Copyright ｩ 1991ﾐ1995 Gregory D. Landweber and ISYSDev Development Corp., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Brought to you by the authors of Greg's Buttons, Greg's Browser, and DoubleScroll.
greg@math.harvard.edu (Greg Landweber) ﾑ for everything except the windows and scroll bars
ISYSDev@aol.com (Ed Voas) ﾑ regarding the windows and scroll bars
Please note that we are each getting several dozen e-mail messages a day regarding Aaron. While we do read every message when it comes in, you may not get a prompt response. Sorry.
Aaron is a small extension that transforms your Mac's user experience to resemble the Copland 3-D style as shown in recent issues of MacWeek, MacUser, and MacWorld magazines. To use it, just drop it in your Extensions folder, or drop it on your System (MacOS) folder and let the Finder put it where it belongs. When you restart, you will see the changes listed below. To temporarily disable Aaron, hold down the mouse button while it loads at startup.
Aaron is a ﾒFat Binaryﾓ containing both 680x0 and PowerPC native code for optimum performance on both Macs and PowerMacs. In other words, Aaron is Accelerated for Power Macintosh.
Please note that this is a beta version of Aaron, and it has not yet been extensively tested. Due to the high demand for such a program, we have decided to prerelease it to the public. Please cut us some slack, and report any bugs you might find as soon as possible. Thank you.
Shareware registration info
･ Aaron is shareware; it is NOT free. If you like Aaron, please send a $10 registration fee to:
Gregory D. Landweber
PO Box 382138
Cambridge, MA 02238-2138
･ Please note that this address is for Aaron registrations onlyﾑdo not use it for registrations or correspondence regarding Greg's Buttons, Greg's Browser, or DoubleScroll. Conversely, do not send Aaron registrations or correspondence to any of the authors' other addresses.
･ Checks should be made payable to Gregory D. Landweberﾑdo not make out checks to ﾒAaronﾓ.
･ We will eventually switch to using the Kagi Shareware service to handle Aaron registrations which will allow for registrations via credit card or non-US currencies.
List of features
･ The system font will be Espi Sans Bold 10 instead of the usual Chicago 12 font.
･ Your menu bar and menus will be drawn with a light gray background and menus will use a dark blue highlight color. In addition, the menu bar will be drawn with a subtle 3-D effect. If you are using or have ever used another program to change your menu colors (such as Aurora or Kolor), then your menu color settings may override Aaron's. This can happen even if you have set your menus back to black and white since those utilities may have left a rogue color resource (specifying black and white as the colors) in your System file. To get rid of this, you can either remove all ﾒmctbﾓ resources from your System file with ResEdit or perform a fresh install.
･ Your push buttons, check boxes, and radio buttons will be drawn using a shaded 3-D effect.
･ The header information in Finder windows (the # items... and Name, Size, Kind,... lines at the top of the window) will be drawn using a gray background and a subtle 3-D effect.
･ The Finder will use new 3-D Copland-style folder icons. There are many versions of these icons floating around in cyberspace. The ones included with Aaron have been tweaked to match the various Copland screen shots as closely as possible.
･ Your windows and scroll bars will be drawn using the Copland 3D style as seen in the various Copland screen shots. If you are running System 7.5, the windows will have a WindowShade widget at the top right of the title bar. Clicking on it will collapse the window to just its title bar.
The Espy Sans font family
Espy is a new font designed by Apple's Human Interface people for easy readability on computer screens. Aaron installs Espi Sans Bold 10 as you system font in place of the usual Chicago 12 font, and the font Espi Sans 10 is included with the Aaron package. You should try selecting Espi Sans 10 as your Finder font using the Views control panel. Some people prefer the Espy Sans 9 size for Finder views, but all the Copland screen shots use the 10 point size.
