Version 1.8.0 Sunday 25 Apr il1999 ΓÇö The ΓÇ£nearly turlyΓÇÖs birthdayΓÇ¥ Version
Note that this document has multiple chapters! Click on the popup menu on the lower left of this window to see the list.
Hello and welcome to the slightly better organised manual, formed by taking the old ReadMe and banging at it with a piece of two-by-four. Complaints, clarifications, bugs, omissions, rephrasings of my tenebrous and deathless ΓÇö if only for sheer turgidity ΓÇö prose all welcome at turly@finderpop.com.
See also the webpage at http://www.finderpop.com
Unfortunately, my spare time is at a premium as I’m trying to find somewhere to live and dealing with banks/solicitors/estate agents, etc., has me coming out in a rash. (A minor update — I thought I’d found somewhere reasonable, put a deposit on it but never signed anything, paid large amounds of dosh for legal fees, valuation fees and structural survey, etc., and have now been told that the vendor doesn't want to sell it after all. 10 weeks wasted and now I have to start all over again, dammit. 25-May-98 Update: Argh! Dammit! — It’s happened again! Different house, same old crud — and on the very day we were due to exchange contracts! Look for a news item on your TV screens soon involving a deranged programmer, a 100 gallon vat of custard, a bicycle pump, and the entire population of Cork estate agents :-/ Meanwhile, the search continues…
19-Oct-1998: Found a house, signed the contract and have the keys! It’s a tad expensive, has a nice view over the river, but the house itself is over 150 years old (and looks it.) All the electrics are of the old two-pin plug variety, probably dating from the 1930s or 1940s, so they'll have to be ripped out and replaced. At last — a roof over my head (although not for very long, as a new roof will be needed soon due to the fact that the old one is, errr, on the verge of collapse.) The house is nearly as decrepit as I am, but it should be fun… I might even be able to move in before April or May 1999…
25-Apr-1999: I look upon the "move-in-date" prediction made above with the weary head-shake of the newly-hardened cynic. My house-rebuilding saga continues, to the extent that I have two words of advice for anyone wanting to buy a house: Buy New. The amount of work —not to mention money— involved getting my decrepit old wreck fit for human habitation again is huge, and growing daily. Perhaps I took too much for granted. But I’ll persevere…
What is it?
FinderPop 1.8.0 is a pintware control panel which extends the Mac OS 8 FinderΓÇÖs contextual menus. Features include: user-selectable contextual menu font/size/icon size, automagic CM popup by clicking and holding without having to press the control key, disk, folder and StuffItΓäó archive navigation, and a number of optional submenus ΓÇö including Processes, contents of selected folder, Finder windows, FinderPop, and Desktop. Additionally, it enhances navigation via the Standard File dialogs.
ΓÇó The return of Pintware! (September 1998) After spending (waaaay too) much of my spare time in the last few months working on FinderPop, IΓÇÖve decided to revert to the old ΓÇ£pintwareΓÇ¥ system whereby users, if they want to and can afford to, can get me a couple of pints by ΓÇ£registeringΓÇ¥ it with Kagi for $8. (See the FinderPop aboutbox or the last page of this, errrm, ΓÇ£manualΓÇ¥.) Note that the Pintware concept is entirely voluntary and FinderPop is neither Crippleware nor Nagware. You are more than welcome to use FinderPop without paying anything.
Features
Just thought I’d list the major features of FinderPop here, as this manual has become very badly organised (“badly disorganised”?)…
ΓÇó Control-free CMM popup ΓÇö just click and hold ΓÇö now works in many more apps; Apple Data Detectors become even handier (or handy-less!)
ΓÇó Command-click (or click and hold) a folder or a StuffIt 4.x archive to get a popup of its contents (or command-control-click for an immediate contents popup.) Selection as per usual.
ΓÇó Selectable Font/Size for FinderPop submenus
ΓÇó Process, Contents, Windows, FinderPop and Desktop submenus
ΓÇó Move, Copy, Alias or Open items selected in Finder to any item in the FinderPop hierarchy (see Power User Topics chapter)
ΓÇó Clicking in any unused menubar area pops up FinderPop menu in any app
• Grab and drag — “grab” an item in a FinderPop menu by pressing ‘G’ while it’s selected, then drag it around to do with as you will…
ΓÇó Standard File enhancement ΓÇö click and hold on a folder in Standard File to see (and select from) its contents!
