MacFormat 1994 August

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••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Greg's Buttons 3.3 (29 May 1994) ©1991-94 Gregory D. Landweber Internet: gdl@maths.ox.ac.uk ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CompuServe: 73131,3326 REGISTRATION FEE: US $15 or UK £10 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Greg's Buttons is a control panel that lets you customize the user interface of a Macintosh running System 7™. Greg's Buttons requires that your Mac support color, so it won't work on the Plus, SE, Classic, or PowerBook 100. It works fine with both color and gray-scale monitors, and although it will still work on a black and white screen, the effect won't be as impressive. LIST OF FEATURES ================= • Replaces the standard flat black and white push buttons, check boxes, and radio buttons with tasteful 3-D color ones. These buttons are designed to complement the windows and scroll bars in the System 7 interface, and in particular they use the color tints that you can select in the "Color" control panel. You can choose from two styles of push buttons and three styles each of radio buttons and check boxes. There is also an option to draw the text of push buttons using an "embossed" style. • Substitutes a font of your choice (chosen from two versions each of Palatino and Helvetica) for Chicago as your system font. The system font is used in menus, window titles, dialogs, and several other places throughout the Mac interface. Note that this feature does not just change the menu font. Also note that this feature has nothing to do with the "Views" control panel, which changes the font in Finder™ windows. • Lets you select the background color of dialog boxes, menus (both the text and background colors), and Finder™ windows. Since the dialog box colorization feature is known to cause some unavoidable conflicts, there is an "Exclude Applications…" button which lets you specify applications in which the dialog boxes should not be colorized. • If you have Macintosh Easy Open or Hardware System Update 3.0, then you may have noticed that the new small icons in the Open... and Save... boxes are in color in some applications and black and white in others. When the dialog box background color feature of Greg's Buttons is turned on, these small icons will always be drawn in color (except in the excluded applications). If you want color small icons but are not partial to color dialog backgrounds, you can set the color to white. • Colorizes the mini icons in Finder™ list views (i.e., view by name, etc.). (This feature is enabled only under Systems 7.0, 7.0.1 or 7.1.) • Colorizes the stop sign, caution, and note alert icons. CHANGES SINCE v3.2 =================== • The button drawing routines are now "fat", containing both 680x0 and PowerPC code for optimal performance on both Macs and Power Macs. I introduced "fat" trap patches in version 3.2, and now Greg's Buttons is as PowerPC-savvy as it is going to get. If you have a 680x0 Mac and want to save 14K, I provide instructions for removing the PowerPC code. • Fixed the long standing bug with At Ease which disabled the Finder window colorization feature and would cause the Finder to quit when attempting to open the Greg's Buttons control panel. • Fixed an instability in the trap patches (introduced in version 3.2) that tended to cause crashes at startup or shortly thereafter. The only program that consistently triggered this problem was SndControl, but I suspect that this will fix most of the other problems people reported. • Fixed another instability (also introduced in version 3.2) with one of the trap patches. This problem manifested itself when you tried to run an updater application made with UpdateMaker (such as the BBEdit updater), in which case the application would do nothing and quit immediately. • Version 3.2 accidentally patched a PowerPC trap using only 680x0 code. This particular patch is no longer installed on PowerMacs (since it did not do anything on PowerMacs anyway). Special thanks go to the two people who notified me when Conflict Catcher caught this anomaly. • Fixed a bug (introduced in version 3.2) with the exclusion list for the dialog box colorization feature. The most notable consequence was that SpaceWard Ho! would position some of its dialog boxes off the screen. RESEDIT HACKING ================= If you are using Greg's Buttons on a 680x0-based non-Power Mac, you can chop out the PowerPC code to save yourself 14k of disk space. All you need to do is open up a COPY of Greg's Buttons (I cannot stress this enough since the active Greg's Buttons file can become corrupted if opened with ResEdit) and remove the resource of type "PACH" and ID #129, which will be named "PowerPC Patches". This single resource contains all of the PowerPC code for both the trap patches and the button drawing routines. The resulting lobotomized version will still run on a