When I first saw the System 7 Finder’s “About This Macintosh” display, I thought it looked really cool. Then I tried to make it DO something, like switch me to an application when I clicked its icon. I was somewhat disappointed when nothing happened. I was even more disappointed to find I couldn’t make the display appear automatically when I started up the Mac! So, out of frustration, I decided to write my own version.
The result is About, a process monitor. Its appearance is an unabashed knockoff of the Finder’s display; but unlike that display, you can actually use About to interact with your processes and get information on them. A little arrow appears next to the current process. Clicking an icon switches you to its process, and option–clicking an icon hides or shows that process, just like the Hide and Show commands in the application menu. You can customize the display in many ways—use large icons if you prefer, or arrange the processes by their location in memory to reveal the “holes” in your address space.
Other commands allow you to monitor background–only processes, view CPU load, create an “icon palette” of your favorite applications, find a running application’s location on disk, and force other processes to quit. About can also maintain a log of application activity.
Japanese users should look for ABAUTO, the Japanese version of About. If you are interested in localizing About for your language, please contact me.
RESTRICTIONS
About requires System 7.
About will not show the individual icons of applications run from a floppy.
About will not show custom icons you’ve assigned to applications or desk accessories.
ABOUT PROCESSES
A process is a program that’s running on your Macintosh. Each application you run is a process. Under System 7, each desk accessory you run may also be a process. For some reason, a control panel is not a process—it’s run as an extension of the Finder. Your Mac may be running other processes that you don’t even know about—File Sharing is a good example. When you start up File Sharing, the system creates a “background-only” process named “File Sharing Extension.”
Each process has its own “partition”—an area of your Mac’s memory dedicated to that process. When you change an application’s Preferred size with the Finder’s Get Info command, you’re adjusting the size of its process partition.
COMMANDS
Here’s a quick rundown of About’s menu commands and other features. Balloon Help™ is also available for the menu commands.
OPEN OTHER
This command on the “File” menu lets you open other applications, desk accessories, or the Finder. It allows you to use About as a Finder replacement, if you wish.
LOGGING
About can log process activity to a tab-delimited text file it creates when you choose the “Open Log” command from the “File” menu. About records the activity (open or quit), the process name, and the date/time of the activity. NOTE: Quit times are approximate.
Each time it’s launched, About reopens the log file and records any additional activity to the end, until you choose the “Close Log” command.
VIEW BY
About’s “View” menu lets you customize the display. You can sort the list of processes by their names (the default), the size of their memory partitions, the order in which they were launched, or the location of their partitions in memory. The last choice is only available if you turn off the “Group System Software” option. (See the separate document, ABOUT MEMORY, which explains this display in more detail.)
VIEW WITH
You can view the processes with their small icons (the default) or their large icons. You may find the large icons easier to click on.
OTHER VIEW OPTIONS
“Show Machine Info” is on by default. When you turn it off, the banner at the top of the window goes away. This banner contains the machine icon and type, the System Software version, and some memory information. It’s pretty, but if you can’t afford the screen real–estate, take it away.
“Group System Software” is on by default. When you turn it off, the pseudo–process “System Software” is split into its component processes: the Finder and any background processes that may be running (such as “File Sharing Extension”). Background processes appear in italics (or whatever style Finder alias names use), and their icons don’t respond to clicks.
“Show Partition Sizes” is on by default. Turning it off makes the partition size information go away, and the window fills horizontally with process icons. You can now change the window’s width when you resize it, to adjust the number of columns and form an icon palette. The processes are sorted vertically when you view with small icons, and they’re sorted horizontally when you view with large icons.
“Auto–Zoom”
When the number of processes changes, the window will automatically zoom to accomodate the new list size if this option is turned on.
MANIPULATING PROCESSES
To manipulate a process, select it by clicking or typing its name (or click anything but the icon). When you select a process this way, the “Process” menu is enabled. From that menu, you can get more detailed information about the process, find its icon on disk, or force it to quit.
To select multiple processes, hold down the shift key. To select discontiguous processes or to deselect processes, hold down the command key. You can move the selection with the arrow keys. Press return to switch to the selected process, and option–return to hide/show its layer. Scroll the list with the page up, page down, home, and end keys.