ΓÇó You can now select items from the FinderPop menus (e.g., by control-clicking or double-clicking an unused portion of the menubar) while the Standard File or Navigation Services dialogs are up ΓÇö whatever you select will be ΓÇ£opened.ΓÇ¥
ΓÇó Path Popups (those popup menus you get when you command-click a Finder window title, or those popup menus in the Standard File Open/Close dialogs) are enhanced.
WhatΓÇÖs New?
FinderPop 1.8.0 (Sun 25 April 1999) features:
ΓÇó StuffIt 5 compatability. This is not as good as it sounds, as the StuffIt 5.0 libraries appear to have added over 80K to FinderPop's memory usage. Looks like our friends at Aladdin havenΓÇÖt heard of shared libraries. Or perhaps IΓÇÖm being a complete bozo. Again :-/
ΓÇó Navigation Services compatability. Or the begginings thereof, anyway.
• New CMM PlugIn API, which allows CMM plugins to add icons, styles and checkmarks to their menu items. Thanks to Stéphane Madrau for beta-testing this. Contact me if you’re interested in getting your hands on the beta version of the API.
ΓÇó Looked into crashes if you didn't have the Contextual Menu Extension. Well, there's still a crash, but it's not in my code as it crashes without FinderPop installed ΓÇö I strongly suspect Apple Data Detectors :-)
ΓÇó Add ΓÇ£FinderPop Hints & TipsΓÇ¥ chapter to this manual for user-submitted hints and tips on FinderPop usage.
ΓÇó The mechanism used to determine whether a piece of menubar real estate is unused has changed. If the new algorithm doesn't work for you, check the 'Use original "unused" method' checkbox in FinderPop's "Behaviour" subpanel.
ΓÇó Fix alias and folder styles,. which I accidentally removed from 1.7.7.
ΓÇó Fix problem where choosing a folder from the Contents submenu would mistakenly attempt to move the folder whose contents you were looking at into that folder. I am a klutz.
ΓÇó Fix problem with FinderPop playing fast and loose with lowmem mouse globals upsetting the Kensington Mouse driver.
ΓÇó Use the _SetMenuFont call again as people who use Kaleidoscope to set their own System Font on 8.5.x run into problems. Argh! Dammit! :-)
ΓÇó Get rid of nasty Boot Prefs resource.
ΓÇó Can now execute compiled AppleScripts when they're selected from a FinderPop menu (as opposed to opening the thing in the Script Editor.)
ΓÇó New ΓÇ£FinderPop ExtensionsΓÇ¥ folder with lots of interesting FinderPoplets, as well as a fairly natty "Set file creator/type" facility which looks ΓÇö and runs ΓÇö much better than the competition :-)
ΓÇó Set File Type
If you control-click a bunch of files in the Finder, and FinderPop finds a non-empty ΓÇ£Set File TypeΓÇ¥ folder inside the ΓÇ£FinderPop ExtensionsΓÇ¥ folder, you will now be presented with another FinderPop submenu called, oddly enough, ΓÇ£Set File TypeΓÇ¥; this submenu will allow you to set the type/creator of your Finder selection to the type/creator of the file you chose from the submenu. Feel free to add your own files (or aliases thereof) to the ΓÇ£Set File TypeΓÇ¥ folder. Such files can be zero length, since all FinderPop does is transfer the fileΓÇÖs type/creator to the Finder selection (although it does ask you for confirmation if the pre- or post-filetype look "suspicious" ΓÇö holding down the option key bypasses this confirmation dialog.) You can use the Zap Data Forks and/or Zap Resource Forks FinderPoplets to turn the files into zero-length files.
ΓÇó The FinderPop Extensions folder can live in the System Folder, the Preferences Folder, or the FinderPop Items Folder. I normally place it in the System Folder, and make an alias to it in my FinderPop Items Folder (and I can name the alias whatever I like, obviously.) Note that the ΓÇ£FinderPop Items FolderΓÇ¥ can now reside in the System Folder, not just the Preferences folder ΓÇö although you may have to reboot for a change in its location to take effect.)
