Aaron version 1.2, January 26, 1996, by Greg Landweber and Edward Voas
Copyright ⌐ 1991╨1996 Gregory D. Landweber and ISYS 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) ╤ for everything except the windows, scroll bars, zoom rects.
ISYSDev@aol.com (Edward Voas) ╤ regarding the windows, scroll bars, and spinning zoom rects.
While we attempt to answer all e-mail, the response to Aaron is quite overwhelming and our mailboxes fill up very quickly. Please forgive us if we do not always reply promptly to your messages. We assure you that we DO read all incoming e-mail, and in particular, we keep track of any bugs that are reported. If you do not hear back from us, it most likely means that we do not have anything helpful to tell you yet. To make our job easier, please read through this documentation file before e-mailing us. Also, please do not include screen shots or lists of all your system extensions as these take up a great deal of space and are usually not necessary. If we need such information, we will ask you for it.
(We do not provide snail-mail or telephone support for Aaron. The Kagi Shareware address is for registrations only, not support. Most importantly, do not call the Harvard Math Department. If you want to talk, send your 'phone number in an e-mail message and we will call you back.)
Please do NOT distribute modified versions of Aaron. It is difficult enough to support the versions that we release, and it becomes a nightmare if we have to support versions that we have never seen. Also, please distribute Aaron as a complete package, including Register, Espi Sans 10, and this documentation file.
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 ╥Fat Binary╙ containing both 680x0 and PowerPC native code for optimum performance on both Macs and PowerMacs. In other words, Aaron is Accelerated for Power Macintosh. Aaron requires a 68020 or better, so in particular it won't work on a Mac Plus. Sorry.
Shareware registration info
Aaron is shareware; it is NOT free. If you use Aaron, you should pay a $10 registration fee. Registrations for Aaron ar handled by the Kagi Shareware service run by Kee Nethery. In addition to cash in various currencies and US dollar checks drawn on US banks, Kagi Shareware also accepts credit card registrations by snail-mail or e-mail (your card number is scrambled). For organizations, they handle invoices and site licenses, too. For more information, run the enclosed ╥Register╙ program, which creates a customized registration form for you. Once you have filled out all the necessary information in the Register program, you can copy the form to paste into an e-mail message, print the form to mail it, or save it as a SimpleText document to print later. The Kagi Shareware e-mail and snail-mail addresses are given on the registration form created by the Register program. You must use this form, or as close a facsimile as possible, when registering since Kagi handles payments for several dozen authors using a highly automated system. If the Register program did not come with your copy of Aaron, you should download a fresh copy of the whole Aaron package.
After you register, Kagi Shareware will send you an e-mail reply titled ╥Thanks for your registration╙. In addition to confirming your payment, this message also includes the trick to disable the Annoying Shareware Message¬ that appears at startup (make sure you read all the way to the end of this e-mail message). If you do not provide an e-mail address on your registration form, it is vital that you give a snail-mail address and check the Postcard Receipt box (which automatically adds $1 extra to your total) in Register. If you do not give an e-mail address and do not request a postcard receipt, you will not get any response to your registration. You have been warned.
Please note that we do not send out updates of Aaron or notification of new versions. A mailing (or e-mailing) list of that size would be unmanageable, and we want to spend our spare time coding, not stuffing envelopes. However, we do make updates available on all online service and internet Mac software archives. Once you register, you remain registered for all future shareware versions of Aaron, even if we add zillions of feature and raise the price.
List of features
Ñ Substitutes Espi Sans Bold 10 for Chicago 12 as the system font. If you are using Greg's Buttons, then this feature disables itself. In that case, you need to switch on the Substitute System Font feature in Greg's Buttons and select Espi Sans Bold 10 yourself.
Ñ The menu bar and menus use a light gray background, and selected items are highlighted in the window color specified in the "Color" control panel. In addition, the menu bar and menus use gray tinges for a subtle 3D effect.
Ñ Replaces the standard push buttons, check boxes, and radio buttons with Copland-style 3D shaded ones.
Ñ The header information in Finder windows (the # items... and Name, Size, Kind,... lines at the top of the window) is drawn using a gray background and a subtle 3D effect.
Ñ Automatically installs 3D 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. Aaron does not change your system file, so your icons will revert to normal if you disable Aaron.
Ñ Windows and scroll bars are now drawn using the Copland 3D style as seen in the various Copland screen shots. These windows have a thick border which you can use to drag the window from any side. These windows also have a WindowShade widget at the top right of the title bar. Clicking on it collapses the window to just its title bar. The System 7.5 WindowShade extension does not work correctly with Aaron; if you double-click the window title bar, window does not collapse completely.
