Greg's Buttons is a control panel that lets you customize the user interface of a Macintosh running System 7™. To use it, drop it into your “Control Panels” folder (or drop it on your “System Folder” and let the Finder put it where it belongs) and restart. Greg's Buttons requires that your Mac supports color, so it won't work on the Plus, SE, Classic, or PowerBook 100. Every Mac with a 68020 processor or better supports color, even if it has a black and white screen. Greg's Buttons works just fine on gray-scale monitors, and although it will work on a black and white screen, the effect is much less pronounced.
Greg's Buttons is a “fat binary”, containing both 680x0 and PowerPC native code for optimal performance on Macintosh and Power Macintosh computers. (The PowerPC code takes up less than 20k of disk space and isn't loaded into RAM on a 680x0 Mac, so I don't see much reason for a 680x0-only version.)
To disable the annoying shareware message, just uncheck the “Annoying Shareware Message” box in the main control panel. This does not require a password, secret code, or registration number. I trust you! For information on registering, run the enclosed “Register” program or read the “Shareware Registration” section below.
List of Features
Replaces the standard flat black and white push buttons, check boxes, and radio buttons with tasteful 3D color ones. These buttons are designed to complement the windows and scroll bars in the System 7 interface, and in particular they use the color tints that you can select in the “Color” control panel. You can choose from three styles of push buttons and four styles each of radio buttons and check boxes. There is also an option to draw the text of push buttons using an embossed style.
Substitutes a font of your choice (chosen from two versions each of Espi, Helvetica, Palatino, and Tecton) for Chicago as your system font. This font is used in menus, window titles, dialogs, and several other places throughout the Mac interface. Note that this feature changes more than just the menu font. Also note that this feature has nothing to do with the “Views” control panel, which changes the font in Finder™ windows.
Lets you select the background color of dialog boxes, menus (both the text and background colors), and Finder™ windows. Since the dialog box colorization feature is known to cause some unavoidable conflicts, there is an “Exclude Applications…” button which lets you specify applications in which the dialog boxes should not be colorized.
If you have System 7.5, Macintosh Easy Open, or Hardware System Update 3.0 then you may have noticed that the new small icons in the Open... and Save... boxes are in color in some applications and black and white in others. When the dialog box background color feature of Greg's Buttons is turned on, these small icons will always be drawn in color (except in the excluded applications). If you want color small icons but are not partial to color dialog backgrounds, you can set the color to white.
Colorizes the mini icons in Finder™ list views (i.e., view by name, etc.). This is the smallest icon size you can select in the “Views” control panel.
Colorizes the stop sign, caution, and note alert icons.
Changes Since 3.7.1
Fixed a bug in the Use Finder Label Colors feature that could cause Desktop Strip to crash at startup.
The desktop now redraws more smoothly when you switch system fonts.
Improved compatibility with Aaron (my Copland interface extension). The menu colors in Aaron should override those in Greg's Buttons.
Changes Since v3.7
Added a Use Finder Label Colors option to the Finder Window Color feature. This option sets the background color of Finder windows to the label color of the enclosing folder.
Minor bug fixes and improvements involving the dialog box and Finder window colorization features.
Changes Since v3.6.1
Fixed conflicts with Suitcase, Claris Organizer, and FullWrite.
Changes in the control panel now take effect immediately instead of waiting for the control panel to close.
Changes Since v3.6
Registrations are now handled through the Kagi Shareware service. In addition to cash in various currencies and checks, they can also accept credit card payments sent by post, fax, or e-mail.
Changes Since v3.5.2
Added new push button, check box, and radio button styles inspired by a recent article on 3D interface design in Apple's Develop magazine.
Known Problems
Greg's Buttons does some serious fiddling with the Mac user interface. Applications often make invalid assumptions about their operating environment which no longer hold when you customize your Mac. Since the programmers did not forsee these changes, and since they never had the opportunity to test their products with Greg's Buttons, there are bound to be some conflicts. In most cases these are not the fault of Greg's Buttons, but I try my best to work around such problems when I learn of them. Here are some of the most common examples:
System 7.5
Despite what the Compatibility Checker might tell you, Greg's Buttons is fully compatible with System 7.5.
When the Alerts and Dialog Boxes colorization feature is on, System 7.5 leaves splotches of white in the file lists in the Open… and Save… dialog boxes. Apple has fixed this in the System 7.5 Update 1.0 (aka System 7.5.1).
FrameMaker
If the Substitute System Font feature is enabled, FrameMaker may complain at startup about various font conflicts. This is nothing to be concerned about; the problem is really due to FrameMaker's overzealous font checking. Aside from the font warnings, FrameMaker behaves normally.
PlainTalk (voice recognition)
The System 7 Color Buttons feature prevents PlainTalk from recognizing the names of buttons in dialog boxes. It appears that PlainTalk ignores the names of controls unless they are drawn using the standard button drawing routines. This prevents PlainTalk from mistakenly activating a scroll bar or a slider control with unpredictable results. I have not yet found a work around for this problem.
