The command line (Scrivener File Edit Insert …) on my mac mini is separate from the Scrivener interface, which shows ‘View Search Add Trash …’) in the command line. The rest of the commands are at the top of the mac mini screen, beside the apple logo. I have been unable to find a way to bring the command line down to the Scrivener interface, as I do have on a Windows computer. I see mac screens on Youtube that are one piece, so to speak. Due to vision considerations, I would very much like to see this union take place. Any aid will be appareciated. Updates to the mac operating system have no effect.
This is the standard placement of the Mac OS menu bar, and is outside of Scrivener’s control. Mac OS Full Screen mode sort of does what you want, but only by expanding the Scrivener window.
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The Mac has had a unified menu bar interface for all software, at the top of the screen, since it has been called Macintosh (but its origins are older, I believe even back to Xerox PARC, but if not that far, at least the Lisa). I get it. When I was first forced to use a Macintosh in the late '90s, as part of my graphics design career, I hated it (why move the mouse 28cm instead of 5??). Then I used it for a while. Now, on my Linux computer where I am given a choice, I choose it.
As for accessibility, there are good arguments for the Mac’s model being the most accessible approach for both vision and motor function.
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Each menu target is a “mile high”. Since the mouse gets stuck at the top of the screen, you do not have to aim the mouse in two axes, but rather only the horizontal axis. There is thus far less physical effort involved, and that benefits just about everyone as efficiency increases too (i.e. when 28cm is a shorter distance than 5cm!).
Proficient Mac users flick the mouse up at full speed to hit a menu, whereas Windows users have to carefully position the pointer within a tiny little rectangle somewhere, anywhere, rarely in the same place, on the screen. On a Mac, “File” is always in exactly the same place, in every single program, and thus opening that menu can in fact become muscle memory. Indeed you may even find frequently used commands within the various menus become muscle memory as well, because they will always be in the same exact place, too.
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For vision, the principles above also benefit. Since you do not need to aim on the vertical axis, you also to some degree do not need to aim on the horizontal axis either. So long as you get the mouse anywhere within the upper left area of the screen and click, you will hit a menu, and can keep the mouse button down as you now freely move left or right. The much larger full menus that now show up make visual recognition of where you are far superior to any form of mouse pointer-based control over the much smaller labels.
In a sense, you aren’t moving the pointer any more, you are scrolling through menus, left and right. You get that with Windows as well of course, but you have to exert much more precise motor control to keep the pointer level as you move left and right.
The only thing Windows does better with menus is the Alt key. Sadly Apple never took that idea into their design, so menus do remain largely mouse limited. You can use Home/End and arrow keys, as well as tapping in the first letters. This can help with accessibility but it is not as efficient.
This approach also allows for programs to run without any windows open, which is something else you will need to get used to. There is a difference between quiting, and closing all your documents! It also provides access to the full menu even when working within dialogue boxes of the software, which you will come to find very handy in some places, like the compiler. On Windows we have to spend a great amount of energy trying to get as many formatting tools into the compile section layouts and styles editors (and we still do not have everything, we leaves some embarrassing blind spots like being unable to copy and paste formatting between layouts, leaving one the meticulous manual labour of implementing a design over and over and over), but on the Mac the entire menu is available, just like normal (naturally some commands that make no sense will be disabled).
Also be sure to check out the Accessibility section of your System Settings (slam the mouse all the way left and up, click, drag it down a bit, release!). The Mac has many good options for making things easier to see. For example you may want to enable the “Reduce transparency” option. This will make menus much easier to read, and clean up distracting “glassy” sidebars too. The “Increase contrast” option also makes a big difference. You may also be interested in making the menu text larger.
(The videos you’ve seen are probably people running extremely low-res setups and full screen windows, for better 1040p capture.)
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Thanks much for the background information. I will endeavor to adjust. The issue with some glasses (bifocals) is difficulty in looking to the top of a monitor, since the needed vision assistance is in the lower part of the lens. I suppose a very small monitor might help overcome that problem, or a very tall chair.
Got it. Thanks for your help.
Ah, that’s a good point with the bifocals. A tall chair (no not that, I can only imagine the arm ache after a few hours!), or maybe cheap pair of over the counter reading glasses might be better over all for when sitting at a screen.
I went and got myself a pair of prescription “task glasses”. They are bifocals but the upper part is gauged for the range of distance between sitting at my laptop and sitting at my desk in front of a large monitor. The lower part of the bifocal is for looking (down) at book text.
Well worth it. Now there is a pair of task glasses that go with my laptop wherever I go.
And you can pick frames off the cheap rack for this to cut cost.
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Similar. I wear varifocals, but have an ordinary pair made specifically for computer use/that distance, which also work well for many other things (in my case).
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Computer-specific glasses are a necessity for some of us. And, if you’re earning money at this, they’re a tax-deduction. The only hitch: remembering to switch glasses before rushing off in the car for an emergency box of printer paper.
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I keep my spare pare of varifocals in the car for this reason 
Having recently had cataract surgery on both my eyes, after 60+ years of being shortsighted and wearing glasses most of the time for going about, watching tv etc. and removing them to eat, work on the computer, read etc., I am now longsighted!
So I have three pairs of off-the- shelf glasses: one for working on the desktop, one for working on the MBA, and one for reading etc. on the iPad.
The trouble is, being so used to the feel of glasses, I forget to take them off! So I find myself half-a-mile down the road before I realise I’m still wearing glasses. And they are always in the wrong place!
Mark
PS Apologies for going somewhat off-topic. I will now desist.
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I’m in the opposite camp. Born long-sighted, my eyes have improved as I’ve aged, astigmatism aside. I’m now legally permitted to drive without glasses. By the time I die, I will likely have perfect eyesight, which seems a bit unfair. Funny old world.
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