PowerMac; it will just use the existing 680x0 code under emulation. I don't know why anybody would want to do this, but I expected someone would ask. Please note that you should NOT under any circumstances remove the other "PACH" resource named "68k Patches". This resource is needed on BOTH Macs and Power Macs, and Greg's Buttons will not load at startup if it cannot find this resource. KNOWN PROBLEMS ================= Greg's Buttons does some serious fiddling with the Mac user interface. Applications often make invalid assumptions about their operating environment which no longer hold when you customize your Mac. Since the programmers did not forsee these changes, and since they never had the opportunity to test their products with Greg's Buttons, there are bound to be some conflicts. In most cases, these are not the fault of Greg's Buttons, but if I find out about them, I will try my best to work around such problems. Here are some of the most common examples: PlainTalk --------- • I am told that Greg's Buttons disables PlainTalk voice recognition in some dialog boxes. I have no idea what is causing this problem. Sorry. I'll try my best to fix it, but that's rather difficult without an AV Mac. Keys! ------ • The "System 7 Color Buttons" feature conflicts with the control panel "Keys!". When both are turned on, your buttons will revert to the standard black and white ones. This conflict cannot be resolved, so if you want both 3D buttons and keyboard control, try "Escapade" instead of "Keys!". Ritz Software ------------- • The "System 7 Color Buttons" feature conflicts with the programs from Ritz Software Ltd. This is a due to a bug in their software, not mine, and I have spoken with them, explaining how they can fix it. MasterJuggler ------------- • The "Substitute System Font" feature will not function properly with MasterJuggler version 1.57c or earlier, but it should work fine with version 1.58. Contact ALSoft for an upgrade. Directory Assistance II ---------------------- • I am told that Directory Assistance II prevents Greg's Buttons from colorizing the "New Folder..." button in the "Save as..." dialog box. It seems that Directory Assistance II is overriding the normal button drawing routines and is substituting its own custom black and white version. I am afraid that there is nothing I can do about this. Sorry. theTypeBook ------------ • When Greg's Buttons is installed, theTypeBook will generate a font error message, reporting "System Heap bit set: Font not loaded" for the ".Cambridge" FOND. This is nothing to be concerned about, and you can disable theTypeBook's font error checking using its "Other Options" dialog box (obtained by holding down the option key and selecting the "File" menu). MacWrite II ----------- • When the "Substitute System Font" feature is enabled, the "File", "Edit", "Size", "Style", and "Format" menus in MacWrite II may freeze closed and refuse to pull down when you click on them. To fix this problem, switch to one of the "(Chicago Spacing)" versions of the substitute system font. This is a bug in the menu drawing routines in MacWrite II. • If the "Font" menu in MacWrite II freezes closed, you should remove the "Claris Fonts" file in your system folder (possibly in a subfolder named "Claris") to force MacWrite II to reconstruct its 'Font" menu the next time you launch it. This is also a bug in MacWrite II. Canvas ------- • When the "Substitute System Font" feature is enabled, some of the menu items in Canvas may be "blurred" when you drag the mouse over them. To fix this problem, either turn off the "Substitute System Font" feature or selct the "Helvetica 12 (Chicago Spacing)" font. This is a bug in Canvas. America Online -------------- • I have heard that the buttons in AOL remain flat. This is not a bug in Greg's Buttons. Rather, AOL bypasses the usual button routines in favor of its own custom routines that look like the old style buttons while behaving slightly differently when pushed. There is nothing I can do about such applications that insist on using non-standard buttons. Alarm Clock DA --------------- • The Alarm Clock DA does not work properly with the "(Normal Spacing)" substitute system fonts. Use the "(Chicago Spacing)" fonts instead. I think Apple has fixed this problem with the System 7.1 Alarm Clock. WriteNow ---------- • If you try to use the Balloon Help for the Greg's Buttons control panel while WriteNow 3.0 is running, you may encounter spurious help balloons flashing on and off while you drag the mouse over Greg's Buttons. This happens with any control panel, and it appears to be a bug in WriteNow. Microsoft Graph --------------- • The Microsoft Graph module seems to override the System 7 Color Buttons feature. As far as I can tell, MSGraph bypasses the standard button drawing (and window dragging) routines in favor of its own, which look and behave just like the standard ones. It also uses non-standard windows without a close box, and