Overview
A brief introduction to CustomMenu.
CustomMenu allows you to build your perfect custom menu, accessible by right-clicking on your Windows desktop. All your favorite programs, files and Windows functions at your fingertips. A great alternative to the nightmarish clutter of your Windows Start Menu or even your current desktop context menu.
You can create an unlimited number of menu items, and an unlimited number of submenus which themselves can have an unlimited number of menu items and submenus. Right from the start this a major improvement over the standard Windows desktop menu has which limited support for submenus, and each submenu is limited to just 16 menu items in total! (i.e. if the Windows desktop menu has a submenu which itself contains a submenu, only the first 16 items defined in the registry across both menus will be displayed; at least one, possibly both, of the submenus will be missing items). Windows also doesn't show separators in its submenus.
With CustomMenu there are no such limitations.
Right-clicking on any menu will open the CustomMenu Configuration ("Config") window. This window is rich in functionality to make building your menu, selecting the required command files, and assigning icons, an absolute pleasure.
The config window supports full drag-and-drop from Windows Explorer. Any number of files can be dropped onto the menu tree on the left and CustomMenu will create a menu item for each one. As well as executables, you can drag and drop shortcuts onto the Config window and CustomMenu will extract the details and automatically fill in the edit boxes for you.
You can also drag and drop files and folders onto the Icon File, Command and Directory edit boxes.
CustomMenu comes with it's own Icon Explorer which allows you to browse your entire computer for files which contain icons that you can make use of; for example "shell32.dll" in the Windows\Sytem32 folder.
You can even browse folders and, if you wish, subfolders, direct from your desktop, with options to limit what types of files are displayed in the submenus.
For example, here is a Downloads folder, limited to showing only *.pdf files and no subfolders:
Alternatively, you can include subfolders and CustomMenu will become a live disk-browsing facility, with a submenu for every subfolder it finds:
You can even browse an entire drive direct from your desktop:
Clicking on any folder will open it in Windows Explorer. Clicking on any file will open it, just as if you had double-clicked it in Windows Explorer.
You can have a permanent menu item set up to browse any USB [or other removable] drives. Just set up submenu items for each of the usual drive letters that Windows assigns to your USB sticks and plug-in drives:
Just attach the drive and immediately begin browsing it straight from your desktop. CustomMenu will quickly show which drive letters are not applicable:
There is no limit to the number of menu items, submenus or submenu items you can have. However, if a submenu has more than 40 items in it, CustomMenu will automatically provide scroll buttons at the bottom of the submenu. Although these buttons can be clicked, if you hover your mouse cursor over either of the buttons, CustomMenu will auto-scroll the submenu. Alternatively, you can use the mouse wheel to quickly scroll up and down the submenu:
CustomMenu provides a wealth (literally hundreds) of Windows settings, Control Panel applets, Shell commands, etc. at your fingertips, with numerous categories from which to quickly select and create a menu item:
While customizing your menu in the Config window, and having saved any changes, you can test your menu directly from the Config window by clicking the "Show Menu" button. The fully-working menu will display alongside the Config window:
(hint: use the ESCape key to close the menu and re-enable the config window)
Having created your custom menu you can, if you wish, replace the static part of the normal Windows desktop context menu with your custom menu by clicking the "Write to Desktop Menu" button. A backup .reg file of you current desktop menu will be created first.
Windows will still add its own context-sensitive items and any other context items that you have registered. But the top of the menu will be your custom menu.
Your custom menu will be displayed whenever you right-click anywhere on the desktop. The Windows desktop menu can still be accessed at any time by holding down a CTRL key and right-clicking the desktop. Also, whenever the CustomMenu config window is open, a right-click on the desktop will always show the Windows desktop menu.
Hopefully, this quick overview has given you a taste for what CustomMenu can achieve.
The latest version can be downloaded from the Releases page: https://github.com/BazzaCuda/CustomMenu/releases
See also Getting Started: https://github.com/BazzaCuda/CustomMenu/wiki/Getting-Started
Any issues, questions or suggestions, drop a comment in Discussions: https://github.com/BazzaCuda/CustomMenu/discussions