Technote 1163

Mac OS 8.6

This technote discusses changes in and corrections to the next generation of Mac OS: Mac OS 8.6. This system follows Mac OS 8.5.1 (the majority of whose features are found in Mac OS 8.5) and contains several new and revised features, including:

• improved multiprocessor support
• support for new Apple CPUs
• improved QuickDraw Text performance
• better MRJ performance
• bug fixes

Revision History

Hardware Requirements

• End user and administrator features/bug fixes:
  
  
  • Support for large volumes - support has been added to allow installation on volumes larger than 12 GB.
    
    
  • Support for USB drives - floppies in USB drives can now be ejected.
    
    
  • Appearance - more consistent with the system look and feel.
    
    
• Developer and scriptwriter features/bug fixes:
  
  
  • Name Registry support in rules - rules have access to information in the Name Registry.
    
    
  • Finder XFileInfo - the Finder Extended flags are saved and restored during an installation.
    
    
• Better handling of creating folders in action atoms - empty folders created in action atoms are not deleted.
  
  

• A problem on some PowerBooks where icons in the main drive window would not be drawn when it was opened after the main drive was spun down has been corrected.
  
  
• A problem that could occur when copying a number of files from a Sherlock window to a folder containing some of the files being copied has been corrected. In these cases, Sherlock would ask if the duplicate items are to be replaced. If the user responded "yes", then Sherlock would proceed to delete them before the copy (and the copy would fail since some of the source items were deleted).
  
  
• A problem where a crash could occur in the Finder when an attempt was made to use an alias file referring to an object on a volume that had been unmounted since the last time the alias was used has been corrected.
  
  

Apple Guide 2.4.1

• Support for guides that can open HTML help with Help Viewer. To indicate that Apple Guide should use the Help Viewer to open a document, an HTML resource of ID 1000 is placed in the guide along with a named 'TEXT' resource that matches the menu name. If the path points to a file of type 'TEXT', then it is opened with Help Viewer. If the path points to a file of type 'APPL', then it is launched. AGOpenWithSearch has been modified so that the search string is used to retrieve the 'TEXT' resource with the same name. It then follows the same rules as mentioned above. There is now support for AGOpen: when called, it performs the same function as if the guide had been selected from the Help menu.
  
  
• OpenNamedSequence Scripting Interface: Using AppleScript or AppleEvents, sequences may now be opened by name. To use this functionality, guides must be compiled with AGVAT 1.0b11 or later; the 'MnMp' resource from the Guidemaker 2.0 SYM file is NOT compatible.
  
  

Help Viewer 1.2

• Adds support for a larger subset of the HTML 3.2 standard in HTML files.
  
  
• Adds support for QuickTime by way of the <embed> tag. The <embed> tag is typically used for plug-ins, but only QuickTime movie files are supported at this time.
  
  
• Aliases can be placed in the Help folder to reference help content on a CD or server. Aliases may be placed at any level inside the System Help folder; however, it is highly recommended that aliases are implemented by aliasing the entire help folder or by aliasing the content (with the exception of files containing Apple Help META-TAG information and Apple Help indexes).
  
  
• Addresses issues associated with having books of different languages installed in the Help Viewer. These issues stem from the fact that content developers need to be able to specify the font for a dynamic Table of Content entry. Other issues stem from the fact that different AIAT Analysis algorithms are used based on the indexing language of the help content.
  
  
• A new developer SDK.
  
  

ATSUI (Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging) 1.1

• Client control over heap allocation: This change allows clients to select the heap in which ATSUI memory allocations are made.
  
  
• Client control over font fallbacks: In version 1.0, clients can tell ATSUI to use a fallback font to image any glyph that it is not in the font referenced by the attribute run. However, they do not have any control over which font is selected. Clients are now able to specify the font that ATSUI uses for fallbacks and to assign priorities by Unicode range (for example, the Unicode Japanese character range should default to the Osaka font).
  
  
• Access to individual line controls is now available, allowing clients to more easily implement features such as tabs, indentation, and text flow around embedded graphics.
  
