Generic Diskmenu is another in an ongoing series of I wonder if ... utilities. I originally created it more for its programming challenge than anything else, but it has become a workhorse in my stable of utilities.
I had heard a number of people complain about disk-menu programs being too large to fit on their over-crowded disks. Here was the great challenge: How tiny could the menu program be, and still be useful? I wondered about this for awhile. Then, while watching a friend load a program directly from a disk's directory, a solution hit me. Generic Diskmenu is the result.
Generic Diskmenu Overview
Generic Diskmenu is a straight-forward little program. First, select a disk to modify. Generic Diskmenu looks at the device number last used, determining the drive type and adjusting itself accordingly to work with the 1581, 1571 or 1541. Then the program scans the directory using a method that can even read most protected or damaged disks.
When the list of programs is displayed, select which programs to keep on the menu and which to ignore. Keep only those Basic programs that are used to load, or launch another program. It doesn't delete anything from disk, don't worry about that. This option merely lets you exclude the names of files that are loaded from an autobooter.
Generic Diskmenu then asks you how to load each program on the menu. After that, you can add a short note to each selection, such as "use joystick port 2", and so on. The program does the rest, creating a directory and saving it to your disk. Then, the next time you want to use the disk, simply type LOAD "MENU FILENAME",8,1 and then type RUN. MENU FILENAME is simply the name of the menu file on your disk.
Tips For Best Use
If you're making up a disk with all your favorite programs on it, put the newly-created disk menu on it first. If it's the first program found in the disk's directory, it can be loaded using the command LOAD "*" ,8,1. The menu will appear, first thing, so anyone -- kids included -- can use your disk.
If your disk is already filled with lots of files, you can place the directory created by Generic Diskmenu as the first file by using a directory editor or a file copier. A directory editor is a program that lets you move programs around on a disk. You can shuffle program names around any way you like, even sorting them alphabetically. A file copier copies programs from one disk to another, one at a time. By copying the menu to the empty disk first, then copying the other programs to that disk, you choose the order they appear in the directory.
Finally, if the program you're loading requires special loading commands, such as SYS numbers, create an autoboot loader using Autoboot Factory found on this disk.