GET INFO
This command displays detailed information about the process: its kind; memory partition size and used bytes; disk location; and its launch date and process. Double–click the process name as a shortcut for this command.
FIND APPLICATION
This command asks the Finder to locate the icon of the selected process. The Finder may behave a little screwy after you do this—once it finds an icon, you may need to click several times on another object or press the esc key to get it deselected. Sorry, it’s not my fault!
EXCLUDING AND INCLUDING
If you never want to see a certain process, just select it and choose “Always Exclude” from the “Process” menu. To restore the excluded process to the list, choose “Show Excluded” from the “Edit” menu.
If you always want to have a process’ icon available, even when the process isn’t running, select it and choose “Always Include” from the “Process” menu. When you quit the process, its icon will remain in the list with an “offline” appearance. Click the icon to launch the process! To remove an included process from the list, select it (while the process isn’t running) and choose “Clear” from the “Edit” menu. This lets you build a palette that will launch your favorite applications with a single click!
QUIT THESE
This command asks the selected processes to quit. You may be prompted to save your changes.
Desk accessories and some older applications can’t be quit unless the Finder is running. About warns you if a process can’t be quit; you’ll have to switch to the process and manually choose its Quit command.
MACINTOSH DRAG AND DROP
If you have Apple’s Macintosh Drag and Drop extension installed, you will be able to drag document icons from Finder to About, and drop them onto process icons there. For example, you could drag a THINK Project Manager text document onto TeachText. If TeachText is an included process that’s not running, About launches it with the document. If TeachText is already running, About simply tells it to open the document.
You can drag an application or desk accessory icon onto About’s process list to always include that process.
You can also drag process icons from About’s process list to Finder. This creates a Finder alias to the original application or desk accessory. If you drag an included process to the Trash, it will no longer be included in About. Of course, you can undo this by dragging the alias out of the trash and back onto About.
You’re probably wondering, “This is all very cool, but where do I get this Drag and Drop thing?” There are several ways. You can buy another product that includes it, though I don’t know of any that currently do. You can buy the SDK from APDA. Or, you can upgrade to System 7.5, which is rumoured to include it. The current rumour is that System 7.5 will appear sometime during the summer of 1994.
MACINTOSH EASY OPEN
About also supports Apple’s Macintosh Easy Open extension in conjunction with Drag and Drop. If you have both of them installed, About will call upon Easy Open to determine what processes can open which documents. If you drag an MS Word document onto TeachText, for example, About will ask Easy Open to step in and translate the document to text first.
NOTE: Automatic translation can only occur if you have already established a preference for it. That means, you must have dragged an MS Word document onto TeachText in Finder, and chosen a translator before it will work in About. This is a limitation of Easy Open; I can’t do anything about it. (Believe me, I tried!)
Getting Macintosh Easy Open is a little easier than getting Macintosh Drag and Drop. Simply buy the excellent product Macintosh Easy Open Translators from DataViz. It will greatly simplify your life. But remember, About doesn’t use Easy Open unless you also have Drag and Drop. Again, System 7.5 is rumoured to include Easy Open, though it won’t include any useful translators—go figure!
MISCELLANEOUS
About will remember your window location and size, your View settings, your Exclude/Include settings, and your Logging status. This makes it quite suitable for use as a Startup Item.
You can click a process icon even when About is in the background, and About will switch you to that process.
About truncates process names that are too long. However, when you move the cursor over a truncated name, its full name is temporarily shown, framed within a box. This happens even when About is in the background, so you can determine a process’ name before you switch to it.
When System Software is ungrouped, the system version also displays the version of any System Tune–Up you may have installed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to…
Donald Major, for rendering the mountains.
Kevin Hardman, for Symbionts.
Chris Zuleeg, for the Quadra 800.
Hugues Marty, for information on the undocumented Layer Manager.
René G.A. Ros, for long distance beta testing, from The Netherlands. His “Supplemental Gestalt Selectors List” was also an invaluable aid.
Special thanks to my wife Darylene.