  
• Several new APIs have been introduced, filling gaps in the original API.
  
  
• Additional elements have been added to the ATSUI API allowing for control over character kerning in individual style runs of text.
  
  

Dvorak Keyboard Layouts, 1.0

• Version 1.0 of the Dvorak keyboard layouts are included in the System file. They may be selected by the user in the Keyboard control panel.
  
  

Edition Manager

• It was possible for the Edition Manager to crash in calls to GoToPublisherSection. This problem has been corrected.
  
  

Event Manager

• On entry to a jGNE filter routine there is a pointer to an EventRecord in register A1 and a Boolean value hasEvent in the stack. Historically, hasEvent has been set to "true" whenever the event record pointed to, in A1, contains an event (i.e., is not a nullEvent); however, in Mac OS 8.5 and later this may not always be the case.
  
  

File Manager

• Asynchronous File Manager requests that are made to the HFS/HFS+ file system, made at interrupt time, or made when the File Manager is not busy handling another request are executed immediately if they do not require access to the disk drive to complete the request. In earlier system releases, those requests were run from a deferred task. Asynchronous File Manager requests made at interrupt time to foreign file systems, or that require access to the disk drive, still run from a deferred task. The change removes unneeded latency in many cases.
  
  
• The disk cache's flush task (see The File Manager section in the Mac OS 7.6 technote) now calls FlushVol to flush cached volume blocks if the kVCBFlagsIdleFlushBit and the kVCBFlagsVolumeDirtyBit are both set in the volume's vcbFlags word. This ensures data stored in Volume Control Blocks (VCBs) and File Control Blocks (FCBs), but not yet written to the disk cache, is flushed to disk. The kVCBFlagsIdleFlushBit is set on HFS and HFS+ volumes. Foreign File Systems may set the kVCBFlagsIdleFlushBit in their volumes' vcbFlags if they want the same behavior from the disk cache's flush task.
  
  

Folder Manager

Font Manager

• Improved Font Manager stability when there are hundreds of fonts in the Fonts folder.
  
  

Locales

• Facilities are provided for retrieving parameters that can be used in conjunction with the Unicode Text Utilities for collating text.
  
  
• Locales can be used for enumerating supported locales for particular types of operations, retrieving user visible names for locales, and retrieving user visible names for operation classes.
  
  
• Information for each locale is stored in a separate file in the Locales folder (kLocalesFolderType = 'ƒloc', located in the System Folder).
  
  

Menu Manager

• The menus in some applications would not work correctly the first time they were used with the mouse. These applications were relying on an undocumented behavior found in previous versions of the menu manager. The menu manager has been modified so these applications work correctly.
  
  
• To improve menu bar drawing performance, the menu bar drawing routines now use a cached off-screen GWorld rather than allocating and disposing of one every time the menu bar is drawn.
  
  
• Menu drawing for long, scrolling menus has been sped up.
  
  
• A problem where menus would not redraw or scroll correctly after monitor resolution changes has been corrected.
  
  
• A problem where the default extended menu attributes could become corrupted when loading a menu with extended attributes has been corrected.
  
  
• The Menu Manager no longer reads from address "zero" while tracking empty menus.
  
  
• Menus now redraw correctly when video mirroring is turned on.
  
  
• Menus were not being redrawn correctly after a menu item's mark was changed. This has been corrected.
  
  
• The menu size is now calculated correctly after calls to AppendMenuItemText, InsertMenuItemText, or SetItemCmd.
  
  
• In Mac OS 8.5, calling DeleteMenuItem for one of the first 31 menu items in a menu that has more than 31 items would damage the enable state for the menu item moved to the 31st position. Similarly, calling InsertMenuItem to insert items before position 32 in a menu that has 31 or more items would damage the enable state for the menu item moved to the 32nd position. These problems have been corrected.
  
  
• The routines HideMenuBar and ShowMenuBar were not recalculating the desktop region correctly. Now they do.
  
  

Memory Manager

QuickDraw Text

• A variety of QuickDraw Text bug fixes related to drawing text at large font sizes (greater than 200 point) have been added. This allows drawing of antialiased text over 200 point.
  
