AppMenuBoy

by David Phillip Oster for Mac OS X

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List your applications alphabetically in the Dock

When OS X 10.5 (Leopard) changed the way that folders are represented in the Dock, users lost a useful hierarchical start menu that you could create simply by dragging the Applications folder to the end of the dock.

Why Apple chose to do-away with this feature is not clear but AppMenuBoy is an attempt to restore this option to Leopard. AppMenuBoy is a small Cocoa application that creates a hierarchical menu in the dock which displays all of your applications in alphabetical order simply by Ctrl-clicking or right-clicking on the AppMenuBoy icon.

I can definitely see how AppMenuBoy sould be particularly useful for those that have recently switched from Windows as it brings Start Menu style accessibility to the Mac. It’s also nice to have your applications listed in alphabetical order because going into Finder to find an app you know you’ve got but can’t find can be pain. I’d say the only downside of AppMenuBoy is that you can’t edit the names of the entries which is annoying when my Yugma app simply appears as the version number instead.

AppMenuBoy is a great tool for anyone that misses the Windows Start Menu, doesn’t like the Mac Dock or just wants a quick alphabetical reference of what’s installed on their system.

As the directories change, AppMenuBoy automatically tracks those changes.AppMenuBoy now uses the localized name of Apps and folders, not the hidden file name.AppMenuBoy now sorts its menu (since localization can change the order.)Now has a preference to skip folders with parenthesized names. Example: (OldStuff)

Changes

  • As the directories change, AppMenuBoy automatically tracks those changes.AppMenuBoy now uses the localized name of Apps and folders, not the hidden file name.AppMenuBoy now sorts its menu (since localization can change the order.)Now has a preference to skip folders with parenthesized names. Example: (OldStuff)