ΓÇó New icns for FinderPop courtesy of Wade Cosgrove
ΓÇó Gazillions of other bugfixes and enhancements.
FinderPop 1.7.8 and 1.7.9 were not publicly released.
FinderPop 1.7.7 (Sun 31 Jan 1999ΓÇö A Blue Moon!) features:
ΓÇó Allow control-clicking and letting go to work again (as opposed to control-clicking and holding.)
ΓÇó Some substantial speed improvements via judicious caching.
ΓÇó On the grounds that FinderPop has become far too easy to use, IΓÇÖve decided to implement a couple more hidden ΓÇ£power userΓÇ¥ features. In addition to the ΓÇ£normalΓÇ¥ inlining of the FinderPop Items Folder, you can now inline the Processes, Windows and Desktop submenus in the main contextual menu. For example, command-control-clicking a file will allow you to open that file in any running process. Command-clicking an unused portion of the menu bar now inlines the Processes menu. Similarly, option-clicking pops up the Windows menu, shift-clicking pops up the Desktop menu, and control-clicking the menubar pops up the FinderPop menu with the FinderPop Items always inlined.
This is regardless of whether you have the Windows, Desktop or Inline options selected in the FinderPop control panel. Pressing the control key as well as the other modifier keys modifies the behaviour a bit. Have fun finding out how :-)
ΓÇó Get rid of the first two items (the Help item) from the CM popup if appropriate.
ΓÇó Oh yeah, path popups. YΓÇÖknow those little path popup menus you get when you command-click a Finder windowΓÇÖs name or the little popup menu in the File Open/Save dialogs? Well, they now sport submenus! Note that FinderPop looks at every popup menu being popped up to see if itΓÇÖs a Path Popup and does its stuff if so, so there might well be cases where such a popup is inappropriate. Let me know the ones you come across. YouΓÇÖll have to turn this feature on in the ΓÇ£BehaviourΓÇ¥ subpanel.
FinderPop Path Popups work quite nicely in conjunction with my own Popup Navigator, available at www.finderpop.com, and Jérome Foucher’s even better Navi iRae. Note also that FinderPop won’t do its stuff if there are submenus on the path elements in the original menu — it assumes the app implements the same feature. This means that Navi iRae users have to turn off the “Show folders content” checkbox in its “Options” subpanel.
• A Great Big ThankYou to Osamu Satoh and Yasushi Tsutsui who managed to find a CD of The Golden Section for me. I’d been searching for this Japan-only release without success since 1992. Yahoo! The bottles of Powers Finest Irish Whiskey are on their way, lads — although they may be a bit lighter than normal if I spend much more time in Macsbug, grumble, groan…
• That reminds me… a few more beery aphorisms.
ΓÇó A new ΓÇ£Boot PrefsΓÇ¥ resource in FinderPop is for options for which a user interface is overkill; youΓÇÖll need ResEdit to edit this. Currently the only thing in there is whether to use the maligned _SetMenuFont call if available ΓÇö some Japanese users report FinderPop font weirdness unless this is on, but Roman script system users report that it doesnΓÇÖt work properly for certain submenus. IΓÇÖve shipped this release of FinderPop with it turned off, which means everything should be fine for Roman scripts; I will need to talk to Osamu Satoh re: the Japanese version, especially as most, but not all, Japanese users see no font weirdness. 1.7.8 ΓÇö this has been removed.
ΓÇó Finder Label colours now apply nearly everywhere they should.
ΓÇó This manual still sucks. Real soon now.
FinderPop 1.7.6 (Sun 03 Jan 1999) features:
ΓÇó www.finderpop.com ΓÇö thanks to the sponsorship of a number of people ΓÇö thanks Jerry K. ΓÇö finderpop now has its own domain!
ΓÇó MacOS 8.5 problems forced me to reimplement the Grabbing mechanism, which is no longer immediate; the cursor now changes to a grabbing hand and you have to select the item you want to grab by clicking your mouse. Quel dommage, but there ya go.
ΓÇó Avoid erroneous autopopup where possible (MacOS 8.5ΓÇÖs native menu manager wasnΓÇÖt calling my 68K code which stops such autopopups.)
