Jaques Law Bits 9612.3 (© Kevin Jaques 1996) ©(c)1996 Kevin Jaques. All rights reserved excepting that this file may be copied for non-commercial purposes, unchanged. No warranties apply. I am just a user volunteering my observations and collecting those of others. €OneClick - A Macro Utility [information from Steve Becker through TidBITS#350/21-Oct-96 2/2 Late last year, WestCode Software introduced OneClick OneClick consists of a single control panel that uses under 300K of RAM. After installing OneClick and restarting your Mac, you'll see a one-time, brief tutorial, as well as several Global palettes: the System Bar comes pre- configured with many useful buttons; the Task Bar displays buttons for each launched program; and the Launch Strip quickly opens anything that the Finder can open, including programs, files, and folders. OneClick also supports application-specific palettes that are only available when a particular program is active - including a pre-configured palette for the Finder as well as palettes for several popular applications (I particularly like the ones for ClarisWorks). You use the OneClick Editor to customize each of these palettes and to create more palettes - I'll talk more about that in a bit. Palette buttons cause programs to launch, files to open, or scripts to run. Each button shows an icon, or text - or both - that indicates its function, so you don't have to remember key combinations. (You may assign keyboard shortcuts to buttons if you wish.) If a button's function is not self-evident, OneClick thoughtfully provides either Balloon Help or a less-obtrusive, yellow, pop-up description tag. It's easy to toggle either help option, and you can also edit the help text - a thoughtful feature. Many OneClick buttons perform basic functions like Paste, Insert Date, Change Font (displays a pop-up list of available fonts in their actual typefaces - very neat), Change Font Size, Page Setup, Empty Trash, Make Alias, and Get Info. A small sampling of some of the more powerful buttons that come with the program includes Insert Character (like PopChar, this lets you select and quickly insert any character available in a given font), Glossary (create a glossary of commonly used bits of text and then quickly insert those bits; I use this button to create a signature glossary), Pop-up Hierarchical File List (shades of PopUp Folder), Pop-up Phone Book/Dialer, Pop-up Hierarchical List of files in the System Folder, Auto Save (at user specified time intervals), and Tile Windows. [Additionally, OneClick can use modules from Apple's Control Strip. -Tonya] OneClick also adds a OneClick menu to the menu bar, though you can also access this menu from any palette. The OneClick menu lets you quickly show and hide palettes and switch to the OneClick Editor. OneClick Editor can create a new palette for any program, or modify an existing palette. To add a button to a new palette, you simply drag it from the OneClick Library to the palette, or you drag it from an existing palette. An Undo option is not available. Palettes can be collapsed to a small icon or a small Title Bar. You can hide all palettes and can configure their location on the Desktop. There is a Record feature to make a button script for almost any action you perform including keystrokes, clicks, menu choices. OneClick records such actions not in terms of mouse movements, but in terms of what you did. OneClick Editor can edit the scripts and offers built-in help and error checking. You can use it to write scripts from scratch with either AppleScript or OneClick's own (easier) EasyScript [In addition, Matt Neuburg notes "OneClick's language is spectacularly well thought out and easy to learn, with splendid data types and object-oriented messaging and a full battery of control structures. OneClick can gather all sorts of information about what's happening on your system, in real time, and make it available in fascinating ways. A OneClick button is programmable - you can drag & drop things onto it, press it with or without modifier keys, and have it react in different ways; it can display a pop-up menu for you to choose from. OneClick has superb abilities for communicating with other scripting milieus." -Tonya] OneClick's Editor includes a basic graphics editor and the ability to borrow icons from other files. This, plus the ability to add text to a button's icon and create help text lets your buttons be self-descriptive. The WestCode and Button Circle Web sites include