One of the things I missed switching to Mac OS X was the customizable Apple Menu. You could add anything to the Apple Menu just by putting it or an alias of it in the Apple Menu Items folder in the System Folder. Apple’s answer to this is the Dock, which loads up far too quickly with installed icons for less frequently used applications and documents.
One of the first pieces of software that I added in the early days of Mac OS X was FruitMenu, from Unsanity. FruitMenu cracked Mac OS X open and allowed you to remake the Apple menu any way you wanted. FruitMenu was so good I bought it within a couple days of trying it, and I’ve been using it until recently.
Major releases of Mac OS X always broke FruitMenu, but Unsanity was always very quick about getting a compatible version out. Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case this time, and needing to upgrade to Leopard as part of my job about 3 weeks ago, I had to find a replacement.
One of the first ones that caught my eye was Classic Menu 2.8.1, $10 shareware from Sig Software. Of all the software I’ve looked at this is the most like FruitMenu, although unlike FruitMenu the Apple menu’s commands can’t be directly integrated. It overlays the Apple menu, allowing access to it with a modifier key or by clicking on a certain part of the Apple menu. Item order is fully customizable and separators, lines that divide the menu into sections, can also be added. Classic Menu is simple, powerful, and inexpensive.
XMenu 1.8.1, free from Devon Technologies, is a menu extra that consists of as many as 5 menus of specific folders: Applications, Developer, Home, Documents, and the XMenu folder. Of these, only the XMenu folder is customizable with aliases and files but item order can’t be customized or separators added. Xmenu appears with other menu extras on the right half of the menu bar.
The most powerful of the bunch is MaxMenus 1.5.1, $29.95 from Proteron. Unlike the rest, which are applications, MaxMenus is a preference pane. It places a small colored quarter circle in each corner of your display with some well configured defaults. With multiple displays you can add additional menus in those corners. If I understand the documentation correctly, even in a single display configuration you could potentially make well over a dozen separate menus with modifier key/click options in all 4 corners and the empty area of the menu bar. Keyboard shortcuts can be added to individual menu items also. Menu items can be arranged any way you see fit, and section labels and separators can be added. You can also add keyboard shortcut triggered popup menus, and all the menus fully support drag and drop just like the Dock. MaxMenus is head and shoulders above the rest in power and flexibility. Of course it is also the most expensive.
RapidoStart 2.1, free from app4mac, isn’t a menu. It puts a green dot in the lower right corner of your display that, when clicked, pops up a translucent dark grey launcher window. Applications is the default category and you can add more and add pages to each category. There’s also a search box. RapidoStart is configured via a menu near the lower right corner, and there is a good variety of layout options. An F key can also be configured to open it. It is the most attractive of the bunch, but not being a menu it loses a little flexibility in that you can’t have folders that go down to sub folders. The first launch brings up an excellent visual tutorial that tells you everything you need to know to get started. Applications is the default category and you can add more and add pages to each category. There’s also a search box. Files are added via drag and drop.
SunnyMenu 1.2, $8.88 from Light Being Software, is the new kid on the block. It’s only been around since September, and it’s seen at least 4 updates since I started this project. Like MaxMenus, SunnyMenu puts a configurable menu in each corner, but instead of using empty menu bar space for its fifth menu it uses its Dock icon. On first launch the upper left corner menu auto populates with your applications broken out into the categories Apple, Office, Internet, Text, Imaging, Audio, Video, and Utilities, below which are the Edit Menus, Preferences, and Quit commands. It has labels and separators and item order is customizable. It’s not quite as polished as some of the others, but the developer’s support is very enthusiastic and features are being added at a rapid pace. Fortunately at this pace it lets you know when a new version is available.
All of these are less likely to be broken by future Mac OS X updates than FruitMenu as they do not dig down into the System. These products provide a wide range of capabilities, approaches, and pricing and one of them would certainly work for anyone looking for this type of solution. The full review should be complete sometime in the next couple months.
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