Here’s a simple, handy TO DO LIST for hard disk owners. Open the main hard drive window. Select New Folder from the File menu. Name it T O D O L I S T (it’s better if you space it out like this). Open this folder. Select View by Small Icon. Resize the folder’s width until you can just barely see the title and the k in disk and k available figures just show, too. Drag the folder length out several inches.
While this folder is still active, get a few New Folders and line them up one under the other vertically. These empty folders are your TO DO items. Just title the folder with the reminder. If you need more note space for the reminder, put an asterisk (*) in front of the reminder and use Get Info… as a place for lots more notes. The asterisk reminds you to look at the Get Info… of the folder.
Now grab the title bar of the TO DO LIST folder and drag the open folder into the lower left corner of the screen until the TO DO items are hidden and just the k in disk/k available line and the TO DO title are still visible.
When you want to look at, add to or delete from your TO DO LIST, grab the title bar and pull the folder up where you can see and work with the contents. Here is a finished TO DO LIST:
There is an added benefit to this TO DO LIST. It keeps the amount of space left available on the disk visible whenever you are in the Finder.
Of course, you can check your list from within any application by using something like DiskTop, or by calling up the Open dialog box, where the folders with their reminder titles can be seen.
Pre-2.0 versions can’t change a field name after you start entering data. Here is a workaround: Copy the File data base to the clipboard (that’s after you back up the file, of course). Now quit. When asked if you want to save formatted or unformatted, choose unformatted. Open your DB. You can now change the field names BEFORE you paste your data out of the Clipboard into the newly formatted DB. You will, however, lose any graphics field material and “hidden info,” whatever that means in MS File.
Capture “captures” a screen dump with any menu pulled down. It comes with an unchangeable keystroke of Command/Shift/C to invoke it. Since this is the keystroke many programs use for centering, it gets in the way. Unless you are a real hacker, you won’t be able to change that keystroke. Fortunately, Capture is coming out with an update to take care of this.
Speak.sit puts annoying messages on your screen. It is not desctructive, however. (Thanks, The Note Pad, Springfield, IL, MUG.)
Give the scuba divers back their wet suits. I mean, those hunks of neoprene are NOT the best mousepads. The best mousepad is the cover of a vinyl plastic 9x12 3-ring binder. It’s a virtual racetrack for the mouse. You probably have an unused 3-ring binder lying around somewhere. That will make two mousepads — one for you and one to show other Mac users how to save money and run their mice more smoothly. Choose an unpadded binder, or use the unpadded side, if there is one. Thin, hard, smooth ones are better than thick, rough soft ones. Happy skating, little mouse!
ResEdit 1.2a1, does not support the 64k ROMs in the older 128k and 512k Macintoshes. I have also seen 1.2b2 out there, but it probably has the same specs.
Would you like to move selected objects up, down, right or left one pixel at a time? With the newer Systems you get Easy Access, which is meant to help handicapped users use the keyboard for mouse-like movements. Press Command/ Option/Shift/Clear all together. Now your number 5 key on the numeric keypad is like a mouse button. Press it and hold while pressing the surrounding keys (1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9) to move selected objects one pixel in the desired direction(s).
Oh-oh! If you try to restart with the programmer’s switch on a Mac with a LaCie Cirrus 80 meg hard drive, your hard disk directory will go bye-bye You won’t be able to reboot. Call LaCie if that happens.
If you can’t get a disk out of your Mac, after you try all the known tricks (like using a paperclip and sliding a playing card in above the disk while you try ejecting, etc.), turn your Mac upside down and try the eject again. Sometimes it works, and it is a lot cheaper than having the technician take your Mac apart to get that disk out.
Lost a document on the screen? FindFile, DiskTop, DiskInfo, MacTree and other similar programs will help you find it. However, if it is icon clutter in a single window, use the View by Name choice. One possible way to lose track of a document is when it is exactly covered by another identical icon. View by Name takes care of this.
OK, so you have learned not to trust the accuracy of Pagemaker 3.0X crop marks on a LaserWriter printout. Use a Linotronic and everything will be OK, except your pocketbook. (Thanks, The Active Window, Boston Computer Society, MUG.)
Here are some Pagemaker pointers which I can’t find in the manual, or which are sketchily covered therein:
‡ Option key while selecting Spacing = recomposes entire document, updating to fonts in current System.
