System Software A - F

Aaron 1.61 (FAT)

(Shareware)

Replaces the windows, floating windoids, scroll bars, push buttons, check boxes, radio buttons, and popup menus with ones based on the Apple Grayscale Appearance.

Aaron's windows have a thick border which you can use to draw the window from any side. These windows also have a WindowShade widget at the top right of the title bar. Clicking on it collapses the window to just its title bar. The System 7.5.x WindowShade extension does not work correctly with Aaron; if you double-click the window title bar, the window does not collapse completely.

Substitutes Veritas 12 for Chicago 12 as the system font. 

The menubar and menus have a gray background with subtle 3D tinges and dividers. Selected menu items are highlighted using the window color specified in the "Color" control panel.

Finder windows have gray headers with subtle 3D tinges and dividers, and for inactive windows, the header text is grayed out.

Automatically installs replacement icons for folders, suitcases, fonts, clippings, and generic documents and applications. These icons are a close match for the ones Apple is rumored to be using in Mac OS 8. Aaron does not change your system file, so your icons will revert to normal if you disable Aaron.

Patches the progress bars in the Finder and various applications with ones based on the Apple Grayscale Appearance. The progress bar color it determined by the window color specified in the "Color" control panel. These progress bars look so cool that you will be copying and trashing files just to see them!

Alert boxes have a gray background and a red tinted border. Some dialog boxes also have a gray background.

Gives you color alert icons (stop sign, caution, and note).

Gives the disclosure triangles in the Finder a slight 3D effect.

Adds spinning zoom rectangles to the Finder. You can disable this feature ResEdit by editing the "WPrf" resource in a COPY of of the ~Aaron file (editing the currently active ~Aaron file causes a crash).

ACTION Files 1.2

(Demo)

1197 K

ACTION Files is a convenient way to manage and organize files and folders in Open and Save dialogs and File menus. Quick access to all of the power of the Finder while inside Open/Save dialogs! Take advantage of these features, all available in the Open and Save Windows or File menu:

Resize and move the windows.
Sort by Name, Date, Size, Kind, and Label.
Move items to Trash and Empty Trash.
Rename files and folders.
Create new folders.
Perform Finds.

ACTION GoMac 2.0.2

(Demo)

1568 K

 ACTION GoMac offers: program launching, keyboard application switching, drag and drop file opening, Quick Info on all running programs, internet bookmarking, a perpetual popup calendar, layer management, and a nifty QuickLaunch™ feature that lets you instantly add items by dragging them onto the task bar.

Action GoMac adds a Windows-style taskbar to the bottom of your screen, letting you navigate among active applications and launch others from your choice of either the customizable Start menu or the brand-new QuickLaunch area. You may now drag and drop the icons or aliases of your favorite applications, files, or folders onto any part of the taskbar, and the minimized versions of these icons will appear in the QuickLaunch area--not buried beneath your open applications. A click-and-hold action in this area allows you to navigate folder hierarchies, access an item's Get Info dialog box, or remove the item from the area

Ranked the top Macintosh download in 1998. Requires OS 7.6 or higher.

Action Menus

(Demo)

2.2 Mb

 Action Menus, the best-selling successor to Now Menus, is designed to be a powerful and indispensable menu utility. You can use it to customize your Apple and Application menus, create new menus within applications and in the Finder, or just use its preconfigured setup. 

It also features on-the-fly creation of keyboard shortcuts and lets you drag and drop items into all your new menus.

Requires OS 7.6+

Appearance Manager for System 7.x

 About the Appearance Manager: The Appearance Manager represents Apple's newest innovations in interface development and developers are eager to take advantage of its new features. If you are currently running Mac OS 8.0 or later, you don't need to install this software.

Important Conflict Warning: Before installing Appearance Manager, please remove the WindowShade and Color items from your Control Panels folder. The functionality of these control panels has been replaced by the Appearance Control Panel and they are known to conflict if both are there. Also, older versions of extensions like Aaron, Kaleidoscope and other interface-modifying extensions might conflict with Apple's Appearance Manager. If you are running these, you should disable these extensions before installing Appearance Manager for the first time.

