Snap-To is a tiny little INIT that Snaps the mouse to the default button whenever a dialog comes up on your screen. Simple as that.
Snap-To is proven to increase your speed when using a Macintosh, especially if you use dialogs often and/or have a large screen.
It’s only 6k, so try it for a week and see if you like it. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
There are basically three problems that you may experience while using Snap-To.
1)
What happens: Snap-To seems not to work. When a dialog comes up on the screen, the cursor stays put.
Example: Many parts of the America Online software.
Why this happens: The program you are currently running deals with buttons itself. As far as the System (and Snap-To) knows, there is a dialog on the screen. That’s it. It doesn’t know if there are buttons in it, or anything. What happens is that Snap-To is informed that a dialog has been opened. Not finding any buttons, it assumes that it is a progress dialog, or something like that, and doesn’t move the mouse anywhere.
2)
What happens: A dialog appears that has no default button. Snap-To snaps the cursor to a button anyway.
Example: About boxes of many poorly-programmed shareware/freeware applications.
Why this happens: The System does not draw the outline around the default button. This is up to the program that puts up the dialog. Since the System has no way of knowing whether an outline has been drawn around a button or not, it simply assumes that any button with an ID of 1 is the default button, unless the program tells it otherwise. In this case, Snap-To sees that there is a button with an ID of 1, so it assumes, along with the System, that it is the default button. This is usually caused by lazy programming of the application you’re currently running.
Nifty side effect: Try pressing return at this dialog. Chances are, the button that Snap-To snapped to (hehe) will be “pushed.”
3)
What happens: Snap-To snaps the cursor to a button that isn’t the default button.
Example: When saving to a file which already exists, the “Cancel/Replace” dialog.
Why this happens: The dialog that this occurs on is using a button whose ID is not 1 as the default button, and it isn’t telling the System about it. According to Inside Macintosh, applications are allowed to use buttons with IDs other than 1 as default buttons, but they must tell the System about it. As Snap-To will ask the System what the default button is, programs which do this but do *not* inform the System will exhibit this behaviour.
Small irony: The “Cancel/Replace” dialog is a dialog managed by the System, but the System gives false information about this dialog to Snap-To!
Interesting aside: Just so that you know, the FirstClass Client software has the ability to change the default button *while the dialog is open.* As Snap-To is called only when a window or dialog is activated, it has no way of knowing whether the default button has changed.
Snap-To is ShareWare. If you use it, send $5 to:
Trevden Sherzell
130 North Country Road
Shoreham, NY, 11786-1722
Also, feel free to send me suggestions on this program, any other program of mine, or ideas for future programs to one of the addresses at the end of this file. Thanks.
PLEASE! If you find Snap-To useful, can’t you spare $5? C’mon. You’re helping a 13-year-old (me) through life! And I have to pay my own America Online bill! :) (By the way, if you’re a kid, (younger than 14 or 15) feel free to use this program without having to pay me. I know your situation! :) The more response I get, the more incentive I’ll have to keep programming. If you have an idea for a nifty program, send me mail!
Acknowledgements:
Inspired by the Microsoft Mouse driver 9.0.
Thanks to Shane Looker for releasing the source code for the “Annoyance Pack,”
and Judd Stiff for his invaluable help in beta testing.
___
/ revden
Mail addresses:
(In order of preference)
America Online: Trevden
Internet: trevden@aol.com
US Mail: 130 North Country Road, Shoreham, NY, 11786-1722
