FruitMenu .. does anyone have opinions on this thing?
 

I tend to be leary of hacks of this nature, but I sure like its features.

I have always had a rule of thumb when it came to computers and speed "less is more" .. has to be undeniably useful for me to add anything like this.

Reliable? Impact on overall GUI speed or other performance or system issues?

Thanks in advance for any thoughtful word

Gary

I have never used it personally, but when troubleshooting other people's computers, I find that any Unsanity "haxie" including FruitMenu, can be the cause of system instability.

Of course, its also possible that I'm not seeing a representative sample. But I have seen Fruit Menu be the root cause of many difficult-to-explain and troubleshoot problems in OS X.

Trevor

thanks trevor
 

just the kind of feedback I hoping for

I have used it since it came out and have never had any problems with it or any of the other stuff from Unsanity.

I have it installed on both of my systems and on at least 12 of my client's systems (that I can think of off hand) and none of these systems has ever shown any sign of instability.

I've never used any of their other products, but FruitMenu is a nice replacement for AppleMenuOptions.app that Apple dropped in Mac OS X. I see it as a replacement for something Apple should never have left out.

I have used Fruit Menu since back to 10.1 and wouldn't consider OSX without it. I also have almost every single Unsanity’s enhancement haxie running on 10.3.6 and have been since 10.2. Shapeshifter is amazing and I detest the OSX metal interface now without my favorite theme running on top.

I have never experienced a single instance of trouble with APE or all those applications running, 12 hours a day, seven days a week for over two years since 10.1 and all updates, 10.2 and all updates and 10.3 running current. I have cloned systems again and again, installed hundreds of demanding applications and run everything imaginable. Oh wait, once Pace's piracy protection kludge required Shapeshifter to be closed before it would install. Wow, that was so troublesome.

I consider the statements of Unsanity's apps being the root cause of "instability" really just individual's opinions, but perpetuated here frequently as fact and am puzzled why it continues unchallanged everytime the subject gets approached.

The size of the customer base of Unsanity and their continued success would seem to render that notion nothing more than opinion and such bias should always be stated as.

Either huge numbers of users are using haxies (130,000 WindowshadeX downloads from VersionTracker alone) without issue or there are 130,000 "unstable" OSX systems from that single haxie. Add in all the other possible haxies and the infinite combinations and OSX should be in a very sorry state.

No Windowshade user I have ever conversed with has an "unstable" OSX. On the contrary, I find users wise enough to know haxies do work without hosing everything also run OSX trouble-free.

They are also probably smart enough to know its foolish to update to 10.3.6 while insisting on concurrent surfing, iTuning and burning DVD's. But there are users who actually do that.

The only other discussion groups complaints about Unsanity usually seem to come from developers who resent their strong presence on the Mac platform and are forced to make their apps play nice with APE. Users could care less they have to work harder to accomodate the huge numbers running Windowshade X, etc. It must not be all that hard, since all applications do so today or risk lost customers.

wonders if trevor or anyone
 

who has issues with Unsanity "haxies" can comment on the above ... it sure does have a nice collection of features.

No GUI speed impact?


Thanks all ... Gary

I agree with everything Bruce Miller posted. I have used the unsanity "haxies" (shapeshifter, windowshade, fruitmenu, cee pee you, etc) since I switched to Mac a few months ago and haven't had a single problem with any of them. Sure, you may need to exit one and then restart the application after a major upgrade but that is trivial and the last thing I would say is that they cause "instability" on a system.

Just my 2 cents.

rberry88

I have never had a problem with any of Unsanity's "haxies", and I think they've gotten a bum rap. I love FruitMenu and would not do without it, and also appreciate WindowShade X and whatever that faceless Unsantiy deelybobber is that turns off Command-Tab (Windows-wannabe) application switching.

Doesn't it strike you as funny that so many of the same people who first in line to praise the incredible stability of MacOS X have also been the ones to go running around saying "Don't modify anything, whatever you do, keep it totally vanilla or you'll make it unstable!"..?

