Once upon a time circa 2011-12, Ubuntu could pluck out the applications’ menu bar (the ‘File’/‘Edit’/‘View’/… thing) and display it at the top of the screen, like it’s done in MacOS. Brief searching shows that this was just a setting in Ubuntu’s system preferences, which doesn’t quite inform as to how it was done. But iirc this was before Ubuntu has gone Gnome 3, and thus wasn’t specific to GTK 3 — though the ‘Activities’ in the screenshot below suggests otherwise; and afaiu Cinnamon uses GTK 3 anyway. If I’m not mistaken, this feature has also appeared first in the Netbook Edition of Ubuntu.
Is there some way to have this feature again in Linux Mint, Cinnamon edition, in the year 2025? I’ve googled around for a bit, nothing comes up except lots of ‘how to move the bottom panel to the top’.
Random pic from the web to show this magical technology:
For anyone wondering why I would do such a thing: Fitts’s law tells us that the time to accurately move the cursor to an onscreen target is directly proportional to the distance to the target, and inversely proportional to the target’s size, namely in the same direction as the motion. Well, menu items being at the top of the screen makes them effectively infinite in size in the top-down direction, since the user can just jam the mouse all the way in the proximity of the desired item without a care to the vertical position of the cursor (assuming they come at the target mostly from below). I don’t really like using the mouse, or using the menus either — but when I do, I’d like to have a better experience.
Curiously, this is one glaring example of where Apple designers did their fundamental research, while those at Microsoft dropped the ball yet again: in Windows 9x (at the least), the taskbar buttons had a one-pixel gap from the bottom where mouse clicks didn’t work — which meant that a user moving the cursor with all their Fitts-dictated efficiency had to readjust again before clicking a button.
KDE Plasma supports it.
But Mint does not support KDE by design. Switching to a distro like Fedora KDE is the better choice.
I’m not aware of an already existing way to do that within Cinnamon, but you could try installing the Unity desktop instead (which is what Ubuntu was using back then). Canonical moved away from it in favor of GNOME some years ago, so it’s languished, but I was running a version of it until I jumped ship to Mint and Cinnamon earlier this year; it’s still possible to run it, though you might have to work around some breakage from limited maintenance.
Staying within Cinnamon, you can move the panel up to the top and re-arrange/remove elements on it. I made a few tweaks like that to my set up since I was running Unity for so long. e.g. put the menu on the right with a different icon, etc. That was good enough for me, personally.
Curiously, this is one glaring example of where Apple designers did their fundamental research,
The same designers that decided to make rounded window corners on rectangular screens the default, the same that at one time decided to use ultra thin dark-ish grey text over light grey background the default for all menus? ;)
OK I’m trolling here, but not entirely: in the last two decades, there is a lot of ‘intelligence’ that moved away from their designer team I’m afraid. But, hey, we got emojis.
I don’t know if it is possible to get what you’re looking for under Linux but as someone that had been an Apple customer since the early 80s and that only quit Apple around 2018… I’ve gotten used to the lack of a menu bar very quickly, no matter what Fitts’s law is saying. Maybe because I learned to use the keyboard shortcuts a lot more than I use the mouse, which is light-speed faster and there is no magical technology’ required at all ;)
rounded window corners on rectangular screens the default
That was actually a very deliberate move by Jobs and his lead designer at the time, I forget who. Rounded corners were everywhere around in actual industrial design, so Jobs shown a bunch of those to the guy just walking around the block, and explicitly asked for having fast rendering of rounded corners in the UI. Moreover, if you examine the rounded corners in different GUIs, you’ll discover that MacOS has corners that gradually taper off so that the curve radius changes as you go on, instead of immediately switching from an infinite radius, i.e. a straight line, to a constant. Because corners don’t switch from a straight line to a constant-radius curve in nature or even in human-made industrial products, seeing as that’s not how material bends. Apple even have a specific formula for the gradually tapered-off angles, that they apply across their hardware and software: you can try the Airpods case against your iPhone corner, and it’s the same curve.
