Macworld July 2016

The menu bar at the top of your computer screen has been with the Mac since the beginning. It’s one of the defining characteristics of the Mac, one that even Microsoft didn’t dare duplicate—in Windows, the menu bars go on the top of windows, not at the top of the screen. The Mac menu bar is a constant, a north star. Except…things have been getting a little weird lately. Last year, Apple added an Automatically Hide And Show The Menu Bar feature to the General pane of System Preferences. When that preference is selected—or when you’re in full-screen mode—the menu bar appears only when you move your mouse to the top of the screen. It feels spectacularly wrong to me, but then, I’ve been using a Mac since George Bush…

In April, Apple updated the MacBook, making its already-ultraportable laptop faster and giving it a longer-lasting battery. These improvements certainly made the MacBook even more ideal for travelers and people who are always on the go. Still sporting just one USB-C port, the new MacBook was built for a truly wireless world, according to Apple, so you won’t be bogged down by superfluous wiring. With that travel-friendly mindset, we went on the hunt for the perfect backpack for taking your MacBook with you on all your summer adventures. Some of these backpacks are big enough to fit even a 17-inch MacBook Pro, but small enough to still be considered a carry-on should you happen to be boarding a plane to a far-off destination. Here are five of our favorite backpacks…

Remember when you first started using a web browser, how great it was to be able to save bookmarks? It was necessary back in the day, because you couldn’t remember all those URLs, and browsers didn’t auto-complete with addresses of your saved sites. They also didn’t suggest sites when you typed the name of a company or publication, so you needed to know the URL to get whereyou wanted. But the more bookmarks you save, the harder it is to find what you’re looking for. Remember that site where you saw that really interesting article last month? You bookmarked it, and you remember the title, but if you look in your Safari bookmarks, you have to either scan the entire list, or search for it. Sure, you can sort bookmarks…

WITH VERSION 15, the FileMaker platform (filemaker.com) gets better, and it was pretty good already (go.macworld.com/filemaker14rev). But in terms of features, FileMaker 15 is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary release. Many existing users may not feel the need to rush to upgrade, and both new and current users may find the new licensing options a bit confusing. FILEMAKER PRO 15 AT A GLANCE A powerful and widely used development platform gets better. PRICE WHEN RATED $329 individual license; $197 upgrade; licensing for teams pricing available FILEMAKER PRO ADVANCED 15 PRICE WHEN RATED $2,664 perpetual license or $888 annual license for up to five users; licensing available for more users FILEMAKER GO 15 PRICE WHEN RATED Free COMPANY FileMaker FILEMAKER GO FileMaker Go (free; go.macworld.com/filemakergo) allows iPhone and iPad users to…

IF YOU’VE BOUGHT a new Mac in recent years, chances are it arrived with flash storage in place of a traditional hard drive. In terms of reliability and rapid-fire boot times, flash storage is awesome, but it’s expensive. So to make it more affordable, you don’t get the capacity you see with hard drives. There are a lot of ways to work around the built-in limited flash storage, but there’s another method for eking out a little more space: Purge duplicate files. Few of us bother doing it, because weeding out extra copies of photos, documents, and other media simply takes too much time and energy. GEMINI 2 AT A GLANCE Gemini 2 identifies duplicate folders, pictures, applications, music files, documents, and videos on your Mac and helps free up…

OS X PHOTOS makes it super easy to create basic slideshows from still images, but such presentations tend to be fairly basic, with only rudimentary control over the end results. That’s why I’ve been a longtime fan of Boinx Software’s FotoMagico (boinx.com/fotomagico), which blends iLife-style simplicity with a robust set of tools for creating impressive, visually rich slideshows in up to 4K resolution. Whether it’s for a wedding, to enhance travel videos, or a visual scrapbook of family memories, FotoMagico gets the job done with style and grace. That’s no less true with the recently released fifth edition, which further streamlines an already great application, making it easier than ever to create slideshows from pre-built snippets and royalty-free music capable of going far beyond OS X Photos. FOTOMAGICO 5.0.6 AT…