Showing hour, minute and second sweep hands, clicking on the face changes the clock picture, resizable, works in the background so can be left on your desktop, optional digital display, optional country times (for over 100 countries) and correction for summer time. If you are familiar with ResEdit then you can add your own clockfaces (if you have some really good ones, you can even send them to me). Note that the second hand will appear to run slowly and irregularly in two situations, when a PowerBook is doing nothing else and its CPU slows itself down, and when you are doing intensive calculations (DeskMates is always the last to get idle time!). This will work on any depth screen, though you will have to set the memory partition to 650K if you want to run a full color clock picture with 24-bit color.
2. A notebook:
A text editor not limited to 32,000 characters, with full search, find (including grep search and replace) and replace functionality, and able to open any text file from within the application. Does not currently support multiple styles.
3. A stopwatch:
A stopwatch able to run in the back or foreground, with 3 timers able to record split times, and able to be restarted by clicking on their displays or command key equivalents, and 15 alarms which can optionally display reminder text at prespecified times, and record to a maximum time of over 16 hours. All three timers can be started together or separately. The alarms will sound once or continuously until switched off.
4. A calculator:
Containing simple and more complex mathematical formulae including reciprocals, roots, squares, powers, logarithms to base 2, e, 10, percentages, factorials combinations and permutations, hyperbolic and trigonometric functions (using degrees or radians), and financial functions. Has pretty full error trapping (to the limits of my beta-testing so far).
5. A calendar:
Click on the month and year titles to set to any month or year. Click on the current date and time to reset to the current date. Click on the small alarm clock icon to show the Alarm Clock settings dialog (see next topic).
6. Alarm clock:
This is an alarm scheduler. It will also work in the background, and will put a small alarm clock in place of the Apple menu icon (System 6) or the Applications menu icon at top right (System 7) after sounding a beep. When you bring DeskMates back to the foreground, a dialog will tell you what alarm you have set. This supports multiple alarms (approx. 10,000 at present, though you will have to increase the memory partition to have this many!), each with premonitory timing and recurrent alarms settings (even several years later if wanted). When the alarm sounds, you can elect to postpone it (minutes to weeks). A future upgrade (if there is any interest) will support an appointments scheduler attached to calendar. Note that this alarm clock will wake up a PowerBook 100, or a Duo, but not other sleep capable machines. The reason? Apple’s ROM in the latter models has a bug in the Power Manager which causes any attempt to set a wake up time causes a very fatal crash! I’m also annoyed, since I wrote it to wake up my PowerBook (and then discovered the bug)!
7. Date Pad:
Current date, day and month is shown in a small window. This can be moved around.
8. On-line help system/customization:
A fully integrated on-line help system (and hence DeskMates does not need a manual). Note that the positions and sizes of these tools can be set by the Preferences menu item under the File menu. You can set which tool windows will open at startup.
9. Compatibility:
It is compatible with Macintoshes with system 6.05 and above, including system 7, and will run on any screen depth as long as color quickdraw is installed in your system folder. It has been tested on the following models: PowerBook 140, 170, 180, LC III, IIci, IIvx and Quadra 700. The application is set to 520K, so you will be able to read the Help files on an 8-bit color Mac. You might want to alter the memory partition under two circumstances: (i) if you only use it on a monochrome Mac, you can probably reduce it to 440K of so, and try it. If there is insufficient memory, DeskMates should tell you; or (ii) if you use full color, then you should use 650K or you will not see the clock picture. I have included a clickable “peek control” (courtesy FaceWare) on the top of the clipboard window, which can show you how much compact memory you have left (click it to see the partition sizes). If you find free memory shows less than 25K then you should definitely increase the memory partition (choose the File menu items “Get Info” whilst DeskMates is selected in the Finder and set the lowest application memory size partition). Another lack of memory may occur when trying to open very large text files using the NoteBook. If you get a low on heap memory error notification, then increase the memory partition if you really must use DeskMates to open it.
10. The hidden salutation:
There is a hidden salutation (the Aussie way) within the program somewhere. Good luck finding it.
If you like this and use it, then I ask you to be honest, and to send:
(i) suggestions about improving it (eg adding functionality or even adding new modules),
(ii) send what you think it is worth (may I suggest $15) to me at either of the addresses below. If you do, I will register you for free upgrades and be able to enact your suggestions quickly (even customize your copy ). I am sending it out as shareware since I would get the same slice anyway (or less) if I fully published it, which believe me I’ve tried with similar programs, and I believe in the basic goodness of man…
David Darby, WhiteAnt Occasional Publishing
Current Address: 69 Saco St, Newton, MA 02164, USA (current address until 1994), phone 617-965-6506, email darby@sprcore.bih.harvard.edu.
Of course I give no warranty, or guarantees that this software will do what it is intended to do, and it may not be distributed commercially or packaged with any product placed for sale or profit without the explicit permission of the author. If you find any bugs or incompatibilities I will be most surprised and disappointed, but in any case please inform me.
Upgrade Note (to v1.0.2):
Upgrading from older versions note: if you have used an older version of DeskMates, then you must throw away the “DeskMates.prefs” file which you will find in the System folder. It will either be found just within the System folder, or if you have an older version later than v1.0, and are running under system 7 or higher, it will be in the Preferences folder within the System folder. This now has been altered, and should be thrown away completely. A new one will be created when you start up, but you will lose any stopwatch TickClock alarms you may have set and will need to reset these.
Secondly, please ensure your ‘ Alarm Clock ‘ settings file is in the correct place for DeskMates to find it. DeskMates will now look in the System folder if you are not using system 7 (ie system 6.05 and above), or in the Preferences folder within the System folder if you are using system 7 of higher. If you have set lots of alarm warnings, then move the file to the correct spot, or you will lose all your hard work when you typed them in!
Please enjoy!
David Darby March 1993
(Plans for future upgrades include: scheduling module linked to calendar days, automatic waking up of PowerBooks by specified alarms (for those travellers who don’t trust the hotel telephonists), address file database with quick searches and printing facility. So please show your support and send your shareware fee!)
Evolutionary Log
##############
DeskMates v1.0.1
#Calculator handling of the logarithms of zero were fixed (thanks to Ashley ß Bush).
#TickClock alarms are now able to sound continuously until cancelled by the user by clicking on the stopwatch text field.
#Support for 24bit color using gWorld routines replaced the older pixmap routines.
DeskMates v1.0.2
#Start up configuration customizable through the Preferences menu item: based an email user suggestion. Clock options dialog simplified with removal of redundant Show at startup option.
#Alaska was added to the American time options: user suggestion.
#Day Sheet Pad added. To allow easy reminders of the date.
#Preferences menu item added to allow customization of startup settings and setting of any window’s position.
#Calendar error fixed: when the current day of the month was one whose first day of the month equivalent in the first line of the calendar was unfilled (did you understand this?).
#Color QuickDraw required error alert. DeskMates formerly crashed Macintoshes running without Color QuickDraw installed. An alert has now been added and the clock window will not show without Color QuickDraw installed when DeskMates is started.