What a totally non-Maclike attitude. It's a Mac therefore I get to make it be the way I want it to be, put things where I want to put them, name them as I wish to name them, because it's my computer, my Mac. My System Folder was full of third-party extensions and control panels since back when we still called them INITs and CDevs. We did that under System 6, 7, 8, 9, some of us running up to four rows of those code-patching icons across the bottom our screens at bootup . Now you're going to give us a new OS and proclaim it far more stable than what we're used to, practically crashproof, and then turn around and say "Oooh, you're using a haxie?"

It's not just Unsanity's offerings that generate this reaction, either. I've heard similar sentiments voiced about St. Clair's DefaultFolder, TinkerTool, and the "theme" or "skins" system Duality4. These interface modification hacks are badmouthed in some quarters to the point of making it sound grossly irresponsible of any Mac user to install and use them.

I think many of these naysayers are just snobs about software that modifies the interface. They consider such purpose to be trivial and therefore that there's something intrinsically immature about using such silly toys on a serious-business Unix-based computer.

Get a grip.

The only widespread software products that deliver significant OS X instability for very little benefit, as far as I can tell, are Norton/Symantec products. Third-party modification sw mostly crops up as problematic only at certain OS upgrade intervals, and they usually release compatible versions pretty soon afterwards.

Nope, I just don't offer free support for them. That's Unsanity's job. But I also have had little trouble with APE based extensions on my own systems, with the caveat that one needs to keep APE up to date at all times. I've seen much worse with some of the unsupported menu extra hacks that can send SystemUIServer off into the weeds.


Be careful not to fall off that horse. It's a long drop from up there.

I, too, agree with Bruce Miller's sentiments. I find Fruit Menu invaluable, especially the direct access to System Prefs and the ability to display one's current IP (without crowding the overtaxed menu bar- which brings to mind one more great feature of Fruit Menu, the ability to have the current application's name in the menu bar displayed as a space saving icon instead). I also have experienced no system instability with this "haxie" (nor with WindowShade, the usefulness of which is somewhat diminished now with Exposé). I would more leery of ShapeShifter, if for no other reason than I would imagine it to be a resource hog- though I have no experience with it, so I might be wrong about that :)

mm hmm ..This is exactly why I asked ...
 

I have done a lot of this myself .. where I came up with the hard learned lesson that "less is more" .. I started with system 7.0 on a rip roaring LC II. (aka overgrown calculator with an attitude) After all the trying and testing, it became apparent that any system enhancer also had a penalty attached ... so its usefulness had to outweigh that, and it had to be reliable.

There were some several that I wouldn't do without ..little extension called "natural order" .. control panel called "popcharacter lite" one click on the menu bar and every font character available was right where you were typing ....GoMac .. and FinderPop. Popchar had a measurable impact on GUI speed. But the convenience was worth it and it wasn't a reliability problem. FinderPop occasionally gave trouble .. but it was no big deal .. delete a few select pref files and you were back in business.

But along with those ..there were lots more that were just troublesome gimmicks. I looked at ShapeShifter .. thought it was pretty cool .. but reminded me a bit too much of Kaleidoscope .. talk about a buggy cranky cutsey GUI killing drag if there ever was one.

Another thing that had me asking is the System Folder on the old mac OS had maybe 750 files give or take ... most of which were fairly readily identifiable in plain english .. if some little diddly gave the computer fits . it was rarely a problem to finger exactly what files were related, trash the offending suckers, and there you were back where you started.

Not so in X. (my current perception, open to change) It has its relative of the Registry .. where application entries are made sight unseen and unknown without a deliberate search.. and quick count here ... invisible and visible .. discounting 15 gigs of my own data ... there are roughly 115,000 files all of whom were named by an escaped inpatient from the planet Zorg on this sucker. Thats a bit more Windoze like and less Mac like than I care to think about.

Being new to this X thang .... I'm wanting to try stuff that will increase the comps utility ... but .. I am also being careful. I have no probs with erase and re-installs to start clean after something has mucked with its code in ways I can't untangle .. but I'd rather not.

Thanks all for the above comments .. I'm going to have to give this Fruit basket thing a whirl seems.

