This is an overview of some of the less obvious features.
Instructions:
To use with a PPP connection, click the ╥Connection Type╙ menu and select the dialer you're using. If you don't know which dialer you're using, you can use the "Diagnostics" to find out.
At this point, the first icon will become racing lights. Red lights indicate no PPP activity. Green lights indicate a PPP connection. Yellow lights mean that the PPP connection is either connecting or disconnecting. Clicking on the red or green lights will toggle your PPP connection. You must have OpenTransportPPP (Remote Access) or FreePPP installed, and it must be configured properly.
To check your email, you must have Internet Config or MacOS8.5 and the Internet control panel configured properly. If not, it will probably catch it and tell you that you should first configure it properly. Check the Diagnostics to determine if you need to do anything. Option + clicking the mail icon will launch your email program. Once it's all set up, simply clicking the mail button will check your email for you.
To use the small icons, you should have used Internet Config or MacOS 8.5╒s Internet control panel configured to assign specific apps to specific chores. For example, you can set the http helper app to a browser of your chosing. Option+clicking the small icons allows you to open the application with a particular url. For example, you can option+click the email icon and it will allow you to specify an email address you wish to send a message to. Then, when your email program starts up, your new message will be created for you!
To use the Launcher, you must have the Recent Applications activated in the Apple Menu Options control panel. To signify to the launcher that you╒re entering a url, either type the full url in the case of http urls, or precede the url with a colon. For example, to visit http://www.webbtoys.com, you would type:
╥:webbtoys╙
and to send Chilton an email:
╥:chilton@devhq.com╙
To dial a phone number, precede the number with a pound sign:
╥#555-1212╙
You may also use letters:
╥#1800-buy-this╙
Command+clicking the launcher icon will place the launcher CLI at the top of the screen, and shift+clicking the icon will transform it into a floating window.
Option-clicking an item from the application menu or document menu in the lower right corner of the launcher will open that item's window in the Finder.
If you have problems with any PowerPack, please let me know!
Send questions/comments to... Chilton@devhq.com
What's changed in 1.7:
I added a few new PowerPacks, and deleted a few older ones. Some of the newer ones are still rather unfinished, so just report bugs to me when you get a chance. Also, now you select the PowerPacks you want to activate from the PowerPack menu, which loads them into the toolbar. This gives you greater control over which packs you want to load.
New Packs:
NetJunky - This allows you a little more control over Netscape than you previously had before. Among other things, you can now expand Netscape's window to one of several sizes, including a full-screen mode. You can also access the 'kiosk' mode, and you can save the history file as a set of bookmarks. One word of caution, the History file section is not fully optimized. One might say it's 'completely unoptimized' or 'not optimized by any definition of the word optimized' or even 'very very slow'. What this means to you is that it's very slow. So if you surf a lot (I do), then you'll want to leave your Mac alone for about an hour to do this. Luckily, it does tell you howfar along it is.
Sherlock's Pipe - Simple tool for building Sherlock Plug-ins for your websites faster.
Talkies - Plays any movies on your desktop. Eh, this may not work quite right all of the time. Let me know if it breaks at any point, and don't rely on it too heavily for your multi-million dollar presentation.
WhatToDo - A simple to-do list manager.
Folders - Click a folder, select an item from the list, and that item will be revealed (in its folder, get it?) in the Finder.
FireMail - If you've set up Internet Config or OS 8.5's Internet Control Panel properly, you can send mail with this without opening your Mail program. It keeps a log of everyone who you've sent mail to.
Email Lists - Maintain a mailing list? This will help you organize it easier.
CardVerify - Want to check a credit card number to make sure it's valid? Here's your tool. Keep in mind that it can't check balances, etc.
What's changed in 1.6:
Lots.
As promised, I brought the PowerPacks back onto the toolbar. If your monitor is too small to cram all of the icons on the screen, some will be simply truncated. However, you can access all PowerPacks from the PowerPack menu.
Sound Effects - I added support for sounds. If you place a sound file in the SoundEffects folder, and name it one of the following names, it will be played upon completion of a particular event:
name event
mail You have mail
nomail You have no mail
Connected The PPP connection just connected
Disconnected The PPP connection just disconnected
up A button just popped up
down A button was pushed down
applaunch An application was just launched
commandlaunch A url was just launched
arriving WebbToys was just made the foreground application
leaving WebbToys is no longer the foreground application
powerup A WebbToys PowerPack was just launched
CoolPPP - I added support for FreePPP.
Enhanced plug-in architecture is backwards-compatible with SuperCard,
and has the ability to generate text descriptions of the PowerPacks
based on their Finder Comments.
Diagnostics - Rebuilt from the ground up to cover those things that are now most important. It can now detect OS8 and OS8.5 are set up for Internet use.
AEQuitter - It's now part of the standard PowerPacks. AEQuitter allows you to quit other apps via AppleEvents
NotePad - This is a hacked version of the Project Editor's NotePad from SuperCard. I never user ProjectEditor, and I never use Apple's NotePad, but I use this all the time now. Thought I'd let everyone else use it. Also, I fixed a few bugs in its code.
Mail Log - Every time you check your email now, it keeps a temporary log of every TCP/IP command sent and received, so that if you run into problems, you can check the log. Note that the only way to view the log is to actually have a problem, and the log is destroyed upon successful completion of a check for email.
Ultra-Mega-Cool Feature - One of the coolest features of WebbToys (the original) was its ability to 'climb' on and off screen. Well, that feature caused most of the 1.0 version to die a horrible death, as I had inadvertently enabled a portion of that code again without enabling all of it. So essentially, the program would work once then hide offscreen, never to return again. Well, no more. I fixed that code and now it works great. To try out this feature, shift+click the grow button at the bottom of the main Toys window. You'll see the window shift into the upper left corner of the screen, and a red border will appear on the right side. Now, if you go to another program to do something, you'll see WebbToys climb off-screen, but that red border will be faintly visible on the side of the screen. Simply waving the cursor over it will bring WebbToys to the foreground! Cooler still is that the insertion point will drop into the Launcher if you have it open, giving you an instant command line interface for your Mac!
Fixed a number of logical and memory related bugs.
What's changed in 1.5:
I added support for a new plug-in architecture. This release is really only for those who want the power now, and can't wait for 1.6.
In v.1.6, I'll include code that will bring the PowerPacks back onto the toolbar. In the meantime, use the PowerPack menu. I'll also be releasing some new Packs shortly.