ΓÇó Fix the "double-popup" which could be seen if you clicked-and-held on a Finder icon while another application was frontmost.
ΓÇó Single-clicking in an unused portion of the menubar (clear for 32 pixels either side of the mousedown) now pops up the FinderPop menu immediately. You'll get used to it. YouΓÇÖd better :-)
ΓÇó A few more FinderPoplets: Hide Current Application/Get Pathname/Restart. Source code for same available for downloading at www.finderpop.com.
ΓÇó Reintroduced MacOS 8.5 _SetMenuFont call due to problems with some Asian systems. This means that some non-FinderPop CM menu items might look a little weird due to a bug in _SetMenuFont. Am investigating further.
ΓÇó The ΓÇ£Finder WindowsΓÇ¥ submenu works again in 8.5.1.
ΓÇó Fix FinderPop bug which crashed Petteri KamppuriΓÇÖs TypesChange CM plugin.
ΓÇó You can now re-launch the Finder by choosing it from a FinderPop submenu ΓÇö wirthout quitting all other programs. Handy for games or Finder crashes. (Thanks, Prax!)
FinderPop 1.7.5 (Weds 28 Oct) features:
ΓÇó A fix for the case where, if any key in the FinderPop ΓÇ£keysΓÇ¥ panel was blank, it could sometimes behave as if it were being pressed. Whoops.
FinderPop 1.7.4 (Tuesday 27 Oct) features:
ΓÇó Looks like the new MacOS 8.5 _SetMenuFont system call doesnΓÇÖt. IΓÇÖve gone back to my original skanky but working method.
ΓÇó Incorporate a new FinderPoplet icon from Laurent Poidevin; it has a "drop" in it with a menu reflected in it. Very artistic indeed!
ΓÇó New contact and email addresses ΓÇö thanks a bunch, GeoCities. Bozos.
FinderPop 1.7.3 (Monday 19 Oct) features:
ΓÇó More MacOS 8.5 compatability ΓÇö Pressing Keys (and in particular, Grabbing) now works (at least on my system!)
ΓÇó Note that some people have problems when DataVizΓÇÖs MacLinkPlus CM plugin is installed. With or without FinderPop, but FinderPop may exacerbate it.
ΓÇó Use a bitmap instead of a PICT for the modifier key glyphs on the ΓÇ£KeysΓÇ¥ panel.
ΓÇó Clicking on the very top left of the main screen ΓÇö i.e., at location (0,0) ΓÇö will cause the FinderPop menu to drop down immediately. This has been in there since the year dot, but I appear to have forgotten to mention it anywhere. Sorry about that.
FinderPop 1.7.2 (Tuesday 29 Sept) features:
ΓÇó Fix nasty bug involving my patch to _CopyMask where I managed to do a _DisposeRoutineDescriptor on the original _CopyMask address, with *BAD* results if someone else had patched it. Bad Dog, turly, Bad Dog.
ΓÇó a new user interface
ΓÇó better ΓÇö but not complete ΓÇö MacOS 8.5 compatability
ΓÇó StuffIt 4.x archive navigation if you have the StuffIt Engine installed
ΓÇó try harder to always do ΓÇ£the right thingΓÇ¥
Please read the following notes for the beta versions 1.6.9b1 and 1.6.9b2 for further information.
FinderPop 1.6.9b2 Private Beta Release to members of theΓÇ£FinderPop AnnounceΓÇ¥ mailing list.
Bugs fixed since 1.6.9b1:
ΓÇó Stash the modification date instead of the creation date when creating menus for folders. As we were later comparing this stashed value with the mod date, we were always rebuilding menus in 1.6.9b1. ΓÇÖTwas a slip-o-the-tongue, yer honour, honest.
ΓÇó The Windows menu now guesses about files opened by apps, and displays icons appropriately (and which you can Reveal, or Get Info, etc.)
ΓÇó A tad more 8.5 compatible ΓÇö theyΓÇÖve done something funny to the fonts, and many of the system icons have been renumbered! IΓÇÖve fixed the font problems, but IΓÇÖm still trying to figure out some of the icons, though I think IΓÇÖve got ΓÇÖem now. A long session in Macsbug enabled me to figure out, among other things, the offsets for the dirID/vRefNum info for Finder windows, which means they should now work like they used to.
