Brought to you by Skidperfect Software, Inc. <skidperfect@kagi.com> http://www.shore.net/~chanson
Shareware Fee: equivalent of US$10 during the year 1995, $15 afterwards.
This document likes to be opened in SimpleText with the Palatino and Times fonts installed. Note that items in bold in paragraphs are the names of files/folders/programs. Underlined phrases are new terms that the programs Control Strip and Extensions Strip brought about, as defined in "2. Manual", section on Vocabulary.
This software is copyrighted material and therefore you are not allowed to modify this software or its documentation in any way, shape or form, nor can you sell it for your own profit. See the Distribution section for more information.
Contents:
About the product
Description
Feature summary
Hardware and software requirements
Compatibility
Installation and setup
Quick Installation - must read
･ About the product:ﾊ
Description:
Extensions Strip is a combination application and control panel that work together to provide a powerful environment to run control strip modules in. Its theme is "extensions with a global interface" because control strip modules, particularly Extensions Strip savvy ones, get the best of both the extension and application worlds, without any conflicts!
Control Strip is a control panel, found in Apple system software 7.5 and later, that installs a small floating window on your desktop. Inside this floating window are various control strip modules. These modules can tell you useful information and do handy things - all in a single mouse click. Since they don't patch your System, you most likely will not encounter extension conflicts or crashes because of them. Also, there are many freely available modules for download from internet archives and such sites. Check them out today, and add more control to your Mac!
While Control Strip was a great idea for Apple to develop, they unfortunately didn't make it as flexible as most people want, and didn't give module programmers enough power to utilize more of what your system software is capable of. This is the sole reason why Extensions Strip (abbreviated as ES) was written. Below is a list of the key features to illustrate this point.
Feature summary:
･ FAT binary, so Extensions Strip runs Power PC native with 68K compatibility.
･ Backward compatible with all existing control strip modules.
･ Hosts a new breed of Power PC native and Extensions Strip savvy modules.
･ Displays multiple, horizontal or vertical floating windows (called strips) whose fonts, colors, and other attributes are fully customizable.
･ Completely dynamic:
- Modules and strips can be loaded and unloaded on the fly.
- Modules can be positioned anywhere on a strip.
- Extensions Strip can be quit and launched at any time. Quitting ES will free up all of the memory used by itself, and the loaded modules.
･ Integrated drag and drop:
- Clicking and dragging a module with the option key down moves or copies the actual file.
- Dropping a module onto a strip will move the file inside the strip's folder and load it in the window at the dropped position.
- Consistent user interface for drag-aware modules.
･ Extended module API for safe drag creation, AppleEvent sending, and alias resolving, as well as event record checking/modification, integrated drag and drop, and many other things for greater control & recognition of the environment. ES also supports the Desktop Strip API improvements of configurable height and ability to have non-hiliting module clicks. Included for programmers is the Universal C and Pascal header files containing the new API. Also included is a sample FAT C project, ESDemo.c, that demonstrates some of the powerful things that ES does for modules.
･ Globally patches only two traps under System 7.5 (balloon help dispatch & alias dispatch) and three traps with pre-7.5 systems (SetCursor plus the other two). Such little patching (compared to Control/Desktop Strip) is friendlier to your system because it reduces time-consuming overhead and lowers the chance of software conflicts.
･ This package includes a new, freeware module called Process Manager. It's a FAT binary, Extensions Strip savvy, module for displaying and accessing processes (open programs.)
･ Even with all these features, Extensions Strip is dirt cheap! Registrations sent in the year 1995 cost just US$10, and after 1995 they are $15. Many different payment methods are supported because the Kagi Shareware service is used. See the Cost/fee and registration section of "3. Other stuff" for more details.
Hardware and software requirements:
･ Color Quickdraw. All Macs have Color Quickdraw except for the Mac Plus and computers before it, Mac SE, Classic, and the PowerBook 100. Note that the SE/30 and Classic II do have Color Quickdraw, even though a color monitor never came with their base configurations.
･ System 7.1 or later.
･ Macintosh Drag and Drop (which is built into system 7.5 or later) is highly recommended. With it, you can option-click modules to move them, or drag modules onto strips to install them.
Compatibility:
This software has been tested on systems 7.1 to 7.5.3 with a wide range of hardware and other system extensions. There is a rather long list of beta testers which have been working hard to make sure that Extensions Strip works on all of the promised machines. However, if you encounter a problem with Extensions Strip I would be glad to hear about it and I'll try my best to fix the problem. Please include at least your system software version and computer model.
Extensions Strip cannot be compatible with modules that have bugs, as one would naturally expect. Here are the following modules that have notable problems as of this writing:
･ AppleTalk Switch and File Sharing modules by Apple - the dialogs displayed by these modules can only be used while Extensions Strip is the frontmost process. If ES is not in front when the dialog appears, then the OK button will be automatically pressed and the dialog closed. Note that this is a long-standing bug in these modules that I hope Apple fixes soon. There is already a replacement for the AppleTalk Switch module by Jeremy Kezer which works flawlessly.
･ Program List by Men and Mice - this module's close routine crashes every time it gets called. Since the close routines do not normally get called under Control Strip or Desktop Strip, Program List does not crash when used with these programs. I strongly suggest the use of the more flexable module Process Manager, which is included in this package.
･ Installation and setup:
Quick Installation:
1) if you are currently using Control Strip or Desktop Strip, remove them from your Control Panels folder since they cannot co-exist with Extensions Strip.
2) drag the control panel Extensions Strip Control into your System Folder.
3) drag the application Extensions Strip - FAT into the Startup Items folder of your System Folder.
4) if you do not have the TSM Fix system extension already installed, drag it into your System Folder. TSM Fix, freeware by Matt Slot, fixes a known bug with all versions of System 7 where clicks onto floating windows get occasionally "missed".