‡ Shift key while selecting a page icon = page is shown in Fit in Window mode.
‡ Shift key while selecting Go to Page = slide show of all pages in the document.
‡ Shift key while selecting Fit in Window = view of entire pasteboard.
‡ Shift key while selecting 200% = 400%.
‡ Command key while selecting a style in palette = edit style.
‡ Option key while selecting Print = gives you Apple (not Aldus) dialog boxes and choices.
Most of these shortcuts require the use of the menu bar, not keystroke shortcuts. (Thanks, Personal Publishing, for the idea.)
The programs which can AutoTrace bitmapped art as object oriented so far are Illustrator ‘88, DeskPaint 2.0, Image Studio 1.5, and “RSN”, Freehand.
To get a miniature copy of a MacPaint document easily, open ShowPage and take a Command/Shift/3 snapshot. Open the resulting Screen 0 document and touch up the picture. Copy it to the Scrapbook and use as needed.
Early versions of the Image Writer II which have a metal foil “paper out” detector, can be upgraded with Apple part #070250. Delighted owners who have done this say that this is the absolute end of paper jams.
To stop the ImageWriter from sucking paper in behind the platen, use a PostIt Note to protrude and cover the space where the paper is prone to curl down behind the platen. (Another goodie from MadMacNews.)
Hypertalk manages to round some .5 numbers up and some down, so if you want HyperCard to be consistent in this matter, you’ll have to write a function to do that. (Thanks, MadMac News, Madison, WI MUG.)
Why do you sometimes need straight quote marks around field, button and card names in a HyperCard script? One reason: the name is not the last word or words in a line, in which case HyperCard does not know where the field/button/card name ends.
Careful now! When you Save Copy in HyperCard, you stay in the original stack. You don’t end up in the Copy, as you would in most Macintosh applications.
If you put a bunch of buttons on a card when they should go in background, use this quickie sequence to get right with HyperCard:
1. Select button tool
2. Click on one of the buttons to move
3. Command/C; then Com mand/ B; then Command/V; then Com mand/B.
4. Click on the next button to move
5. Repeat the Command key strokes.
If you stay on the keyboard throughout, you can race through this project.
Any field in HyperCard can act like a button if you lock the text. This means you can construct a two or three line “button” if you like. Give it a manually drawn “buttonlike” background, border or icon.
Using Apple’s new scanner and HyperCard, you can scan at 300 dpi, then divide the image into 32 HyperCard card images. Now you can print the 32 cards out with no space between for one complete image at 300 dpi.
What is compacting in Hyper Card? Not only does it skinny up your stack, but it also reconstructs the entire stack, recoding compression and search algorithms. It optimizes the stack for best performance. When you change the HyperCard appli cation version (as in 1.2.1) be sure you compact every stack twice before running it under the new version for the first time. This way you get the best out of every stack. (Parts of this from Andy Stadler in The Mouse Times, Goleta, CA MUG.)
Does your cursor keep disap pear ing on a card in HyperCard? That’s probably an idle handler playing with your cursor. Find the idle handler (“on idle…”) and put this script before it:
put the selectedChunk into¬ theChunk
Now at the end of the instruc tions, put:
select theChunk
Your insertion point should not keep disappearing now. (Thanks Eric Alderman in The Mouse Times, Goleta, CA MUG.)
If you would like to keep flipping cards in a stack until you say stop, try this button script:
on mouseDown
go to next card
put the ticks into tickHolder
repeat until (the mouse is up)
if (the ticks - tickHolder)¬ > 30 then
go to next card
put the ticks into¬ tickHolder
end if
end repeat
end mouseDown -- thanks Kevin
-- Altis in MUse Newsletter,
-- Columbus, MO, MUG
The only problem I see with this is that if you stop on a card without good navigational buttons on it, you have to use the Command/2|3 to get where you want to go.
There is a tag limit in FullWrite Professional — 1700 tags. Index entries take up to 3 each, and notes and sidebars take two or three each. The limit isn’t in the manual. (The Mouse Times, Goleta, CA MUG.)
Both Font/DA Juggler and Suitcase 1.24 are interfering with HyperCard’s ResCopy XCMD. Let Mouse Droppings know if you have a workaround. We’ll spread the word.