You can get the entire Espy font family as part of the eWorld software. Alternatively, these fonts live inside the Apple Guide extension, so you can make a copy of your Apple Guide extension, change its file type to FFIL and its creator to DMOV, and then open it like a suitcase to extract all the Espy fonts. I am told that this font is also used by the Newton and comes with the Newton Toolkit as well as the Newton Toolkit Demo (part of ﾒProgramming for the Newtonﾒ by McKeehan and Rhodes). Please note that since Espy was designed to be a screen font, there are not TrueType or PostScript versions for use with printers.
Here are some quotes about Aaron
ﾒI don't think everyone realizes the power of a ﾔchange of sceneryﾕ to alter your mood or outlook on life...it makes you literally feel different.ﾓ ﾑ Kevin Lesniewicz
ﾒI never thought I'd get that excited about a button.ﾓ ﾑ Ed Voas
ﾒWhat can I say? ﾑ it works.ﾓ ﾑ Leo Breebaart
Known problems
･ Aaron must load after the CE Toolbox extension. That is why it is named ~Aaron.
･ Some people have reported that the blue menu highlighting does not work correctly in ClarisWorks and ClarisDraw, but I have not been able to reproduce that problem.
･ With Aaron's windows, the Chooser window and Finder Get Info boxes have grow boxes that should not be there. This is the Chooser and Finder's fault, although it is not really a bug. We will try to work around this in a future version.
･ Now SuperBoomerang's menus at the top of the Open/Save dialog boxes overlap the window border. I am not sure whether anything can be done about this. Something similar happens with Norton's Directory Assistance.
･ The titles for some pop-up menus are drawn using the light gray menu background color. This is a ﾒfeatureﾓ of the System 7 pop-up menu routines. Future versions of Aaron may have new Copland-style pop-up menu routines that do not suffer from this problem.
･ If you use both Aaron and Greg's Buttons, the settings in Greg's Buttons override Aaron. If you change the menu colors in Greg's Buttons, the changes may not fully take effect until you restart. If you want the blue menu highlighting, you must turn off the menu coloriztion feature in Greg's Buttons.
･ Some menu bar additions, such as the Now Contact and Reminder icons and various menu bar clocks, erase the 3D gray tinges on the menu bar. Fixing this would be more trouble than it is worth.
･ On some Macs you may occasionally get gibberish in the menu bar or even crashes when launching applications. This is a bug in the system software, and to get around it you must chop out the ﾒmctbﾓ resource from Aaron using ResEdit. Do not try to edit the currently active Aaron file; edit a copy instead and then replace the original with the edited copy.
･ Aaron conflicts with ZiffNet/Mac's WunderBar. We are working on a fix.
･ Aaron conflicts with the Scrolling control panel.
Changes in version 1.0b4
･ Added the WindowShade widget to the top right of the title bar.
･ Windows now roll up properly when using WindowShade (no pixels left hanging off the bottom).
･ Added a 'WPrf' resource to allow disabling of window title embossing, for you purists.
･ Fixed problem where clicking in the grow portion of an inactive window would grow it when in fact it should have merely activated it.
･ You can no longer resize a rolled up window. That was not good.
･ Changed the trash can icon yet again.
･ Changed the Aaron extension icon slightly.
･ Aaron now draws the button frame correctly for selected push buttons on black and white monitors.
Changes in version 1.0b3 (MacHack)
･ Fixed bug that would occasionally substitute other controls (such as sliders) for buttons.
･ Fixed a bug at startup that EvenBetterBusError (EBBE) caught.
･ Fixed a bug that could prevent Aaron from changing the System font to Espi Sans Bold 10.
･ Aaron now lets application-specific WDEFs override its window routines.
Changes in version 1.0b2
･ Added Copland-style windows and scroll bars, courtesy of Ed Voas.
･ The empty and full trash can icons now use a gray shadow instead of a black one.
･ Aaron no longer draws the white highlight at the top of the screen if the menu bar is hidden.
･ Aaron now has an extension icon which it draws at startup.
･ Changed the name to ~Aaron so that it loads after CE Toolbox.
･ Aaron can now coexist with Greg's Buttons. The settings in Greg's Buttons override Aaron.
