MaxMenus for Mac

User Reviews

• Best menu customiser EVER! But badly needs updating.

  ipsydOctober 14, 2013

  Pros

  You can place customised heirarchical menus in any/all of the screen corners, and activate them with or without without modifier keys. The menu items can be anything on your drive, can be listed in any order, with or without dividing lines and/or subheadings, and the menu names don't even have to correspond to the Finder names of the items listed. You can have any folder's contents appear automatically as a submenu, or make the submenu appear only when you hover over the item. With an earlier version of Mac OSX, you could even drag/drop[ items into folders in the hierarchical menus!

  Cons

  Under the last 3 or 4 iterations of Mac OSX, it's not fully functional. Drag/drop to menus has been non-functional for years, and now I can only launch MaxMenus by opening its preference pane in System Preferences. Item re-ordering works sort of, but not completely.

  Summary

  About 3 years ago I was able to contact the developer, Mat Caughron, and beseeched him to do the necessary fixes. He seemed kind of vaguely amenable, but it never happened. he has now moved on from system utilities like this, and is working in cyber-security, so is a somewhat shadowy figure. One online bio says: "Mat Caughron is a consulting application security specialist and has worked for a variety of governmental and industry clients on behalf of FishNet, Cisco, Fortify, and Cigital during his career." Mat currently does have a LinkedIn page and over 500 contacts there, but no other information. It seems to be possible to email him indirectly through LI. I'll give it a shot, and see if he won't release the source code. But, even if I can reach him, and he's willing, I'm not the one to fix it. Any takers?

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• Developer has disappeared

  Full ScoreAugust 24, 2011

  Pros

  This has worked well for me.

  Cons

  There are now incompatibility problems with Lion and the developer is nowhere to be found. Most of the links on www.proteron.com don't work, and he doesn't respond to Emails. No updates for 12 months. A shame; it was a useful little app.

  Summary

  No future in this product unless the developer starts behaving professionally.

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• Seriously Out of Date Developer out of this planet

  foulgernzJanuary 23, 2011

  Pros

  Works well when its working well

  Cons

  Doesn't work properly when it lacks attention (like a good woman)

  Summary

  Since about 10.6.5 I have found that MM is very particular about where it is on the launch order. If its in the wrong place it doesn'r launch at startup and I have to open the pref pane and switch it off and then on again. Its a shame that the developer has left this very intuitive and useful preference pane hanging. I too have used it for years and it seems to me that Mr (or Mors or Ms) Proteron needs to either wake up and bring it up to date or sell it to someone who is willing. Perhaps Team Proteron from time to time do read these comments and may be prompted into doing the right thing<br /><br /><span class='notifyMsg'> Updated </span>on Jan 31, 2011<p/>I still feel the same way and Proteron should get a grip and do the right thing, one way or the other.

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• Nagware - Company went Belly Up

  erothchildMay 26, 2009

  Pros

  Works but cannot buy it nor get rid of the damage it does.

  Cons

  Completely screws up your system. You cannot buy it anywhere and the company is not available to support your getting rid of the nagging.

  Summary

  Do Not do it - This Software completely screws up your system. You cannot buy it anywhere and the company is not available to support your getting rid of the nagging. I cannot believe that Maclife recommended it.

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• One of My Favorites

  telemDecember 6, 2007

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Wouldn't be without it. Thankfully 1.5 works fine in Leopard.

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• The Best

  jaserhMarch 14, 2007

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br /><p>I use (and have used) hierarchical navigation as my primary means to navigate and get around quickly. It is a critical component of my normal usage of OSX and before that OS9, etc. Over the years I have used many of the systems out there, FruitMenu, Butler, PiDock, ittec...</p> <p> </p> <p>At the change over to my Macintel machine I switched from MaxMenus to Butler because MaxMenus wasn't universal at that time. (MaxMenus has been universal for a while but I only just switched back recently.) (I switched back to MaxMenus since there were occasional times when Butler would crash and I would need to restart it.)</p> <p> </p> <p>Anyway since switching back again to MaxMenus again, I can really notice the speed differences. Now menus are just snappier and quicker, and the stability is excellent.</p> <p> </p> <p>In my opinion, MaxMenus in its current incarnation is the <em>best</em> hierarchical navigation tool / extension available.</p>

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• Still my favorite

  macfellerAugust 17, 2005

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />First, it runs fine on my G4 PowerBook with Tiger. I've tested DragThing extensively and would probably be glad to use it if I hadn't already bought into MaxMenus. Butler is iffy and will someday cost $$. With a total clean install of Tiger and all apps I had the opportunity to set up MM from scratch. I had always totally done away with the deafaults but this time took it to a whole 'nother level and have ended up with at least 4 menus per corner. Biggest change is they no longer offer "Empty Menu Bar Space" as a choice. Just as well as MM has long had issues with some ShapeShifter themes as regards the empty space option. I do wish Proteron would get back to development and not merely making sure of compatability with OS changes. More, I wish they better anticipated those changes' affects.

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• thanks...

  endeMay 10, 2005

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />...for the springloaded tip. i didn't re-read the manual as well... and the new way, springload works isn't standard or obvious... but now that i know how it works i find it more comfortable not to have to kepp the mousebutton down all the time... and they fixed another issue in drag-n-drop behaviour: if an object with the same name existed and maxmenus asked, if it should replace the existing item, it used to open a finder-window of that folder after the transaction was finished or aborted. very annoying. now that bug is gone. maxmenus deseves at least 4 points. check out lightswitchx, too. maxmenus, lightswitchx (both by proteron) and menu master (unsanity) are my favourite helper apps.

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• No crap!

  macfellerApril 30, 2005

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />How shabby. Even after telling me it was fine. Obviously they didn't try much. Wanna bet they all have dayjobs other than Proteron. That's OK, surely. But it's sad to see such a once powerful and essential tool be neglected. I remember gladly paying for it and the LiteSwitch bundle. Assuming they fix it (and they say they have fixed LS) I do still highly recommend it. I'm off to grab the LS fix.

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• So it gets 5 stars

  ipsydJanuary 15, 2005

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />... hard to imagine a Mac user who couldn't benefit from having MaxMenus!

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