Sig Software presents…
Drop Drawers version 1.0.1

Introduction

Drop Drawers is a revolutionary user-interface enhancement which provides floating pull-out, snap-shut drawers on the sides of your screen to store text, URLs, aliases, pictures, sounds, movies and anything else.

Examples of things you can store in a drawer :

• Aliases to frequently-used files, applications and folders.
• URLs for web sites you often visit.
• Snippets of text information you could otherwise forget.
• A catalogue of thumbnails for image files.
• Email addresses for individuals you often contact.
• Multimedia formats including pictures, movies and sounds.
• Styled text phrases for easy dropping into your documents.
• Absolutely anything you can copy via the clipboard or drag and drop.

Information in a drawer can also be worked with. For example, styled text can be edited, applications and folders can be dragged onto, URLs can be opened and sounds and movies can be played.

Drop Drawers works seamlessly with any Mac OS application supporting drag and drop. It is not just another floating application launcher, although it fulfils all those functions too.

Requirements

• Mac OS System 7 or later.
• Mac OS System 7.5.3 or later for full drag-and-drop support.

Memory Usage

Drop Drawers' default memory allocation is 1Mb but it can be set as low as 256k or as high as you like. This memory is used for drawer data – less memory means more disk access. Drawer offscreen graphics are stored separately in system memory which will be reclaimed by the system when needed. In modern systems, memory shown for Drop Drawers in the About This Computer window will be the total of these two allocations. 

Acknowledgements

The following code has been at least partially integrated into Drop Drawers:

• Sig Software's home-grown MADE application framework – http://www.sigsoftware.com/made/
• Matt Slot's appeWindows floating windows framework – http://www.sils.umich.edu/~fprefect/
• James Walker's Find Icon tool – http://users.aol.com/jwwalker/
• Marco Piovanelli's WASTE text editing framework – http://www.boingo.com/waste/
• Jim Stout's Slider CDEF – [no URL supplied in documentation]

The installer for Drop Drawers was created using Installer VISE from MindVision Software.
For more information on Installer VISE, contact:

MindVision Software
7201 North 7th Street
Lincoln, NE 68521-8913
Voice: 402-477-3269
Fax: 402-477-1395
Internet: mindvision@mindvision.com
http://www.mindvision.com

Finally, greatest thanks of all to our public beta testers – hundreds of helpful reports were received.

© Sig Software — http://www.sigsoftware.com/
Any distribution of the Drop Drawers application must include this file. No responsibility about Drop Drawers' functionality or integrity is implied. This document and the Drop Drawers application are copyright of the author.

Version 1.0.1 – 20th September 1999
• Several minor bug fixes and tweaks.

Version 1.0 – 30th August 1999
• Added command-arrow pixel nudging.
• Added alias or file spec retargeting.
• Several minor fixes from Public Beta 3.

Public Beta 3 — 24th August 1999
• Auto-detection of URLs and email addresses.
• Improved arranging with arrange last command, even spreading and always arrange options.
• Finder Icons cached within drawers for faster redrawing.
• Added option to single-click launch aliases and URLs.
• Added drawer-specific item display options.
• Over 80 other minor fixes and improvements.

Public Beta 2 — 16th August 1999
• Ability to drag files onto applications or folders in drawers.
• More color options and tab styles for drawers.
• Added support for QuickTime image thumbnail previews.
• Easy drawer moving and renaming.
• Added built-in styled text editor.
• Many more arranging options.
• Added Undo for all actions.
• Any items including files can be given names.
• 100s of other minor fixes and improvements.

Public Beta 1 — 26th July 1999
• Initial release.

About TSM Fix

This text is part of the TSM Fix package – the TSM Fix extension will have been installed in your Extensions folder.

Short Form:
This INIT fixes the jGNEFilter "Missing Clicks" bug, by head *and* tail patching GetNextEvent.

Long Form:
The operating system give low-level programmers a mechanism (called the jGNEFilter) for intercepting user events (mouse clicks, key downs, etc) and "filtering" or modifying them before the computer processes them. Many system extens:ons use this hook to implement special functionality in your computer -- such as SuperClock and ObiWan -- and work transparently to the user.

Since System 7.0, the operating system became much more complex. Now the system has to manage multiple applications at once and feed the right events to the right programs. Occasionally, one of these events does not get sent through the filter as it should -- and the programs checking events never have a chance to handle them properly. Typically, this is seen when programs implement special windows or window parts -- clicks that are destined for interception are passed straight through to the next window.

This system extension remedies the problem by checking events as they are presented to the running programs. If an event has not passed through the installed filters, this extension sends it to be filtered before returning.

The name "TSM Fix" comes from the fact that programs using the "Text Services Manager" (TSM) floating windows typically use the jGNEFilter to find clicks -- and the extension fixes the system bug.

Installing:
Simply drop the extension onto the System Folder (it will be placed in the extensions folder). There will be no visible feedback, but on restart you should never experience that "Missing Clicks" thing.

Distribution:
I wrote this to fix a bug that was plaguing users of certain programs I had written. I hope that it becomes widely used, so it is free to use and distribute. Also, if you have written software that suffers from such "Missing Clicks", you can freely add this extension and readme to your distribution. (Drop me a line if you do so... so I can send you an update as necessary).

Changes in 1.01:
 * Fixed incompatibility with After Dark 3.0. (They set the jGNEFilter to zero -- hmmm, isn't that a bad thing?) Thanks to Eric Hon-Anderson.

Changes in 1.02:
 * Fixed incompatibility with certain extensions and debuggers that create processes before the Finder launches and sets up the Process Manager.

Changes in 1.03:
 * Fixed another incompatibility with Optimem RAM Charger and Jasik's Debugger. This should take care of all your problems!
 * Started flushing the cache when necessary.

Matt Slot, fprefect@umich.edu - 7/25/95