ΓÇóIn 8.5, Pressing keys wonΓÇÖt work while the menu is down (e.g., the Grab key), ΓÇÖcos 8.5 interprets a non-modifier keypress as a mouseUp and thus ΓÇ£selectsΓÇ¥ the highlighted menu item. I *hope* I'll have a fix for this soon. Note that the modifier keys still work fine (cmd-option for ΓÇÿget infoΓÇÖ, etc.)
ΓÇóAlso in 8.5, the ΓÇ£AutoPopupΓÇ¥ pane in the control panel looks funny ΓÇÖcos theyΓÇÖve broken the Group Checkbox control even more than it was broken in 8.[01], so my workaround for the original CDEFΓÇÖs bug no longer works.
ΓÇóAgain in 8.5, you have to double-click the menubar if you want control-free FinderPopping there (clicking and holding doesnΓÇÖt work, but I find double-clicking to be quicker...)
ΓÇó Still awaiting confirmation from Aladdin that they've accepted my licence fee so I can legally use the StuffIt Engine.
ΓÇó Grabbing a StuffIt archive now works as you'd expect (it grabs the archive file, and doesn't try to expand it first ΓÇö thanks, someone whose name IΓÇÖve forgotten:-)
If 1.6.9b2 passes muster, IΓÇÖll try to release 1.7.0 before I head back home to real weather (and real Beamish :-) at the weekend. IΓÇÖll try to add Popup Path menu and Navigation Services Support in succeeding versions (1.7.1+) in the coming weeks. Depending on spare time: I wouldnΓÇÖt mind a biteen of a social life again...
FinderPop 1.6.9b1 (Weds 02 September) Private Beta Release to members of theΓÇ£FinderPop AnnounceΓÇ¥ mailing list
ΓÇó The return of Pintware! After spending (waaaay too) much of my spare time in the last three months working on this version of FinderPop, IΓÇÖve decided to revert to the old ΓÇ£pintwareΓÇ¥ system whereby users, if they want to and can afford to, can get me a couple of pints by ΓÇ£registeringΓÇ¥ it with Kagi for $8. (See the FinderPop aboutbox or the last page of this, errrm, ΓÇ£manualΓÇ¥.) Note that the Pintware concept is entirely voluntary and FinderPop is neither Crippleware nor Nagware. You are more than welcome to use FinderPop without paying a thing.
ΓÇó Substantial speed improvements, improving the user experience. I hope.
ΓÇó Open items selected in Finder via Internet Config (i.e., based on their extensions and Internet Config extension mappings.)
ΓÇó The ΓÇ£Get InfoΓÇ¥ help balloons now display version info (if available.)
ΓÇó A FinderPop menu brought up by control-clicking an unused portion of the menubar while a standard file dialog is active will now display a ΓÇ£Finder WindowsΓÇ¥ submenu, from which you can choose an item in the usual manner.
ΓÇó Double-clicking an unused portion of the menubar now pops up the FinderPop menu.
ΓÇó Fix a font switching problem I introduced just to see if anyone would notice :-)
ΓÇó If you have the StuffIt Engine installed, you can treat StuffIt archives somewhat akin to folders. You canΓÇÖt delete items in archives as the StuffIt Engine does not provide this functionality, for obvious reasons (i.e., why would anyone buy StuffIt Deluxe? :-)
• Oh, yeah, the beginnings of a new user interface…I hope you like it.
ΓÇó Peter HartmannΓÇÖs latest detective work with the Japanese Language Kit and FinderPopΓÇÖs ΓÇ£GrabΓÇ¥ feature implicates the ΓÇ£Language Kit AdditionsΓÇ¥ folder. See the ΓÇÿBugs & FeaturesΓÇÖ chapter.)
ΓÇó The beginnings of a public API for programmers who want to control or use FinderPopΓÇÖs features from within their own programs. Interested parties should contact me so we can flesh something out.