it takes over a strip at the bottom of the screen for a status bar. Why can't Microsoft do things the Apple way like everybody else? COMMENTS and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) ============================================== If Greg's Buttons causes problems on your Mac, try disabling its features one-by-one until the problem goes away. Most likely, the problem is caused by only one of the many features, and the rest of the features will work fine for you. In particular, any problem relating to dialog boxes is probably caused by the dialog box colorization feature, while a problem involving menus is most likely due to either the substitute system font or the menu colorization feature. The buttons themselves are exremely stable. "Substitute System Font" Feature ------------------------------- • Several programs, such as Canvas, MacWrite II, and the Alarm Clock DA do not bother to check the system font spacing, assuming the spacing for Chicago. As a result, they do not work properly with the "Normal Spacing" versions of the substitute system fonts. In order to maintain compatibility with such programs, I have included a "Chicago Spacing" version which uses spacing similar to Chicago. You may notice, however, that the numbers will appear oddly spaced in this version of the font. • No, it is not possible to substitute an arbitrary font for the system font. The font has to be tweaked rather significantly in order for it to work reliably. If you have a pet font that you'd like to see added to the list of alternate system fonts in Greg's Buttons, let me know via e-mail. • When you switch system fonts, the menus may not adjust to the new font spacing immediately. This will be fixed when the menu bar is redrawn. • Note that thin fonts, such as "Helvetica 12" and "Palatino 12" will be illegible when dimmed or grayed-out on a black and white monitor. • The "Palatino 14" substitute system font is a little to big to work well as a system font. Push buttons may appear cramped, and text might not always fit properly in dialog boxes. On the other hand, I think this font looks great on large screens, and I am willing to ignore such glitches. "Alerts and Dialog Boxes" Background Color Feature ----------------------------------------------- • Some applications assume that they are dealing with a black and white dialog box while Greg's Buttons substitutes a color one. The difference is enough to cause some odd behavior. There is no way to fix such conflicts without rewriting parts of the offending applications. However, you can specify applications to be excluded from this feature by clicking the "Exclude Applications..." button and adding the application to the exclusion list. The list includes Microsoft Word, Canvas, Help!, and Disk First Aid. • For some choices of the dialog box background color, the text insertion cursor may be drawn in a just barely visible color. This is the result of the brain-dead routines the Mac uses to figure out a "suitable" inverse (it thinks light yellow shows up well against a light gray, for instance). To get around this, try changing the dialog box background color very slightly, and the inverse routine may arbitrarily pick a better color. • When dialog colorization is turned on, you may notice that alert boxes (the kind with the stop sign, caution, or note icon in the top-left corner) are drawn with a grayed-out border. This is a documented bug in the system software, and Apple intends to fix it in a future release. "Menu Bar and Menus" Color Feature -------------------------------- • If you have used another control panel (such as "Aurora" or "Kolor 2.0") to color your menu bar, your previous menu color settings will override the settings in the Greg's Buttons control panel. If you want to use the menu colorization feature in Greg's Buttons instead, use the other control panel to set the menu colors back to black and white. Greg's Buttons will then remove the color information from the system file and substitute its own. • If your monitor is in 16-bit mode (thousands of colors) and you colorize your menus, you may encounter gibberish in the menu bar when you launch an application. This is not a bug in Greg's Buttons (or Aurora or Kolor for that matter), but rather a bug in the system software. "Finder Window Color" Feature ---------------------------- • When you quit from an application that modifies the system color palette, some Finder windows may be left with sploches of random colors in them. This will go away as soon as the offending windows are re-drawn. This annoyance is inherent to the system and there is nothing I can do about it. "System 7 Color Buttons" Feature ------------------------------- • The third radio button dot style uses the highlight color that you can select in the "Color" control panel. • Occasionally, you may find that push button titles are "fuzzy", "blocky" or "blurred". This has been known to happen in Word, the HP