Using Menus and Toolbars

Optimal Desktop™ menus and toolbars can be customized, manipulated and moved around to suit your tastes.

You can build your own drop down menus. You can create new commands for launching applications, mix them with existing Optimal Desktop™ commands and build new toolbars and menus. You can drag a web link, file or folder onto the toolbar and create a new command. Just drag and drop the desired command in the toolbar, while holding down the ALT key. Using this feature, you can totally optimize your desktop space!

To organize your toolbar commands into drop-down menus, you must use the Toolbar manager. Once the Tools > Desktop Manager > Toolbar Manager module is selected, you can start customizing your toolbar commands as described below.

You can activate or de-activate your Optimal Desktop™ toolbars and menus.

Build New Toolbars

You can build new Toolbars in Optimal Desktop. Click Tools > Desktop Manager > Toolbar Manager. Open the Toolbars tab, as shown below:

To build a new toolbar, click on the (first icon) across from "Toolbar list". A blank toolbar will be added to your screen. Now you can go to the commands tab and drag any command from the list and create a new toolbar.

You can also customize the look and feel of your toolbars. For more information, see Customizing Your Toolbars or Menus.

Select the toolbars you want to view.

Click OK to save your toolbar setting.

To de-activate, just de-select the toolbar you do not want to view.

Build Menus and Define New Commands

The Commands tab in Toolbar Manager categorizes all Optimal Desktop™, System level and user defined commands. You can build your own drop down menus and custom toolbars using the Toolbar Manager.

The General tab manages a list of all commands present in Optimal Desktop™. The commands are organized in categories, so users can find the commands faster. When building new toolbars and menus you simply drag the commands from the right window and drop it in the desired location on the toolbar or the destination menu. To build a new menu, you first drag the New Menu placeholder to the toolbar and then drag and drop your desired commands into this new placeholder.

The User Commands tab lets you build new user-defined commands. For Example you can create a command to launch Microsoft Word by first clicking on the New icon on top of the box, then entering a name for your command and then typing the path to the word.exe file (select the arrow icon to search your desktop. The commands in this list will be added to the category "User Defined Commands" in the General tab.

You can also add commands to this list directly in the program. Drag files, folders, URL's and .exe files to the menu bar and hold the ALT key. The command is added to the Menu bar and added to your User Defined Command list. Hold the ALT key to move these commands off the menu bar.

The Basic Commands tab specifies which commands will always be visible in the drop down menus. To activate this feature your must first select the command "Show recently used commands" in the Options tab Menu tab, Recently Used Commands window of the Toolbar Manager. All commands not in this list will initially be hidden when users select a menu.

Building New Menus

The first item in the Commands > General tab is designated as "New Menu". "New Menu" is a placeholder for commands. Drag this command into your toolbar.

Next you can drag commands from the window on the right and place it into this new placeholder. Once you are done, you can use the Alt key to drag your newly created menu item to a desired location on your Toolbar.

To change the "Name", appearance and icons for your new Toolbar, right click on the command. And change the settings for your selected menu item.

Customizing Your Toolbars or Menus

You can customize your toolbar's style, button icon size, and button image color from Toolbar Managers Options window.

Use the tabs at the bottom of the window to adjust the settings and appearance of the toolbar.

Note: When you choose a toolbar style, Optimal Desktop™ displays a message cautioning you that these styles will also change toolbar visibility and position. Click OK in the message window to apply the change to your Toolbar.

To change toolbar button icon size, select the size you want from the Button icon size drop-down list. This setting impacts all the buttons in the selected toolbar and will change the appearance of your Toolbar States.

You can choose to always view your toolbar button's image color or view it only during mouse over. Select this option from the Button Image Color drop-down list.

You can choose to display or hide your toolbar tooltips and toolbar shortcuts. A toolbar tooltip is the message that appears when you move your cursor over a toolbar. A toolbar shortcut is a user-defined shortcut that can be used instead of clicking the toolbar. This shortcut appears in your tooltip, to let you know you can use the shortcut as an alternative.

To enable these features, mark the Show Tooltips and Show Shortcuts in Tooltips checkboxes.

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