What's the easiest way to make a simple app that sits in the Mac OSX menu bar?

Question

I'm trying to make a simple app that sits on the Mac OSX menu bar and alerts users of updates on our website.

I've been trying to search for documents on how to do this, but no luck so far. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You might find this tutorial helpful.

You achieve what you are trying to do by running a "Menu Extra" plugin.

They are installed in:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras

They are built on NSMenuExtra class. Here is a small tutorial on the topic. Here is another one. They're quite outdated but they should help.

These (1, 2, 3) StackOverflow questions are on topic.