Ñ Transforms the Finder progress boxes to look like the Copland screen shots. This also partially affects some progress bars in other applications. It looks so cool that you will be copying and trashing files just to see the progress box!
Ñ Provides a new Copland-style pop-up menu button. This affects only those programs that take advantage of the System 7 pop-up menu routines, so please do not complain if the pop-ups in your favorite application or control panel remain unchanged.
Ñ Those little disclosure triangles in Finder list views take on a slight 3D effect.
Ñ Adds spinning zoom rects to the Finder. These require a 68030 (with FPU) or better to enable themselves, else you'll just get plain ol' zoom rects.
Ñ Red alerts. You will see what we mean.
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 ╥Programming for the Newton╥ 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
╥I don't think everyone realizes the power of a ╘change of scenery╒ to alter your mood or outlook on life...it makes you literally feel different.╙ ╤ Kevin Lesniewicz
╥I never thought I'd get that excited about a button.╙ ╤ Ed Voas
╥What can I say? ╤ it works.╙ ╤ Leo Breebaart
╥...Aaron is awesome! I never dreamed that a few subtle changes in the Mac's 'User Experience' could get me so excited about Macintosh all over again!╙ ╤ Dave Mah Ming
Known problems
Ñ I have heard reports of a conflict with FreePPP. However, I have not been able to duplicate the problem on my machine, and I have heard reports from several other people who are using FreePPP successfully with Aaron. I suspect that this problem is specific to certain machines or system versions, or that it is due to a conflict with an additional extension. If you have any information about this problem, please let me know.
Ñ The American Heritage Dictionary 3.0 is not compatible with Aaron. I am told that there is a newer version of the AHD that does not conflict with Aaron; however, I have not been able to confirm this.
Ñ Aaron prevents "The Grouch" from doing its thing when you empty the trash. I am told that it works correctly if you make "The Grouch" load after Aaron (by renaming it "~The Grouch" for instance).
Ñ If you are running Greg's Buttons, the system font substitution feature in Aaron disables itself. If you want the Espi Sans Bold 10 font, you need to switch on the Substitute System Font feature in Greg's Buttons and select Espi Sans Bold 10 yourself. This is a feature, not a bug. Both Aaron and Greg's Buttons have the same font substitution code, but in addition Greg's Buttons gives you an interface to switch it on and off and select the font.
Ñ If you use Greg's Buttons with Aaron, the menu colors in Greg's Buttons will override those in Aaron. If you want to use Aaron's menu colors (as well as its blue highlight), you must turn off menu colorization in Greg's Buttons.
Ñ In ClarisWorks and ClarisDraw, the menus highlight in black instead of the selected window color. If you are using Now Menus, you will not experience this problem. Please note that this is not a symptom of a more significant conflict, so there is no reason to avoid using Aaron and ClarisWorks/ClarisDraw together (unless you really hate black menu highlights).
Ñ When Aaron is running, menus in Canvas become unreadable. This is a long standing bug in Canvas that conflicts with substitute system fonts. To work around this problem, you can use Greg's Buttons to turn off the Substitute System Font feature.
Ñ If your monitor is set for 256 Colors, then the indicators for DiskLight, In Use, or AppleShare in your menu bar are drawn in yellow and do not show up well against the light gray background. This is a problem with the system's color inverse routines, and there is nothing we can do.
Ñ 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. Aurora 3.3 will remove this color resource if you tell it to de-install. Otherwise, to get rid of this, you can either remove all ╥mctb╙ resources from your System file with ResEdit or perform a fresh install.
Ñ Aaron must load after the CE Toolbox extension. That is why it is named ~Aaron.
Ñ FrameMaker may complain about a font error when starting up. This is due to FrameMaker's overzealous font checking. There really is no problem, and FrameMaker should continue to work normally.
Ñ Aaron prevents PlainTalk (speech recognition) from recognizing button names in dialog boxes.
Finder Window Title Bar Icon Caveats
Ñ If you change the icon while the window is open, it will not get the changes until the window is closed and reopened.
Ñ Since I only get icons when I need them, if you do change the icon, and then say, drag the window to another monitor with a different depth, which requires a different version of the icon from the icon suite, you may end up with a weird looking icon because you may have the mask from the old icon with the new icon on top of it. Yuck.
Ñ The trash does not show full in the title bar, for now it's always the empty icon. Deal with it, pink boy!
Ñ Desktop Printers show an icon with an "X" through it. This is not a simple problem to fix.
