1) PowerBar can grow to use a large (400K or so) chunk of RAM. The more buttons you choose to use, the more RAM you will have to relinquish. This brings up the point that, although toolbars can be quite convenient creatures, there is a point of diminishing return. You end up using a lot of RAM and you have so many buttons that it takes you longer to find the one you want than it would to open the application or document or perform the Finder command the "normal" way. Moderation is the key to efficient use of PowerBar! (NOTE: PowerBar seems to be RAM Doubler friendly!)
2) You cannot install AppleShare volumes on the toolbar. A workaround is to make an alias of the remote volume and install by dragging the alias to the toolbar for installation. Note that the *original* volume should have a custom icon otherwise the button will use the standard generic folder icon. Also note that the alias you dragged to the toolbar should be kept and stashed away somewhere--DO NOTE DELETE IT AS YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE THE TOOLBAR BUTTON IF YOU DO!
--------- Notes for 1.1.4 (10/16/94)
• Fixed bug introduced in 1.1.3 where dragged folders would cause an error alert to be displayed, though the action after drag would proceed normally.
• Fixed bug where key commands would still be present and active, even though the PowerBar menu was not being used.
• Other minor fixes.
--------- Notes for 1.1.3 (8/27/94)
• Updated for compatibility with System 7.5.
• Fixed problem where either the system would freeze or go into a loop when a desktop rebuild was performed or if another process (extension, application, etc.) put up an alert while PowerBar was trying to build the toolbar.
A note about rebuilding the desktop: As mentioned, a fix is in place to correct problems that occurred when rebuilding the desktop. These days there are numerous ways one can rebuild, including via use of several 3rd party utilities. One utility, TechTool from MicroMat, can potentially contribute to a problem with PowerBar and it is recommended that when you use this utility you deactivate PowerBar. Note that the problem is primarily restricted to users who have multiple volumes mounted on the desktop.
• Fixed problem where special commands would become "grayed out" in the dialog list even though they were not installed onto the toolbar.
• Other minor fixes.
• There remains a potential problem with some Fax software. This will be addressed in the next release.
Note: PowerBar should load prior to INITPicker to avoid a conflict.
--------- Notes for 1.1.2 (5/10/94)
• Revised approach in selecting files in the Finder. This benefits the user in three ways:
1) The limitation of 20-30 files that can be operated on at one time has been increased to 150 files. In version 2.0 this limitation will disappear completely.
2) You can now perform activities on files that are selected within a nested folder when viewing a Finder window in a hierarchical format.
-- The one negative effect of this change is that PowerBar will refuse to run on Systems that it doesn't know about. So, for instance, you won't be able to run version 1.1.2 of PowerBar on a system later than 7.1.2 (which comes with Power Macintosh). But naturally I will release a new version of PowerBar to accomodate the new system software as soon as possible after a new system release.
Note that you may still be able to run *earlier* versions of PowerBar on future systems, but then you go back to the file selection limitation in those versions.
• Miscellaneous bug fixes, most notably PowerBar should work fine when PopupFolder is installed.
--------- Notes for 1.1.1 (2/15/94)
• Fixed problems with Drag & Drop for System 7 Pro. Note that to use the Drag & Drop feature of PowerBar with System 7 Pro, you must have Macintosh Drag & Drop (an extension from Apple) installed. I have inquired about licensing Macintosh Drag & Drop from Apple for distribution with this utility, but the expense is too high for now.
• You can now turn off the Hot Spot (that switches you to the Finder) completely.
• You can now press COMMAND-SHIFT while clicking on an application button to get the "Get Info" window for that application. This is a convenient way of changing the application's memory partition rather than having to find the original application by folder navigation.
• Ensured that using the color palette picker would not result in discoloration left
behind when it was closed.
• A conflict with Connectix Desktop Utilities (CDU) and PowerBook Utilities (CPU) has been discovered. To resolve, you must load PowerBar *after* any extensions that these utilities use.
