I having brain gas or something, but i can't remember how to make the nextStart menus close automatically or when i single click on the desktop. I can't even find the delay setting for closing the nextStart menus. Thanks. BTW this is a great app.......it's come a long way.

It's the hotspot associated to the menu that decides when (and if) the menu should be closed.

Open NextSTART Preferences and go to the Hotspots Editor tab. Select the hotspot associated to the menu you want to close.

In the 'Menu Name' section at the bottom, change the pull up menu below it to 'Close Menus Automatically'. There is no delay setting for closing menus.

OK, That's what i thought but it's not working presently. I have to click on the start menu button to close all nextStart menus. Hmmmm...maybe i'll try a reboot.

I found the problem. I am (was) running Stardock's DreamScapes and that was apparently interfering with detecting the mouse clicks on the desktop. That's ashame if that is the problem as i also really like running dreams......

No problem whatsoever... First clone every hotspot that has 'Desktop' in 'Apply Hotspot to' and 'Left click on Hotspot' as the activation method.

Now, in each of the cloned hotspots, drag the Magnifier icon over the DreamScape background... all going well, NextSTART will automatically detect the name of the new hotspot target.

This doesn't appear to be working either. It may be because i don't know how to clone a hotspot. If i add a new hotspot and drag the icon to the dream, in apply hotspot to it shows Program Manager......
Also, i may not be explaining myself clearly. If i left click on the start button, the nextstart menu opens as it should. If i change my mind and dont want to click on anything within the nextstart menu, i should be able to just click on an empty area of the desktop and have the menu close. The menu doesn't close for me if i am running deskscapes as the background. Maybe a hotspot would work if the action was to close menus, or something similar but, i don't see close menus as an option. Does that make sense?

Ok, gotcha, I don't have Dreamscapes installed at the moment, so I'm unable to test this:

The Start Menu button is linked to Hotspot 0 by default (i.e. whenever you click the Start Button, whatever happens is defined by the settings for Hotspot 0 - this means that, by changing the action associated to hotspot 0, you can alternatively run a program or execute a special action instead of showing the main NextSTART menu whenever you click on the Start button).

Anyway, open NextSTART Preferences and navigate to the Hotspots Editor tab. It should automatically display the settings for Hotspot 0.

The 'Hotspot Action' section should have 'Show Menu' displayed in the pull up menu, and the the combo box in the Menu Name section next to it should say 'NextSTART' (what this means is that when you activate hotspot 0, NextSTART will display a predefined menu called 'NextSTART').

Below the combo box with "NextSTART", you should see a NeXT-style pull up menu that has three options: 'Close Menus Automatically', 'Parent Menus Stay Open' and 'All Menus Stay Open'. This option should be set to 'Close Menus Automatically' for the menu to close whenever you click somewhere else.

If hotspot 0 is already set to 'Close Menus Automatically' as I suspect it it, then something else must be happening - I guess I will need to install Dreamscapes to find out exactly what might be causing the problem.

I double checked the settings and they are as they're supposed to be in the hotspots editor. So it is definitely the dreamscapes app here that is causing my problem.

Sigh. I'll install Deskscapes in here then. It's Stardock's 'Deskscapes' that we are talking about, NOT 'Dreamscapes' by someone else, right?

Ok, found the problem and fixed it for 8.11 - when you click on the Deskscapes background, NextSTART sees it as an active full screen window and, because it is not the expected normal desktop background, it assumes you are running a full screen game and temporarily disables hotspots (which is why your left click on the desktop was being ignored).

Deskscapes was also affecting the ability to show/hide desktop icons and display the normal desktop context menu when desktop icons were hidden.

All this has been fixed - thanks for bringing this up to my attention.

Wow! That was fast. It sure is good to see people that care about their customers. Awesome.....looking foward to the fix.