Custom Menus is a control panel that lets you tailor the menus on your Macintosh to suit your own preferences:
• Tear-off any menu and float it above your desktop for quick, easy access at any time.
• Build your own menus from items in any menu. Put all your favorite, often-used items in a single menu and tear it off for quick access. You can rename any item, too.
• Choose your own Font, Size and colors for the menus and the menu bar.
• Pop-up the menu bar under the mouse: no more reaching for the top of the screen!
System 7 or later with Color QuickDraw is required.
Installation
1 Put Custom Menus in your Control Panels folder, by dragging its icon and releasing it over your System Folder.
2 You may also drag the Espy Sans Bold 9 & 10 screen fonts to the System Folder so they are installed in your Fonts folder. These Apple fonts are not required for Custom Menus, but they do look good!
3 Custom Menus will be active after you Restart. Before you do that, please see Loading Order below for an important notice.
Loading Order
To ensure compatibility with the following software, make sure they are loaded in the right order at startup (you may change the order by renaming the files, as they're loaded alphabetically).
•These must load before Custom Menus:
MagicMenu (True Finder Integration), MenuChoice, Menuette and PopUpFolder 1.5
•These must load after Custom Menus:
Apple Menu Options, Now WYSIWYG Menus, NowCompress and PopUpFolder 2.01.
Settings
After restarting, use the control panel to enter your preferences. They're saved both in the control panel itself and in a "Custom Menus prefs" file in the Preferences Folder.
Tear-Off Menus
To tear-off a menu, drag the mouse through either bottom corner of the menu. Some menus cannot be torn (mostly menus that exist only temporarily), and these won't have the dotted bottom corners.
Torn menus float above the desktop. Move them around by dragging their title bar. Hide and Show them with the chosen key-combination. Select an item by clicking on it (depending on the load on your system, you may need to hold down the mouse button until the item is hilited).
Torn menus are updated regularly. They are hidden/shown automatically, in sync with the state of the Menu Bar. If a menu is not in the menu bar, its torn copy will be hidden too. When the menu is back in the menu bar (ex: after a dialog), the torn copy is shown too. In some applications, torn menus will settle and update OK after a few uses, as Custom Menus sets its timing to match the application's.
To save screen space, you may keep only the title of a torn menu floating on the desktop. The rest of the menu pops-up when you click and hold the pop-up symbol beneath the title. Check the 'Enable mini-tearoffs' box in the control panel, then set normal/mini for a torn menu by clicking the arrow on its title bar.
Adding New Menus
1 Drag the mouse SLOWLY from a blank area of the Menu Bar (someplace where there is no menu title) onto the desktop. The cursor will change to a small menu and when you let go, a small editor window appears.
2 Add items to the new menu by selecting any item* from any menu. You can add disabled items and dividing lines too. Drag your items to change their order. Double-click on an item alias to change its name, double-click on the title at the top of the editor's window to change the menu title.
*(menus are 'disconnected' inside the editor so no action takes place. ex: you can add the Restart item without restarting your Macintosh.)
3 Click OK to quit the editor.
New menus are listed alphabetically in the Menu Bar. The editor's red Trash button will delete this menu. The gray button between Trash and Cancel controls whether the new menu is shown both on the menu bar and as a torn menu, or if it exists as only one at a time. If it's displayed as a torn menu only, you can drag it back to the menu bar if needed.
To edit a menu that you created, tear it off then click the small + box on its title bar. This will bring up the editor, where you can change or delete it.
Compatible non-standard Applications
Custom Menus works with all normal applications. Applications that have special menu-handling code are recognized and their menus are not made to display with your preferred Font and Size, until they're tested for compatibility. Then they're added to a list inside Custom Menus. Please let me know if you have an application you want tested and added to the list.
For now, applications with special menu handling that are compatible with Custom Menus are:
Word 5.1 (1,2) Word 6.0 (1,3) Excel 4.0 Excel 5.0 (1,3)
PageMaker 4.2 (1) InControl 3.0 (2) Netscape 2.x
ClarisWorks ClarisDraw FileMaker Pro 2.1
MacWrite Pro 1.5 Illustrator 5.5, 6.0 XPress 3.3
Writenow 4.0 Canvas 3.5 WordPerfect 3.x
(1 ) no custom font (2) no custom colors (3) use mini-tearoffs instead of normal tearoffs for those menus with items that change. These non-standard Microsoft apps don't update their menus until they're drawn.
Known Problems and cures
Custom Menus has been in development for over 3 years and is pretty solid. But it has not been tested with all latest Macintosh models, nor all utilities or applications. Please send me a short e-mail if you have a problem and I'll try to fix it.
•The title bar of torn menus is not high enough to display the complete icon that some menus use for title. This trade-off was made to save screen space.
•With OtherMenu or some other menu-modifying software installed, switching custom menu font on/off takes two tries before the spacing of titles in the menu bar is correct.
•Popupfolder 2.01 freezes if Hierarchical Apple Menu or PopupFolder Menu is checked in the PF control panel, so make sure these are not checked.
•With Aaron, use Custom colors for torn menus so the menu background color doesn't switch from white to gray.
•If both NowMenus and SuperBoomerang are active and an application's File menu that has a key-equivalent assigned by NowMenus is torn, the key-equivalent won't be displayed, although it will work.
•NoBalloonMenu conflicts with Custom Menus.
•If you use NowUtilities and get crashes at Startup, switch the loading order of two extensions or two control panels. When removing NowUtilities, also remove NowToolbox!
