How to customize the Apple menu? What SDKs should I study, etc.? I want to insert a menu item:
The Apple menu is located in the top-left corner of your screen. Click it to access System Preferences and recently used apps, documents, and other items.
In the Finder and in apps such as Mail and Safari, you can customize the buttons in the Touch Bar. You can also customize the Control Strip. Choose View > Customize Touch Bar to add, delete, or rearrange items in the Touch Bar.
Apple Menu Specific
This AskDifferent question addresses removing an item from the Apple menu. Seems you could use the same technique to add an item. Just be sure to make a backup of any system files you edit.
The following posts recommend similar solutions but are a bit dated. The system file path appears to be the same, however.
Also mentioned in the AskDifferent quesiton, FruitMenu allows for menu customization. However, there's no support for the more current versions of OS X.
Version 3.8.4 released Mar 3, 2011
Requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or Mac OS X 10.6.x; Rosetta
Compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
OS X Menu Item Tutorials
Creating a Standalone StatusItem Menu 1
This tutorial will show you how to create a StatusItem menu that will be available to all applications in the menu bar.
When you are done, you will have a simple menu that will appear on its own in the menubar as a "universal" background application, and will contain two menu items that let you enter a string into the Console and Quit itself. Note that you will need to code the functionality yourself for any menu item(s) you add or modify, but this will get you started.
Creating a Status Bar Application
This tutorial assumes you have a basic knowledge of Objective-C. In this tutorial, we will walk-through on how to create a status bar only application for the Mac OS X.
1Mac Menu Bar Tutorial?
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