http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34644
Ken Thomases ken@codeweavers.com changed:
What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CC| |ken@codeweavers.com
--- Comment #1 from Ken Thomases ken@codeweavers.com 2013-10-02 20:30:07 CDT --- Unfortunately, there's little we can do about this. Mac processes have three states: background-only, UI element (can show windows but doesn't show up in the Dock or application switcher or have a menu bar), full application.
However, Mac OS X does not allow arbitrary changes from state to state. It only allows certain transitions. The only allowed transitions are from background-only to full application or from UI element to full application.
There's no way to go from background-only to UI element, which is sort of what this type of application would call for, from the sounds of it. There's also no way to go from full application to any other state. Once you transition to a full application you're stuck there.
The Mac driver puts off the transition from background-only to full application until the Windows program shows a window. That's why you're seeing that it doesn't show up in the Dock until you click on the status item and the program shows its menu (which is a window).
Even if/when Mac OS X would allow for other state transitions, it's not at all clear how the Mac driver could tell from the program's behavior what state it should use. To you, it's obvious that the menu window that gets shown is related to the status item and that the program does nothing else but show that. But that behavior is not distinguishable from an app which shows a different kind of window in response to a click in the status item.