Gary

I recommend against installing any non-Apple software that has system-wide effect. By system-wide effect, I mean that it runs all the time and it affects the operation of all programs that are running.
In other words, I recommend that (as much as possible) you keep your operating system as Apple designed it and (most importantly) tested it.

Why?
Because to me, stability is far more important than appearance, and even more important than functionality.

If your priorities are different and you feel that the (arguably quite small) risk of using some system extension is worth the benefit that it provides, go ahead. But you should only do this if the software that provides this benefit is easy to disable, so that you can go back to the "vanilla" system in case of trouble. (If your car starts making a strange noise, you want to be able to remove the stuff you have added to the engine compartment before you take it in to a mechanic.)

I would be much happier with Unsanity's APE (the enabling software for the "haxies") if it was installed on a per-user basis (so that you could be sure that it was having no influence on your system if you switched users) and/or if they made it easier to uninstall. But they don't even seem to do a good job of documenting what is installed where, or discuss how their software is started up and how to remove it. (It is started up by virtue of being in the folder /System/Library/SystemConfiguration)

In general, I strongly recommend being extremely reluctant to install any non-Apple software that ask for your admin password upon installation. The fact that it asks for the admin password is a sign that it intends to install something that will have system-wide effects. You should only supply the admin password to programs from developers that you trust completely and only then if they supply an uninstaller or thoroughly document what gets installed where (so you can uninstall it manually if need be).

I think it is a commendation to the Unsanity programmers that their software appears (empirically) to have so little negative effect on system stability. However, as a programmer, I know how complex a large piece of software can be and I know how close to the edge many programs are - they work in the environment they are tested in, but a small change can send them over the precipice.

This is where the instability issue comes in with Unsanity's APE - it isn't that APE itself is causing a problem, but that the use of APE changes (slightly) the environment in which other programs are executing, and thus it may trigger latent bugs in other programs.
And this might even extend to the system as a whole - for example, if your RAM is slightly flaky, you might not notice the problem in a "vanilla" system, but installation of a system "enhancement" might trigger a problem. (Of course, in that case, the right procedure would be to replace the RAM, but that might be more difficult than just avoiding the "enhancement".)

1) Installation of an application should not affect the "system" area. That is the whole gist of what I have said above.

2) A lot of the complexity of what you see in the "system" area of OS X as compared to OS 9 is because what was previously hidden in a black box called "System" is now visible as component parts. Most users should not be looking into /System or the "Unix-level" folders (/usr, /bin, /tmp, /etc, etc) and it should be a very rare case indeed that any non-Apple software gets installed into these folders. Such is to be avoided (see discussion above).

raises eyebrows ... "should not be looking"????
 

What exactly do you mean? Last time I checked I paid money for both the computer and the software .. and if I want to muck with its guts, then I will. Good ol ResEdit and I have been friends for years. If I **** it up and have to reload it, then I chalk that up to a learning curve and move on.

I make a distinction here .. that of an "end" and a "means to an end". For a programmer, the software and what it does is the end.

Thats a very different point of perspective than mine where I do design prints, and the computer is simply a tool. Just like a drill or a saw. A "means to an end". So functionality plays a huge role in that. I have owned and used thousands of tools in my life, from computers to carving tools to machines weighing two tons and more.

None, not one, out of the box "as is" was fine tuned to what "I" needed from it. IF they were functional at all. I considered them to be "tool kits" .. a starting point. This "tool" is no different than any other in that regard.

Regards, Gary

Gary, just as you get to express an opinion, so do others.

Do whatever you want. However, the smart money doesn't come down too hard on the people who may be able to help you if things don't go the way you planned.

Good luck. I'm sure it will work out great.

Of course they do
 

What message boards and chat sites are about.

Feel free.
It's just like mucking with your car's engine. Do it for fun (if it's fun for you) or for making it run differently if you want.
But what I meant by "most users should not be looking into /System ..." was that most users should just treat that stuff as if it were a black box. That is the way most car owners treat their engine - I turn it on and it works - I don't care how.