palettes for programs like Eudora, Photoshop, Netscape Navigator, Emailer, and AOL, as well as buttons that provide an almost unbelievable array of features, such as saving multiple text clippings, printing selected text on or across pages, creating notebooks or address books, displaying available memory, and pasting quoted text. Although most users report no or few problems with OneClick, I have encountered numerous bugs, most of which are fixed in the current 1.0.2 release. WestCode plans to release OneClick 1.5 later this year. Important enhancements center on more powerful Task Bar and Launcher palettes. A Task Bar button will display and launch recently used applications (think Apple Menu Options), and another Task Bar button will pop up the Launcher; especially useful should you keep the Launcher hidden. The new Launcher will be able to keep file sets, such as a separate Internet Applications set. The street price for OneClick is around $75, and QuicKeys users can purchase a competitive upgrade for about $40 (the exact price depends on what version you have). OneClick requires System 7.0 or higher, and a 68020 or later processor. WestCode Software -- 800/448-4250 -- 619/487-9200 619/487-9255 (fax) -- €Nisus Writer Turns 5 by Tonya Engst Nisus Writer's primary claim to fame is that its Power Mac version is among the first applications to act as an OpenDoc container. Nisus Writer also scores a first with its support of drag & drop for non-contiguous selections. The new version supports numerous Macintosh standards, including Internet Config, Apple Guide, AppleScript (Do Script and a modest Nisus Writer suite), robust drag & drop, Macintosh Easy Open, QuickDraw GX printing, and the Word Services suite for third-party utilities like spelling and grammar checkers. I'm particularly looking forward to checking out the changes in the HTML capabilities of the new version. Upgrades cost $89 if you want a printed manual; $69 if you use an Acrobat version of the manual. There's also a $10 discount if you upgrade by 22-Nov-96. Nisus Software -- 800/890-3030 -- 619/481-1477 619/481-6154 (fax) -- €ShrinkWrap 2.1 Chad Magendanz has released version 2.1 of his now-classic disk image utility ShrinkWrap, which corrects a few rare problems (including troubles mounting network images and using older versions Speed Access and the StuffIt Engine), along with some optimizations and performance tweaks. This release is notable in that it is the _last_ major release before ShrinkWrap becomes an Aladdin product. Beginning in 1997, ShrinkWrap will be available from Aladdin Systems (all commercial and shareware licences and registrations will be carried over), and its technology will be incorporated into products like StuffIt Expander and InstallerMaker. [GD] TidBITS#353/11-Nov-96 €Apple supports LDAP Apple announced it would be supporting LDAP, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. LDAP has the support of numerous other large companies, and it mainly remains to be seen what form Apple's LDAP support will take beyond the existing maX.500 client program. Interestingly, the bulk of Apple's press release focuses on Apple's plans to support IMAP, Interactive Mail Access Protocol, a protocol for sending and receiving email on the Internet along the lines of the current standards, SMTP and POP. It will be interesting to see if this results in the next version of Apple Internet Mail Server supporting IMAP as well as SMTP and POP. TidBITS#353/11-Nov-96 €Tip for Thunder 7/SpellCatcher Careful manual readers will learn that to insert a Return in a glossary entry, you must press Option-J. TidBITS#353/11-Nov-96 €OnLine Army Knife Army Knife (OAK). OAK may have shipped by the time you read this, and it will offer universal spell checking, but take a more Internet-oriented approach and include a different mix of additional features. http://www.arielpub.com/OAK.HTML TidBITS#353/11-Nov-96 €Anarchie 2.0.1 Peter N Lewis has released version 2.0.1 of his popular FTP client Anarchie (2.0.1 fixes a minor bug with international character sets in the three-day-old 2.0). New features include the ability to upload and download entire folders, various user interface improvements (such as a kangaroo progress indicator), plus a Tips window to familiarize users with Anarchie's capabilities. Most significantly, Anarchie 2.0.1 sports a new MacSearch feature (developed in conjunction with Ambrosia Software) that quickly locates Macintosh files in the Info-Mac and UMich