WHAT’S NEW IN ABOUT 1.0.2
BUGS FIXED
• “Open Other” now works more like Finder. About launches the application with whatever memory is available, up to the Preferred size. If less than the Minimum size is available, About alerts the user that they don’t have enough memory, and how much memory was needed/available.
• By popular request, I have changed “Quit Others” to “Quit These.” I have also improved the reliability of the command, and fixed the nefarious protocolErr (-603) AESend 'quit' error, which occurred when quitting non-High-Level-Event-aware applications (whatever they are)! As an extra added bonus, I now display a caution alert before quitting Finder, to weed out the naive users and annoy the power users.
• Display alert and remove preference when log file cannot be found.
• Ensure that full memory partition bars don’t extend beyond their borders.
• The page up key now pages up, and the page down key now pages down (instead of the other way around—oops!).
• Fix list scrolling when cell size changes.
• Extend name hilighting by two pixels on either end. Avoid cosmic colors when hilighting names of selected cells.
• Squashed a double DisposHandle bug when deleting an included process.
NEW FEATURES
• About now supports Apple’s Macintosh Drag and Drop and Macintosh Easy Open extensions.
• About now waits to display its window until it has found all running processes. Visually, this appears to speed its startup time.
• About is now more intelligent when using the “by partition” view. It understands the effects of NuBus cards and the ROM on your address space. This is only a problem if you are using virtual memory and 24-bit addressing (for example, on a Macintosh SE/30). In this situation, About displays an alert if it detects that NuBus cards are poorly arranged.
• About now displays the System Heap as its own block when using the “by partition” view. (It’s kinda fun to watch your System heap grow continuously as you use the Mac!) This causes another “unused” block—typically the largest one—to appear between the last process and the System Heap. Therefore, “Largest Unused Block” is no longer displayed when viewed by partition.
• About now ignore option-clicks on the frontmost process icon. Before, this would cause the system to hide the process as it switched to About; then About would immediately show the process because of the option key.
MISCELLANEOUS
• If the machine name is too long, About now displays it under the machine icon rather than beside it.
• About increases the width of the process name field if it’s not wide enough to display the “System Software” string in the current script.
WHAT’S NEW IN ABOUT 1.0.1
BUGS FIXED
• Don’t zoom the top of the window off the screen.
• Don’t replace included processes with zero K unused blocks.
• Don’t display a CPU load for unused blocks.
• Improve accuracy of memory partition bars.
• Sort System Software bar correctly when viewed by size.
• Don’t try to update the “System Software” bar if it doesn’t exist.
• Position all icons correctly.
• Info windows now go away reliably when a process quits while viewing by partition.
• Column labels now precede first “Start” event when log is created.
• Don’t log included processes when they go away.
NEW FEATURES
• Don’t bail if preferences can’t be opened.
• Ignore option key when switching to About from another process.
• Add a close box to the About window as a shortcut for the Application menu’s “Hide About” command.
• Display version number in lower-left corner.
• Show included processes at the top of the list when viewed by size, to be consistent with the other non-name views.
• Center “unused” when viewing with large icons.
• When the mouse moves over a process cell whose name has been truncated, temporarily show the name without truncation, inside a 1-pixel box (a’la At Ease).
• Truncate VM volume string in the middle, rather than at the end.
• Change “Quit Others” to “Quit <name-of-selected-process>” if only one process selected.
• About now determines the “shell application”—the first application launched by the system, and makes it the “System Software” bar if System Software is grouped. Usually, the shell application is Finder, but it can be something else (At Ease, for example). If so, Finder (when running) will not be grouped with the System Software, but will appear as a normal application process. If the shell process goes away, so does the “System Software” bar.
• Get Info “launched by” now reports orphans and system children more accurately. The shell process is launched by “the system at startup.” All other system children are just launched by “the system.”
• Make sure System Software, the Finder, and the shell are all considered system processes.
MISCELLANEOUS
• Rebuilt with THINK C 6.0; adjusted segment attributes.
• Increase background sleep time to reduce About’s CPU load.
• About is now a better international citizen. This version makes extensive use of the Script Manager to treat all text with the respect and attention it deserves.
YOURS TRULY
I hope you enjoy using About. If you have any comments, suggestions, or bug reports, e-mail them to me at hecht@vnet.net.
