SkypeMenuX - 0.6b

See my review of 0.2b for additional comments.

The online contacts list ("buddies") in the menu works as advertised. I find the program to be stable and useful, which is why it's taken up permanent residence in my menubar.

I have to say, the developer is perhaps the most responsive I've ever seen. I just got through checking out his replies to my previous review. Yes, I'm aware that I can hide Skype if I launch it at system start up, but then I'm stuck with an idle app in the background, eating RAM and CPU cycles. This might not sound like a big deal for someone with a G4 or G5 machine over 1GHz and tons of RAM, but I'm on a G3 500MHz with 512MB. It makes a difference to me if I have open apps just sitting idle. Not trying to be snarky here, because I see that the developer has added the ability to hide Skype after launch as a feature request on the SourceForge page, just trying to point out why.

While I'm on the subject of feature requests, "Quit Skype" should be an item by itself in the menu (probably below the status indicator and above available buddies), and "Quit SkypeMenuX" should be on a sub-menu at the bottom like it is now. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally quit SkypeMenuX when I meant to quit Skype. For reference, I would refer you to the ClamXAV FolderSentry menu item - in order to abort a scan, you have to select "Abort Scans" from the menu, and "Really Abort Scans" from the sub-menu. A simple, but effective way of confirming an abort, because you have to select a sub-menu item. And yes, I know I can quit Skype in other ways, but when I'm already in the menubar disconnecting from the internet and/or logging out of iChat, it's just convenient to go to SkypeMenuX to quit Skype.

Just some thoughts.

Hi Maximus,

Thank's for your feedback. As the product description says, this is just like the system extra menu for iChat. If you like and use that feature of iChat, you will like this program. Some people do, some don't. That's cool.

As for usage information, it is improving, but I only started this program a few weeks ago! I also thought it's fairly self explanatory, but maybe that's because I'm used to the iChat menu already.

By the way, if anyone does have any questions that the installation info doesn't answer, you can contact me via my website or the sourceforge project. People have already.

Cheers,

Mark (SkypeMenuX developer)

This is a great little app if you use Skype. Does exactly what it says, no muss, no fuss.

It would be nice, however, if it worked more like the iChat menu extra in that it would log you into Skype and show your status as "Available" (or whatever) without launching Skype. Then, when an incoming call is detected, Skype is launched, much like iChat itself is launched with the iChat menu extra detects an incoming IM. I'm not sure if the Skype API allows for this, though.

If that's not possible, then SkypeMenuX should at least hide Skype after launching it (I hate extra windows cluttering up my desktop). It would also be nice if I could ⌘-drag the menu extra to re-order it in the menu bar.

I'm looking forward to the buddy list showing in the menu - that would be a great improvement.

In summary, a fine little app that does what it claims to do. Recommended for Skype users.