FinderPop 1.6.5 (Bloomsday 16 June)
ΓÇó Fix Prefs saving problem for turning control-free popup on or off via the item in the Help Menu (it wouldnΓÇÖt be saved to disk unless the FinderPop control panel was opened before shutdown.) As we say in the trade, ΓÇ£Duhhhh.ΓÇ¥
ΓÇó Optionally allow clicking-and-holding on a folder or disk in the Finder to popup a Contents menu rather than a contextual menu ΓÇö this behaviour is more in line with what PopupFolder users expect. Apparently. Control-clicking a folder will bring up the normal contextual menu in all cases.
ΓÇó Be a bit smarter about generic icon sizing ΓÇö if the font is big enough (read: 12 point or greater), use 16*16 generic icons instead of the much more limited 16*12 mini icons (of which there are far fewer in the System file.)
ΓÇó Optimise things a bit more.
ΓÇó WorldScript II and FinderPop: Peter Hartmann sends his latest findings (see the ΓÇ£Bugs and FeaturesΓÇ¥ chapter) which more-or-less exonerates FinderPop. Yay! Which, unfortunately, doesnΓÇÖt do much for his unhappy situation. Boo!
FinderPop 1.6.4 (Tues 9 June) Fix problem reported by Stephen Giles involving opening files within ResEdit using FinderPopΓÇÖs contents popup menu during the file open dialog. ResEdit would insist the file was damaged beyond repair (it lies ΓÇö the file was perfect, and opening it ΓÇ£normallyΓÇ¥ worked without problems.) Additionally, control-command-clicking a folder inside a file open dialogΓÇÖs file list should now have the same effect as command- clicking ΓÇö this is specially to please all six people on the planet who have four-button mice.
FinderPop 1.6.3 (Mon 8 June) Be smarter about the help balloon (command- option) file info stuff — still not 100%, but improved quite a bit. Moving the mouse outside the selected menu item while FinderPop is generating the folder submenu for that item will now abort the submenu generation. Option-clicking a process from the process menu now hides the current process before switching to the selected process; New Logo graphics courtesy of Carlos, merci bien. Slightly more snazzy and shameless Aboutbox. Command-clicking somewhere in a standard file dialog box’s file list now works regardless of the setting of the “Auto CMM Popup delay.” A few other minor fixes. Have just spent a marathon 7 hour Macsbug session ’til 3:30AM chasing one heisenbug, and still haven’t squished it. Moan. Grumble. Gripe. I’m off to get some sleep…
FinderPop 1.6.2 (Fri 15 May) Fix bug whereby quitting the Finder causes nasty things to happen the next time a contextual menu is invoked.
Fix bug in standard file stuff where, under certain circumstances, no folders would show up in the file list. Be a bit smarter about switching to the Finder ΓÇö cuts down unnecessary switches to Finder immediately followed by switches to something else; speeds things up a bit...
In addition to displaying the ΓÇ£Get InfoΓÇ¥ cursor when holding down command and option over a menu item, FinderPop will now also display a little help balloon giving some basic information about the file under the mouse (alpha stage, may not work correctly all the time!)
Some other news:
WorldScript II ΓÇö after some stout detective work by Peter Hartmann, this extension causes FinderPop to behave badly if you press ΓÇ£GΓÇ¥ to ΓÇ£Grab and DragΓÇ¥ an item from a FinderPop menu. IΓÇÖm looking into it.
Apple Data Detectors and non-US keyboard layouts news: According to Timo Orre: ΓÇ£I just want to add that if you use Contextual Menu Enabler extension version 1.0.2 (the previous version), it works fine for non-US keyboard layouts (but without the possibility to turn it off in applications). Unfortunately I dont know a publicly-accessible download site for it.ΓÇ¥
FinderPop 1.6.1 (Sun 10 May) Add option to not colourise an itemΓÇÖs text if it has a label (any icon will always be label-coloured.) YouΓÇÖll never guess to which already horrendously overcrowded dialog I had to add yet another checkbox. Sigh. Pretty soon you'll need a 1024*768 screen to view it.
Also fix embarrassing bug whereby both the “Popup near…” items stopped working. Additionally, you can now “Grab”, get info, show or move to trash any item selected from a “pure” Contents popup — i.e., a popup got by command- control- clicking a folder.
