Brought to you by Skidperfect Software, Inc. - <skidperfect@kagi.com> http://www.shore.net/~chanson
Shareware Fee: US equivalent of $10 during the year 1995, $15 afterwards.
Contents:
The strip windows
How modules are loaded and used
How to add and remove modules/windows
Configuring the environment
General Settings
Individual Strip Settings
Special Preferences
Registering - what happens
Other features
Troubleshooting questions & answers
• The strip windows:
How modules are loaded and used:
When Extensions Strip loads, it looks for the root module folder inside your System Folder (as defined in the control panel.) If the folder cannot be found, ES creates a new one for you. ES then proceeds to alphabetically scan the root folder for other folders, which will become new strip windows. After all the strips have been created, their modules are loaded in alphabetical order and then the strip window is shown.
Some modules just display information but most allow clicks to do certain actions. If a module has a small triangle picture to the right of its display then that module will display a popup menu when clicked upon. Besides these basic instructions, you should refer to the individual module's documentation for more information on usage.
Tips:
• Since this version does not support the moving of modules around in a strip, you can change the module order by simply changing the names of the modules. Name changes take effect immediately, so its not all that bad of an approach until real load ordering is implemented.
• It has become a semi-standard for modules to display a preferences popup menu when clicked with the command() key. You'd be surprised how many modules have "hidden" preferences.
• Most modules have balloon help to give basic information on its usage, and/or the current status of its display. Look at the balloon help first to save time from scanning through documentation.
How to add and remove modules/windows:
Simply add and remove the files/folders from the root module folder or from the sub-strip folders. Changes take effect soon afterwards and no restarting is ever necessary!
Dragging a module with the option key down acts just like dragging the actual file itself. So dragging the module to another folder or onto another strip's window will move the file there and remove the module from the strip. Note that if you keep holding down the option key when you release the drag, the module will be copied to the new location.
Tips:
• To force Extensions Strip to update its display, click on the window's title bar with the option and command keys down. Any modified modules will then be removed and re-added. You may need to do this because changes are only auto-sensed if the strip folder's modification date has changed. Editing a module in ResEdit, for instance, does not update the parent folder's date.
• Configuring the environment:
General Settings:
These settings are for showing, hiding, launching, and quitting Extensions Strip. If you click the 'On' button and Extensions Strip cannot be found in the Extensions or Startup Items folders, a dialog asking you to locate a copy will be displayed.
Individual Strip Settings:
Changes to these settings affect the currently selected strip. To select a different strip for editing, click on the topmost popup menu.
• New Strip: Clicking this button displays a dialog asking for the name of a folder to create. If you click OK, the folder will be created in the root module folder and then displayed as a new window.
• Font: This popup menu allows you to change the font that the current strip's modules are drawn in. Note that some modules are resistant to font changes.
• Size: Changing the value in this popup menu affects the size of the font that the modules are drawn in. Note that the outlined numbers are the sizes that are available without scaling from a different size. Choosing sizes that are not outlined will appear blocky.
• Style: Affects the way text is drawn on the selected strip.
• Font info affects menus: When unselected, all module popup menus will be displayed in the Geneva 9 font. When selected, all module popup menus will be displayed in the chosen font/size. Note that custom text styles do not affect the popup menus. Tip: the menus are drawn fastest when the font is available in that size. For example, if the "Palatino 12" font is installed in your system, then it will be displayed as fast as possible.
• Background color: Click on this box to change the color of the strip window's background.
• Selected color: Click on this box to change the background color of when a module is clicked upon. Tip: Users with monochrome monitors can also benifit from this feature. If you set this to a non-gray color, then the modules will be inversed when clicked upon. For instance, the "Bluish Strip" example mentioned a few paragraphs down, has an inversed selection color.
• Separate color drawing: You should play around with this option when using custom colors. After choosing some colors, try clicking on modules, and see which mode you like better with the color set. Note that with the default color set, this option has no visible effect.
If you want a technical explanation, here you go:
When this option is off, the selected color will be drawn as one of the shades of the unselected state of a module. Also, when a module is selected, then the regular background color will be drawn as one of the selected shades. With this option on, the colors are never mixed as shades.
The usual reason why you would have this option off is if the chosen colors are not very different, or if the calculated colors look bad in 256 color mode. To clarify the purpose of this feature, here are two examples of good color schemes (IMHO.) One looks good with the option on, and the other with it off.
