Make certain menus always show ⌥option + click results

audiomenu bar

Specifically in reference to the Volume menu item in the menu bar;

As I am frequently changing audio input/output settings, and never using the slider that the normal volume menu click shows (I always only use the keyboard incremental volume keys for a few reasons), I'd like to make the volume menu more useful to me by automatically always showing the menu that appears when you ⌥option + click it.

And for obvious reasons I don't just want every system-wide click to be rebound to ⌥option + click, just the menu bar items if possible.

This sounds like a too-specific problem to have a solution, but thanks in advance if anyone could help.

Best Answer

I don't know if there's a way to do exactly that, but if you can't be bothered to use the option key when clicking (maybe you're holding an instrument with the other hand or something?) then a keyboard shortcut to an AppleScript to change audio devices is probably even better.

Here's another question that addresses this approach, and if it's not quite what you're looking for, there are plenty of other people out there talking about this as well.

Related Solutions

Ny program that can add titlebar functionality to the menubar panel

Most of what you're asking is already there...

The top of every window has Close, Minimise to Dock & Fullscreen buttons.

Alt/click the fullscreen button will maximise instead.
Click & hold the fullscreen button then drag to the left or right of the screen will enable Split Screen.

Additional features can be added to the title bar - right click to Customise
You can resize any window except fullscreen by dragging any edge or any corner.

From edges...
Alt/drag will resize from 2 sides.
Shift/drag will resize from 3 sides.
Alt/Shift/drag will resize from all 4 sides.

From corners...
Alt/drag will resize by mirroring the faces.
Shift/drag will resize from one corner, preserving aspect ratio.
Alt/Shift/drag will resize from all 4 corners, preserving aspect ratio.

Cmd/drag will allow you to resize without bringing the window to the front.
Adding any of the other modifiers will do as above, without bringing it to the front.
Double click to maximise/minimise is an option in System Prefs > Dock

Portable UI Applescript for choosing any menu item through any hierarchy of sub-menus

After wrestling with this for days before posting the above question, it looks like I figured out a solution - I think the act of actually describing the question in detail to post it got my thinking to there.

I'm sharing it for the benefit of anyone else hitting something similar...

My struggle was with the idea that the hierarchical nature meant increasing the level of tell for each item in theSubMenusNamesList. I couldn't figure out how to put that in a loop without each iteration of the loop going in at that level but then having to come back out at the same level, thus not going deeper.

This was where Option 3 was a fail from the start, which had me going down the rabbit hole of trying to construct the script in text, to then run with run script.

However, Option 3 is actually the answer - code it direct without trying to construct it in text - but I had to wrestle with that some more to get there.

I eventually realized that I can put each iteration's subMenu into a variable - set to menu item ... of the previous iteration of itself. That successfully goes deeper into each level of the hierarchy without pulling out too early.

Of course if that doesn't make sense, then here's the code, which you're welcome to steal and adapt of course, and which may or may not make more sense... ;)

on chooseMenuItem(theApp, theMenu, theSubMenusNamesList, theMenuItemName)
    set theAppName to the name of theApp
    activate theApp
    tell application "System Events" to tell process theAppName
        tell theMenu to click

        repeat with theMenuName in theSubMenusNamesList
            set theMenu to menu item theMenuName of menu 1 of theMenu
            tell theMenu to click
        end repeat

        set theMenuItem to menu item theMenuItemName of menu 1 of theMenu
        tell theMenuItem to click
    end tell
end chooseMenuItem

This works for me - tried with a number of different options. For example: As in the original question, call it with something like:

ChooseMenuItem("TextEdit", "Format", {"Font", "Ligatures"}, "Use Default")

Or an example with no sub menus at all, just leave the third parameter as an empty list:

ChooseMenuItem("TextEdit", "File", {}, "New")

Hope this helps someone.