May-01-98: The last version’s “contest” has been won by Lawrence Guzzetta, who identified Thomas “Prozac” Hardy as the author of the poem from which the phrase “Ah no, the years, the years…” comes, and provided “see, the white storm birds wing across.” as the next line (actually, Hardy has some pretty natty, if depressing, lines in that poem — “Ah no, the years, o; / Down their carved names the raindrop ploughs.”) These lines have stuck with me since I last read the poem (at school in 1983!) Perhaps Hardy’s the Leonard Cohen of the ’90s — the 1890s. Anyhow, enough of my witterings and on to the prizegiving ceremony proper: If ever FinderPop goes explicitly “Pintware” again, Lawrence, feel quite free to check that little “I got turly a pint” checkbox…!
FinderPop 1.6.0 (Weds 29 April ΓÇö my birthday!) fixes some bugs (and hopefully doesnΓÇÖt introduce any.) Sorry it took so long to get this one out ΓÇö been up the walls with ΓÇ£realΓÇ¥ work, IΓÇÖm afraid, and had two weekend stag parties to attend (yeeΓÇöhaaa!)
Rewrite icon gathering/drawing code. We now support label colours and no longer interfere with an appΓÇÖs own menu icons. FinderPop now works as youΓÇÖd expect with apps other than the Finder that expose file aliases (such as DragThing 2.5.) Still some work needing to be done to the icon stuff ΓÇö including speed increases.
Choosing the ΓÇ£Largest BlockΓÇ¥ item from the Process menu now shows the ΓÇ£About this ComputerΓÇ¥ Finder window.
ΓÇóΓÇóThings to note: QuicKeysΓÇÖ ΓÇ£Pop up MenuΓÇ¥ extension is incompatible with FinderPop. IΓÇÖm looking into it. Also, Jan Skarbek alerts me to the fact that Apple Data Detectors 1.0.2 wonΓÇÖt work properly unless youΓÇÖre using a US keyboard layout.
This versionΓÇÖs competition is (as it will be from now on): name the poet and complete the quotation at the top of this page (following the date.) The use of Internet Search Engines is not allowed. The first person to email me with the correct answer wins a free copy of FinderPop! :-)
FinderPop 1.5.9 (Tuesday 17 Mar ΓÇö the St. PatrickΓÇÖs Day ΓÇ£Paddy MacHackeryΓÇ¥ special) allows you to selectively toggle control-free popups on a per-application basis.
It works by adding a menu item to the Help menu, much as Apple Data Detectors does; this means that Jigsaw Puzzle* and a few other apps (hopefully including Escape Velocity) become usable again when ΓÇ£control-free popups in all appsΓÇ¥ is enabled.
Bit of a rewrite of the low-level patches to be more stable in the presence of QuicKeys, etc. Hopefully I havenΓÇÖt broken anything in the process...
Better popup menu positioning algorithms. Decouple “Empty Trash” item from the Desktop submenu code. Better Prefs File format — hopefully this will be future proof… (famous last words).
FinderPop 1.5.8 (Thursday 26 Feb) fixes a problem with the Menuette control panel (among other things.)
[Saturday night, 4:15 AM] A Paddy MacHackery special: you can now click-and-hold on an existing selection in most applications without the dreaded “oh no! my selection has become deselected” just before the contextual menu pops up…
You can now Command-Control-click a folder in the Finder for an immediate contents popup. In Standard File dialogs, command-clicking a folder in the list will bring an immediate contents popup.
Note new Apple Data Detectors address: http://applescript.apple.com/data_detectors/
FinderPop 1.5.7 (Friday 13 Feb ΓÇöwooo! tempting fate or what?) should be a tiny bit quicker and a good bit more robust. Also, you can now command-click and hold a folder in the Finder to get a popup of its contents. Revampled┬░ one or two sections of the manual (the website address may be changing soon...)
Still havenΓÇÖt had the spare time to implement the new ΓÇ£tabbedΓÇ¥ user interface, IΓÇÖm afraid...
FinderPop 1.5.6 (30 Jan) does a better job of enhancing the standard file dialogs — click and hold on a folder in a file Open… or Save… dialog and be presented with a popup menu displaying the folder’s contents; select a file from it and, voila, it’s opened!
