PaneKiller user manual
What information are you looking for?
Following is a brief description of each option in the
Properties dialog:
- Icon settings
You get to choose whether to show icons for files and
folders in menus, and if so, when and how they are
displayed. With icons off, menus display most
quickly, but they're prettier with icons on. If you
enable "fetch icons in background", there
should be very little or no speed penalty for displaying
the icons.
You can also use full-size icons instead of the default
small icons.
- Use My Computer icon on taskbar
Choose whether to use the PaneKiller icon, or the My
Computer icon, for PaneKiller as it sits on the taskbar.
- Virtual folders in main menu
- Desktop: If enabled, a Desktop submenu appears in
the main menu, enabling you to access every file
on your computer from PaneKiller. If disabled,
you can only access files and folders that you
create shortcuts to in your PaneKiller Items
folder.
- Recent folders -- A collection of the last 10
menus that you selected an item from
- Recent items -- a collection of the last 10 items
that you accessed
- Menu arrival effect
Purely cosmetic, so choose your transition: menus can
slide out from under the menu they came from, they can
zoom out from a point, or they can just appear with no
flashy entrance.
- Sorting
You get to choose whether to alphabetize menus; if you
don't, files appear in the same order that they are
listed in the folder. Since this ordering is overly
arbitrary, alphabetizing the files makes them easier to
find. (Note: My Computer is always sorted by drive
letter, regardless of this setting.)
If you choose to sort the menus, you also get to choose
where folders come: at the top of the menu, at the
bottom, or mixed in with the files where they
alphabetically belong.
- Shortcut key
See description below, under "advanced
features" -- the shortcut key lets you access
PaneKiller without using the mouse, by activating the
main menu when you press your chosen key.
- Show hidden or system files
Controls whether hidden files are shown in menus.
You can have hidden files always hidden or always
displayed, or you can tell PaneKiller to mimic Explorer's
settings.
- Appearance delay
This option controls how quickly submenus appear when you
hover over a menu item but do not click. If you set it
all the way to the right, menus will never appear until
you click on them.
- To display the context menu for a file or folder (the
menu you would get if you right-clicked on the file in
Windows Explorer), right-click on the file or highlight
it and press the [Menu] key (or Shift+F10 on keyboards
without a Menu key). From there, you have access to all
the options associated with that file type.
- To open a folder as a Windows folder instead of a
submenu, double-click it.
- To open several files from the same menu, hold Ctrl as
you click to select. The selected document or application
will open, but the menu will remain visible so you can
select other items.
- You can access PaneKiller completely from the keyboard --
use its Shortcut Key feature. By default, the Shortcut
Key is turned off, but you can change this in the
Properties dialog. After you set the shortcut key to your
favorite keystroke, pressing this key at any time will
bring up the PaneKiller main menu, and you can use the
arrow keys and Enter to navigate the menus.
- The Desktop item in the main menu is more than just a
gateway to the rest of your computer -- by
double-clicking or right-clicking it, you can also open
your Desktop folder, or access your display properties.
What's new in version 1.1
PaneKiller 1.1 includes nearly every fix and enhancement
requested by users of version 1.0, plus many more.
- Send To (on the right-click context menu) works
- PaneKiller now uses the same menu font as Windows.
- You can navigate long menus more quickly by using the
Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys, or by typing the
first letter of a menu item's name.
- Support for the mouse wheel in scrolling menus
- You can double-click to open a folder as a folder instead
of a submenu.
- Recent Items and Recent Folders track things you've
worked with recently, for easy access.
- Option to disable the automatic "hover select"
with the mouse, so submenus won't pop up unless you click
on them.
- Feedback to show the current position in a long scrolling
menu, and you'll no longer accidentally select the first
or last item in the menu after scrolling when you release
the mouse button.
- Using a context menu hides any visible submenus, to avoid
clutter.
- An improved installer that allows you to choose the
installation directory.
- Miscellaneous tweaks to drawing and menu tracking
behavior, making everything just a little bit easier to
use.
Bugs fixed:
- Word 95 or 97 hang when you quit it after launching it
via PaneKiller
- Menus refusing to be dismissed after you've used a
context menu
- Shortcut Key feature didn't respond to the correct key
combination
Other questions
- I think most of what PaneKiller does is self-explanatory
-- the goal is for you not to even realize you're using a
new program; PaneKiller should act just like the menus
you've already mastered. But if I've left
information out that you'd like to know, send me mail and
ask -- whether it's a new feature you'd like to see, or
you're curious about how to access existing features.
Acknowledgements
- I'd like to thank Jacques Bensimon for his incredible wealth of
feedback and suggestions for improvement, making PaneKiller v1.1
a much more useful and polished product.
- The original idea for PaneKiller is due to Adam York, a Macintosh™
refugee, who said, "Macs can do this... why not my Windows™ machine?"
- Rachel Flowers came up with the name and gave me advice on the
PaneKiller look and feel.
PaneKiller is ©1997 Matt Ginzton,
MaDdoG Software and is distributed as shareware. PaneKiller
is supplied as-is, with no warranties expressed or implied.
For licensing information, run Register.EXE from the
PaneKiller directory, or contact magi@cs.stanford.edu.