But if you do decide to "muck with its guts", please mention the fact that you have made certain mods if your "engine" starts malfunctioning and you need to ask for help.

This is all very nice and all that .. but it misses the mark
 

on a reality.

Computer science is far from a "science". Its still an art form with many unknowns to any programmer. I never failed to be amazed these things work at all. Billions upon billions of 0's and 1's .. that no one can possibly keep track of, all interacting with each other in all sorts of unpredictable ways.

The folks at Apple, Adobe, Macromedia or any one of the big houses are no more immune to the impossible to predict variables than the one off programmer. Yes, they have more resources to address problems, but they are no more immune to them.

The "manufacturer" of a product in many if not most cases are not the end users of those products. The larger the manufacturer, the greater the odds are that will be true. There is plenty of software out there which do a half assed job of what they purport it to do, just like any other product, because the people writing it don't have expertise in the use of it for its intended purpose.

Manufacturers are obligated to warrant or support their end product, ergo have a vested interest in the consumer not "mucking" with it, because product then becomes an unknown. But the consumer needs it to do something with it, else they wouldn't have bought it in the first place. If they have higher standards, greater or individual demands or needs than the vested interest of the manufacturer, there is the incentive to make changes.

With something as fast evolving and far from predictable to anyone such as computer software, that becomes more an issue. The programmer can say *yes, this will work IF xyz are true that I have tried* .. Change x, y or z, then all bets are off. It is humanly and mathematically impossible to address all the possible variables.

Thats what forums like this are good for, and why I asked the question initially. Collective feedback of a group of experiences.

There are many insightful and thoughtful comments here from some pretty sharp folks. There is being abrasive, and there is also such a thing as being officious.

Regards, Gary

With most physical goods (e.g. a car), you will forfeit any warrantee protection if you "muck with it". In the case of software (e.g. OS X), I think you will find that if you ask Apple for support and it seems that your system has been "mucked with", you will be asked to reinstall the OS. I.e. there is no support for modified systems.

My comments in previous postings have been aimed at "consumers" who want to be sure that the product they purchased is going to work trouble-free. If the risk of system mods is worth the benefit to you, then go ahead.

Is this a help request, or a philosophy seminar? If the latter, it's moving to the Coat Room.

Thank you.

all the souls were standing in line at the holy gate waiting
 

for St Peter's word whether they would go to heaven or hell. Time stood still as the judgements were passed.

Then, all of a sudden, here comes this guy wearing a white robe and a stethoscope around his neck ..just walks right past all these souls waiting for the final word ... and to the incredulous looks on thier faces ...just strolls right in the Holy Gate like he owns the place.

They all turn to one another ... then St Peter .. who in Gods name is this guy just walks in past everyone waiting?

St Peter say .. oh ..Him? Thats God .. he thinks he's a Doctor.

Don't know if this is a philosopy discussion or not. All I know is that I am waiting to find out whether A) Norton cooks my drive as many have suggested B) Defragging it slows it down as Apple among others have suggested C) Does nothing and was waste of 50 bucks, or D) Makes the kind of speed improvements I have come to expect from it in the past.

I did note that in the initial readout from Speed Disk, after a clean install the outter 25% portion of the disk which is the fast portion has virtually nothing on it.

And like anything else I have ever done with a Mac, if I have to erase and reload the thing 15 times to get it to the lean mean state that I expect from it ... then I will. And I have never once called Apple.

Looks around ... seems we've moved to the philosophy corner
 

For anyone interested:

Norton didn't cook the drive. Boot time dropped by 70% to 60 seconds, same as Barefeats tested a G5 with this raptor setup. Not too shabby for an out of date 7410 clunker.

And good old FruitMenu takes an overall 2% performance hit penalty .. all in the Graphics, with Quartz taking the most: 8% .. UI taking a 6% hit.

Is it worth it for the functionality and is it reliable? I guess I'll find out.

Cheers all .. back to work

Gary

I find it very ironic that a site dedicated to exploring and modifying the inner workings of OSX (the daily tips generally involve Terminal changes to the the OS) turns such a cold shoulder to commercial versions of the same.

