If you use something like Now Menus or Be Hierarchic (which both bring hierarchical menus to the Apple menu), you probably like the way they let you chose things like the Sound or Monitors control panels quickly.
However, things are still slower than they could be. First the Mac has to switch back to the Finder. It then starts up the control panel, which comes to the front. After making your selection you either have to close the control panel and let the Finder come to the front, or leave it lying about open on your desktop. Then you have to go up to the application menu and switch back to whatever it was you were doing before. These Fast switchers are a collection of tiny applications (not Control Panels, INITs, or FKeys like some other depth/volume switchers) to let you quickly swap between the setups you want. Keep the ones you need, and throw the rest away. They all have balloon help for their icons in case you need it.
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A collection of eight tiny applications that set the volume to a specific level, beep once, and instantly quit.
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Well, people change their monitor depth more often than they change their volume, so here are a corresponding set of applications to change monitor depth on the fly. Again, they're not Control Panels, INITs or FKeys but six small (under 6K) applications. I normally have it at 256 colours when I'm in the Finder, up to Thousands or Millions for Photoshop, and in Black and White when working with source code.
There are two sets of colour switchers. The first set are for colour displays, and can change the display to either colour or gray-scale mode. The second set are really only for gray-scale displays. The two sets are identical, except for the fact that the colour switchers can change to either colour or gray-scale. The colour switchers will switch to the requested colour mode by default, or the gray-scale mode if the Command (clover) key is held down when they are activated. The gray-scale versions are provided for people with gray-scale displays so they don't have to remember to hold down the Command key.
If they can't switch to the mode requested, they beep and then return. They do *not* alter the 'scrn' resource in the System file, so any changes are reset after the next reboot. Holding down the Control (ctrl) key will now cause the switch to occur on all displays, instead of just the main one. One beep will sound for each screen not capable of the change.
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Version 1.5 --- Now check for colour QuickDraw before trying to switch.
Control key now switch-all-displays (for running from a window).
Version 1.4 --- Option key now switches all displays (not released).
Version 1.3 --- Cosmetic changes (not released).
Version 1.2 --- Added gray switchers.
Version 1.0 --- Original release.
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I'm currently a third year Computing Science/Philosophy student at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland. Please email me at grantd@dcs.gla.ac.uk if you have any problems getting them to work for you. You may not modify them without my permission, but you may freely include them in any Shareware/PD collections you are in charge of. Also note that they require System 6.0.5 or later.