•crash with SimpleText Color Menu: get version 2.1.4 (Thanks Alessandro!) from ftp://ftp.alpcom.it/software/mac/LMontalcini
•If you see two rectangles after the icon for a menu title, use another Menu Font or another size.
•WordPerfect 3.5: turn off 'Graphic Font Menu' for faster response
The 'Custom Menus Prefs' file in the Preferences folder might get corrupted when an application quits unexpectedly. Just to be sure, delete this file if problems start cropping up after a crash and a new one will be created automatically (but menus you created will be lost).
Shareware Notice
Custom Menus is shareware. You may evaluate it freely for up to 12 days, then to continue using it you are expected to pay a $12 registration fee. Registration is handled by the Kagi Shareware service. You may register on-line with a credit card at :
(or http without the 's' if your browser doesn't support secure connections)
CompuServe users may also register by typing GO SWREG. The ID is 10509.
Or use the Register application to register by e-mail or by fax with a credit card, or through postal mail. Please run the application for more information (and turn on Balloon Help!). If you received Custom Menus without the Register application, please download the complete package.
After you register, you'll receive a code to disable the registration reminders. I'll e-mail you the code shortly after you receive Kagi's receipt. Please remember to include an e-mail address (or postal address, but it takes much longer) so I know where to send the code!
A person or family using the program on several computers need only pay for one copy. Site licenses are available. The Bonus box in Register may be used to adjust the price to what seems right. The Kagi Shareware address and fax number are for registrations only, please.
Please distribute Custom Menus as a complete package, with the Espy 9&10 font files, this document and the Register application. It is OK to upload the unmodified package to BBSs, the Internet and online services.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Marc Menschenfreund, Bill Goodman, Alessandro Levi Montalcini and Mark Nagata for their precious help!
Disclaimer
The author makes no warranties, either express or implied, regarding the fitness of Custom Menus for any particular purpose. Use Custom Menus at your own risk. The author claims no liability for data loss or any other problems caused directly or indirectly by Custom Menus.
Other programs by the author
Smart Scroll enhances regular scroll bars so they show how much of a document is displayed in a window. The thumb indicator in scroll bars becomes proportional: If a window is displaying half of a document, the indicator will be half the scrollbar size. Save time by 'seeing' the size of the document without having to scroll!
http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html, Search for 'Smart Scroll'.
Version History
Download the latest version from an Info-Mac mirror (root at ftp:sumex-aim.stanford.edu) or the MIT HyperArchive at http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html. Also available on the MacOS forum (control panels) on CompuServe, and the Mac Utilities forum on AOL.
1.03 15aug96
•Fixed serious incompatibility with Apple Menu Options, which garbled the menus in applications with submenus (Illustrator, Photoshop, etc). Thanks to Richard Foley!
•Fixed bug involving disabled submenu items added to a custom menu, which displayed the wrong items
•Using Kotoeri, there is now a 2 second delay to enter the 2nd char of a 2byte japanese character before character entry is reset to allow updating torn menus
•Restored access to menus while the 'define shortcuts' Kotoeri dialog is displayed
•HyperCard stacks are no longer restricted to a fixed size, even when there is enough memory
•Menus with a color title no longer draw with a white border under system 7.5.2 and 7.5.3
•Netscape and other apps using current version of Mercutio MDEF no longer restrict the font size in menus
•NowMenus 6, SuperBoomerang 6 can load either before or after Custom Menus, which makes using them along with Aladdin's MagicMenu possible again
•Fixed bug with Decor, where picture would be discolored behind torn menus
•Fixed preference saving bug in cdev
•Torn menus saved on another screen or under the Menu bar are now re-opened on the main screen and below the menu bar
•Special characters in menus are now drawn in the size of the selected font (sizes 10-14 use faster Chicago 12 size)
•Compatible with: Canvas 3.5.4, WordPerfect 3.x (Thanks to Rob Carney!), Now Utilities 6.0, DragStrip 2.01, Illustrator 6.0, Glidel 3, ClarisWorks 3.0, ClarisDraw 1.0
•Torn menus now reappear faster when switching applications
•Preferences file integrity is now better verified
•Made title bars color lighter, with blue tinge, and dark blue text
•All Alerts now appear on the main screen
1.02 28feb96
•No more delays and erractic behavior whenever a saved torn menu is brought back.
•Better selects correct System font for non-roman scripts
•AppleMenuOption 1.01 and 1.1 Apple menu submenu arrows appear in Popup menus
•Hidden torn menus now reappear faster when their menu is back in the Menu Bar
•Apple menu now drawn with NowMenu's additions: icons, divider lines
•NowMenus 5.01, 5.02: Selecting from saved torn menus no longer draws 2nd offset image
•NowMenus 5.02: Tear-Off corners now always shown when NoClickNeeded option is active
•NowMenus' special menus are now drawn using the font & size set in NowMenus
•No longer shifts the location of Popup menus in Control Strip and some applications
•Background color of menu bar clock now changed to match bar color (depends on clocks)
•"Remember Torn menus" setting now elapses on unregistered versions
•Opening the control panel, the buttons will be drawn even if very little memory
•Compatible with Mercutio MDEF in Alpha 6.12
•Application compatibility settings now saved across restarts
•HyperCard 2.3 no longer crashes on PowerMacs
1.01 31jan96
•Compatible with NowUtilites 5.02
•No longer freezes over the window Deep Thought leaves around at Startup.
•Support for 2-byte scripts and Japanese system
•Compatible with Apple Menu Options 1.02
•Compatible with Mercutio MDEF (Netscape, BBEdit, etc)
•Apple Clock uses same background color as the Menu Bar.