Haxies are always a derisive term when discussed here. One prominent moderator makes it very clear he has no use for them and takes every opportunity to state exceptionally strongly that opinion (as if fact) every single time the subject is approached, typically by an impressionable new user. The thread then simple dies on the spot.

I have been faithfully visiting (and contributing to I hope) this site every single day since spring 2002 and at the least browse each and every new forum post. When a haxie or system instability is the subject head, I'm all over the entire thread until it ends. I have no recall of a haxie causing the problem in a "remove it and report back," "Thanks! that cured it!" resolution sequence. Ever. Could someone reference me to where all that discussion got past me?

I think it would be a real shame to shuffle off such an important question, its discussion and possible important insights to a dead-end repository. Just my opinion.

Thank you Bruce
 

Very poignant .. what exactly is the difference between a commercial modification to the system function and all these thousands of terminal typed mods (or fixes) to do just exactly that .. customize the tool to do what the user needs or wants?

Regards, Gary

Well, I tried it for a while, and wasn't impressed...

My fondness for FruitMenu is in part a byproduct of my hatred for the Dock, which I disable. A person who likes the Dock would probably be using it to launch the things they use the most often (although I don't know if you can put individual PrefsPanes in the Dock -- ??), and if you already have a means of launching your apps and favorite documents that suits you, the feature-set of FruitMenu is naturally going to be a bit less appealing.

Me, I've never understood how anyone could prefer some floating icon or toolbar type of launcher, whether it be the Dock or the MacOS 9 Launcher. I guess if you only use 7 or 8 applications and maybe 3-4 favorite documents or folders you want direct access to they are tolerable, although they still commit the heinous sin of robbing you of screen real estate. And in all fairness, the Dock does let you toss in folders and access their contents as a hierarchical menu.

The joy of Macintosh is that we don't all have to live with a "one size fits all" world but can instead configure and tweak our Macs if we so choose and set them up just as we want them. If I came across as hostile to folks who prefer to keep their machines pristine & stock, I didn't mean to. The folks I get annoyed at are those who rain contempt down on people who do modify how their system looks and behaves.

Over the years there have been good (stable, unproblematic) modifications and others that had nasty side effects. (I loved SFVol, had problems with SoundMaster, loved PopupFolder, found SpeedDoubler to generate some instabilities, etc.) That this continues to be so under MacOS X doesn't greatly surprise me. It's still in the nature of the thing: try it, see for yourself, keep the ones you really like, and be aware that troubleshooting gets hard if you pile too many layers of 3rd-party mods on.

But yeah. What Bruce Miller said. Unsanity's haxies are not likely to mess up your system. You may or may not like them. There should not be a blanket condemnation of them or of 3rd-party interface modifier sw in general.

Well, as I said, my fondness for being able to customize the Apple Menu comes from years of using Mac OS/Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X feels odd without having the Apple Menu set up.

I could write a long post about how I feel about this... but I've already written a page on my site that covers all that stuff. You can read more about the Apple Menu (and my feelings and suggestions for it) here. The page is mainly to help Rhapsody users, but it covers some Mac OS 8/9 and Mac OS X stuff too.

Any good suggestions for
 

disabling the squirming little sucker and getting the trash can back to the desktop?

Thanks, Gary

*mourns the loss of pop up folders*

Only 7 or 8 applications on a pristine & stock system. :)

I've also seen people claim Panther won't run on a Blue & White G3.


Guys, do whatever you want to your systems, but keep the editorial threads in the Discussion areas and the help request threads in the Help Request areas. The folks I get annoyed at seem to have tremendous and repeated difficulty with that distinction.

evolution
 

amazing what it does at times. Starts as one thing and ends up as another.

rotflmao ... *goes crossed eyed at that list* How in the hell do you find anything in there? *says someone who ruthlessly deletes anything that isn't used*

Use a 'link and peg' mnemonic system, that associates each program with a phrase, perhaps from a poem.

Then go memorize The Iliad, and there's your phrases. Nothing to it. :D

omg ...
 

talk about evolution ... now its sunk to rotfpimplmao

Good thread! :) We haven't had a "lively" discussion for awhile.

