MenuStrip a nice addition to utilities collections
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Dec 9, 2004 at 12:05am
MenuStrip from MacPowerUser is one of those nifty little utilities that can save you time in your day-to-day Mac tasks. The US$19.95 tool lets you create fully customizable drop-down menus full of files, folders and applications. I find it useful because of the easy access to a calendar (hey, with my job I’m always looked ahead to future events) as well as a convenient way to launch programs via the Action Buttons, which let you perform scripts of actions such as launching, hiding, or quitting applications.
MenuStrip can exist in the menu bar, alongside the default menu extras of Mac OS X. Or you can have MenuStrip display as a control strip that can be placed anywhere on the screen, snapped onto either edge of the screen. This is useful if your menu bar is already cramped (as mine is since I have You Control installed; though it and MenuStrip overlap to some degree). In fact, long-time Mac users may have flashbacks to the classic operating system’s Control Strip, a system extension (remember those?) that offered a row of utilities accessible from your screen.
When using it as a control strip, you can hide it by clicking the hide toggle button; MenuStrip then “slides” out of view. When you need to use it again, it will “slide” back onto the screen.
You can create, edit, arrange, and remove custom menu items using MenuStrip’s preferences panel. You can drag menu items around to rearrange them, enable and disable items, and add separator items to group different menu items together.
Along with the built-in tools and ability to create custom menu items, MenuStrip also has support for external plug-ins. The first plug-in, TunesControl, allows access to simple iTunes controls, another really convenient feature that makes it a breeze to change songs without switching applications.
Speaking of which, the Application Switcher lets you see which programs are running. You can choose one from the list of apps and it brings it to the front of your screen. The Application Switcher sports an “Auto-Hide Others” mode that, when enabled, hides all background applications and keeps just the foreground application visible. It’s a nice touch for reducing background screen clutter.
With the QuickLauncher, you can type in the name of an app or file, select and launch it. QuickLauncher only searches for applications or files in the folders that you tell it to, so you never get search results full of useless system files.
There’s a lot to like about MenuStrip. It’s small, takes up few system resources and does everything it promises. Admittedly, not everything about it is useful. After all, do we really need another customizable clock?
Well, okay, so that’s one complaint. Otherwise, if you want to maximize screen real estate (especially on those 12-inch iBooks and PowerBooks) this is a fantastic addition to your utilities arsenal.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later
Macsimum rating: 9 out of 10
Got a product you want us to review? E-mail dsellers@macsimumnew.com
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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