This INIT was inspired by Philip Borenstein’s elegant desk accessory, SmartQuotes. Its function is identical to SmartQuotes. When active the INIT replaces neutral double quotes (") with quote pairs (“”) and neutral single quotes (') with apostrophes (’). It is fairly smart and can handle nested quotations and multi-paragraph quotes with alacrity.
The substitution can be turned on and off by typing the command-shift-key combination of your choice. The major difference between this INIT and the SmartQuotes DA is that the INIT is global. Once invoked it is active in all applications until specifically deactivated. It can be configured to become active automatically at system startup. In addition, Quote Init will, if you choose, replace double-dashes (--) with m-bars (—), the Greek dipthongs “oe” and “ae” with “œ” and “æ”. It will even suppress the extra space after the end of sentences that most typists throw in but which look wrong in proportional-spaced fonts. For those with Laserwriters™, you can also have the letter combinations “fi” and “fl” replaced by single characters that look a lot better on the Laserwriter.
HOW TO INSTALL IT:
Quote INIT comes as a modular control panel file. Just drag it into your system folder and restart your Mac — you’re all set! NOTE: you must be using System version 4.1 or higher in order for it to work (this is the first System that came with the modular control panel.)
HOW TO USE IT:
The INIT can be turned on and off from the control panel using the appropriate check boxes. The settings will remain where you put them even when the machine is turned off. For typing convenience, each substitution can be turned on and off by hitting the selected shift-command-key combination. You can chose which key combinations to use from the control panel; the defaults are ones that aren’t used in any commercial applications that I know of. When activated the INIT will give a long beep to tell you it’s working. Upon deactivation the INIT will give a short beep. Activation and deactivation are very rapid, so you can toggle back and forth with ease.
Although the INIT is pretty good at guessing which of the open/close pair you want, it will occasionally make a mistake, particularly if you’ve just used the mouse to move from one part of your text to a remote one. Just backspace and retype the last character or two in order to “reorient” the quote marks.
NOTES ON COMPATABILITY:
As far as I can determine this INIT will work everywhere. Be aware that telecommunications systems and BBS’s generally won’t accept the curly quotes and apostrophes -- turn off the quote substitution if this is a problem. Let me know of any software incompatabilities you find.
This INIT is shareware. If you like it and use it often, please support it by sending me what you think it’s worth ($15 suggested). My address is 44 Boynton St. #3, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. You are encouraged to distribute it, along with this documentation. If you experience major problems with this INIT or think of ways that it might be improved, please write me.
