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Thread: How do you order your start menu?

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    Senior Member ajbrun's Avatar
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    Question How do you order your start menu?

    Just wondering how many among us have hugley messy start menus where everything gets installed to its default suggest place (ie straight onto the programs list).

    I have:

    Accessories > Entertainment (winamp etc)
    Applications (Open office, GIMP etc)
    Communications (bowsers, downloaders, chat programs etc)
    Games (You know what they are )
    Hardware (mouse drivers, printer stuff etc)
    Startup
    Tools (anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall etc)
    Utilities (zippers, burners, rippers etc)

    Maybe I'm just too organised on my PC, but I used to just install it anywhere, and it was a mess. Took me ages to find anything.

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    not posting kempez's Avatar
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    I install stuff anywhere. Then I change the name and sort by name.

    Then I forget about winblow$ start menu and drag the shortcut onto my objectdock
    Check my project <<| Black3D |>>
    Quote Originally Posted by hexah
    Games are developed by teams of talented people and sometimes electronic arts

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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    start... menu?

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    Xcelsion... In Disguise. Xaneden's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by directhex
    start... menu?
    Damn your Linux soul!
    New Sig on the Way...

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    Senior Member ajbrun's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by directhex
    start... menu?
    I knew we'd get one of your types along sometime .

    Replace "start" with whatever word you linuxy type prefer.

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    Ex-MSFT Paul Adams's Avatar
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    I often delete Start Menu folders & icons installed by applications, or move them to somewhere more sensible.
    I always delete desktop icons (I hate it when installers don't give you the choice of what shortcuts to create).
    With a few exceptions, I move shortcuts created in my user profile into "All Users".

    My desktop has just the Recycle Bin - I use this space as very temporary storage, and drag stuff to the bin when done with it (or move it to a more permanent location).

    Quick launch bar has "show desktop", browser, mail and command prompt shortcuts.

    At the top level my Start Menu has only shortcuts to commonly used folders (downloads, MP3S, Photos, CD & DVD Images, Documents) and my "apps of the month" are pinned here (e.g. if I am playing a new game a lot).

    Under "All Programs" I have only 4 entries:
    - Accessories
    - Games
    - Microsoft Office
    - Startup

    "Accessories" is my dumping ground for uncommonly-used utilities & apps - the commonly-used apps mainly have right-click context menu options so don't need shortcuts.
    It mainly contains shortcuts, though there are a few folders for apps with more than 1 shortcut/application.

    "Games" is where I reorganise installed game shortcuts - I end up having to move most shortcuts here and delete shortcuts to "readme" files and uninstall programs.

    "Microsoft Office" is a law unto itself, doesn't seem right to put it into Accessories

    "Startup" is empty (I also use AutoRuns from sysinternals.com to ensure I don't have processes running that I don't need such as Nero, Adobe, Java etc. auto-update checks).
    ~ I have CDO. It's like OCD except the letters are in alphabetical order, as they should be. ~
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    not posting kempez's Avatar
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    My desktop has no icons whatsoever. I just use objectdoc as it looks so much more tidy and professional
    Check my project <<| Black3D |>>
    Quote Originally Posted by hexah
    Games are developed by teams of talented people and sometimes electronic arts

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    Banned cm_uk's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kempez815
    My desktop has no icons whatsoever. I just use objectdoc as it looks so much more tidy and professional
    ram hogging a little though eh?

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    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajbrun
    I knew we'd get one of your types along sometime .

    Replace "start" with whatever word you linuxy type prefer.
    fine, be like that.

    as my window manager, i use xfce4. xfce4's closest equivalent to the entire windows taskbar is the "panel":



    the far left button is the xfce button (or "mouse" button). basically, it's a start button. the menus inside are automatically categorised, as per the definitions in the packages i install.

    next are four buttons for my very frequently used tasks (console, firefox, openoffice, rhythmbox), with pull-up menus on their left, with other related frequent tasks - so for the console i also have nautilus (file manager) and grdesktop (remote desktop connection). for firefox i also have xchat, thunderbird, gaim. for openoffice, i also have gnucash. for rhythmbox, i also have mplayer, and all my most frequently played games.

    after all these are a volume control, cpu meter, ram meter, swap space meter, network up & down meter, mini command line (for quickly typing names of commands, like windows-r in windows). next is the system tray (same as in windows, mine has cpu temps, xfce4 settings button (with menu, which contains nvidia settings), lock screen and logout buttons. and ends with the clock & date.

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    Senior Member specofdust's Avatar
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    I don't use the start menu for anything other then shut-down, and run.

    Any game that installs another directory in it gets said directory deleted, apps sometimes keep their directories if I cba putting a shortcut on the desktop. But for the most part, I just don't use the thing.

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    not posting kempez's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cm_uk
    ram hogging a little though eh?
    Nah not really tbh. Never get any slowdown or anything. Plus I'm getting another gig soon so that would sort it ou anyway
    Check my project <<| Black3D |>>
    Quote Originally Posted by hexah
    Games are developed by teams of talented people and sometimes electronic arts

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    Senior Member Workaholic's Avatar
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    Although I have windows and also organise my start menu it gets annoying and instead my desktop gets cluttered.

    Instead I prefer Linux (KDE and Gnome) as the programs are already sorted in groups staright after installation saving time
    Woohoo now Assistant Manager!


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    I need a coffee jamena's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajbrun
    Accessories > Entertainment (winamp etc)
    Applications (Open office, GIMP etc)
    Communications (bowsers, downloaders, chat programs etc)
    Games (You know what they are )
    Hardware (mouse drivers, printer stuff etc)
    Startup
    Tools (anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall etc)
    Utilities (zippers, burners, rippers etc)
    funny, that sounds just like the way our old Apple Macs used to organise stuff!

    I move the vital shortcuts for installed programs to a "useful programs" subdirectory in the programs menu, and all the games to a "games" directory. I then made a menu on the taskbar for the games folder so I can acess that directly (as that's practically all my home pc is used for these days!

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    The late but legendary peterb - Onward and Upward peterb's Avatar
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    on 'doze machines I have a separate partition for applications, and yet another one for user data. Keeps the OS self contained in the event of problems. On linux it is less of an issue, although it is good practice to keep user data on a separate partition or even a separate disk.

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    Spinal Pap Tomahawk's Avatar
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    Well my actual Start Menu is just bog standard ordered Alphabetically, and find it easy to find the programs I need, although most used/useful ones are either linked on Desktop/quick launch or in the 'Recently used list'..



    [ iTomaHawk | My Music MySpace ]

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    Senior Member ajbrun's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jamena
    funny, that sounds just like the way our old Apple Macs used to organise stuff!

    I move the vital shortcuts for installed programs to a "useful programs" subdirectory in the programs menu, and all the games to a "games" directory. I then made a menu on the taskbar for the games folder so I can acess that directly (as that's practically all my home pc is used for these days!
    I think we have an old mac somewhere (unless we threw it out). I don't remember anything like a start menu. Instead there was a launcher thing that had tabs like applications, tools, games etc. I didn't purposly base my windows start menu on this - it was just what I thought was logical .

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