Red Strip:
Background: R:56000, G:14000, B: 14000.
Selected: R:41000, G:3500, B: 3500.
Separate: OFF
Bluish Strip (as pictured in the strip windows section above):
Background: R:24300, G:35000, B: 65535.
Selected: R:1200, G:15000, B: 35000.
Separate: ON
• Show name in title: With this option off, the strip folder's name is not displayed. Turning this option on draws the title bar with the strip folder's name displayed. Having this option on also forces the title bar to be horizontal, regardless of the strip mode.
• Revert to defaults: Clicking this button will make all the settings of the current strip become that of a new strip's defaults, which also happen to be Control Strip's default settings.
Special Preferences:
These settings are in the "everything else" category.
To change the current method of window-shading (toggle showing only the title bar) and mode changing (horizontal/vertical strip views) click on the appropriate radio buttons.
To change the name of the folder in your System Folder that Extensions Strip looks for modules and folder-strips in (the root module folder), click on name of the folder. A dialog will be shown allowing you to change this name. When you click OK, the current root module folder will be physically renamed to the new value, so you won't have to do anything extra to make the name change work right.
Why would someone want to change the root module folder's name? I thought that it would be nice for non-US users so that they could have System Folder names which reflected their native language, even though ES may not explicitly support this language. Also, if you want to rename the folder to "Extensions Strip Modules" or "Bill's rad modules", I'm not stopping you :-)
NB: the root folder name change is safe because it does not modify your System file. This provides maximum compatibility with future system software. It also means, however, that Control Strip will not recognize your customized name.
Registering - what happens:
This information is covered in the How to register part of the "Cost/fee of registration" section of the third file.
• Other features:
The features listed here are the small, previously unmentioned, benifits that you get from using Extensions Strip over the alternatives such as Control Strip.
• Extensions Strip does not allow modules to draw while screen savers are on, so their display is never affected. Because of this, there is no need to hide the strip bars for most screen savers. NB: I've been told that DarkSide does not draw over the strip windows. So if you are a DarkSide user, then you will want to try out my module Terminator Strip because it can automatically hide the strips during screen savers and other programs that hide the menu bar.
• Large popup menus, like the ones displayed by Control Panels Strip, are drawn and centered so that the maximum amount of menu items can be seen at once.
• Extensions Strip is kind to your System and does not allow the modules execute during every idle event. The modules are given idle time at paced intervals which greatly reduces the System overhead if many modules are loaded. Extensions Strip also extends the module API so that modules can tell ES if they do not need to receive idle events. Under Control Strip, all modules receive idle events all of the time.
• Modules that accept drags are always able to do so. (Under Control/Desktop Strip, if you quit the Finder you lose the ability to drag things onto modules.)
• You can move the strip windows around while a module's dialog is on the screen. Note, however, that you cannot run another module while this dialog is on the screen… at least in this version of Extensions Strip.
• Troubleshooting questions & answers:
Q: After installing Extensions Strip, whenever I restart or shutdown, my computer crashes!
A: Looks like you have a module that is crashing when it is asked to close. With Extensions Strip running, remove each loaded module one by one, until your Mac crashes. The last module removed is the culprit so you should disable it and look for a newer version.
Q: One of my strips loads a second or two after the others. Why is this?
A: The strip that is loading later contains at least one PPC native module. PPC modules must load a little later when using Extensions Strip as a background-only application. There is not much I can do about it. This load delay does not occur when ES is a regular app.
Q: Why does the Finder prevent me from copying a custom icon onto the current root module folder?
A: The root module folder has its name locked so the Finder does not allow the icon to be modified. A suitable workaround is to create a new folder on your desktop and paste the icon onto that folder. Then rename the folder to the name of your root module folder, and move the current root folder's items into this new folder. Finally, drag the new folder into your System Folder to replace the old root module folder. Note: if Extensions Strip is running, you will need to quit and re-launch it after you do all this.
Q: Why is the scrolling of the about box text "jerky"?
A: Because the about box allows other programs to run at the same time. The only way to fix this would be to not allow other programs to run at the same time, which would not be nice of me (your 3Mb download would take a lot longer to finish!). Tip: the about box has help balloons.
Q: I have a question/problem with ES that is not answered in this section, or in the rest of the documentation.
A: Some potential questions will be answered in the section Future version features of the third file. If you still cannot find the answer, don't hesitate to e-mail me about it and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