Installation: Read the included Appearance READ ME for directions on installing.

Behierarchic

(Shareware)

BeHierarchic is a control panel which makes the Apple Menu hierarchical, like the Apple Menu Options control panel. A hierarchical Apple Menu allows you to access the nested contents of folders in the Apple Menu. BeHierarchic offers many more options than Apple Menu Options.

Some of the features include toggle options to access the desktop and recent folders and items, the ability to move deeper than 5 folder levels, various icon options for submenus, custom font for the Apple Menu and submenus, configurable item sorting, and configurable modifier keys.

Version 4.0 raises the minimum platform to Mac OS 8.x, and is a complete re-write of the application from the ground up. See the Read Me for a complete list of changes.

BeView 1.1

(Shareware)

148 K

 BeView is an extension that patches the buttons, windows, scroll bars, menu colors, and Finder icons to resemble that of the BeOS, Jean-Louis Gassee's alternative Macintosh Operating System. The most prominent feature is the new tabbed 3D windows, which is actually a functional change that facilitates navigating through open windows, though it also takes a while to get used to and does waste some screen real estate.

BeView also makes the default and System icons look like open manila folders. It even replaces the standard Apple menu with the Be icon and turns the trash can into a rectangular green can with a black garbage bag inside. This preview of the much-anticipated BeOS offers good screen candy and a change of pace from the same old Mac OS interface.

Version 1.1 adds Be-style check boxes, radio buttons, popup menus, and progress bars; substitutes a Be-style font for the System font; excludes First Class and Panorama from BeView's window patch; and tweaks the colors to better match the latest version of the BeOS.

Chuck's Printer Driver 1.41

 Chuck's Printer Driver is a Macintosh Chooser Device that allows users to use Epson 9-pin, Epson 24-pin, and HP LasterJet compatible printers connected to the serial port of a Macintosh. When used with an Mac emulator it allows the use of several different PC printers as well.

New features include: 

full color and greyscale printing for color quickdraw machines 
spooled text printing
Fixes conflict with Greg's Buttons. Adds control to output to a file, or to a PICT file.

Other features: 

compatible with hundreds of printers, and configurable for hundreds more 
background printing, so you can get back to work while your printer prints!

Click, there it is!

(Shareware)

From the author:

Click, there it is! is a system extension for the MacOStm that extends the Open and Save dialog boxes. Invariably when I want to open or save a document, the folder that appears is not the one I want. And more than likely the one I want is on the desktop as an open window. Click, there it is! allows you to click on a Finder window and change the current folder to the one you want. Click, there it is! even works when Finder windows are obscured by document windows. Another mini-feature is the ability to drag the open/save dialog (in case a Finder window is completely eclipsed).

The concept is borrowed from the (in)famous Now Utilities' SuperBoomerang. I liked this feature but I didn't like the incompatibilities, memory footprint or slowdowns from Now Utilities. I mostly wrote Click, there it is because SuperBoomerang doesn't let you click on the title bar of a window if it's "shrunk" by WindowShade or MacOS 8's new Collapse Box.

I have nothing against Now software or SuperBoomerang; Now Utilities is a fine product. In the four years that Click, there it is! has been available, the functionality has spread to Default Folder and Window Monkey which are also both fine utilities. I remind you, though, that Click, there it is! is still the smallest and most inexpensive way to get these features ;-).

Clipfolio 1.5.2 FAT  

(Shareware)

135 K

Finally a multiple clipboard manager! This well implemented control panel adds a "clipfolio" menu to the bottom of the Edit menu for all applications. As you copy and cut things to the clipboard, Clipfolio transparently stores up to sixty entries on its scrapbook-like portfolio. Users may then access this portfolio of stored clippings to paste into documents.

Clipfolio is much easier to use than any scrapbook type program for temporary clippings. Its transparent use works well, even with applications which use their own internal clipboards. Clipfolio has a "special applications" list which enables it to work with internal clipboards. It manages sounds, text, graphics and other resources as easily as the System's clipboard. Users may toggle a preference to automatically paste a selection into their current document or just send the clipping to the System clipboard. Whereas it was once entirely mouse-driven, you can now launch Clipfolio with a key combination. It is still primarily mouse-driven but this is a significant change. This archive contains both 680x0 and PPC native versions.