Needless to say, there's room for improvement. Please do NOT e-mail these problems to me (Ed).
Changes in version 1.2
New Features/Improvements
Ñ Aaron now uses the window color specified in the "Color" control panel for selected menu items, scroll bar thumbs, and progress bars. Aaron also patches the Color control panel to display new color names. To get back the old purple/blue color scheme, set the window color to "Lavender".
Ñ Modal dialog boxes no longer have a draggable border (except for the title bar of moveable modal dialog boxes).
Ñ Red alerts. You will see what we mean.
Ñ Changed the alert icons (stop sign, caution, and note).
Ñ Redesigned the folder icons.
Ñ Menus now have a slight 3D effect (with light and dark tinges on the left and right).
Ñ Speed Copy's disclosure triangles are now Copland-ized.
Ñ The rotating zoom rectangles are now a tad faster (reduced the default number of steps to 10 from 12).
Ñ The radio buttons and check boxes now have the 3D effect on 4-bit displays (16 colors or grays).
Ñ The progress bar now looks right on black and white displays.
Bug Fixes
Ñ FaxState (a FaxSTF extra) now works correctly when Aaron is running.
Ñ Disabled Aaron's Copland-style windows when running Lotus Notes. This is to work around an incompatibility where Notes would draw using extra-large pixels. We hope to eliminate this problem completely in a future version.
Ñ Finale's scroll bars now work correctly with Aaron installed.
Ñ Fixed a bug with the windowshade feature. On some 680x0-based Macs, if you collapsed a large window completely covering a smaller one, the smaller one would not redraw its contents.
Ñ The rotating zoom rectangles now draw correctly if you change the number of steps (by editing the WPrf resource). Formerly, outward zooms would stop short or go too far if you used fewer or more than 12 steps.
Ñ Clicking on the menubar clock no longer erases the dark tinge at the bottom of the menubar.
Ñ Aaron's windows and rotating zoom rectangles now work with System 7.5 Update 2.0. As of this writing SU 2.0 has not been released. We do not know when it will be available or where you can get it.
Changes in version 1.1.3
Ñ The popup menus in the PowerBook and Auto Power On/Off control panels now work correctly.
Ñ Fixed a conflict with AppleScript that could cause crashes on Power Macs.
Ñ The Encoding popup menus in Netscape now list encodings instead of fonts.
Ñ The PopUpFolder submenus now work correctly in the open/save box folder title popup menu.
Changes in version 1.1.2
Ñ Fixed the Type 11 errors and related crashes when dragging the scroll bar thumb in certain applications, such as Word, Quicken, and Alpha.
Ñ The spinning zoomrect effect is faster and much less pronounced.
Ñ The PlainTalk speech recognition window should appear correctly now.
Ñ The Speed Dial popup menu in MegaPhone now works correctly. The popup menus now support hierarchical submenus (personally, I don't think popups should have submenus).
Ñ The Categories popup menu in Claris Organizer now shows the correct colors. The popup menus now support color menu items.
Ñ The Speed Copy (Speed Doubler) progress boxes are now Copland-ized.
Ñ Resizing the Now Menus control panel should no longer crash (we really mean it this time).
Ñ Improved the trash can icon slightly.
Ñ The disclosure triangles in ClarisWorks 4 are no longer switched.
Ñ Fixed a conflict with the Code Warrior 7 version of PowerPlant Constructor.
Ñ If Greg's Buttons is running, Aaron disables its system font substitution feature.
Changes in version 1.1.1
Ñ WindowShade widget should now function on systems earlier than 7.5
Ñ Fixed potential 'Unimplemented Trap' error on startup when running other extensions such as SpeedyFinder7.
Changes in version 1.1
Ñ Aaron and WindowShade no longer work well together. The WindowShade widget in the title bar works just dandy, though. This was done to fix the problem with Stuffit (mentioned below). This was also done in anticipation of a future addition to Aaron.
Ñ Added Copland-style floating windows.
Ñ Added spinning zoom rects in the Finder. These are Finder version dependent. If they do not work for you please let me (Ed) know which version of the Finder you are using and I'll adjust it to work properly for you. Also, you can tweak these zoomrects via the 'WPrf' resource. Increasing the number of steps will improve the effect, but they will be slower.
Ñ Photoshop's Curves dialog box is no longer transparent.
Ñ More's window will no longer roll up and and cause scroll bars to be drawn on the desktop when doing a File:Open.
Ñ Wƒnderbar now works correctly with Aaron. No more clicks going 'thru' the window.
Ñ Fixed a second conflict with MicroPhone.
