Over in theMacworldforums , a lector recently asked a common question that can be reword as , “ How can I get Mac OS X to put thedate , in accession to the clock time , in the carte du jour bar ? ”
you may in reality do this with some tinkering in the Formats yellow journalism of the International Lucy in the sky with diamonds of System Preferences : First you fall into place on the Customize button in the Dates subdivision and then configure your preferred date format ; prime that data formatting and copy it to the Clipboard ( Edit : Copy ) . call off out of that dialog and then select Customize in the Times section ; pick out culture medium from the Show pop - up menu and then paste ( Edit : Paste ) your date formatintothe time format theater . accept you ’ve enabled , in the Date & Time pane of System Preferences , the option to show the particular date and time in the menu bar , that display will now admit the particular date !
But that process is a kludge . A clever kludge that works , but a kludge nonetheless . I in person favour to utilize one of the myriad utilities out there that permit you easily contribute the date to the menu bar and also give you additional features . I ’ve covered a pair shareware products myself in the yesteryear , and in the meeting place thread noted above , fellowMacworldreaders suggested a number of others . However , one that was n’t bring up , but is definitely worth a feel , is Charcoal Design’sMagiCal 1.0.9r1 (; requital requested ) .
Launch MagiCal and the first thing you ’ll mark ( besides the fact that you likely now havetwoclocks in the menu bar — you’ll call for to release OS X ’s own off ) is that you ’ve get the timeanda small calendar icon displaying today ’s escort . press the prison term or date and you ’ll see a nifty , drop curtain - down calendar ; you may switch calendar month by clicking the left over or right on arrow , or by cluck on the month or year , each of which provides a pop - up menu for rapidly switching to a given month or year , severally .
But that ’s just the nonpayment display ; via MagiCal ’s druthers dialogue , you could customize many aspects of MagiCal ’s appearing . For example , you may choose between a digital or analogue sentence display ; choose the exhibit font , colouring material , and sizing ; and choose the metre format from among 16 option ( or even create your own data formatting ) .
you’re able to similarly customize the engagement display , select between calendar - icon graphics or a textual showing , with data format and font option for the latter .
Other options include a floating tooltip that prove the date and clip — again , in the format you choose — whenever you linger the black eye cursor over the MagiCal display in the menu legal profession ; and the ability to force MagiCal ’s display to be positioned on the very correct or left side of the menu - redundant area of the menu cake .
lastly , one other utile feature film is the ability to drag MagiCal ’s drop - down calendar off the bill of fare prevention and set it anywhere on your silver screen , where it will remain until you close it . A setting in the preferences duologue permit you choose whether the calendar acts like a palette ( float above all other windows ) or part of the Desktop ( sitting behind all other windows ) .
Oddly , MagiCal uses a Dashboard - widget - like penchant button ( it looks like a lower - casei ) that appears only when you move your mouse cursor over the drop - down calendar , making it hard to figure out how to get at the preference dialog ; I ’d prefer a static — and more - obvious — release . ( Even more peculiarly , instead of “ flipping ” the calendar around , as a similar button would do on a Widget , fight the push gives you a pop - up card with several choice , include the Preferences control . )
MagiCal is a nifty way to customize your menu bar ’s escort and time video display far beyond what Mac OS X ’s own functionality will allow . Although there are a few like public-service corporation out there that bring home the bacon more feature than MagiCal , most are shareware or commercial software . Free is elusive to overreach ( although if you retrieve MagiCal utilitarian , I encourage you to send the developer a donation , through the link on the MagiCal entanglement site , to encourage future growth ) .
MagiCal require Mac OS X 10.3 or subsequently and is a Universal binary .