Your Mac currently looses the contents of the clipboard whenever something new is added -- no more with Clipfolio. This useful utility will quickly become indispensable.

Unfortunately, Clipfolio is incompatible with a few applications (eg. Microsoft Word and Stickies), but with the new "Excluded Applications" list you can selectively turn Clipfolio off for applications that give it trouble.

You can look at screen shots of Clipfolio's control panel window and clipboard window. I love this program! It saves a lot of time and effort.

Conflict Catcher 4.03

(Demo)

996 K

 

 Conflict Catcher is an intelligent extensions manager for System 7 or later. It allows users to control the order in which INITs (extensions and control panels) load, offers them the choice to load sets for specific tasks, turns on and off INITs, generates System reports, load or disable fonts, and offers a wealth of other features which control the startup process.

Conflict Catcher's best strength lies in its conflict testing. It walks users through a series of restarts and tests to determine when and which INIT conflicts create System crashes. This simple diagnostic tool is invaluable for people who enjoy customizing their Macs or using third-party tools.

One great new feature of Conflict Catcher 4 is the descriptive information about many startup files, including hot links (when available) to the Web site of the product's manufacturer. Not only does this provide you with information you can use to disable/enable specific groups of startup items to maximize your efficiency, it also keeps you up to date with the latest versions and news about each third-party startup item.

In addition, version 4 of Conflict Catcher increases the test period from 3 days to 7 days, provides hot links to troubleshooting Web sites, automatically tests for conflicts if you crash at startup, supports AppleScript, improves the interface, provides appropriate extension set for your machine's OS, and more.

CopyPaste 4.3.2

(Shareware)

905K

 CopyPaste is the first utility that really brings the old Mac System clipboard up to par with the modern Macintosh. It's an extension that works seamlessly within applications and adds ten clipboards and clip editing capabilities to the Edit menu as if they were part of the applications themselves. You use the familiar Cut/Copy/Paste key combinations, but you also type a number from 0-9 before you release the command key to denote which of your ten clipboards you want to paste to. No matter what application you're in, from Excel to Photoshop, you can view and edit the clipboards from the standard Edit menu. The size of the clips are limited by your system heap unless you change the clip number, then the clip must fit into your application heap.

This utility has a multitude of functions. You can paste multiple clips into any document simultaneously , you can use built-in clipboard processing to change the case or add the current date to any clip. You can switch open applications on the fly with a keystroke. You can use ResEdit to install FKeys and run them from within the application. You can create text clip archives on disk (useful for collecting URLs or email addresses). You can even restore clipboards upon Restart. It's mindboggling. Make sure you read the documentation before using. Registered users gain full access to all features and get to bypass the irritating startup dialog designed to foil freeloaders.

CursorAnimator 2.0.1

(Freeware)

189 K

 CursorAnimator is a delightful control panel extension that lets you substitute any of the standard System cursors (arrow, watch, text, cross-hair, and plus) with static or animated cursors. It comes with collection of B/W, color, and left-handed cursors. They include spinning globes, beating hearts, shimmering rainbows, and more. CursorAnimator is an absolute wonder that's one of the most popular freeware items we've ever seen. Most fun with color Macs.

Décor 3.0.4

(Shareware)

Décor is an incredibly cool System extension which allows you to replace the boring desktop pattern with a background picture of your choice. Décor handles StartupScreen, PICT, GIF and JPEG files. It has a lot of great features; for instance, you can ask it to select pictures from a certain folder, and to pick a new one every 10 minutes. It is now accelerated for PowerPCs.

Décor requires System 7 and 32 bit Quickdraw (which all recent machines have). It is shareware, with a $10 fee. Once you have tried it, you will find it truly indispensable!

Décor works fine under MacOS 8.0, 8.1 and 8.5.x. (Under 8.0 and 8.1, you will have to disable the Desktop Pictures control panel. Décor offers you more features than Desktop Pictures, especially random picking, automatic replacement, scriptability, etc.

