Textbased menu for windows
Posted by pma
on 12/1/2005
pma
12/1/2005 5:58 am
Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but anyhow, I think it is related to the structured way of thinking that we outline-freaks love. It's also slightly nostalgic...
I found the kind of text-based menu programs that were prevalent during the golden DOS-times much more effective than the messy and indeed confusing way in which you launch applications from Windows (through the mess on the Windows desktop, throug the Start-menu trying to find your way through the mess of folders that the programs install, or through the not easily detectable icons in the QuickStart menu in the process-line.
If you had a menu-program in those old DOS-times, when you had started up your computer, you just had a menu showing the applications, it could be with numbers on it, and it could be hierarchical, so that you could have categories of applications. The choices were ordered neatly, and you could deliberately decide which applications you wanted in the startup menu.
Do anybody here know if some program exists that enable you to make a textbased menu (though it might show the Icons as well), from which you can launch your applications? Indeed, I would love replace my desktop with such a menu.
Peter.
I found the kind of text-based menu programs that were prevalent during the golden DOS-times much more effective than the messy and indeed confusing way in which you launch applications from Windows (through the mess on the Windows desktop, throug the Start-menu trying to find your way through the mess of folders that the programs install, or through the not easily detectable icons in the QuickStart menu in the process-line.
If you had a menu-program in those old DOS-times, when you had started up your computer, you just had a menu showing the applications, it could be with numbers on it, and it could be hierarchical, so that you could have categories of applications. The choices were ordered neatly, and you could deliberately decide which applications you wanted in the startup menu.
Do anybody here know if some program exists that enable you to make a textbased menu (though it might show the Icons as well), from which you can launch your applications? Indeed, I would love replace my desktop with such a menu.
Peter.
100341.2151
12/1/2005 12:40 pm
Peter -
This may not be quite what you are looking for but, while on the same quest about a year ago, I came upon MaDdoG Software's Panekiller (http://www.maddogsw.com/panekiller/ which provides a replacement for the Windows Start Menu.
Although it is not listed as working for XP, in my experience it works fine with XP SP2, and makes launching programs a lot easier IMHO. I still use a combination of Panekiller, destop icons and quicklaunch ones, though :-).
Derek
This may not be quite what you are looking for but, while on the same quest about a year ago, I came upon MaDdoG Software's Panekiller (http://www.maddogsw.com/panekiller/ which provides a replacement for the Windows Start Menu.
Although it is not listed as working for XP, in my experience it works fine with XP SP2, and makes launching programs a lot easier IMHO. I still use a combination of Panekiller, destop icons and quicklaunch ones, though :-).
Derek
srdiamond15
12/1/2005 1:01 pm
Not having used DOS, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a text-based menu. I do know of launchers that are more "DOS-like," in that you type text to launch programs. One is 1st Turbo Run by Green Parrots software. Another that is part of a kind of macro-program with commands issued by typing words is Active Words. I use both: Active Words to launch applications most of the time; 1st Turbo Run to launch an application to which that I haven't yet assigned an "active word."
Stephen Diamond
Stephen Diamond