taking a screenshot with some special config using a screenshot tool). MacOS renders those functions inaccessible if the currently focused app has more than ~6 items in the menu.

Gosh, some apps even have menus so big, they don't fit on a single screen (btw, MacOS's solution is to compress the font, yeah, ask me how I know), leaving only the control center in the tray (which is completely useless in this scenario).

This is the first time I encounter a MacOS user who at least acknowledges the problem, albeit from a different angle: "you are displaying it wrong/your screen is too small".

[crazygringo]

> Offtop: but is this the right question to ask?

Seeing as I'm not involved with developing macOS, I think it is?

> This is the first time I encounter a MacOS user who at least acknowledges the problem

Complaints about the menu bar icons are practically as old as the Mac itself. I don't know who doesn't acknowledge the problem. People have been complaining for decades now about having to buy Bartender to get around the problem.

[pugdogdev]

Yes, the menu bar is a big issue. So many useless icons and menus. Because in macOS 26 it is easier to remove icons from the bar, I have added this "inline mode". A few users have already told me they removed everything and just put extra bar items, customized them however they want, so this makes it nicer.