FruitMenu - February 07, 2004
Author: Unsanity
Cost: $10
Version: 3.2.1
Reviewed by: Dan Shannon
User Rating: 
59%
The menus that come with OS X work just fine. But trust Unsanity to look at that and say, "Why doesn't it work better?" FruitMenu is another haxie from Unsanity and, true to form, it'll get you hooked. Fast.
Features
The essential function of FruitMenu is to allow the user to customize the Apple menu and contextual menus, adding and removing things that are or are not useful. The preference pane provides an easy interface to do so: a list on the left, with the heading "Your Apple Menu," showing everything that's currently on the menu, and a list on the right, with the heading "Available Apple Menu Items," showing what you can add. Drag items from the right to the left, press "Apply," and voila! Your menu is instantly more functional. There are some amazingly useful things that you can add: "System Preferences" replaces the normal menu item (click it, and it opens the System Preferences app) with a submenu listing all the preference panes on the computer. Click one, and jump right to it. "Running Applications" is a submenu that lists the currently-running apps for easy switching. "Shut Down" and "Restart," sans ellipsis, shut down or restart the computer without asking if you really want to. Contextual menus can be customized in exactly the same way. And they too feature some nifty additions. "Gather Items In New Folder" drops the selected items into a new folder with one click. "Preview Image" shows the selected image in a submenu. "Mounted Volumes" lists—you guessed it—your mounted volumes.
Naturally, FruitMenu has a bevy of other features. Menu settings can vary from application to application, and certain applications can be excluded entirely. You can turn the application menu into the program's icon. Or disable animated fadeouts for slower Macs. It brings back the ever-useful "Click and Hold Mouse to Access Contextual Menu in Finder" feature. By dropping items in the "FruitMenu Items" folder, you can access them from the Apple or contextual menus with a single click.
Just a few requests for the developers: An option to display larger 32*32 sized icons in the top level menus would be great, as would be customizable icons for each item, and a "Header" text item that would let you input your custom text, and show up as light gray, non selectable text. Perhaps for 3.5?
Ease of Use
Customization is just drag-and-drop, so anyone can do it. Nothing is too complicated to understand; where Unsanity expected a problem (e.g., in the "Advanced" tab) they included little explanations of the features. The customization tabs display help text whenever you select a menu item from the list of available items. All in all, using Fruit Menu is a breeze, though deleting items with the delete key would be nice.
Price
I'd recommend downloading the demo of FruitMenu and playing with it for a while. I've had it for a week or so, and after messing with one or two of the more nifty features, I've barely touched it. Unfortunately, I just don't need it enough to pay $10. While you don't spend too much time in FruitMenu, you'll be surprised and probably a bit disappointed when your Apple menu reverts to normal and you get the "trial expired" screen. But if you find that it's useful, then the abundant features and uncomplicated interface make it well worth the price.
Conclusions
The big problem that I have with haxies in general is that I never absolutely need them. As much as I enjoyed using FruitMenu, I'm too much of a pragmatic penny-pincher to shell out the money for something that I don't really need. I use WindowShade every day, but that purchase was pushing it. FruitMenu goes a little bit over the line and ends up being cool, but to me, useless. For others, it will be the opposite.
Comments
Posted by Daniel Grenell at February 8, 2004 01:53 PM | Edit | Delete
it's really a great app, i tried it a while ago, but just like you, it just wasn't worth my ten bucks. the apple menu is my least visited menu as it is, the only thing i really use in there is "Software Update..."
Posted by at February 8, 2004 08:05 PM | Edit | Delete
If you are going to ding something on its price, the least you should do is provide alternatives that are cheaper. Criticizing an app simply because you are a cheapskate is just ridiculous. Me... I think Fruit Menu is great and well worth the 10 bucks. Just the option alone to dispense with the "Do you really really want to do that" dialogues when shutting down/restarting/etc is a big relief. With the cascading System Prefs menu and other cascading menus for my Documents and Apps folders that I've added, the time savings Fruit Menu affords me in getting to what I want quickly more than makes up for the price.
Posted by Necris Rex at February 8, 2004 10:11 PM | Edit | Delete
I find Fruitmenu indispensable. I use the CONTEXTUAL MENU far more than the apple menu. Being able to select the preference pane I want, and having my DHCP assigned IP visible with just a right click on my desktop are indispensable. There are so many layers of my work flow that now depend on this application that I would lose MUCH personal time getting myself trained to go without it.
I think EVERYONE should try it, and if you are an old CDE hand like I am, you'll probably love it.
Posted by Andrew Bates at February 10, 2004 03:06 PM | Edit | Delete
I'm a classic Mac OS guy (and no, I don't mean OS 9, I mean System 7!! I just LOVE the look of that OS) and I find FruitMenu just brilliant. After using BeHierarchic in OS 9, FruitMenu is quite similar (I reckon anyways). And I think it's well worth the $10, I've never had a problem with it crashing anything, and I haven't noticed a speed depreciation on my system.
Posted by Ryan Clark at April 12, 2004 02:43 AM | Edit | Delete
I love this lil' ape, but it needs to have just one more thing, allow me: Your on the desktop and have a file you want to move. It would be nice to be able to hold-click it, then right click(cntrl +click) then move the file to the so desired directory and drop it.
Having this feature would eliminate my need for most windowing. PLEASE!!! D:
R:D
Posted by Rez at April 24, 2004 05:55 AM | Edit | Delete
One of the best features of this little app is the ability to navigate your entire computer from your apple menu - set up fruitmenu right and you'll create the fastest and least resource-intensive way to quickly browse through your computer. That, along with a couple other nifty features (Gather into folder...) make this little app worth more than it first appears...
Posted by Heiesuke at April 29, 2004 09:39 AM | Edit | Delete
either FM or Xsounds messed up my system when I ran them under Jag, it made me very cautious of Unsanity Haxies if SS wasn't so dam sweet i'd not have it installed.
Posted by Matt Granz at April 30, 2004 10:24 AM | Edit | Delete
I bought this little app when it first came out and have been happy with it ever since!
The dock in OSX is a nice thing, but I have just wa--y too many apps that I use on a daily
basis, so FriutMenu's bringing back the old Apple Menu (on steroids) is just the answer.
The contexual menus also make my life a whole lot easier. $10 is a small price to pay
for something which makes my Mac hella cool. Unsanity rocks!
Posted by Mary Taylor at September 11, 2004 01:21 PM | Edit | Delete
thanks this really agree with it
Posted by outsider at February 4, 2006 07:18 AM | Edit | Delete
Posted by outsider at February 4, 2006 07:18 AM | Edit | Delete
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