1.2.0 - The Global Thaw

[stonerl]

Hey everyone,

Finally, 1.2.0 is here.

Important Note: This release introduces significant improvements to how Thaw manages menu bar item positions. Your icon positions are now automatically saved and restored across app restarts. If you experience any issues with icon positioning, use the new "Reset Thaw" button in Advanced Settings to restore default settings.

New Features

• Icon Position Persistence: Thaw now remembers where your icons belong! Menu bar items are automatically restored to their saved sections (visible, hidden, or always-hidden) after app restarts or system reboots. No more manually re-sorting icons after logging in.
• Custom Menu Bar Item Names: You can now rename any menu bar item with a custom name of your choice. Perfect for giving cryptic icons a more descriptive label or organizing your workflow.
• Menu Bar Item Tooltips: Enable optional tooltips that appear when hovering over items in the actual menu bar. Know exactly what each icon represents without clicking.
• URL Scheme Support: External tools like Raycast can now control Thaw via the thaw:// URL scheme. Toggle the Thaw Bar, show or hide sections, and more using custom commands.
• Manual Application Menu Toggle: Added a configurable hotkey to manually toggle application menu visibility. Useful for presentations or when you need the full menu bar width temporarily.
• Thaw Bar Hover Highlight: Items in the Thaw Bar now show a subtle background highlight when hovered, making it easier to identify which item you're about to interact with.
• Conflicting Apps Detection: Thaw now detects when other menu bar management apps are running and warns you about potential conflicts.
• Per-Display Settings: Configure "Always show hidden items" and Thaw Bar positioning independently for each connected display. Perfect for multi-monitor setups with different screen sizes or notch configurations.
• Reset Thaw Button: A new reset button in Advanced Settings allows you to quickly restore all Thaw settings to their defaults when troubleshooting.

Improvements & Fixes

• Startup Stability: Fixed the "icon parade" issue where icons would continuously shuffle for 10–15 seconds after login. Thaw now enters a settling period during startup to prevent premature rearrangement.
• Multi-Icon App Support: Apps with multiple menu bar icons (such as Stats, Hammerspoon, and iStat Menus) now stay properly organized in their designated sections instead of gradually migrating to the visible menu bar over time.
• Memory Optimizations: Reduced memory usage by skipping wallpaper captures when not needed, clearing stale caches when displays disconnect, and adding proper cleanup for background tasks.
• Performance: Throttled mouse event handling and optimized image caching to reduce CPU usage and improve overall responsiveness.
• Privacy: Added screen recording permission checks for tooltips and search features. These options are now hidden in settings when permissions are not granted.
• Visual Refinements: Improved IceBar item highlight sizing with better corner radius and padding for a more modern appearance that matches macOS design language.
• Same-Icon Differentiation: Fixed a bug where different apps sharing the same icon were conflated. Thaw now correctly identifies items by their source application.
• Auto-Rehide Reliability: Improved the rehide logic to prevent items from staying visible longer than intended, and fixed cases where manual hide states could get stuck.

Localization

Thaw now supports 17 languages with 100% completion! A huge thank you to our community contributors:

Language	Contributor
Bahasa Indonesia	@volcbs
Čeština (Czech)	new in this release
Deutsch	@Mutzki13
Español	@diazdesandi
Français	@PipaCode
Italiano	@zichichi
日本語 (Japanese)	new in this release
한국어 (Korean)	@yurihan
Magyar (Hungarian)	@johnnybakucz
Nederlands (Dutch)	@SeBr28
Polski (Polish)	new in this release
Português (Brasil)	new in this release
Русский (Russian)	new in this release
简体中文 (Chinese Simplified)	@picpo
正體中文 (Chinese Traditional)	@7a6163
ภาษาไทย (Thai)	@priesdelly
Türkçe (Turkish)	new in this release

New Contributors

• @MarcoTerzulli made their first contribution in Improved italian translations #132
• @dyxushuai made their first contribution in fix(deps): raise Sparkle minimum version to 2.8.1 #136
• @afuno made their first contribution in feat(i18n): Add complete Russian localization #139
• @mrclrchtr made their first contribution in docs(readme): fix brew install command #156
• @josericardo-fo made their first contribution in feat(i18n): Add complete Brazilian Portuguese localization #152
• @CamilleGuillory made their first contribution in perf(icebar): show panel instantly and animate menu bar icons at ~30fps #168
• @FormalSnake made their first contribution in Update language flags in README.md #210
• @musanmaz made their first contribution in tr support added #214
• @william-laverty made their first contribution in Add detection and warning for conflicting menu bar managers #221
• @coygeek made their first contribution in fix: add SSMenuAgent (Screen Sharing) to immovable items #238
• @Tsingv made their first contribution in fix(menubar): distinguish items with same icon from different apps #241
• @alinco8 made their first contribution in i18n: add Japanese translation #253
• @exsesx made their first contribution in [codex] Align control item hover background with native menu bar items #256
• @weihaog1 made their first contribution in feat: highlight Thaw Bar icons on hover #263
• @IraXu made their first contribution in Simplified Chinese Translation Update #269
• @SeBr28 made their first contribution in i18n: add missing Dutch (nl) Translations #290
• @wizaard88 made their first contribution in [Localization / Translation] Czech (cs) translation #294

Full Changelog: 1.1.0...1.2.0

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This discussion was created from the release 1.2.0 - The Global Thaw.

[diazdesandi]

The Raycast extension is available here, for anyone interested.

[Mandaraxa]

Thank you for your work. But some icons are still naughty and come visible even they were hidden, especially for the apps I opened for their settings.
If is possible, I recommend two settings in the Thaw preferences:

1. Show/hide recent items (default hide).
2. Active hidden icons becomes visible for: 0 sec to 1 minute.
   Thank you in advance.

[BruceInLouisville]

So, installed Thaw, gave it permissions. It said it was importing my Ice settings. So far, so good.

But now when I launch it, it shows up in the menu bar, but doesn’t hide any icons. And, if I Cmd-click it, I get “Loading menu bar items,” then “No items in this section.” And, that is all -- no way to get to the settings, as far as I can tell.

Thoughts?

[stonerl]

Which OS version are you using? You should also be able to open the settings by control clicking on a free area in the menu bar and select Thaw settings… also restart Thaw and see if this fixes stuff.

[BruceInLouisville]

Tahoe 26.4.1

And of course, the reason I use Ice (and Thaw) is that I don’t have any free areas in the menu bar. ;-)

And, have restarted Thaw more than once. But I shall try that again.

[stonerl]

You can try to reset the layout in the settings and check if this works, or you get any errors.

[BruceInLouisville]

So, I had to use Activity Monitor to force-quit Thaw, then restart the computer, and finally was able to get to the settings. (It also kept saying it needed permissions when I’d already granted them.)

Seems to be okay now.

[stonerl]

Perfect

[YichenCharles]

much better than hidden bar and ice!!!