L a r r y M e n u

The Larry Menu is a mini-useless application for OSX that brings Larry Laffer into your MacOS X desktop. Larry Menu will decrease your productivity, waste CPU-time, eat memory and make you repent of using your bandwidth for downloading this software. Being aware of this, you can go ahead.

In 1987 Al Lowe created the Leisure Suit Larry series, based on the character of Larry Laffer. Then, in 1988 Al Lowe released Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places), also known as Leisure Suit Larry 2. Still, as a classical Sierra (TM) game, a score quantifies your advances in the adventure, but also a new rank system was added. In 1992 (after 4 brand new Larry episodes), Al Lowe created The Laffer Utilities, a parody of popular computer utilities such as the Norton Utilities (TM). Today Al owns a site, and distributes humor and laughs (for free!!!) via his mailing list, the CyberJoke 3000(TM).

Larry Menu brings your rank on your desktop. Like in the rank system implemented in Leisure Suit Larry 2, it allows to display your rank (and change it). When launched, Larry Menu creates an item on the system-wide status bar in the upper right corner of the desktop. The item displays your current rank. Like in the original game, you start with the rank of Novice and it randomly changes. The available ranks are the same available in Leisure Suit Larry 2. By clicking on the rank, a menu appears revealing all the (useless) features available.
Larry Menu is composed by four different sections, each one grouping a set of functionalities: Section 1 - Rank Management, Section 2 - System and Fun, Section 3 - Network and Section 4 - Preferences and Other Stuff.

The Rank

This is the first section of Larry Menu and contains three different commands; each command acts on your rank status. Change Rank allows to switch (randomly) your actual rank. It is the equivalent of scoring one point in Leisure Suit Larry 2. When changing rank, also the Leisure Suit Larry jingle is played (see Preferences section). Hide Rank can be used to reduce the footprint of the rank in the system bar. It is particularly useful when you have many items in the bar or a low-res monitor. However, when the rank is hidden, an icon of Larry replaces it and a tooltip will reveal its actual value. Set Big Hero (TM) can be used to promote yourself as a Big Hero (TM).

System and Fun

This section of the menu can be used to enable three different "widgets". Grayscale icons indicate an inactive "widget". Conversely, when a "widget" is active, the respective icon in the menu will appear colored.

Larry Babes: this is a simple imitation of the popular Linux application Hot Babe, originally coded by DindinX and Cyprien. Instead of a single babe, it will use the girls of Leisure Suit Larry 7 Love for Sail!, originally created by Jason Piel. An increasing load on the CPU will reflect in more sexy girls with a reduced transparency. You can place the panel everywhere in the desktop. If you want to dismiss the panel, simply click again on the Larry Babes item in the Larry Menu. (Thanks to Tommaso Pecorella of Useless Software for a clue about how to retrieve Mach's workload).

Larry Pops Up!: this is the MacOS X port (simplified, at least now) of the Larry Pops Up for MS-Windows (TM) program originally written by Don Munsil. The original version can be download here. At the moment, Larry Menu is bundled with only 3 quotes (just for starting, quotes are not mine). You can add more by downloading the original program or the add-on packs available through the site of Al Lowe, specifically in the links section.
In order to install them in Larry Menu, you must: i) locate the LarryManu application on your HD; ii) right-click and inspect the application bundle; iii) locate the folder named Quotes; iv) copy the .wav files of the quotes inside. Take care of copying only the .wav files. The inactivity period can be modified in the preferences panel. This version of Larry Pops Up! lacks the feature of playing particular files in a particular date. By the way, you can add your own .wav files in the Quotes folder, and Larry will fire telling your jokes or playing your audio clips.

Random Rank: when enabled, your rank is automatically changed after a time interval that can be specified in the preferences.

Network

Actually, this section contains only two features. However, such features that can be used jointly with other applications. More "network" features will be introduced.

Random Sight Gag: when this item is enabled, after a custom period of time, the default internet browser will open a random sight gag from the personal Al Lowe collection (the CyberGag 3000 (TM)).

Rank in iChat (TM): when enabled, it will update automatically your status message in iChat (TM) with your rank. It is useful to promote yourself and to discover any Leisure Suit Larry fans (or someone else using this program...ok. Just kidding).

Preferences and Other Stuff

This section contains basic commands and allows to show the preference panel.

Preferences: the preference panel allows changing some basic behaviors of Larry Menu.
Show alert at startup: toggles an alert window at each application start-up. For instance, you should uncheck it if Larry Menu is automatically loaded at boot time.
Show alert when quitting Larry Menu: toggles a confirmation alert when quitting the application.
Play Leisure Suit Larry (TM) jingle when rank changes: toggles the jingle when changing the rank.
Larry Pops Up! after X minutes of inactivity: specifies the required idle period to show a (random) pop up associated with a (random) joke.
Change rank randomly every X minutes: it allows to specify the time frame after your rank is automatically changed.
Browse randomly a Sight Gag every X minutes: this specifies the time period after the default browser opens with a random gag from Al Lowe's CyberGag 3000 (TM).
Check for Updates: opens, in the default browser, the web-page for Larry Menu.

Visit Al's Site: teleports your browser on www.allowe.com.
About: shows the standard about panel.
Quit: relief your CPU from wasting time.

The Software (defined as the Larry Menu application and the manual) is provided as-is, without any explicit or implied warranties. The author is not responsible of any data loss, damages (both hardware and software) and lack of productivity. In addition, at the moment Larry Menu is in beta stage. All the trademarks are copyrighted by respective owners, as well as the original sounds and artworks. The author, being a fan, created this software only as a gift to thank Al Lowe for his games.
This software is freeware. You don't have to pay for use it and you can't sell the software. If you want to put this little application on some magazine, CD-compilation or something that is provided on a per-pay basis, please drop me a line. If you want to reuse something of this material, please ask. And, if you like this app, sometimes come here to check for updates.
And remember: Leisure Suit Larry exists thanks to Al.

Links

• Al Lowe's Humor Site
• the CyberJoke 3000 (TM)
• OSWD.org
• Cocoabuilder
• the GIMP
• Useless Software