I guess when it comes to haxies, it's something of a gamble, but, like others have shared, Unsanity's products have a relatively good record. I used a few for awhile, but as OS X grew on me and I came to appreciate the many advantages of the new workflow schema, I left all that old Classic wannabe stuff behind. In doing so, like Craig, I now have a more "vanilla" system that has been virtually problem-free for many months, and that's with all kinds of peripherals plugged in.

I did upgrade my son's computer before removing APE and a couple of other haxies some time back and interminable wierdness ensued. After removing/uninstalling APE and a few haxies, we were able to do the upgrade.

So a word to the wise, here, would be to wait for the APE and other haxie upgrades before updating to Tiger, or else delete all those 3rd party System enhancements/pref panels, etc. before installing.

Almost none of the "hints" published on the main macosxhints site have been about making system-wide mods to the OS. Instead they typically show you how to work within the system to accomplish some task or how to do something in a different way than usual.

The essential difference is to do with the idea of applications being separate from the operating system and separate from each other. Finder is an application. If you want Finder to work differently or look differently, you can modify a copy of Finder (keeping the original safely tucked away) and run that instead of the original. Your mods to Finder don't affect (cannot affect) any other application because they are confined to one application.

But if you install software like Unsanity's APE, which has system-wide effect, and that affects every application running on the system, then all bets are off. You can't be sure whether it might be possible that some undesired behaviour in an application is due to APE or not. Note that I am not saying that I have evidence that APE causes instability - merely that there is a logical possibility.

And in a troubleshooting situation (which is the case more often than not in these forums), the easiest course is to reduce the number of variables. It's difficult enough to debug someone else's system remotely. Anything that can be done to make the task easier (e.g. reverting to a vanilla system) is likely to be suggested as a way of increasing the chances of success.

Actually, only Unsanity's applications, including APE itself, actively disengage themselves when an OS update has been detected upon restart and offer to auto-search and install updates before proceeding. No other application or haxie does that. Additionally, all their applications offer a very comprehensive uninstaller in the .dmg that is explicit about what gets installed and uninstalled, as chosen. Their whole interface with the system is completely removed if desired at any time, so there's no risk other than maybe finding things work and play nice as many of us long-time users have found.

I do not agree that
 

"all bets are off" Having spent a few years in tech support doing trouble shooting over the phone or by the net on a number of operating systems, I can certainly relate to the difficulties posed by long distance troubleshooting, given the difficulties many times of trouble shooting a comp sitting right in front of you.

Untangling what a clueless hysterical housewife is trying to tell you after she has installed every spam and gimmick in the book on her winblows 98 clunker is a nightmare.

But system wide utilities and mods have been around for as long as computers for a good reason. Functionality. While they may or may not be asthetic, computers aren't plants or ornaments, computers do something, and individuals with unique problems to solve use them for that. Part of the job of a tech is to sort through those to disclose problems, and eliminating variables is an essential part of that or any other troubleshooting. Thats hold true for anything. Whether it be computers or plumbing.

There is one absolutely sure fire 100% way I can assure the stability of this or any other computer. No matter what is put on it or not. Never turn it on. But that wouldn't produce much would it?

The original question was to the stability/functionality of a particular mod. In this particular case, I have determined that the authors provide an uninstall package, provide options for exclusions for interacting with specified applications which I have used freely, provide options for installation for user level or system level, and has few files involved that can be manually deleted if necessary.

I am giving it a try, and its functionality and the increase in utility of this machine to my work is undeniable. I have tested it, and the impact on performance is minimal in my view and my standards are pretty severe in that regard. If it gives me any trouble, I will have zero qualms about tossing it into the trash. So far it has not.

Touching on a point raised earlier, manufacturers many times have a vested interest in mediocrity in pursuit of the protection what they are supporting. Having been a crafts person all my life who in my own way is also a manufacturer, I know what that vested interest is about. But I sure am not going to let someone else determine what my own standards are by virtue of their own, their own fears, or the pursuit of security that doesn't exist. The world is full of "dont touch it because of what "might" happen. I dont believe that nor have ever done things that way.