Ñ Fixed a conflict with StuffIt that caused crashes when collapsing windows with the WindowShade widget.
Ñ Fixed a conflict with MacUSA/MacGlobe
Ñ Trying to resize the window for the Now Menus control panel should no longer crash.
Ñ Fixed a conflict with the Text control panel.
Ñ Fixed once and for all the system bug that could cause gibberish in the menu bar or crashes when launching applications. So, you no longer need to mess with the "mctb" resource (in fact, it is no longer there, although that is not related to the fix). Many thanks to Steve Kiene for tracking down the cause of this problem and suggesting a fix. There are actually two fixes in place to make sure this problem never reoccurs, so if you do experience a crash when launching an application, it is probably some other unrelated bug.
Ñ Fixed the problem where the system font would occasionally switch to Espi Sans Bold 10 on systems that don't use Chicago as the system font (such as KanjiTalk). Again, we have two fixes for this problem: one to avoid the thing that was triggering it, and another to substitute the correct font back in if it were to be triggered in some other way.
Ñ Fixed a memory leak that could cause the Finder to run out of memory.
Ñ Eliminated the slight delay when opening some windows. Window drawing should be significantly faster.
Ñ The Script Editor's grow box works properly now.
Ñ The ghost thumb is fully functional. It should no longer conflict with anything, not even Scrolling (though with Scrolling, you will not get the ghosting). This feature is now turned on by default.
Ñ Aaron now uses the correct Finder window title bar icon for volumes such as CD-ROMs, file servers, or the System 7.5 RAM Disk. It still doesn't get icons from the disk drivers yet.
Ñ Aaron now recognizes the System Folder, Extensions, Control Panels, etc. on volumes other than the startup disk.
Ñ Popup menus near the bottom of the screen pop up from the button instead of down.
Ñ The folder popup menu in the Open and Save dialog boxes no longer duplicates the first item.
Ñ Aaron no longer attempts to draw 3D progress bars in America Online, eWorld, or PhotoShop.
Ñ ClarisWorks' color palettes no longer show the progress bar effect in the gray and blue wells.
Ñ The default button outline no longer leaves stray pixels around the corners if you are using Greg's Buttons.
Ñ Aaron does not draw its 3D menu bar tinges if you colorize your menus with some other utility.
Ñ Eliminated the rogue vertical line on the right side of the progress bar in Anarchie.
Ñ The push buttons now have white titles when pushed.
Ñ Tweaked the scroll bars slightly.
Ñ Zooming a windowshaded window should no longer cause part of the desktop to poke through the window.
Ñ Improved behavior on black and white monitors.
Ñ The popup routines should now work with MacApp (they now store the last selected menuID and item in the private dataHandle structure where MacApp expects to find them).
Changes in version 1.0
Ñ Added Copland-style 3D default button frames in dialog boxes.
Ñ Fixed a conflict with QuickDraw GX that would cause crashes in the Print and Page Setup dialog boxes.
Ñ Fixed the conflict with MicroPhone.
Ñ Fixed a bug that would cause Eudora to hang/crash when opening a help window.
Ñ Fixed a bug that could cause the system font to occasionally revert back to Chicago 12.
Ñ Aaron now works correctly non-Roman scripts, such as Kanji, Hebrew, or Greek (but not Icelandic, I'm afraid). It specifically checks for Chicago 12 instead of blindly replacing the system font with Espi Sans Bold 10.
Ñ The new 3D progress bar now appears in the Copy dialog box on German systems.
Ñ Fixed a bug that could cause ╥Find File╙ to crash when you click in a pop-up menu.
Ñ Expanded modal dialog boxes a few pixels. This gives Now SuperBoomerang (and Norton Directory Assistance?) enough room to display its menus in the Open and Save boxes without overlapping the window border.
Ñ Command clicking in the title bar of inactive windows to move them now works again.
Ñ Fixed a problem with the grow box in the Launcher window.
Ñ Slightly modified the check boxes, radio buttons, window widgets, and scroll bar arrows.
Ñ The pop-up menus now support icons.
Ñ Aaron now supports color titles for radio buttons, check boxes, and push buttons.
Ñ The buttons now correctly handle ╥254-highlighting╙ (an obscure technical thing).
Ñ The windows now draw better in 16 colors.
Ñ Aaron now uses the Greg's Buttons dialog box color for Finder progress boxes.
Changes in version 1.0b5
New Features/Improvements
Ñ Hacked the Finder progress boxes to look like the Copland screen shots.
Ñ Added Copland-style disclosure triangles in Finder list views.
