List Font is a control panel that allows you to change the font and size used in directory dialog file lists, and display the real icons of files in such lists. It requires System 7. If you use it together with my Open-wide program, you will be able to use larger fonts without cramping the list.
I call List Font a hack because it uses undocumented system information, and may break the next time Apple releases a new System.
Displaying the real icons requires querying the desktop database, which may cause noticeable delay and disk activity.
Icon Options
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The basic icon options work much like the choices in Views control panel for the Finder. Choosing the setting above will display tiny generic icons in directory dialogs as usual. If you choose one of the two larger icon settings, you will probably also want to select one or both of the icon display options ╥Show application icons╙ and ╥Show other file icons╙ in order to get non-generic icons. In these cases you can get even more realism in your icons by selecting ╥Use color icons╙ or ╥Use custom icons╙. A custom icon, by the way, is the type that you get by pasting an icon into a Get Info window, not the kind provided by the software vendors. If you use a disk compression utility, you may find that displaying custom icons causes files to be expanded.
The height of each line in the file list is adjusted to be big enough for both the icon size and the font size.
Compatibility
Ñ List Font is compatible with my own Open-wide, and with Now╒s Super Boomerang. Open-wide, version 3.3 or later, knows how to cooperate with List Font, so as to stretch the file list to a height that is a whole multiple of the line height.
Ñ List Font will not work with Norton╒s Directory Assistance II.
Ñ This program is provided as is, and is not guaranteed.
Distribution
List Font is copyrighted freeware. Of course if you *want* to send me some money for it, you can.
List Font may not be sold or offered for sale, or included with another software product offered for sale, except with the express written permission of the author. Companies that distribute public domain/freeware/shareware software for profit are expressly prohibited from distributing List Font. This restriction does not apply to bulletin boards, commercial on-line services such as America Online, CompuServe and GEnie, and nonprofit Macintosh user groups which hold regularly scheduled public meetings.
Author╒s address
E-mail:
CompuServe: 76367,2271
America Online: JWWalker
Internet: walkerj@math.scarolina.edu
Hard mail:
James W. Walker
3200 Heyward Street
Columbia, SC 29205
Acknowledgement
The idea for List Font was suggested to me by Susan Lesch.