  
• DrawString performance has been improved.
  
  
• The size of the font table fragment cache has been changed to accommodate larger, more complex fonts. Normally, when the font table fragment cache is allocated, its size used to be determined by computation purely based on available physical RAM. This determination gave a default size of 144K cache for systems with up to 48MB of RAM, 216K for systems with up to 96MB of RAM, and 288K above that. While this works well for simple Latin fonts, there are some fonts that are so complex that they exceeded this cache size. There was no recourse in these cases; the font would not render correctly, because the entire metamorphosis table could not be loaded all at once. So the system now checks for the presence of an optional 'fcsz' resource, 4 bytes long, which contains an override to the calculated limit described above. The value in this resource may be whatever is desired; however, there are two constraints. First, if the value in the resource is less than the calculated value, then the calculated value is used and the resource value is ignored. Second, the value in the resource is constrained to being no greater than 1/16th the size of physical RAM. If the resource value is greater than this, it will be reduced to exactly this value.
  
  
• The new calls SetAntialiasedTextEnabled, IsAntiAliasedTextEnabled, QDTextBounds, and FetchFontInfo have been added to InterfaceLib. These routines are documented in the Mac OS 8.5 technote.
  
  

• A variety of bug fixes allowing ATM to behave correctly in the system.
  
  
• A number of bugs affecting the drawing and measurement of double-byte text were fixed.
  
  

SCSI Manager

Sound Manager

• SetSoundVol and GetSoundVol are no longer supported and have been removed from the interfaces. The implementation for SetSoundVol and GetSoundVol has been changed for PPC code to call the newer interfaces, GetDefaultOutputVolume and SetDefaultOutputVolume. The 68k implementation has been removed from Interface.o. Applications that have already been compiled and use these routines will continue to work in Mac OS 8.6; however, they will not recompile until these calls are replaced.
  
  

Text Encoding Converter 1.4.3

• The TextCommon and UnicodeConverter shared libraries that were formerly included in the Text Encoding Converter extension are now present in the System file. As a result, the Text Encoding Converter extension is no longer required in the Extensions folder for the system to boot correctly, even though the Finder may issue an incorrect alert when it is not present; however, the TEC extension is still present in the Extensions folder for compability with existing applications (as it contains the TextEncodingConverter shared library).
  
  

Text Services Manager

Thread Manager

• A problem in the Thread Manager where any faceless background application supplying a thread termination procedure would crash when it was quit if 68K floating point emulation software was installed has been corrected. (Typically, this crash would only happen at restart, since this is the only time when a faceless background application is normally quit.)
  
  

Unicode Text Utilities 1.0

• Unicode Text Utilities are included in the System file.
  
  

USB Interface Module (UIM)

Virtual Memory Manager

• The minimum size setting for virtual memory is now 32 MB, or 1 MB plus the size of physical RAM, whichever is greater.
  
  
• By default, a clean install of Mac OS 8.6 will turn virtual memory on with its size set to 64 MB or 1 MB plus the size of physical RAM, whichever is greater.
  
  
• Virtual memory settings are preserved (or adjusted to the 32 MB minimum if they were lower than 32 MB) when installing over Mac OS 8.5 or Mac OS 8.5.1.
  
  
• A potential crashing problem that could occur when LockMemoryContiguous was used on the System heap was fixed by locking a critical section of memory used by the Virtual Memory Manager.
  
  

Window Manager

• SetWindowProxy calls no longer change the current GrafPort.
  
  
• Desktop pictures no longer draw very slowly on machines with more than 700 megs of RAM.
  
  
• Floating window support is now fully implemented.
  
  
• Fixed a bug with video mirroring that could cause gray pixels to be copied to a color monitor in certain situations.
  
  
• In Mac OS 8.5 and Mac OS 8.5.1, DragHook was not being called during calls to GrowWindow. This has been corrected.
  
  

• This is a newly designed control panel with tabs for Profile, CMM, Calibration, and About. The About Box is similar to the QuickTime control panel,is used to display the URLs to the ColorSync and some third party web sites.
  
