I'm trying out NextStep, because I'm looking for a menu bar / panel type launcher like the one in Ubuntu or the old Mac Bar. (One that runs across the screen like the windows taskbar, gives you easy drop down menu access to folders and programs, and looks like it belongs in Vista). After many hours of hair-tearing and research figuring out whether this thing can work properly as a menu bar (in which I almost gave up on this program), I finally figured out how to create this kind of bar in NextStep, and have it stay on the screen. Extremely convoluted process, but I'm finally happy, more or less, with the result.

Now where I'm really stuck is figuring out how to simply get it to display on start up! Damn thing won't do that, and all I can figure out how to do is change the way it is /manually activated/. I do not want "manually activated", I just want it to work like every other menu launcher on the market, where it is on screen upon startup. Not only is manual activation a tedious extra step for me to take everytime the system is started, but it certainly doesn't help someone who doesn't know there's a hidden invisible menu system (and if you figure out the secret "activation hot spot", it'll even show itself for you!). Please tell me there's a way to automatically start and display the menu bar on screen, so I know I didn't just waste two days of my time with this program for nothing! Thanks.

Taken from the NextSTART FAQ (Frequesntly Asked Questions) you can find Here:

Q) How do I make NextSTART automatically open a menu when it runs?

A) Open the Hotspot Preferences tab, select the hotspot associated to that menu and enable 'Auto Run'.

Q) I want my menu permanently on the screen until I close it manually. How can I do this?

A) Open the Hotspot Preferences tab and instead of 'Close All Menus' select 'Parent Menus Stay Open'.

Hope this helps,

Thanks for the prompt reply, but actually, it doesn't help, as part of all that research I mentioned included carefully following your guide to create a Mac Bar. Which means I already had Parent Menus Stay Open,
and all of what you had suggested in that guide. However, I think the problem is I was closing and opening the program without actually rebooting the computer. In this case the menu bar doesn't activate automatically, only manually, but it does activate automatically upon
a proper reboot. So problem solved there.

Now what I'm wondering is, how do I get the menus to stay on top of other windows, (so I can see them when they're opened and don't have to keep shifting windows around to move them out of the way of the menu), but not the menu bar itself (so I don't have to see it all the
time, and have it hide the title bar and window controls of all the applications I open)?

You can't, sorry, child menus always inherit the z-order of the parent menu, which is set in the Hotspot that activates the parent menu.

Not sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish, though, as child menus, by their very nature, are only supposed to be on screen while you are accessing them, and then close automatically as soon as you click somewhere else (which is what happens if you select anything other than 'All Menus Stay Open' in the hotspot that activates the parent menu).

If you want to have your child menus permanently on the screen, you might as well assign them to different hotspots, from where you will be able to control their z-order as well.

I don't want the child menus permanently on the screen, and I like the way they open. I just want them (and the menu bar) to behave as you would expect of a good menu bar. They hide themselves when not needed and show themselves when they are. Ex., the child (and parent) menus need to stay on top of open windows when they are open and being accessed. Otherwise I am constantly having to shuffle my windows around every time I want to access the menus in this taskbar-like menu bar, because my other windows are hiding the menus in the nextstart program. That makes Nextstart not so convenient to use, and convenience is the whole point of the program.

1 - Set the activation method for the hotspot associated to your menu to be a 'Bump Top Screen Edge', disable 'Always On Top' and enable 'Parent Menus Stay Open'.

This way your horizontal bar is always on screen but will be behind other windows when not in use. When you need access to it, just bump the top screen edge with your mouse pointer and it will automatically come forward. When you click on other windows or bump the top screen edge, any currently open child menu closes, but the horizontal parent menu remains on screen.

This method assumes that, as you said, you don't need child menus permanently on the screen.

2 - Alternatively select 'All Menus Stay Open'. This will make both the horizontal parent menu as well as any currently open child menus stay open as you click on other windows, etc... Bumping the top screen edge brings ALL currently open menus (parent + child) forward.

To manually close any currently open child menus, you just LEFT click on the horizontal menu's titlebar or RIGHT-click the titlebar of the child menu.

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The trick here is a combination of making sure 'Always on Top' is disabled (so the menus are not permanently covering your windows) and activation of the menus by bumping the top screen edge with your mouse pointer. If necessary, you can change the response delay of the screen edge bump in NextSTART Preferences -> Global Preferences -> Mouse Settings -> Bump Edges Delay.

Another thing you can do, if you want to prevent maximized windows from covering your horizontal menu bar at the top, is to Reserve Screen Space at the top in Global Preferences for the horizontal menu. In that case, make sure the 'Use Reserved Screen Area' setting in the hotspot associated to this menu is enabled.

Also, if you, for any reason, need to access two (or more) different child menus at the same time, you can always temporarily detach one of the child menus from the parent menu. You do this by clicking on the child menu's titlebar and dragging it away from the parent menu. You can then open other child menus, with the original staying open until you explicitly close it by right clicking on its titlebar.