archives, now that Archie is a less-than-reliable service for finding files on the Internet. Anarchie is $10 shareware for new users, free for users who registered a previous version in 1996, and $5 for other previous users. The download is about 1 MB. TidBITS#353/11-Nov-96 €AetherWorks 43.2 Kbps Modem AetherWorks Corporation last week announced its first ready-for- market technology, a high-speed analog modem that will offer symmetrical 43.2 Kbps connections over an ordinary analog telephone line. The company plans to license its technology to an undisclosed array of modem manufacturers, with the first models expected by the middle of 1997. Though AetherWorks says its reference platform includes support for all current modem standards including v.34+ (33.6 Kbps) and backward compatibility for previous standards all the way down to 300 bps, it's not certain all manufacturers will be able to include support for uncommon protocols, such as AT&T's v.32terbo (19.2 Kbps, included in Global Village Mercury modems). Compression and error correction standards such as the MNP suite and v.42 and v.42bis are supported in current prototypes and should be handled by most, if not all, licensee modems. AetherWorks president and CEO Dr. Jonathan Sachs commented that the V.Mach technology performs especially well on noisy telephone lines, where some modem protocols fall down. He added that V.Mach performs at least as well as previous technologies all the way down the line quality spectrum. He says that recently announced asymmetrical 56 Kbps technologies require a digital local loop on one end of the connection and unusually high analog line quality, so these technologies will not be well-suited to most consumer and business applications where higher-speed technologies such as ISDN aren't appropriate. AetherWorks Corporation -- 888/552-3309 -- 888/552-3301 (fax) by Mark H. Anbinder TidBITS#354/18-Nov-96 €OT/PPP 1.0 Last week, Apple released Open Transport/PPP 1.0, its first in- house implementation of PPP, the first version anywhere to be Open Transport-native (rather than relying on mechanisms designed for MacTCP) and only the second PPP implementation to be supported officially by Apple. OT/PPP requires a 68030 processor or better and Open Transport 1.1.1 (also available from the URL above; see TidBITS-351_). Apple recommends using OT/PPP with System 7.5.3 or higher, although it can also be used with System 7.1.x. Even so, OT/PPP cannot be used with System 7.5, 7.5.1, or 7.5.2 - you can upgrade those versions to System 7.5.3 or 7.5.5 for free. You configure OT/PPP in the new Modem and PPP control panels OnLinehelp is available Like Open Transport's AppleTalk and TCP/IP control panels, the Modem and PPP control panels can switch between saved configurations without restarting the Mac. The PPP control panel has send and receive indicators and built-in logging. Sadly, it uses flexible but difficult modem scripts (called CCLs) rather than init strings to manage modems. Apple, Info-Mac, and other sources maintain archives of third-party CCL scripts, and Apple has an unsupported Modem Script Generator in the OT/PPP Extras package - it can help create CCL scripts, and contains some CCL documentation. OT/PPP is slightly faster than FreePPP 2.5 on my Supra 28.8 modem (usually between 50 to 100 bps faster during sustained transfers). This improvement might seem tiny, but remember the bottleneck is the sluggish pace of a modem. Users of ISDN terminal adapters and other higher speed PPP connections can expect bigger improvements. Also, because OT/PPP is Open Transport-native, the performance of applications developed specifically for Open Transport will improve. It takes an additional 500-600K of RAM, plus a little over 350K for the PPP control panel (if you leave it open). Considering that Open Transport itself requires 500-1500K of RAM, that's a lot of overhead, especially for Power Macs currently using MacTCP. OT/PPP is scriptable right out of the box. Although other PPP implementations are not, Mark Aldritt's Control PPP scripting addition gives some script control to MacPPP and FreePPP users. OT/PPP can co-exist with previous installations of MacPPP, FreePPP, and other PPP implementations quite happily. Reports so far indicate that OT/PPP can be more stable than FreePPP or MacPPP. TidBITS#354/18-Nov-96 €Insight into Tape Backup Just learned that VCRs and better tape BU systems spin the head. The magnetic part is all around a spinning cylinder in a