Creating an offscreen frame in Java (or: how to avoid a blank menu on a Mac, when all application windows are closed)?

Question

I am making a Mac application, and I want my menu bar to look right.

Any Mac user knows the menu bar should be in the top screen menu. Setting apple.laf.useSc

Answer 1

First a note: your question seems really to be "How to have a Window menu following the Apple Human Interface Guidelines" and not "creating an offscreen frame in Java", which seems like a monstrous hack.

I suggest checking Apple's "Mac OS X Integration for Java", which, under "Window menu", shows apparently exactly what you're trying to achieve:

Apple Human Interface Guidelines suggests that all Mac OS X applications should provide a Window menu to keep track of all currently open windows. A Window menu should contain a list of windows, with a checkmark next to the active window.