The Standard File ΓÇ£ContentsΓÇ¥ popup menus should now work as expected in all cases (thanks to John Gotow for a handy hint ΓÇö I owes ya a pint, John :-).
The ΓÇ£ContentsΓÇ¥ submenu, which normally only appears if you have selected a folder in the Finder, can now be made to appear if you just click in a Finder window (without selecting anything.) This can be handy if you just want to ΓÇ£view by nameΓÇ¥ quickly in order to locate something.
You can now have an optional ΓÇ£Put AwayΓÇ¥ menu item, for when youΓÇÖve selected something in the Finder whose ΓÇ£homeΓÇ¥ directory isnΓÇÖt where it currently is. This also works for disks and network volumes ΓÇö just like selecting ΓÇ£Put AwayΓÇ¥ from the File Menu. I was amazed at the number of people who asked for this ΓÇö lads, in all fairness, have yez considered pressing Command-Y? But it was easy to add, so I did :-).
Finally, I made a number of other improvements ΓÇö hopefully I havenΓÇÖt broken anything in the process. The ΓÇ£More SettingsΓÇ¥ user interface ΓÇö to which youΓÇÖll have recourse if you want to use any of the new features here ΓÇö is getting worse; IΓÇÖll have to redesign the entire control panel when the ΓÇ£More SettingsΓÇ¥ dialog starts getting too big for a 640*400 monitor (which should be about March/April at the current rate of progress.)
FinderPop 1.5.5 (8 Jan) was the initial attempt at enhancing the standard file Open/Close dialogs.
[Lots of Stuff Deleted ΓÇÖcos DocMaker wonΓÇÖt let me have more than 32K per chapter.]
As usual, youΓÇÖll have to pay a visit to the ever more crowded ΓÇ£More SettingsΓÇ¥ dialog to enable some of these features.
Just back from a weekend in San Diego. One cool city, and I don't mean that in the thermal sense ΓÇö the weather was superb; the thermometer didnΓÇÖt say so, but the sun seemed to be far hotter there than it is up here in Cupertino. Even ran into a FinderPop user in a pub (Hi Tim, and thanks for the pints!) Small world.
There is no functional difference between PintWare-registered and ΓÇ£normalΓÇ¥ FinderPops. Other than the glowing feeling in the depths of your soul if you got me a pint, that is.
See the FinderPop AboutBox or the last page of this manual for details.
WhatΓÇÖs Coming?
Christmas, and the goose is getting fat. (A free copy of FinderPop to the first person who emails me with the next line to that piece of doggerel. Apr-01-98: This “contest” has been won by Phil Hudson, who emailed all the way from sunny Botswana, correctly replying “Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.” If ever FinderPop goes “Pintware” again, Phil, feel quite free to check that little “I bought turly a pint” checkbox…!)
More and more features. I now have a feature ΓÇ£wish listΓÇ¥ the length of my arm (but still welcome other submissions.) Certain features of the late and apparently much lamented PopupFolder are well represented in this list. Some of the more obvious features which should eventually appear:
ΓÇó Disable inappropriate applications ΓÇö if you have a Finder icon selected, inappropriate apps will be disabled or removed from the FinderPop submenu. (E.g., SimpleText isnΓÇÖt really appropriate for Word documents, so why present you with the choice?)
ΓÇó Embedded Application Menus ΓÇö i.e., have the Finder menus appear in the CMM popup menu. A minor convenience, but one that a number of people have asked for.
ΓÇó Background Menu Caching ΓÇö FinderPop submenus will be capable of being built in the background during idle time.
ΓÇó More options for menu organisation (along the lines of Fabien OctaveΓÇÖs cool BeHierarchic, which I had never seen until today ΓÇö thanks, AA.)
Feel quite free to contact me with feature requests (see the last chapter, ΓÇ£Contact InfoΓÇ¥), but please donΓÇÖt expect miracles. ThereΓÇÖs only one of me .
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* What amazes me is that someone is still using Jigsaw Puzzle and noticed the bug.
┬░ Whaddya mean ΓÇ£RevampledΓÇ¥ isnΓÇÖt a word? :-) "Revamped" + "Trampled" = "Revampled". So there.