  

• On computers capable of booting from a network, the Startup Disk control panel now displays a "Network Disk" icon that a user can select in order to boot from the network.
  
  
• The Startup Disk control panel will also display a "Local Disk" icon on computers that have been net booted. This allows a machine that has been booted from the network to be booted from the internal drive even when all of the internal drives have been "hidden" via the NetBoot Drive Unmounter extension (which a network administrator may have done for all net booted computers). Choosing this item actually sets the boot device to the empty (default) string, which results in booting from the internal hard drive if one is installed and contains a blessed system folder.
  
  

• DVD-RAM disks can now be formatted as HFS & HFS+.
  
  

• A memory leak that could occur while scripts are being compiled has been removed.
  
  
• A 60-second timeout for error notifications in Folder Actions has been added.
  
  
• The degrees Kelvin unit type has been added.
  
  
• Folder Actions can no longer be attached to invisible folders.
  
  
• An infinite loop could occur when attaching the folder action "add-reject added items" to an HD. This no longer happens.
  
  
• AppleScript now uses Navigation Services dialogs.
  
  
• A new native OSAX mechanism has been introduced (see the technote listed below).
  
  
• Choose File now shows invisible files if no type is specified.
  
  
• AppleScript now tries harder to find applications referred to in "Tell" blocks.
  
  
• Set Volume scripting addition updated to use the new Sound Manager. It now calls GetDefaultOutputVolume and SetDefaultOutputVolume instead of the now-obsolete GetSoundVol and SetSoundVol interfaces.
  
  
• A memory leak in the AppleScript 1.3 unit coercions has been removed.
  
  
• Choose from List would unlock a GDHandle. This has been corrected.
  
  
• The "miles" unit type could not be coerced into any other unit type. Now it can be coerced, as expected.
  
  
• The Mount Volume command now supports escaped characters in URLs, optional user name and password parameters, and user names and passwords in URL formats.
  
  
• The "Move-align open sub-folders" script works for pop-up subfolders.
  
  
• Converting a string of type typeText to a string of type typePString did not work if the source string was greater than 256 characters long. This has been corrected.
  
  
• A new type conversion from typeFSS to typeAlias has been added.
  
  
• New coercions from enums, class types, and constants to strings have been added.
  
  
• The "Quarts" unit type has been implemented.
  
  
• Passing a class name to Display Dialog now displays the class name, not its code.
  
  
• A memory leak that could occur when AppleScript failed to initialized has been removed.
  
  
• The Folder Actions CMM and server now permit aliases to script files to be attached to folders.
  
  
• Folder Action scripts now work on locked script files.
  
  
• The Folder Actions server uses Notification Manager for "out of memory" warnings.
  
  
• The Folder Actions server no longer quits when an operation runs out of memory.
  
  
• The Folder Actions server now updates icon badges more quickly in the Finder.
  
  
• The Applet shell was calling WaitNextEvent with a sleepTime of "0", thereby using more processor cycles than needed. This has been corrected.
  
  
• A small memory leak that could occur when getting the application's name in an error handler has been removed.
  
  
• Reentering a 68K OSAX would leave it unlocked. This has been corrected.
  
  
• Intermittent crashes that could occur when loading Scripting additions have been addressed.
  
  
• A problem where running two applets simultaneously and then quitting one would cause a crash has been corrected.
  
  
• A memory leak that could occur when the Applet shell sends apple events to itself has been removed.
  
  

• The AppleShare Client API used by both Navigation Services and the Network Browser has been upgraded to support third-party User Authentication Modules (UAM) for NT, Novell, and others. A new UAM selection dialog has been added, along with the code paths needed to interface with the UAM plug-ins.
  
  
• This release improves Navigation Services support in the client.
  
  
• A problem where the AutoRemounter was preventing sleep on some PowerBooks has been corrected.
  
  
• Frequently called code installed by AutoRemounter has been optimized and the reliability of AutoRemounter has been improved.
  
  
• A problem where client machines would hang after a server crash has been corrected.
  