spiral. It spins faster than the tape moves, so it can write to the whole height of the tape. €Microsoft Internet Updates Microsoft recently released two new Mac Internet programs: Internet Mail and News 1.0 and the first beta of Internet Explorer 3.0. Internet Mail and News, a separate application (based in part on John Norstad's NewsWatcher and Marco Piovanelli's WASTE text engine), replaces the email and Usenet news functionality in Internet Explorer. Although its interface barely departs from its Windows cousin and is no competition for mature programs like Eudora, Internet Mail and News is speedy and offers reasonable functionality, including a subject filter for newsgroups, drag & drop text editing, and easily-organized mail folders. The download is about 800K. Microsoft Internet Explorer for Macintosh 3.0b1 still lives in a relatively svelte 4 MB memory partition (although it hungrily consumes temporary memory in the system), and offers configurable toolbars, built-in video, audio, plus support for HTML 3.2 style sheets, Netscape plug-ins, and VRML (with QuickDraw 3D). Internet Explorer 3.0b1 also supports Java, using either Apple's MacOS Runtime for Java or (soon) the Microsoft Java VM developed jointly with Metrowerks (although using Java consumes another 4 MB of system memory). So far, reports of the beta's performance and behavior have varied widely. The download is about 5 MB. [GD] In a surprising move, Microsoft and ResNova announced that Microsoft has acquired ResNova's Web server products: the personal Web server WebForOne, and the full-featured Boulevard. Microsoft plans to release a beta version of WebForOne, renamed Personal Web Server. Personal Web Server will eventually be bundled with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Although this may seem unusual, it's a matter of parity, since Microsoft already has a free Windows 95 entrant, called Personal Web Server for Windows 95 (Microsoft's naming creativity astounds!). Microsoft claims it has no plans to release a full-featured Web server for the Mac. TidBITS#355/25-Nov-96 €Apple Offers Meta Content Format [The concept is a standardized way of summarizing information, for improved searching and linking] Apple has submitted MCF to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for consideration as an Internet standard for describing content, and I'm unaware of any similar counter-proposals. If the IETF does accept MCF as a standard, we can presume there will be a set of standard attributes for describing data (common things like "name", or "URL"; maybe a "description", or "creator", or other similar tags), but extra data can still be included. TidBITS#355/25-Nov-96 €Disable the CFM-68K Runtime Enabler If you use a Macintosh with a 68K processor, Apple is recommending that you disable the CFM-68K Runtime Enabler either by using an extensions manager or by removing it from your System Folder. Some applications that use the CFM-68K Runtime Enabler can crash your Macintosh, possibly causing data loss and other problems. This problem does _not_ affect Power Macs. The Code Fragment Manager (CFM) was originally developed for Power Macs and lets Power Mac applications use shared code libraries (trust me, they're neat). Later, Apple ported the CFM backwards to 68K machines to make it easier for developers build 68K versions of Power Mac applications. Those 68K applications are just now starting to appear, although plenty more are in development. However, Apple now admits to a problem with the 68K version of CFM, and it can't be used reliably in all cases. Though this bug doesn't impact every program that uses CFM-68K, there's no simple way to know which applications are affected. Programs using CFM- 68K include OpenDoc, Cyberdog, Apple Media Tool, LaserWriter 8.4 and 8.4.1, Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0b1, and the preview of AOL 3.0. If you use any of these programs, Apple recommends you revert to earlier versions or stop using them. If you disable the CFM-68K enabler and try to use one of these applications, you'll see an error, but no damage will be done. Apple is working on a fix, but there's no public timetable for when a solution might be available. [GD] [editor - I tried to disable this with my IIci and it simply refused to print with LW 8.4.1] TidBITS#356/02-Dec-96 €Soft Power Switched Macs [Most new macs have a keyboard button to start them or to initiate a shutdown. That is a problem if you want it to be always on, and