• Cursor should no longer change to a watch during the display of a popup folder menu (which you get when you click on a folder button).
• Cursor should return to the "arrow" after using the color picker palette.
• Help system completely redone. You can now save the help documentation to a file of your own choosing (i.e. Word, WordPerfect, Nisus, WriteNow, etc..) . Any document saved will be a plain TEXT document. The new option of the choice of the file's creator was given because saving the text to a file results in files larger than 32K. That is why you will so no applications that handle only 32K or less in documents (e.g. TeachText).
• Other bug fixes.
--------- Notes for 1.1 (11/5/93)
• PowerBar is now compatible with Now Compress versions 1.0 and 1.0.1.
• PowerBar now checks for the presence of the “PBData” file in a folder named “PowerBar Folder” which must reside in the Preferences Folder. If this file or the PowerBar Folder is not in the correct location, PowerBar will not load. Along the same lines, you cannot open the control panel until you have moved those files to the locations as per the instructions and restarted your Macintosh.
• Old prefs files are deleted and replaced automatically. You lose preferences like toolbar position and colors, but not buttons that have been installed onto the toolbar.
• The drop-launch feature is working a little more reliably than it has in the past.
• Clicking on a folder button while pressing the COMMAND key causes a popup menu of that folder's contents to be displayed. Selecting an item from this popup opens it. Note that this menu is NOT hierarchical (for now?).
• There is now a hotspot. You use this to bring the Finder to the front when it is not. You can select which corner of the monitor (main screen only for those of you with more than one screen) you should move the mouse to in order to bring the Finder to the front (and hence get quick access to PowerBar). This is accessed through the General Preferences dialog (click the ‘Hot Spot’ button).
• When updating PowerLabels in the preferences, *both* PowerLabel menus are updated immediately. When I say both, I mean the Colors menu option available in the PowerBar menu as well as the popup menu available when you click the colorwheel icon on the toolbar.
• Disk pad volume menu no longer shows volumes once they’ve been removed (unmounted).
• If Desktop Database is missing (i.e. you used a utility like TechTools to remove it so that a complete desktop rebuild can occur), the toolbar will have to be built manually! Same is true if an alert is displayed immediately upon startup (as when someone puts up a shareware reminder dialog). Remember you can build the toolbar manually by selecting the first option in the PowerBar menu (which will read “Create Toolbar” when the toolbar has not been built).
• Drag & Drop now works if you have the new Drag & Drop Extension(s) installed. NOTE: If you don't have System 7 Pro, you *must* install the new Finder (1.1.3) and the Drag Enabler Extension for D&D to work with PowerBar and the Drag Manager. Note that this version has not actually been used with System 7 Pro itself (I don't have it yet, nor do any of my testers). I feel 99% certain Drag & Drop will now work with it, but I'm sure one of you "pro" users out there can verify.
• WindowBOSS (previously SUPERWindows) is (re)implemented. It provides a list of open windows per application as well as a stack-windows menu option. See docs for details.
• Fixed a bug where, if you cancelled out of a QuicKey naming dialog (from Special Commands), you crashed with a bang. Not any more!
• OOPS! Only the oldest of PowerBooks seemed to be recognized by PowerBar as being PowerBooks. This has been remedied. Sorry :-/
• Added keyboard navigation of the toolbar. Anything (almost) can be done using the keyboard instead of the mouse. See docs for details.
• Command key equivalents can be changed for most of the PowerBar menu options.
• Current version is always displayed in the control panel (lower right).
--------- Notes for 1.0 (10/9/93)
• First release to the public.
Enjoy!
Scott
----------
Here *was* a list of common Control Panels and Extensions (commercial and otherwise) with which PowerBar has been used successfully (read: without conflict). I have removed the list because in general, PowerBar should be compatible with most other extensions. However, as always, it has not been tested against them ALL so conflicts may arise. That is just the fact of life with extensions! :-) I, of course, will do what I can to eliminate the conflicts if I am made aware of them.
