Apple Menu & Dock with WoW

Support Mac Technical Support
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I’m gonna be honest: this is probably not the right forum for this, but there isn’t exactly a “Mac-specific Suggestions” forum so here we go:

I really, really miss being able to interact with my dock and see my Apple menu while World of Warcraft is the active application. I don’t remember exactly when we lost the ability to do that but it was before the changes to windowed fullscreen (or more accurately, before non-windowed fullscreen got removed). I run a dual monitor setup and always have WoW on my secondary monitor (with both the apple menu and the dock on my primary), but I still have to click on either my desktop or a different application’s windows in order to see or access either. It would be really nice if there was a way to restore the ability to interact with those two things while still inside WoW.

I also, while we’re at it, really miss the built-in iTunes controls; after those were removed I started right clicking on iTunes in my dock and manually pausing my music (or whatever) that way, but now I can’t even do that :<

Again, not really a support request (although if there IS a way to restore that functionality already and I’m just not aware of it that’d be fabulous to know about!) so much as a hopeful wish for the future of the OSX version of the WoW client!

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Unfortunately this is probably gone forever since (as I understand) the dedicated Mac team at Blizz got absorbed and there are no platform-specific people any more. It’s really too bad, because using AppleScript/AppleEvents to control iTunes is pretty simple and shouldn’t be a challenge to maintain, but oh well.

There are workarounds, though. The easiest one that requires no third-party software is to assign a shortcut to Notification Center in the Keyboard control panel:

Assuming you have the Now Playing widget, you can now pop open Notification Center in WoW and easily control iTunes (or anything else playing audio) as shown:

If you’re willing to get a bit more technical, you can also use a free, open source utility like Hammerspoon to assign global hotkeys to iTunes.

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if using an apple keyboard, the apple media keys still work fine. if you’re like me and enable the “use function keys as function keys” then to access media keys you hold the fn button and then press the function key and it will use media key function that way.

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A lot of third party keyboards’ media keys work out of the box, too. For my keyboard only the volume and brightness keys work, but its manufacturer isn’t one of the big names (Logitech, etc) so that’s not too surprising.

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Oh I hadn’t even considered notification center—when I initially upgraded to… whatever version of OSX added that, I was like “but why” and ignored the heck out of it. Then I was like “okay I’ll go find the now playing widget for the dashboard” just now, not realizing they were two separate things, haha. Yeah I can completely replace my dashboard with the notification center now I guess (once I get a third-party calendar, which is super easy), that’ll definitely work. It’s not as nice as the in-game controls were but it’s still way better than tabbing out of the game completely was!

(I’m also using an apple keyboard, but it’s one of the really old white and clear plastic ones (they had a black and clear version too I believe). I’m going to be very sad when this one gives out, as it’s the third I’ve bought off eBay and it’s getting steadily more expensive to get ahold of working ones as time goes on; I tried upgrading to both a newer-style apple keyboard (keys are too short!) and a “real legit gaming keyboard” (function keys are so far away! windows key! control is so much further from my buttons! oh god! help!) at various points and was like “oh my goodness, no” and went back to this old one, lol :x)

Actually this whole notification center thing might solve (or at least provide a workaround) for my dock/apple menu situation too, as a large part of the reason I miss having easy access to the apple menu is being able to glance over at the clock while I’m on a loading screen or whatever. I changed the in-game clock to local time when we lost menu visibility but most of my clock-glancing happens when I don’t actually have access to it. I’ll have to do some widget digging but I can definitely do that now that I know what I’m looking for.

Thanks, y’all! :purple_heart:

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Yeah it’s surprisingly difficult to find third party keyboards with standard-Mac-like layouts. The only KBs I know of that faithfully reproduces the layout of the older deeper-keyed Apple boards are made by Matias: https://matias.ca/quietpro/mac/

They’re pretty pricey though and I haven’t used them, so I can’t vouch for their quality.

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I use this very keyboard – got it after my 10+ year old Apple aluminum wired usb keyboard died. Love it it so far. Matias allegedly uses the same key mechanisms Apple used 20+ years ago.