I also have one thing to say about this notion of purity and not touching anything, not needed, when it comes to defragging or optimizing X. "Bunk" ..to say it politely. That is so far from the reality that I cannot even begin to describe it. And that too relates to the vested interest in the security of some producer who is protecting only their own backside.

While it may be true that a large portion of the terminal type mods that get passed on this or other message boards are application specific, simply from unquantified subjective observation, I don't think that its limited to that is an accurate statement.

smiles ... getting to be more like it ..
 

a bit at a time ... http://www.glsdesigns.com/(censored)picture_1.pdf

I think I begin to understand why my systems run without trouble for years, and why you long for the goode olde days of OS 9. :p

There's a reason why I haven't defragged a Mac volume in 10 years (other than one time, testing Plus Optimizer for HFS+). The backside I have a vested interest in making life easier for is my own. ;)

By the way, you've posted some pictures in a couple of threads on this site that are not especially appropriate to it. Please stop.

art .... pure art
 

mm hmm ... and a stock out of the box Dewalt mitre saw that the manufacturer doesn't want you touching has on average a .09 mm runout at the rim, producing trim cuts that are more akin to what a chain saw does than a trim tool and is at minimum .5 degree off in presets. .5 degree angle error x 8 cuts end result produces a gap that carpenters have a term for (censored). Thats not a fast evolving, ever changing and uncertain manufacturing process like the computer industry. Its old, and how to make things well are known.

I've used dozens of other guys saws, and they all wanted to use mine. Cuts like glass, and pieces fall together they belong together. Only takes a day and a half lapping collars, filing and trimming and fine tuning all the parts to get one there. Saving time and aggravation every day. And the confidence the saw would do its part, so all you had to do was let yourself go and focus on severing that that tiny mark with 4 lb chunk of steel with 100 razor sharp teeth spinning at 2 miles a second a fraction of an inch away from your thumb every single time you stepped up to it. Safety? Security? Its a Zen thing ... something like what makes (made?) a Mac a Mac.

http://www.glsdesigns.com/5_perfection.html

mm hmm .. there are some things I miss ... but I'll get this thing in shape one way or another.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=30433

What, and that's the end of the discussion!?

!?

BTW, I instaled FruitMenu and no problems here.

Are you aware that you just replied to a thread that's been lying dead and buried for more than 2 years? It's the end of the discussion because everyone had said their piece on the topic. The original participants may or may not be interested in chiming in again... more likely, a slew of new people are going to reply to the first few posts, not noticing how old they are...

FWIW, I still use FruitMenu and my system is solid as an anvil.

Well, that's up to the original participants! Maybe some other people want to chime in now! :P

If you like this sort of thing, check out Mac Menus. It's got all the functionality of FruitMenu and more.

Well, yo know, I don't find FruitMenu all that great. What I really wanted to do is to change the contextual menus for each file type (well, for some specific ones). Particularly, the 'Open With' menu item. But all it seems to do is add a few items to all of them, and only at the top level of the contextual menu (not changing the 'Open With' submenu).

Maybe I just didn't delve deep enough into it.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out and see if it does what I need :)

Grape

You already own the app you need. It's the Finder > File > Get Info Check it out.

I'm not sure this does the trick...

It only changes the default app for opening documents created by a particular app... for instance, it says 'Are you sure you want to change all your Preview documents to open with the appication "Preview"?'

What I'd like to be able to do is not only to change the default app for a particular file type (jpg, txt, gif, etc.), but also customise the 'Open With' menu for each file type so it looks less like http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/9703/picture4jc5.png (that is for .jpg) and more like a hand-picked list of apps I actually use for that type.

Yet to try Mac Menus, , , , .

The purpose behind "Open With" is not to give you a list of the apps you tend to use to open that type of file, but rather to give you a list of apps that can open that type of file.

That doesn't obviate the need or usefulness of an "Open with (from my custom list" kind of function, but I do like the way it works now and consider it to be the more useful implementation.