The Menu applet is a Web navigation tool. Specifically, it can be used in place of your browser's bookmark interface for storing your favorite Web pages and referring to them later, possibly from another computer. This requires you to be logged in to VanCleve.com, so that the site can identify you and serve your own bookmarks no matter where you are. At present, there is no way to create a user account on your own, so if you want one, ask me.

The applet also links to the various documents on VanCleve.com, according your access. If you have not logged in, you will see only a subset of these pages. When you log in (using the Terminal applet), the Menu should automatically reload with an expanded set of links, including any bookmarks you have created. If this doesn't happen, your browser probably lacks support for interapplet communication (also known as LiveConnect), which is too bad. Netscape's browser should support this feature, since they invented it. If you don't want to bother with that, however, there are two other ways of reloading the menu after you have logged in. You can simply reload the entire home page, for one. This is probably the most reliable method, because it will update all the applets on the page according to your user preferences, not just the Menu. A faster way is to hold down both the <ctrl> and <alt> (or <meta>) keys and click in the Menu on any link or folder. (No, you can't click just anywhere, which I realize is kind of lame. I'll fix that one of these days.)

Creating and editing custom bookmarks in the Menu is a function of the Terminal. Please refer to this page for instructions on doing that. Note also that many of the visual aspects of the menu can also be customized through the Terminal applet. Using the Menu interface directly, including how to move and remove your custom bookmarks (once they are added), is covered below.

This applet is essential an expanding and collapsing tree. The top level, rendered in a somewhat larger font, should contain only folders. Clicking on one will reveal its contents, which may include links and subfolders, as distinguished by the shape and color of the bullet icon next to each. Whenever the Menu expands to a height greater than the applet can contain, one or two arrows will appear at the top and bottom of it, by which you can scroll up and down. The most basic operation here, though, is simply to click on a link, which will open a corresponding URL either in the same browser window in which the Menu is running or in a separate window. But there are a couple of variations on this theme. First of all, when you left-click on a link, whether it opens in the current window or a different one depends on the "use other window" flag, as explained in the Terminal documentation. If a separate window is used, it is reused when the next link is clicked, to prevent too many windows from cluttering your desktop. But you can also right-click a link, which causes its URL to be loaded in a brand new window every time. You may find this handy if you prefer to use the current window by default, or if you're already using the "other window" for some other page and need a third window, separate from the one in which the Menu is running and the "other window" both. Whenever you click a link in the Menu, the bullet icon next to it changes to highlight that link, in case you become unsure of which one you last clicked.

As you move your mouse over the various items, you may notice different messages being displayed in your browser's status bar. (Again, this is subject to how well the browser actually supports Java applets.) This "blurb" serves as a more complete description of the URL represented by the menu item, and it can be defined for each individual link, either when or after it is created. Between that and the brief name appearing in the Menu itself, you should be able to get a clear idea of the URL's content before opening it. Compare that with most browsers' bookmark interfaces, which normally only show a typically nondescript or misleading page title. The Menu lets you define bookmarks in your own terms.

Moving and removing bookmarks and their folders is basically very straitforward. The first folder in the Menu should read "(menu control)" and contains three items. These are for changing the menu around and do not link to any URLs. There is an item for moving bookmarks and folders, one for removing such, and another for cancelling either operation. If you click "move" or "remove", the mouse pointer should change to indicate you are now in a special editing mode. If you wish to cancel and return the Menu to its normal mode, just click on "cancel".

To move either a bookmark or a folder into a different folder, click the "move" item. Then, using the left mouse button to expand folders as needed, locate the item to be moved, and right-click it. Next locate the new parent folder to which it should be moved (again using the left mouse button), and right-click that. At this point the mouse pointer should return to normal, and the link or folder should appear in its new parent folder. (Initially it may appear at the bottom of the folder's contents, but don't worry, it will be resorted alphabetically next time the Menu is reloaded.) Be aware that you can move your custom bookmarks and folders into any other folder, including the default ones, but you cannot move any of the default links or folders around.

To remove a bookmark or folder that you have created, click the "remove" item in the "menu control" folder, then use the left mouse button to locate the item to be removed, and right-click it. Here again, you cannot remove any of the default items, the ones belonging to the site at large. And neither can you remove a folder if it contains any subfolders. This is partly to prevent you from accidentally removing a large hierachy of folders, along with all the items they contain. You can remove folders containing only bookmarks, however.

I am careful not to say "delete" instead of "remove", because the "remove" item will not actually delete your bookmarks. It will delete your folders, but any bookmarks which have been removed from the Menu are still around in the database. Using the Terminal, you can either reinsert those invisible bookmarks into your menu all at once, or you can permanently delete them. See the Terminal documentation for details.