  
• Some formatting corrections have been added to the alerts displayed by the AppleShare client.
  
  
• A problem where typing Japanese text into a password authentication dialog would not allow a server connection has been corrected.
  
  
• AppleShare network status change alerts now timeout. After a network status change alert has timed out, the message text from the alert is catenated to the end of the "AppleShare Server Messages" file located on the desktop.
  
  

• ColorSync 2.6.1 requires Mac OS 8.1 or later.
  
  
• ColorSync 2.6.1 is also available for download from the web.
  
  
• ColorSync 2.6.1 is not available for 68k machines.
  
  
• Several new elements and changes have been incorporated into the ColorSync APIs (see the SDK and web site for details).
  
  
• A ColorSync SDK for Mac OS 8, as well as a cross-platform ColorSync SDK for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 is available for Apple Developer Connection program members only. Technote 1160 covers both Mac OS 8 and cross-platform technical issues.
  
  

• DrawSprocket was switching to a different video mode even when the existing video mode satisfied the requested video attributes. This will no longer occur.
  
  
• The possibility of a system hang that could occur in a page-flipped context if page 1 was being displayed when the context was swapped has been removed.
  
  
• The user can now double-click to select a monitor in the choose dialog.
  
  
• Gamma tables are now restored correctly after launching a DrawSprocket application.
  
  
• DrawSprocket now uses a more reliable method for selecting monitor frequencies than before.
  
  
• DSpContext_FadeGamma wasn't working for some colors. Now it does.
  
  
• A problem where negative scaling values were not being calculated correctly in the Gamma fade code has been corrected.
  
  
• Valid values for gamma fading have been redefined as follows:
  
  
  • If no bias color is provided, then 0% represents black, and any positive percentage scales between black and the default gamma color. Any values that exceed the maximum gamma will be clamped to the maximum value. Negative percentages are not allowed.
    
    
  • If a bias color is provided, the minimum percentage is -100%, which maps to black. From -100% to 0, we scale between the black and the bias color. From 0 to any positive percentage, we scale between the bias color and the default gamma color. All values are clamped to the range of legal gamma values.
    
    
• DrawSprockets was calling SetWRefCon on a CGrafPort. This has been corrected.
  
  
• Page flipping context now restores regions on a pause.
  
  
• Interleaved portRect is now set up properly. Previously, this could lead to a crash.
  
  
• Page zero was not being restored after a baseAddr calculation for a non-zero page. Now it is.
  
  
• Some private implementation-related information has been removed from the headers.
  
  
• DrawSprocket was choosing lowest depth even in cases where the preferred depth was higher. This has been corrected.
  
  
• ContextPrivate_NewCGrafPort was not calculating rowBytes correctly for bit depths less than 8 bits per pixel. This calculation is now performed correctly.
  
  
• DrawSprocket was incorrectly disposing of a NULL CGrafPort.
  
  
• Metrowerks runtime has been replaced with StdCLib.
  
  
• Added support for new CPU models.
  
  

• Find by Content now supports Text Extractor Plug-ins for extracting textual data from binary documents for inclusion in index files.
  
  
• Find by Content can be set up (via the Sherlock preferences) to index only folders and files with a particular label, or only folders and files without a particular label.
  
  
• Find by Content can be told, via a contextual menu in the Finder or via an AppleEvent to Sherlock, to index one or more selected files or folders.
  
  

• A problem where some third-party drivers or devices could sometimes cause other devices to disappear from the list of available devices maintained by InputSprocket has been corrected.
  
  
• Some InputSprocket drivers had the wrong creator code. This has been corrected.
  
  
• Some discussion of supported USB devices has been added to the Read Me file.
  
  
• ISpGetVersion now returns the correct version number for the installed InputSprocket library.
  
  
• New quit and start/pause labels have been added to replace the pause/resume labels.
  
  
• The Input Sprocket 1.3 Rez header in Universal Interfaces 3.2 assigns the same key code (0x0063) to both the F3 and F7 function keys. F7 key has been redefined as 0x0062, its correct value.
  
  

• LW 8.6.5 now supports USB PostScript printers.
  