there is a power failure. Somebody must come hit the key.] All soft-power Macs have a reset switch (originally in the back, although it's on the front of newer Macs). On older Macs with the rear-mounted reset switch (including the IIci and the 7100) the switch is notched, like a screw. To ensure that the Mac restarts when power returns, you used a screwdriver to turn the switch and press it in. Clean and simple, if not inherently obvious. But, with the newer, newer macs, that won't work. Since the Quadra 840AV, the switch no longer locks on soft-power Macs. Instead, it turns out, the trick is to use the Energy Saver control panel. If you open the control panel and choose Server Settings from the Preferences menu, you get a dialog that offers a checkbox for "Automatically restart after a power failure." Or there is another 3d party technique. PowerKey Pro, from Sophisticated Circuits, is an essential little device that (among many other things) can restart crashed servers automatically. If you're a developer writing server software, however, you don't have to be a slave to a machine's power switch. For many Macs, it's possible to write code to configure a machine to restart automatically after a power failure, in much the same way as the Energy Saver control panel. TidBITS#356/02-Dec-96 Actually, Energy Saver 2.0 works with all PCI Power Macs (and possibly some late-model NuBus Power Macs). Auto Power On/Off works with most soft-power 68K Macs since the IIsi (those that have the "Cuda" ADB controller chip), and all soft-power NuBus Power Macs. It might also work with PCI Power Macs, but has been superseded by Energy Saver 2.0. Apple has a Tech Info Library posting that lists the compatibility possibilities for all Macs. Although it seems Energy Saver 2.0 is always installed on PCI Power Macs, Auto Power On/Off is not always installed on older Macs that could use it (especially various Performa models) to avoid butting heads with the MegaPhone software that lets some Performas work as an answering machine. It's not clear when Auto Power On/Off first appeared - it's in System 7.5, and we received reports it was also in System 7 Pro. Even weirder, it appears Power Computing doesn't include Energy Saver 2.0 on their System Software CDs - you must get it from an Apple CD. Dave Warker** offers an alternate solution: Apple recently released a short tech note covering Server Power mode. It seemed like just the thing for our FirstClass BBS, so I wrote a small extension called ServerPower that turns on this mode if it's available on that particular Mac model. It works fine on the IIvx and on my Power Mac 7500, but doesn't work on my aging IIfx. TidBITS#357/09-Dec-96 €Adobe PageMill 2.0 Adobe's minimum requirements for PageMill 2.0 call for any Macintosh with 8 MB total RAM (with at least 4 MB allocated to PageMill), System 7.1, and a color monitor. The program lists for $149, Adobe's estimated street price is $99, and the company offers a $49 upgrade from 1.0, a $69 deal to owners of other Adobe products, and a $79 crossgrade for owners of some competing products. Adobe added an HTML Source view. Adobe has almost completely crippled HTML Source view for those wish to work directly with HTML - almost all the menus and buttons for creating a Web page are disabled. A new Download Statistics dialog box shows how long a given Web page, selected object (such as a graphic or table), or frameset should take to download over a variety of connection speeds. PageMill is unique in supporting some (and perhaps most) Netscape plug-ins. PageMill has terrific tables by today's standards for an HTML editor You can create multiple and nested frames In Preview mode, you can follow links you've set up and display different pages in the frameset. When you switch back to Edit mode, the pages that were displaying in Preview mode can be edited. PageMill 2.0 can import PICT, GIF or JPEG images and manipulate them to some degree. The background image will display in Edit and Preview mode. There are options to help create server-side maps. PageMill still makes no effort to help with creating CGIs, programs that can receive and process form data, Still only permits one form per page. PageMill does help with creating a form interface. PageMill has no macros and supports only core Apple Events. The find and replace feature is too simplistic for even a light wildcard search, though it does implement whole word searching and wrapping, features that are surprisingly rare