MenuChoice is a control panel device which enables hierarchical menus under the Apple menu. With it, you can open applications, control panel devices, and documents of all kinds quickly and easily using your Apple menu.
INSTALLING MenuChoice
Just drop the MenuChoice file in your System 7 control panels folder. (MenuChoice is not compatible with system 6.) You can immediately use the control panel device to set your preferences for how MenuChoice will behave, but hierarchical menus will not show up under your Apple Menu until you reboot.
USING MenuChoice
With MenuChoice installed, every folder stored in your "Apple Menu Items" folder will show up as a sub-menu under the Apple menu. You can easily launch applications and open documents anywhere in the folders you create. You can also use aliases to point to folders that already exist elsewhere on your hard disk.
MenuChoice has some additional features to make your Apple menu even more powerful.
Opening folders and mounting volumes
You can open folders as well as applications and documents. Even though every folder shows up with a sub-menu beside it, you can release the mouse while it is above the folder's name and the folder will open.
If a volume is offline, a sub-menu will show beside it with a single disabled item "Volume Off-Line". Releasing the mouse above the name of the volume will cause it to auto-mount.
Recent
When you select an item from a sub-menu, it is added to a list of the 10 most recent items used. This list is always available at the top of the Apple menu, as a sub-menu called "Recent."
Deeper Menus
It is convenient to put an alias of your hard disk in the Apple Menu. With it you can access any item on your disk from the Apple Menu. As you can imagine, dealing with sub-menus that go as deep as your folders can be unwieldy. For this reason, and because the Macinosh operating system is limited to 5 simultaneous menus, MenuChoice has a feature called "Deeper Menus" which lets you access menus as deep as you care to go.
It works like this: Select the Apple Menu with the mouse and move through the menu structure as though you were going to select a folder deep in the hierarchy. Instead of releasing the mouse, move immediately up to the "Recent" item at the top of the Apple Menu. The folder you hilited is now displayed, with any subfolders it may have, under the Recent menu. When you release the mouse, the Recent menu is reset to its normal operation for the next time you use the Apple Menu.
Separate Folders
The "Separate Folders" feature, when enabled in the MenuChoice control panel, will cause the folders listed in a submenu to appear below all other items. This makes it faster to navigate through many levels of menus. Note that the top level menu is unchanged by this option. When "Seperate Folders" is selected, you may also choose whether folders appear at the top or the bottom of each menu, using the "Folders at Top" checkbox. When enabled, folders will appear at the top of each menu. Otherwise, folders appear at the bottom.
Desktop
The "Desktop" feature, which also can be enabled or disabled in the control panel, displays a menu item called "Desktop" which can bring up a submenu containing all the items on the desktop, including all mounted volumes. This is also an easy way to access folders on a CD-Rom or floppy without having to create an alias in the Apple Menu Items folder.
Caveat
As far as I know, MenuChoice IS 32-bit compatible. If you find any evidence to the contrary, let me know.
Setting the disk cache in the "Memory" control panel to a larger value can help speed up the time it takes MenuChoice to redisplay submenus in your Apple menu.
Version 1.0 of the extension called "TrashAlias" conflicts with MenuChoice. You can move TrashAlias out of the extensions folder and into the system folder to cause TrashAlias to load after MenuChoice, which resolves the problem.
Since any item in the top level of the Apple menu is readily accessed, MenuChoice's Recent feature remembers only items chosen from sub-menus of the Apple menu. The "Recent" feature does not remember the recently used items after a Mac is restarted.
The Deeper Menus feature works only with folders that are below the top level Apple menu. The "Recent" feature is also limited to submenus: only items chosen below the top level Apple menu will be listed in the "Recent" menu.
If MenuChoice is disabled or removed from a system, a file called "Recent" will need to be removed from the Apple Menu Items folder. MenuChoice creates and uses this file as a routine part of its operation.
From time to time, you may see MenuChoice fail to display a submenu or display the wrong submenu. When this happens, move off the selected item and back. The proper menu should appear. I hope to fix this bug in a future release.
The icon that appears in the Apple menu beside the "Recent" item may vary. This is normal. You can assign a custom icon to the file called "Recent" in the Apple Menu Items folder to give the item a specific icon, using Finder's normal method for assigning custom icons.
The "Recent" submenu displayed by the "Deeper Menus" feature may be unusually narrow or wide. I will attempt to fix this problem in a later release.
Version History
Version 1.0 - initial release
Version 1.1 - fixes compatibility with Mac Plus and SE, deals with removable storage and Appleshare volumes better than previous version.
Version 1.2 - fixes compatibility with foreign Macintosh systems and the PowerBook 140. Also fixes a bug which occasionally corrupted the "Recent" file in the Apple Menu Items folder, which would cause MenuChoice to stop working. Also adds the "Desktop" feature described above.
Version 1.3 - fixes an incompatibility with 32-bit systems, and adds the "Folders at Top" feature described above.
REGISTERING MenuChoice
MenuChoice is shareware and costs $15.00. Send a US check or money order to the address below. Please indicate the product and version number you are registering, and specify your name and return address. Once you have registered, select the "I have paid" button in the help screen to disable the "Not Registered" message on the MenuChoice startup icon.
