Parallels Desktop 10: how to hide status bar?

I just tried Parallels Desktop 10 today. I really have some opinions with the new GUI design for Window-View mode.

Immediately, I noticed the status bar has been changed from bottom to top. I have no way of hiding it. My monitor size is small. This new GUI design eats up several pixels in the vertical size of my display, leaving a lot of unused and unnecessary space. The traffic light buttons look beautiful when the top bar is thin, not thick! Please fix this to allow users to hide status bar. Many people actually don't need that thick bar. It just looks kind of ugly compared to previous versions. The icons on the top bar are designed way too big. I already have a menu bar, then a Window 7 power bar, and a dock. Now you doubled the width of the PD top status bar. Come on, how many bars do you want to add? It's too crowded! Try to make the GUI design more elegant so that users can have a more pleasant viewing experience.

The console's bottom of Parallels Desktop Control Center "looks" uneven. Someone needs to fix that illusion. It just looks uneven. And why do you make it flow at the back of the virtual machine's window? It is more distracting than previous versions. The pop-up of the virtual machine icon on the dock is also distracting and just eats up 1 more space of my crowded dock. MacBook Air users will be victimized. It is just unnecessary. Who would want to make the preference change of the virtual machine all the time? Move it to somewhere, a more suitable place.

Finally, why can't I have the Mac's password lock-up of the Full-screen mode? I want to prevent someone, be a kid, a friend, or a test user, from exiting Full-screen mode by my password protection. Why PD won't have that functionality?

I think those totally go against Steve Jobs's sense of taste.

Those are sorely my feedback. I know it takes time and effort to make a user-friendly GUI changes. Please don't feel offended. Thank you.

 

I totally agree. Why "improve" something that looked and worked well earlier? I really dislike the new double-width PD status bar, the new forced icon on the dock, etc. I do feel space-victimized! I hope the option to keep things looking just as they did in PD 9 will soon be available.

 

Well, I'd agree with you. But actually PD10 now occupies less vertical space than PD9, because status bar + title bar were merged into title bar (which has smaller height that these two before). So I don't understand what's the deal.

 

See the photo for comparison.


Ideally, the PD title bar looks sleek and better if the virtual machine's window is rimless. We are getting too many bars nowadays. OS X menu bars, Windows power bars, thickened PD title bars. And yes, browsers like Firefox has just increased its tab vertical height. Then we have to sacrifice bookmark tool bar for more rooms. It would be a dame if Safari and Chrome also increase the vertical height of the tab. Then we have Facebook menu bar inside the browser too. Bar, bar bar. Why so many bars? I think the actual working area has been shrinking and shrinking. So far, I don't see any reason to increase the iconic size of those buttons on the PD title bar. I basically don't use them that often once I have successfully configured my virtual machine.

To tell the truth, who would ever want to use those device buttons on the PD title bar? Do you ever use that floppy-disk button? Do you ever use that DVD-button? Do you ever use that volume button? Do you ever use that gear button?--- Well, probably 1 or 2 times in several months but you get the idea. The large iconic buttons sitting on the title bar are unused by many users. All those things can be done on the OS X menu bar's PD button too.

So my question is this: why do you increase the title bar's height just for those unused buttons? It's bad. It may not make big difference for 27" iMac users but please spare users with small monitor size.

Why am I not just using Full Screen mode by default? Well, there are times when I want to drag and drop files from OS X to Windows, or vice versa. Why am I not using Coherent mode? Well, it's not sleek for a fraction of seconds when opening programs and files. It's not well developed yet. PD window view mode is the most handy mode. It makes file sharing more intuitive as if under OS X Finder.

PD can, for instance, allow users to choose to use smaller icons, and thusly decrease the PD title bar's height.

Zen, baby, zen! We need the art of subtraction, not too many addition! Simple, Clean and Pristine. No unnecessary stuff! No nonsense!

 

Okay, I missed your point that you had the status bar hidden in PD9, right?

 

Right, can you imagine if PD increases title bars' height for all its app on all iDevice. Then what's the point of having a larger screen iPhone or iPad? All rooms will be wasted and offset by those buttons and bars. I think every pixel counts for small device to make the actual working area comfortable to work with.

 

Well to be frank you can always run guest on full screen. What's stopping you from that?

 

There are times when it is simply more convenient to use PD Window Mode rather than Full Screen Mode, for instance, making client connection to servers, using Spotlight search (not Window's search), etc. and etc. I can name so many scenarios. I am a Mac guy, not a PC guy. If I lived under a Windows environment 24/7, I'd just buy a PC, or have a PC next to my Mac. For now, I think I'd better off not to upgrade PD. It is not I don't support PD. I really appreciate that PD offered me the free upgrade but I have to focus on other projects. I just don't feel smooth and comfortable using the new UI. I just don't like it. Is PD trying to follow the same path Microsoft took (such as modifying the Start button to the point that caused outcry)? Who knows. Anything overdone can be really bad.

I agree with what PAULPARALLELS said "Why "improve" something that looked and worked well earlier?." Why reinvent the wheel? PD is already doing a fine job in the previous versions. If you look at the new iTunes buttons on the upper left corner, Apple shifts it upwards a bit because it looks nicer that way, compared to their earlier iTunes. PD10's buttons are like stuck in the midway of the title bar's height.

I think unless PD gives us something that are ground shattering, trail blazing, and heart touching, I will just hold off my upgrade. I happy with the older version although its Full Screen Mode has bugs. Consumers and users are busy in their projects and lives. They don't have time to take and suffer those kind of things after the upgrade to realize they lose the freedom of changing some settings.

 

I agree, this is really annoying. I don't like the look at all. I just wasted 1/2 hour trying to figure out how to hide it.

 

I totally agree with you all! Parallels: Please make it an option!