DeskWriter dialog box, and Alias Director. This problem will go away if you turn off the "Embossed Push Button Text". "Finder Mini-Icon" Colorization Feature ------------------------------------ • If you are using System 7.0, 7.0.1 or 7.1, then Greg's Buttons will automatically colorize the mini icons (the smallest size you can select in the "Views" control panel) in Finder lists. If you are using System 7 Pro or any version after System 7.1, then this feature will be disabled. Nothing bad will happen; your mini-icons will just stay black and white. I do not plan to re-implement this feature for future system versions. • Former versions of Greg's Buttons had a check box letting you turn this feature on or off. However, considering that the trap patch is relatively innocuous and is already loaded into memory, I see no reason to disable it. REGISTRATION ============== "Greg's Buttons" is SHAREWARE. You may try it out for ten days. If after that time, you think it is a frivolous waste of processor time and disk space, just take a good look at your Mac without Greg's Buttons. It will look dull, Dull, DULL! If you want to keep it, you should register as follows: Shareware Fees --------------- • Single Machine License — US$15 / UK£10 • 2 - 14 Machine License — US$10 / UK£6 per machine • Unlimited Site License — US$150 / UK£100 Methods of Payment ------------------- • US Dollars, either by check (drawn on a US bank), postal money order, or cash sent to my home address in the USA: Gregory D. Landweber 10 Wallingford Drive Princeton, NJ 08540 • UK Pounds Sterling, either by cheque (drawn on a UK bank), EuroCheque, or cash sent to my university address in England (until 31 August 1994): G. D. Landweber New College Oxford OX1 3BN • Please do not send EuroCheques in US$ as the USA is not a European country and such cheques are not valid there. If you want to send a EuroCheque, make it out in UK£ and send it to my British address. • Please do not send any currencies other than US$ or UK£. Please make the check payable to me, "Gregory D. Landweber", NOT to "Greg's Buttons". With your payment please include your e-mail address (preferably internet), the version number, and where you got your copy. You can also register online using CompuServe (in which case CompuServe gets 15% of the fee) by typing "GO SWREG" and following the instructions to register shareware. The registration ID for Greg's Buttons is #1277. After Registering ----------------- • There are no passwords, enabling codes, or registration numbers. Once you have registered, you are entitled to feel good about yourself and to turn off the "Annoying Shareware Message" check box. You will NOT get any feedback from me to acknowledge receipt of your shareware payment. Please do not worry whether I got your money. If you sent a check, you'll find out from your bank, and if you sent cash, well, it's the thought that counts, isn't it! Having paid once, you will never have to pay me anything again, even if I add zillions of features and raise the shareware fee. • If you obtained this version from an online service, BBS, or User's Group, then you should be able to obtain any and all new releases from the same souce. If you got this version from a CD-ROM or bundled with a book, and if you have no other way of acquiring the latest update, send me a politely worded letter explaining your predicament. If the version you are using is sufficiently out-of-date, I will eventually send you the most recent one. Please do NOT mail me floppy disks or extra money and then complain that I do not reply. I'm a mathematician, not a commercial software publisher. • I will gladly e-mail a binhex'd copy of the latest version of Greg's Buttons to anyone who e-mails me a request. I can only send the file to addresses on CompuServe, AOL, or the Internet. The file is too large to cross the gateway to AppleLink. Sorry. DISTRIBUTION ============== This software is NOT in the public domain; rather it is Copyright ©1994 by Gregory D. Landweber. You may freely copy and distribute this software, provided that it you do not charge for it. This software MAY be included in any disk or CD-ROM library of public domain and shareware software sold by a NON-PROFIT organization. This software MAY NOT be included in any commercial software collection sold for profit, nor may it be bundled with any commercial software, hardware, books, or other media without the prior written consent of the author. Whenever it is distributed, the "Greg's Buttons" control panel must be accompanied by this documentation file IN FULL. DISCLAIMER ============ The author, Gregory D. Landweber, makes no warranties, either express or implied, regarding the fitness of the "Greg's Buttons" control panel for any particular purpose. Use the "Greg's Buttons" control panel at your own risk. The author claims no liability for data loss or any other problems caused directly or indirectly by the "Greg's Buttons" control panel.