October Macintosh Shareware

This month we look at some utility programs which have become minor classics for their established usefulness and stability in extending Mac OS capabilities.

By Steve Cooper

DragThing can display large named icons for each item but, if you're aiming to reduce screen clutter, another approach is necessary. DragThing can be set to display a nameless small system icon for each item, which greatly reduces the screen area occupied by the dock. Further, the dock borders and title can be hidden. You can elect to hide a narrow panel in which the title of each item is displayed as the pointer passes over it. Finally, the entire dock can remain hidden until you move the mouse pointer to a specified corner of the screen.

Icons on a dock can be set to respond to either a single-click or the normal double-click, and there are many other settings available to control the arrangement and appearance of the palette. Hotkeys allow you to Get Info on docked items, reveal them in the Finder, or delete them from the dock.

A separate floating Process Dock goes one better than Apple's Application Switcher, as it can show background processes as well as running applications, thus removing the mystery from some of the Finder's stranger alerts.

Being an application rather than a control panel or extension, DragThing does not conflict with other utilities, and is easily restarted from the Apple Menu if it quits for any reason. Although it uses alias technology, this occurs behind the scenes, and you are not burdened with folders full of aliases requiring occasional attention. With Internet Config 2.0 or Mac OS 8.5, URLs can be stored in DragThing docks, as well as the more usual items.

Clicking a folder visible behind the now movable SF dialog makes it the active folder in the dialog. A 'rebound' feature remembers the last folder and file used in the SF dialog, and you can define a default folder to be the first opened by a given application. Without leaving the SF dialog you can create a new folder, trash or get info on files, and even rename files or change their creators and types. You can also tell Default Folder to open the viewed folder in the Finder.

If you use certain other shareware utilities including DragThing, DragStrip and BeHierarchic, services are shared to provide further functional enhancements.

Unless you own the commercial Action Files, Default Folder could be considered a Mac essential.

At least five levels of submenu are available, depending on the OS version in use, and items on the Apple menu can be grouped and rearranged. Each item can display the small system icon, a generic icon, or none, as you prefer. You may be surprised at how helpful it is to show the small icons in this situation.

Desktop items (including your mounted volumes) may appear in the Apple menu, providing access to all your files at any time. Recent files and folders can be arranged more flexibly, too.

A welcome feature is one that allows you to have your Apple menu and its submenus displayed in something less eye-popping than Charcoal 12. (Geneva 10 is good on a mid-size monitor.)

If you are a fan of 'hotkeys', BeHierarchic allows these to trigger a number of actions on menu items, such as getting info and opening with frontmost application.

BeHierarchic can extend its hierarchical menus to certain other shareware utilities, including KeyQuencer, AliasMenu and Default Folder, and is a perfect companion for FinderPop, which provides hierarchical contextual menus in the Finder.

Since it does not require an application to be launched, Snitch is probably the quickest method of changing file type and creator codes, using a code list which you can easily add to by example or by direct entry. It can apply such changes to a batch of files if required.

From within Snitch you can locate invisible files and make them visible -- an essential capability for general troubleshooting. Additional plug-ins are available from time to time, from the developer's Web site.

Included functions are screen resolution and colour depth, comprehensive audio CD control, sound level, PPP connection/disconnection and status display, AppleTalk and File Sharing switching, and quick access to the Open Transport control panel group. All these functions are accessed from a neat menu under an icon at the right-hand end of the menu bar, using submenus to access particular settings.

This is not, however, the end of the story. ColorSwitch enables you to define sets of particular settings of all these controls, which may be switched in unison by using a 'shortcut' menu item within the ColorSwitch menu. In concept, this is like the Location Manager, but even if you have this Apple utility, it does not cover display settings as ColorSwitch does.

There are numerous utilities which provide alternative ways of accessing Mac OS functions. Whether or not they are useful depends on your particular system setup and way of working. ColorSwitch integrates a number of common functions elegantly and efficiently, particularly for those using something less than the latest system.

If you choose to display titles rather than icons for your new menus, and your menu bar becomes too crowded, all menu titles are displayed in condensed type.

Usefully, you can easily construct a group of applications and/or documents to be launched as a set from a single menu item. You can also specify the order of menus on the menu bar, and of the items within each menu.

Configuring all this involves nothing more than making an appropriately-named folder for each menu, placing an alias for each menu item in a folder, and placing the folders in the AliasMenu folder. A simple numbering scheme establishes display order. The results of your efforts are visible in real time, and can easily be amended.

AliasMenu is essentially just another launcher, but if your inclination is towards menu control of such functions, it could be just what you're looking for.