I've never run across a way to manipulate the actual launch sequence that I've found acceptable, so I just let OS X have its way.
Writing an applescript is probably the easiest...
[....]
It gets more complicated when PrefPanes contain internal apps, but it's still possible i believe. Not sure that qualifies for 'acceptable', but it's not too daunting.
Thanks for that, Hal, but while it will be of use to others, it doesn't interest me.
Bottom line for me is that the right hand side of my menu bar takes so annoyingly long to populate as it is (*) that I'd rather deal with the (just)
four non-Apple menulets on the left changing position when I restart or log out/in than lengthen the process.
(*) MenuMeters first has to load MenuCracker, then Butler takes a long time to load, and then, when all is
almost said and done, MenuCal kicks in and quits and relaunches SystemUIServer.
Edit: My real interest in this matter is that I prefer to keep my Login Items in alpha order, and the functionality I reported in my original post makes re-ordering them when necessary a considerably less time-consuming process than it was when I thought I actually had to drag each item to the bottom of the list to re-order it.