among PageMill's competition. The find and replace has one unusual feature: it can be restricted to act solely within tables and forms. PageMill's spelling checker is only for final checks. The manual makes no mention of how to use user dictionaries from other programs or how one might create a dictionary from a text file. Cyberian Outpost is offering a $4 discount to TidBITS readers who purchase PageMill through this URL: Adobe Systems -- 800/411-8657 -- 408/536-6000 TidBITS#356/02-Dec-96 €RealAudio 3.0 Progressive Networks has released Real Audio Player and Real Audio Player Plus 3.0. The RealAudio Player is free for individual use, and provides improved audio quality and stereo streamed audio over 28.8 Kbps modems, while the $30 commercial Player Plus features improved playback via buffering (even on slow or flaky connections) and a "record" mode for offline listening. The free Real Audio Player is about 1 MB and requires a 68040 or better processor; Player Plus requires a Power Mac. [GD] TidBITS#357/09-Dec-96 €Beta MPEG for QuickTime 2.5 Apple has released a beta extension to QuickTime that provides software-only MPEG support on Power Macs. The extension provides a separate track for MPEG I streams, and though you can't save MPEG tracks, you can play MPEG video in a Web browser using QuickTime plug-ins. [GD] TidBITS#357/09-Dec-96 €Quicken 7 Arrives For an overview of the basic Quicken feature set, please refer to the detailed review of Quicken 6 in TidBITS-299_.) As with Quicken 6 (Q6), two versions of the program are available: Quicken and Quicken Deluxe. Both versions include account tracking, reports and graphics, and features for tracking investments, budgets, and loans, as well as online banking and bill payment features. In addition, Quicken Deluxe (available only on CD-ROM) features planners for retirement and debt reduction, plus home inventory management, a free 30-day introduction to Investor Insight, and a Mutual Fund Finder database. 7.0 offers a radically new user interface. This is in large part a result of Intuit incorporating a runtime version of WestCode's excellent OneClick Shortcut Technology. Q7 provides a nice library with several dozen additional buttons. Buttons can be Option-dragged to new locations New live display of the check number as you use the scroll bar Pop-up menus for assigning categories to transactions Sorting by date or check number Additional options for quickly manipulating data entry in transactions involving splits. Many of the significant new features in Q7 involve the Investment Module. For starters, Quicken now provides built-in support for handling lots! The Detail View has been expanded to include a tabbed window which quickly enables you to customize the Detail View's graph, as well as view other data related to your securities. When downloading either a price history or news stories - using the optional Investor Insight (Deluxe version only) - the information automatically updates your records and can be displayed in the Detail View. Immediately after the download, a window appears showing the change in value for the downloaded positions since the last price update. You can also set high and low price alerts. The list of reports and report filters and graphs has been further enhanced in Q7. Intuit continues to increase Quicken's online banking features. Though I have not tested these, Intuit says bill payments can be made online with any U.S. checking account, single-call access to bank statements, money transfers and bill payments, and automatic archiving of historical bank statement data. I found Q7 to be noticeably faster than Q6 when running reports and bringing up the Portfolio Window. It has many major and minor bugs. If you don't use Q7's Investment Module, many of my concerns about Quicken will not affect you. If you do use that part of the program, the next Quicken update should fix some of the most serious bugs. Quicken 7 requires a 68030 processor or better, System 7 or higher, 6 to 8 MB of RAM, 9 to 18 MB of hard disk space, and a 640 by 480 monitor capable of displaying at least 256 colors. Intuit, Inc. -- 800/624-8742 -- 415/944-6000 Steve Becker TidBITS#359/16-Dec-96 €Sorry, that¹s all the time I have. This Jaques Law Bits was delivered by: Kevin Jaques, B.A. LL.B. of the Jaques Law Office #101 - 2515 Victoria Avenue Fax: 525­4173 Regina, Saskatchewan Home: 586­2234 email: jaques.law@dlcwest.com Tel: 359­3041 visit our web page at http://www.dlcwest.com/~jaques.law/