Default Folder 3.0.3

(Shareware)

Default Folder is a great utility that makes your Mac's open and save dialog boxes extremely flexible. Yes, you can set a "default folder" for various applications, so that you'll be taken to the right place when you try to open or save a file in those apps. But that's just the beginning to what Default Folder does. It also provides pop-up menus in the dialog box, letting you quickly switch to any number of user-definable folders as well as the last few folders you've accessed.

With Default Folder's expert settings, you can also move items to the trash, change their type and creator settings, even lock and unlock them, all from within the open/save dialog box. And if you click on an open folder window in the Finder, Default Folder will automatically bring that folder up in the dialog box.

Once you've tried Default Folder, you'll never go back.

DepthMaster 1.0

(Shareware)

33 K

 DepthMaster watches which applications are launched and which application is currently active and sets the monitor's bit depth and the sound level to whatever level you have defined. Also acts as an application launch -- a sort of shareware On Cue or Hand Off.

This control panel will not work in BasiliskII obviously.

Dialog View 2.3.2

(Shareware)

205 K

 Dialog View is a control panel that allows you to change the appearance of directory dialogs (Open and Save dialogs). You can change the font and size of the file names, enlarge the dialog to provide room for more names or longer names, and control the size of the icons. Incompatible with Norton Directory Assistance.

EPSON Stylus® COLOR 500 Printer Driver

(Commercial)

 This self-extracting file contains the EPSON Stylus COLOR 500 driver files, disk version 2.7AA. The core driver version is 2.52. If you use a EPSON printer, this driver will work under Macintosh emulation. At least it finally allows ME to print to my Epson Color Stylus 440 using Fusion V2.0 and BasiliskII. 8^)

FinderPop

(Freeware)

391 K

 FinderPop vastly improves OS 8's contextual menus by allowing you to access them just by holding down the mouse key, rather than holding down the control key and mouse together. In addition, with FinderPop you can now navigate through four layers of your mounted volumes from within contextual menus, as well as quickly reveal any pop-up windows on the desktop.

Better yet, you can drop applications into the FinderPop Items Folder making applications immediately accessible from within contextual menus. For example, place DropStuff in this folder, select a group of documents on your desktop, click and hold on the last icon, wait for contextual menus to appear, select DropStuff from the FinderPop Items Folder, and watch all your selected documents compress into a single archive.

This is a great little utility. You will need OS 8.x to use it though.

Finder View Settings 1.2  

(Shareware)

ALM software Can you believe that OS 8 doesn't allow you to set universal folder view preferences? I mean, System 7 could do it, but OS 8 doesn't even give you the option! 

Thank God for Alex Montalcini and his Finder View Settings control panel. It lets you determine what your folder view settings will be for every folder you have, and even lets you override those settings for specific folders. Additional options include the ability to set view preferences for an entire folder or drive by dropping it on the main window, choosing which folders should be modified by Finder View Settings, and more. The most impressive thing about Finder View settings is that it doesn't just patch an apparent System software oversight -- it goes quite a bit farther, offering many additional options.

What was Apple thinking? I highly recommend it if you use OS 8.x

Finder Windows 1.2.1

(Shareware)

125 K

Finder Windows adds a "Window" menu to the Finder, listing all open windows in the Finder including "Desktop." It will also stack windows and arrange them with the press of a command key, changeable in the control panel.

Version 1.2.1 fixes bugs, offers optional menu and startup icons, includes balloon help, and more.

Finder Windows Pro 2.0

(Shareware)

578 K

Finder Windows Pro is a MacOS 8-savvy utility that adds a "Window" menu to the Finder. If you use "Window" menus in other applications, you know they can be convenient when you have more than a couple of windows on your screen.

Like the "Window" menu in many other applications, the Finder Windows Pro menu gives you the ability to bring specific windows to the front. The Finder Windows Pro menu also includes commands with which you can stack, tile, zoom, and cycle through the Finder's windows. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to these commands so that they are easily accessible. You can also add your own custom items to the menu and assign keystrokes to them as well.

In addition to the standard menu in the menubar, This new Pro version includes a contextual menu module.