Display Enabler
Greg's Buttons conflicts with the “Display Enabler” used on some Quadra models. The label names and colors in the Finder can become corrupted, and icons may look strange when selected.
Ritz Software
The System 7 Color Buttons feature conflicts with the programs from Ritz Software Ltd. This is a due to a bug in their software, not mine. I have spoken with them, explaining how they can fix it, but I don't know whether they have taken my advice. They didn't seem very highly skilled at Mac programming.
MasterJuggler
The Substitute System Font feature does not function properly with MasterJuggler version 1.57c or earlier, but it should work fine with version 1.58. Contact ALSoft for an upgrade.
Directory Assistance II
I am told that Directory Assistance II prevents Greg's Buttons from colorizing the “New Folder...” button in the “Save as...” dialog box. It seems that Directory Assistance II is overriding the normal button drawing routines and is substituting its own custom black and white version. I am afraid that there is nothing I can do about this. Sorry.
theTypeBook
When Greg's Buttons is installed, theTypeBook generates a font error message, reporting “System Heap bit set: Font not loaded” for the “.Cambridge” FOND. This is nothing to be concerned about, and you can disable theTypeBook's font error checking using its “Other Options” dialog box (obtained by holding down the option key and selecting the “File” menu).
MacWrite II
If the “Font” menu in MacWrite II freezes closed, you should remove the “Claris Fonts” file in your system folder (possibly in a subfolder named “Claris”) to force MacWrite II to reconstruct its “Font” menu the next time you launch it. This is also a bug in MacWrite II.
Canvas
When the Substitute System Font feature is enabled, some of the menu items in Canvas may be blurred when you drag the mouse over them. To remedy this problem, try switching to one of the other substitute system fonts or turning off the Substitute System Font feature altogether.
America Online & eWorld
For some reason, the folks at AOL decided to ignore the Mac Human Interface Guidelines and use buttons that fill with the highlight color when pushed. So, they bypassed the standard button drawing routines in favor of their own custom ones. This overrides Greg's Buttons as well, and I'm afriad that there is nothing I can do about it. Unfortunately, the same is also true for eWorld, since Apple licensed much of its online technology from AOL.
Alarm Clock DA
The Alarm Clock DA in System 7.0 does not work properly with the Substitute System Font feature. Apple has fixed this problem in System 7.1.
WriteNow
If you try to use the Balloon Help for the Greg's Buttons control panel while WriteNow 3.0 is running, you may encounter spurious help balloons flashing on and off while you drag the mouse over Greg's Buttons. This happens with any control panel, and it appears to be a bug in WriteNow.
Microsoft Graph
The Microsoft Graph module seems to override the System 7 Color Buttons feature. I don't know why, and I don't care.
Comments and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
If Greg's Buttons causes problems on your Mac, try disabling its features one-by-one until the problem goes away. Most likely, the problem is caused by only one of the many features, and the rest of the features will work fine for you. In particular, any problem relating to dialog boxes is probably caused by the dialog box colorization feature, while a problem involving menus is most likely due to either the substitute system font or the menu colorization feature. The buttons themselves are exremely stable.
Substitute System Font Feature
No, it is not possible to substitute an arbitrary font for the system font. The font has to be tweaked rather significantly in order for it to work reliably. If you have a pet font that you'd like to see added to the list of alternate system fonts in Greg's Buttons, let me know via e-mail.
When you switch system fonts, the menus may not adjust to the new font spacing immediately. This will be fixed when the menu bar is redrawn.
Note that thin fonts such as “Helvetica 12” and “Palatino 12” will be illegible when dimmed or grayed-out on a black and white monitor.
The “Palatino 14” substitute system font is a little to big to work well as a system font. Push buttons may appear cramped, and text might not always fit properly in dialog boxes. On the other hand, I think this font looks great on large screens, and I am willing to ignore such glitches.
Alerts and Dialog Boxes Background Color Feature
Some applications assume that they are dealing with a black and white dialog box while Greg's Buttons substitutes a color one. The difference is enough to cause some odd behavior. There is no way to fix such conflicts without rewriting parts of the offending applications. However, you can specify applications to be excluded from this feature by clicking the “Exclude Applications...” button and adding the application to the exclusion list. The list includes Microsoft Word, Canvas, Help!, and Disk First Aid.
IT IS NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE FOR ME TO FIX THIS PROBLEM; IF IT WERE, I WOULD HAVE FIXED IT BY NOW. THAT IS WHY I HAVE THE EXCLUSION LIST.
For some choices of the dialog box background color, the text insertion cursor may be drawn in a just barely visible color. This is the result of the brain-dead routines the Mac uses to figure out a suitable inverse (it thinks light yellow shows up well against a light gray, for instance). To get around this, try changing the dialog box background color very slightly, and the inverse routine may arbitrarily pick a better color.
When dialog colorization is turned on, you may notice that alert boxes (the kind with the stop sign, caution, or note icon in the top-left corner) are drawn with a grayed-out border. This is a documented bug in the system software, and Apple intends to fix it in a future release.