  
• Job logging features have been added to enable users to get a log of their print job, including details about their font usage.
  
  
• Additional UI has been added for controlling fonts downloaded to printers. First is the ability to control the format of the fonts downloaded to the printer. The user may select the format of either True Type or Adobe Type 1 fonts. The second control is the ability to always download the required fonts. The third feature forces the driver to produce only Adobe Type 1 fonts. If a True Type font is needed, it will be converted to Type 1.
  
  

• MRJ 2.1.1 implements JDK 1.1.7 (with bug fixes from JDK 1.1.8H).
  
  
• MRJ 2.1.1 is 3 to 5 times faster than MRJ 2.0.
  
  
• MRJ network support is now asynchronous, and performance has been improved 3 to 4 times, as measured by the Volano benchmark.
  
  
• The new Just-in-time Compiler provides substantial performance improvements.
  
  
• MRJ includes its own internal preemptive threading package. This threading support has been substantially reimplemented.
  
  
• MRJ now correctly implements the standard Java security features.
  
  
• MRJ 2.1.1 now correctly handles loading applets via proxy servers.
  
  
• Several memory leaks have been removed.
  
  
• Applets that use percents for their height & width now display correctly in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
  
  
• Fixes have been made for keyboard events, general event handling, text handling, and other areas.
  
  
• MRJ 2.1.1 supports Swing 1.0.3 and 1.1, which are Sun Microsystems GUI extensions to Java.
  
  
• Appearance Manager GUI components in MRJ's AWT (Abstract Window Tool) are implemented with the Appearance Manager and respond appropriately to theme switches.
  
  
• Java Applications running under MRJ are fully Apple Scriptable, as are Applets running in Apple Applet Runner. The only developer overhead required is the creation of an 'aete' resource.
  
  
• The JDK tools (from MRJ SDK 2.1) now create files with the correct type/creator.
  
  
• "Append file..." option in JBindery (from MRJ SDK 2.1) now works correctly.
  
  

• Multitasking and multiprocessing integrated into the System.
  
  
• MP Library can run on systems with VM enabled.
  
  
• Existing MP applications run without changes.
  
  
• Reduced RAM footprint (from 2MB+ down to 60K).
  
  
• Full SMP capability.
  
  
• High performance preemption-safe memory allocator.
  
  
• Native timer support.
  
  
• Per task-context variables.
  
  
• Proportional share scheduling parameters.
  
  
• Timeout enhancements to the wait on queue, semaphore, and critical region functions.
  
  
• Suspend-on-Exception task model.
  
  
• Integrated debugging support.
  
  
• Task debugging primitives for high-level debuggers.
  
  
• Mid-level advanced power-management process-manager support.
  
  
• Low-level advanced power management support.
  
  
• The ability to call the notify queue and signal semaphore functions from interrupt handlers.
  
  
• Reserving notifications for queues to facilitate guaranteed message delivery.
  
  
• Remote procedure call interface from preemptive tasks to cooperative tasks.
  
  

• A problem where NetSprocket clients could crash on disconnect has been addressed.
  
  
• NetSprocket no longer returns invalid game references in callbacks.
  
  
• NetSprocket Host dialog now uses the proper 'ictb' resource.
  
  
• The first asynchronous callback being made on a host had a NULL game object reference. This has been corrected.
  
  
• NetSprocket has been recompiled to use the StdCLib rather than Metrowerks runtime.
  
  
• NSpDoModalJoinDialog was treating a NULL string passed for the game type as a regular string, rather than using the game type passed into NetSprocket initialize as it should have. This has been corrected.
  
  
• NSpGetVersion now returns the correct version number for the installed library.
  
  

• Scriptability now works correctly for the ARA password.
  
  

• There was a conflict between 'TProvider' class definition and typedef of 'ProviderRef' in the header file "OpenTransport.h." That causes inconsistent use of 'class' and 'struct' keyword warning when compiling any source including "OpenTransport.h." This conflict has been removed from "OpenTransport.h".
  
