Desk Pattern is a Control Panel device (cdev) for choosing desktop patterns, and is especially designed to handle direct colour patterns (16 bit and 32 bit, otherwise known as Thousands and Millions of colours). The main reason for using these patterns, aside from how nice they look, is that they can be set to dither, so that they look relatively nice with any number of available colours. Desk Pattern allows a very wide variety of pattern tile sizes.
Desk Pattern is slothware — as most people who will use it would be too slothful to send in money if I asked. If you are not a complete sloth, to become a registered user please send me a DS/HD (1.4Mb) disk of any 32 bit art or patterns you might have created yourself or obtained elsewhere. I do not have much of either, so your effort will not be wasted. I have Photoshop and Stuffit Deluxe to read art files with. A small price to pay for a nice (albeit entirely useless) utility like Desk Pattern. Address all mail to Brian Lowry, 30 Renwick Heights Rd., Ithaca, NY 14850.
Naturally I take no more responsibility for this program than is required by law, so please be careful and, as always, make sure important System files are backed up properly before proceeding. If you have a problem or inquiry, I can be reached either as BrianTTS on America Online, or home at (607) 277-0948 [leave a message if necessary, with an evening phone number]. My name is Brian Lowry, and I'm from Toronto, Canada. I'm currently working on a PhD in Chemical Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
The following documentation is also available through the Control Panel by clicking on the large orange question mark. To get information about Desk Pattern as well (essentially the above text) click on the Desk Pattern logo itself.
To install Desk Pattern, simply place it, and the file Desk Patterns, in the System Folder and it will instantly be available (without restarting) via the Control Panel. Please read the following instructions thoroughly in order to prevent altering or damaging your System or other files unintentionally. Desk Pattern requires a Macintosh with colour Quickdraw (though any monitor is fine - i.e. an SE/30), running System v6.0.5 or later, with 32 bit Quickdraw v1.2 or later installed. For best results, run Desk Pattern in 16 or 32 bit mode whenever possible. While the direction buttons and logo appear reasonably well in lesser colour environments, I've optimized them to perform best with more colours available.
Desk Pattern is not a very complicated utility, but to use it properly a few basic understandings are necessary. First is that installed colour desktop patterns reside in the System file, and that therefore your System file will be altered by installing them. Note that the patterns displayed while using Desk Pattern are not put in the System file unless you install them. Second, there is a hidden on/off control built into the Macintosh for deciding whether or not to use colour patterns, even if one is readily available. Desk Pattern sets this control to on when you exit it in the Control Panel. Some utilities set this control to off for no apparent reason. If your colour patterns do not appear after restarting, try removing any INITs and Control Panel files that affect the colour settings on your Macintosh (except for the files Monitors and Color - they don't present a problem).
Patterns for Desk Pattern are stored in a file called Desk Patterns. The name of this file is very important, so don't alter it. Existing patterns can most easily be moved around using a utility from Apple called ResEdit. Versions 2.1 and later are recommended when working with colour patterns. [The resource type of colour patterns is ppat. The recommended range of IDs is positive numbers from 128 up. If your ppats are numbered consecutively, Desk Pattern will continue the numbering for new patterns.]
The directional buttons at the bottom of the Desk Pattern window allow you to scroll through the possible desktop patterns. As each pattern is selected it is shown on the desktop, but not actually installed as the new desktop pattern. To keep a pattern as the desktop click on the Install button and it will remain the desktop pattern after you quit Desk Pattern. Note that the Install action modifies the System file immediately and that this is not undoable. Clicking on the Original button returns either to the original desktop pattern, or if a new pattern has been installed, the newly installed pattern. This can be handy when dealing with very large pattern selections.
The other controls deal with patterns you create yourself, and are described in full detail below. If you have no intention of ever making you own patterns, then stop reading here.
To edit the simplest of patterns — those containing 256 or fewer colours — the tool of choice is undoubtably ResEdit from Apple (version 2.1 or later). This tool is freely available, so if you can't find it, ask your dealer to copy it onto one of your disks. There is a fairly comprehensive manual dealing with ResEdit, which is published by Addison-Wesley and is inexpensive. The main difficulty with 256 colour patterns in that they are limited in what they can display. Another problem with them is that they typically look poor when fewer colours are available as they don't dither. I expect that a future version of ResEdit will supersede Desk Pattern for editing 16 and 32 bit patterns, but for now those who want to create the best possible patterns will have to use Desk Pattern — see the next help screen for specifics on how to do that.
Desk Pattern does not provide an editing interface for editing 16 and 32 bit patterns, because there are many excellent (or at least passable) programs for doing that. I myself use DeskPaint™ from Zedcor for most editing tasks, but there are other capable programs. Some programs, such as Photoshop™, are excellent for editing existing patterns, but can be overpowered when it comes to creating new originals. When creating new patterns that are not extremely simplistic, I suggest working on a larger image and then shrinking it to the desired size.
To make a new pattern, create an image of the desired size (32x32 or 16x16 is aesthetically pleasing to many). The horizontal and vertical sides must be a power of two (currently 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 are supported). The two sides of the pattern can be different lengths, however (such as 4x8 or 2x32). Images that are inappropriate sizes will not be scaled, and an error message will appear. It is not necessary to create your image in a painting program, or in 16 or 32 bit colour, although getting an image that is just the right size in a drawing program (Canvas, for instance) may be exceedingly difficult.
To convert your new picture to a pattern, copy it (it must be in PICT format - some applications make this difficult), and then paste it into Desk Pattern (the Control Panel window must be frontmost). The pattern is automatically created and saved into the Desk Patterns file in the System Folder. If you make a mistake, then patterns can be removed via ResEdit. The settings of the colour and dithering buttons governs how the new pattern in stored. In general, Thousands of colours will suffice for any image with a large amount of fine detail, while Millions of colours are required for subtler shadings. I would recommend using Millions always unless you are short on disk space or see no visible difference at all between the two settings. The dithering setting controls whether your created pattern will dither automatically. If you do not want dithering then select None and your patterns will not dither. There is no obvious advantage, in speed of drawing or otherwise, to not dithering, but I have faith someone will find a use for this control (please let me know).
Since PICT format currently has trouble with 16 and 32 bit pattern fills, I have not included a copying feature for editing patterns. 256 colour (or less) patterns can be edited in ResEdit. I suggest keeping copies of your patterns as PICT files, and editing the originals as desired. If you absolutely must edit an existing pattern, either wait until colour patterns are supported fully, or work from a screen shot of the desktop , using one of the many commercial and shareware programs for doing this.