In contrast, if you ever notice the point of change from the infinite perimeter curve radius to a constant radius in Android or on web pages, you can’t unsee it anymore. It’s just glaringly obvious right in your face. I don’t know why nobody did that the way Apple does, but apparently they don’t really give a fuck.
That was actually a very deliberate move
So was that Butterfly keyboard they insisted to put on their laptops for, what, 4 years or more (starting around 2015 or 2016) before admitting they may have screwed up by designing an extra thin keyboard instead of an actually usable and reliable keyboard?
by Jobs and his lead designer at the time, I forget who
Jonathan Ive, you mean?
Jonathan Ive, you mean?
You appear to keep jabbing both me and Apple in general with these quips — but no, rounded corners first appeared in Macintosh around 1984, whereas Ive was promoted to the lead designer by Jobs upon his return in 1997.
So was that Butterfly keyboard they insisted to put on their laptops for, what, 4 years or more (starting around 2015 or 2016) before admitting they may have screwed up by designing an extra thin keyboard instead of an actually usable and reliable keyboard?
Ooooh yeah, a master jab there. Their whole software design had so much to do with the butterfly keyboards. The rounder corners of the MacOS UI since 1984 were all built on the butterfly keyboard, like you wouldn’t believe. Jobs himself went around parading the butterfly keyboard in 1984 to convince everyone to put rounded corners in their software. You’re so right, it’s amazing, how do you do this?
I see. Have a nice day.
The hell is up with all the angry Mac users in this thread?
The hell is up with all the angry Mac haters in this thread?
Have I ever asked for yall’s opinion on Mac in the first place?
This angry over a designed decision on operating system you haven’t even used in eight years? And a grudge about a design on a couple of laptops from 10 years ago?
Dude, you switched to Linux to make your life easier, I presume. Why keep holding on to so much hate over such little and meaningless things?
But, hey, we got emojis.
Emojis were implemented first by Japanese cellphone carriers around 1997-99. Could you please clarify as to what this has to do with Apple? Or do you just put buzzwords together randomly like an LLM?
Overall, you seem to have latched here onto your hate for Apple, as if it’s got anything to do with what I’m asking in the post. Let me be clear, I don’t give a flying fuck as to whether you like or dislike Apple’s design or any of their products. I don’t care at all about your ignorant opinion about Apple’s products, and I never will. Any of your opinions about Apple or any of their products or employees are completely irrelevant to me, other than as laughingstock, not least because I never asked how to do anything with Apple products in the first place. I only asked here how to do things with Linux Mint, as you chimed in because you couldn’t handle anyone doing things in any way that you personally don’t like.
I’m new to Linux in general, let alone kde, but isn’t this just making a new panel at the top and customizing it with the appropriate widgets?
I’ve forgotten to mention in the post: I browsed through the applets, but there isn’t one that would seem to recreate this feature. Unless I missed something.
Ah, yea, it seems this is only possible on distros that support KDE 6 (which is not mint).
Yeah, I’ve heard that KDE might’ve overtaken Gnome in usability in recent years, but I’m still traumatized by my brief experience with it in the 2000s, when it was blatantly copying Windows, but with even more wandering through the dialogs and the menus. It was really fucking bad. Meanwhile Gnome 2 was unabashedly copying MacOS with all its ease of use, so it was kind of a gateway drug.
Definitely give KDE a go again. I was in the same boat as you in the 2000s, KDE was horrific and I refused to touch it with a ten foot pole until about two years ago. It’s my DE of choice now on devices that can handle it (I’ve got some dinosaurs). Now GNOME 3 checks that hatred box.
As I said, I’m new to Linux in general, and from my experience on Ubuntu, it’s been fantastic. I think whatever bad juju kde had back in the day is gone, and it’s light years ahead anything you can get from windows, as far as customization goes.