  
• Several bugs were fixed in the ARA endpoint API which prevented the Password and Authentication Type settings made through the API from working.
  
  
• ARA password is now scriptable. This bug (in Network Setup 1.0) disallowed completion of a PPP connection without human intervention. Now that it is fixed, the process can be totally automated.
  
  
• Under certain circumstances, Open Transport could starve out other deferred tasks. This will no longer happen.
  
  
• The Open Transport PAP Client could only handle a transfer of 262 MB, at which point it would go into permanent "flow control." This will no longer happen.
  
  
• When using AppleTalk protocols over PPP, DDP lengths were incorrect.
  
  
• Several problems in Open Transport's DHCP implementation have been corrected.
  
  
• In Mac OS 8.6, Macintosh DHCP clients no longer send a DHCPRELEASE when unloading the TCP stack. This enhances compatibility with several DHCP server implementations.
  
  
• The TCP stack now remains loaded in memory unless a PPP connection is specified in the TCP/IP control panel.
  
  
• Open Transport's PAP implementation now works properly with GCC and HP Laserjet printers.
  
  

• Support for 44.1 kHz sound input has been added, for running speech recognition on newer G3 machines.
  
  
• New algorithms have been developed to allow speech recognition to run with the built-in microphone on the iMac.
  
  
• The Speakable item script "Find by content" that references "Find" rather than "Sherlock" has been corrected to reference "Sherlock".
  
  
• The Speech Recognition extension now correctly restores the sound input source to its original state when exiting. (In previous versions of Speech Recognition, users may have noticed some feedback being generated during shutdown.)
  
  

• Mac OS 8.6 ships with SoundSprocket 1.0.
  
  

• UDF 1.5.2 comes with a contextual menu item that can be used to mount a bridge disk (one containing both UDF and ISO9660 volume formats) as an ISO volume.
  
  
• UDF 1.5.2 is an FSM-based file system plug-in. It consists of a single extension file (UDF Volume Access) that goes in the Extensions folder, plus a contextual menu item file (UDFBridgeCMPlugin) that goes in the Contextual Menu Items folder.
  
  
• Requires the Apple CD/DVD Driver.
  
  

• URLAccess provides access to HTTP/S, FTP, and HFS through the URL schemes "http://", "https://", "ftp://", and "file://". The file URLs are provided to allow one code path for local and remote data.
  
  
• Support for SSL, Cern Proxies, and SOCKS firewalls are provided. SSL is used when the "https://" scheme is recognized. (Proxies and SOCKS are used if the Internet Config preference indicates that they should be).
  
  
• FTP supports both passive and active connections. Any authentication is handled by the URLAccess API with the option for the client to provide the dialog.
  
  

• Adds support for proxy/firewall support (by way of URLAccess).
  
  
• Find by Content now supports a plug-in mechanism for extracting text from files for use during indexing.
  
  
• Find by Content adds ability to index a particular file or folder rather than an entire volume.
  
  
• Two new Apple events have been added. One for retrieving a list of Internet search sites supported by Sherlock. The other is the ability to open/switch Sherlock to a specific tab.
  
  
• The "Search Internet" enhancements in Sherlock 2.1 are:
  
  
  • the window is now resizable, so more search sites can be viewed at the same time; and
    
    
  • addition of a "Uncheck All" button to easily turn off all of the search sites.
    
    

Apple Extras

• DTPU 1.2 now supports the ability to configure USB Desktop Printers in addition to AppleTalk (PAP), LPR, IrDA, and Hold printers. DTPU continues supports the creation of a desktop PostScript translator.
  
  
• Third-party plug-ins are now supported. This feature works in conjunction to the Custom Hose feature added to LaserWriter 8.6. This gives third-party developers (printer vendors) the ability to create Desktop Printers using the user interface of the DTPU that access printers with I/O types that are defined by the Custom Hose.
  
  

Utilities

• Added support for the Imation SuperDisk drive.
  
  
• Fixed problem with Navigation Services and AppleShare servers.
  
  
• Added support for Appearance Manager progress bars.
  
  

Downloadables

Acrobat version of this Note (147K).