Ñ Added Copland-style pop-up menu controls.
Ñ Added ╘ghosting╒ effect to the scroll bar thumb when dragged. This feature conflicts with the Scrolling control panel, and it does not work correctly on some Macs. In order to use the ghost thumb, you must switch it on by editing the ╥SPrf╙ resource in ResEdit.
Ñ Finder window title bars should now be getting the correct icon. It now pays attention to custom icons and labels.
Ñ The windows are now pixel for pixel identical to the Copland screen shots, except as noted below.
Ñ Added the window drop shadow. I don't know if I like it, but it is faithful to the actual. The lower left portion of the shadow does not go all the way to the edge of the window like in the screen shots. Sorry.
Ñ Added another option in the ╥WPrf╙ resource for turning icons in Finder window title bars on or off. The icons can slow you down a little. If you have a fast machine, I would not worry about it.
Ñ Made the radio buttons smoother, lightened the blue menu highlight color, and improved the 3D menu bar.
Bug Fixes
Ñ Eliminated the rogue black lines that would appear when using ClarisWorks.
Ñ The New Folder button now draws correctly when highlighted on black and white monitors.
Ñ Fixed conflict with Folder Icon Maker where Aaron's folder icons would override custom folder icon files.
Ñ Desktop printers windows no longer have a gray header.
Ñ Fixed a bug that could corrupt the trash can icon.
Ñ Fixed problem with buttons in Quark.
Ñ Fixed problem with BBEdit that would turn the text gray after a paste operation.
Ñ The ╥WPrf╙ resource now has a template that ResEdit can understand.
Ñ Fixed problem where moving the scroll bar thumb to the top/left of the scroll bar would cause it to jump to the end.
Ñ Fixed compatibility problem with the Scrolling cdev and ZTerm.
Ñ Fixed problem where closing a windowshaded window would cause a weird desktop update.
Ñ Changed grow box drawing behavior to only draw when called upon. This fixes the problem where the Chooser and Get Info boxes had grow boxes, but introduces another: occasionally Finder windows will not have a grow box when initially drawn. This is because the Finder has not told the WDEF to draw any grow boxes yet. Once the window becomes active, everything is normal from that point on.
Ñ Clicking the windowshade button no longer causes ProTERM to quit.
Ñ Wƒnderbar now works wƒnderbar. You *may* notice a slight irregularity when the window is rolled up, though.
Ñ You can no longer move the window by clicking in the lower right edge of the window. That land has been taken over by the evil yet ever-flexible Grow Box Empire! So no more dragging when you meant to resize.
Ñ Window titles now draw properly when in Stuffit Lite (and probably Deluxe as well).
Ñ Window title embossing now uses a slightly darker gray, so it is not so blatant.
Changes in version 1.0b4
Ñ Added the WindowShade widget to the top right of the title bar.
Ñ Windows now roll up properly when using WindowShade (no pixels left hanging off the bottom).
Ñ Added a 'WPrf' resource to allow disabling of window title embossing, for you purists.
Ñ Fixed problem where clicking in the grow portion of an inactive window would grow it when in fact it should have merely activated it.
Ñ You can no longer resize a rolled up window. That was not good.
Ñ Changed the trash can icon yet again.
Ñ Changed the Aaron extension icon slightly.
Ñ Aaron now draws the button frame correctly for selected push buttons on black and white monitors.
Changes in version 1.0b3 (MacHack)
Ñ Fixed a bug that would occasionally substitute other controls (such as sliders) for buttons.
Ñ Fixed a bug at startup that EvenBetterBusError (EBBE) caught.
Ñ Fixed a bug that could prevent Aaron from changing the System font to Espi Sans Bold 10.
Ñ Aaron now lets application-specific WDEFs override its window routines.
Changes in version 1.0b2
Ñ Added Copland-style windows and scroll bars, courtesy of Ed Voas.
Ñ The empty and full trash can icons now use a gray shadow instead of a black one.
Ñ Aaron no longer draws the white highlight at the top of the screen if the menu bar is hidden.
Ñ Aaron now has an extension icon which it draws at startup.
Ñ Changed the name to ~Aaron so that it loads after CE Toolbox.
Ñ Aaron can now coexist with Greg's Buttons. The settings in Greg's Buttons override Aaron.
Disclaimer
The authors, Gregory D. Landweber and Edward Voas, make no warranties, either express or implied, regarding the fitness of ╥Aaron╙ for any particular purpose. Use ╥Aaron╙ at your own risk. The authors claim no liability for data loss or any other problems caused directly or indirectly by ╥Aaron╙.