Menu Bar and Menus Color Feature
If you have used another control panel (such as “Aurora” or “Kolor 2.0”) to color your menu bar, your previous menu color settings will override the settings in the Greg's Buttons control panel. If you want to use the menu colorization feature in Greg's Buttons instead, use the other control panel to set the menu colors back to black and white. Greg's Buttons should then remove the color information from the system file and substitute its own.
If your monitor is in 16-bit mode (thousands of colors) and you colorize your menus, you may encounter gibberish in the menu bar when you launch an application. This is not a bug in Greg's Buttons (or Aurora or Kolor for that matter), but rather a bug in the system software.
Finder Window Color Feature
When you quit from an application that modifies the system color palette, some Finder windows may be left with sploches of random colors in them. This will go away as soon as the offending windows are re-drawn. This annoyance is inherent to the system and there is nothing I can do about it.
System 7 Color Buttons Feature
The third radio button dot style uses the highlight color that you can select in the "Color" control panel.
Occasionally, you may find that push button titles are fuzzy, blocky or blurred. This has been known to happen in Word, the HP DeskWriter dialog box, and Alias Director. This problem will go away if you turn off the “Embossed Push Button Text”.
Shareware Registration
Greg's Buttons is shareware; it is NOT free. You may try it out for a fortnight. If after that time, you think it is a frivolous waste of processor time and disk space, just take a good look at your Mac without Greg's Buttons. It will look dull, Dull, DULL! If you want to keep it, you should pay the $15 shareware fee. I understand if you are an impoverished student or have trouble dealing with your company's bureaucracy, and if that is the case, then just try your best. From my previous experiences, I estimate that about 1 in 20 people registers the shareware that (s)he uses regularly, perhaps much less, so if you have ever wanted to rise above the rest of humanity, here is your chance!
Kagi Shareware
I am now using the Kagi Shareware service run by Kee Nethery (kee@kagi.com). This means that I can spend more time coding and less processing registrations. It also gives you greater flexibility in paying. In addition to cash in various currencies and checks in US dollars drawn on a US bank, Kagi Shareware also accepts credit card registrations by mail, fax, or e-mail (your card number is scrambled). For organizations, they handle invoices and site licenses, too. For more information and instructions, run the enclosed “Register” program. It creates a customized registration form that you can e-mail to shareware@kagi.com, fax to (510) 652-6589, or post to:
Kagi Shareware
1442-A Walnut Street #392-AT
Berkeley, CA 94709-1405 U.S.A.
Checks should be in US dollars, drawn on a US bank, and made out to “Kagi Shareware”. Since Kagi Shareware handles registrations for several authors, it is very important that you include the registration form (or as close a facsimile as possilbe) with your payment.
Contacting the Author
Please note that Kagi Shareware is only a registration service, NOT a software publisher. The above addresses are for sending payment only. If you have questions or comments about Greg's Buttons, you should contact me directly by internet e-mail at greg@math.harvard.edu. If you are on CompuServe, you can use my address 73131,3326 (please do not send mail to my CompuServe address from other services since I am charged for incoming non-CompuServe messages). If you do not have e-mail, you can also send snail-mail to me at
Gregory D. Landweber
10 Wallingford Drive
Princeton, NJ 08540 U.S.A.
Mail sent to this address is forwarded to me wherever I am, but it may take some time for me to respond. Please do NOT send shareware payments directly to me. All shareware payments should be sent to Kagi Shareware as per the instructions on the registration form.
CompuServe SWREG
You can also register online using CompuServe by typing “GO SWREG”. The Registration ID for Greg's Buttons is 1277. I will charge a 15% surcharge (making the fee $17.25) for registrations via CompuServe. This is to offset CompuServe's 15% processing fee (and also the fact that I don't actually see the money until 6 to 10 weeks after you register).
After Registering
THERE ARE NO PASSWORDS, SECRET CODES, OR REGISTRATION NUMBERS. Once you have registered, you are entitled to feel good about yourself and turn off the “Annoying Shareware Message” check box. If you register through Kagi Shareware or CompuServe SWREG, you will be sent an e-mail response. Kagi Shareware can also send a paper receipt for $1 extra (check the “Paper Receipt” box in the “Register” program if you want one).
Although some shareware authors send a floppy disk with the latest version to registered users, please note that I do NOT. Sorry to sound so mean, but I am a graduate student in mathematics, not a software publisher. Although it might not seem like a big deal to copy and mail a disk, it becomes a pain to have to do so for several people every day, particularly when I am preparing for exams or writing a thesis. Also, the time I spend trying to run a business detracts from the time I spend programming. Whenver I release a new version, I make sure that it is available on the internet archives and online services. With time, new versions propagate to BBSs, User's Groups, and some periodic CD-ROMs as well. If you do not have access to such sources and your version is sufficiently out-of-date, you can send me a polite letter (to the Princeton address) requesting an update.
The author, Gregory D. Landweber, makes no warranties, either express or implied, regarding the fitness of the “Greg's Buttons” control panel for any particular purpose. Use the “Greg's Buttons” control panel at your own risk. The author claims no liability for data loss or any other problems caused directly or indirectly by the “Greg's Buttons” control panel.
