Little Collection of Macintosh Utilities

Personal Collections: Some Pictures and Some Little Mac Utilities
Some Utilities for the Macintosh
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Some Utilities for the Macintosh

Introduction

Over the last few years, I have written some small programs and utilities for the Macintosh. All of the recent used to be available on the "Info-Mac" collection (one of the biggest collection of shareware/freeware for the Macintosh). However, this archive was closed recently, and since my oldest utilities were removed from that collection long ago anyway, I decided to make them all available on this page.

All of them are free, although not in the public domain (I retain the copyright). Try them out, give a copy to your friends. However, I would be glad if you could always distribute the whole archive, i.e. include the documentation. Furthermore, if you plan to distribute any of these files on a CD-ROM (either commercial or as an addition for a computer magazine), please ask me first for permission.

The short description comes from the documentation files included with each archives. All of the utilities (and the documentation) are written in English.

There are separate pages where you'll find AppleScripts for FrameMaker and the Finder (both for Mac OS 9 or earlier only), for scripts for Eudora (also an extra page for Eudora plug-ins, where you will also find the Sleek-A-Boo plug-in), and one page with scripts for BBEdit. The scripts available on-line don't always represent the current versions I use on my computer, mainly because I've adjusted the ones I still use to OS X; the scripts on the web site are for Mac OS 9 (and older). Hopefully I'll find a few minutes to clean up my current working versions and put them up on this web site in the near future...

All of the archives are Stuffit archives encoded as hqx files (i.e. binhex format). Once a file is on your hard disk, you will have to extract the files from the archives (a task that your browser might be set to start for you automatically). Any version of StuffIt Expander should do this. If you have problems downloading any of these files correctly, try selecting the "Download Link..." command that most browsers offer in an popup menu (and choose "As Text" if there is a choice between text and source format).

The following utilities are system extensions (INITs), an After Dark module, and a HyperCard stack. The are sorted according to age (most recent at the top). Note that you can also click on an icon to download a file. Sizes are given for the compressed archive; the installed versions will be larger.

Caret Patch (Feb 1998, version 1.0, size 8 KB)

This small system extension sets the width of the caret (the blinking line indicating where text is inserted) to 2 or 3 pixels in any dialogue or text window that uses the standard TextEdit routines provided by the Macintosh system software. This will work e.g. in SimpleText and any dialogue for saving files.

After Dark No Interrupt (Nov 1997, version 1.0, size 8 KB)

A module for the screen saver AfterDark. It disables key combinations to break into the debugger and to interrupt the current process, two ways to quit the screen saver that circumvent any password protection set in AfterDark.

Thicker Caret for Word 5.1a (May 1995, size 21 KB)

This offers a function similar to the caret patch mentioned above, but works only for Microsoft Word 5.1a for the Macintosh. Based on this version, there is another plug-in for Word that is smaller, more elegant and also offers a thicker I-beam cursor; it is written by Evert-Jan Nijhof and can be found in the Info-Mac software collection, under

~~ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch//mirror/Info-Mac/text/thicker-cursors-word5-pim.hqx~~

[The Info-Mac ftp archive no longer exists.]

SysEnabler088 Patch (Jan 1995, size 18 KB)

If you have a Macintosh Quadra 840 AV and run System 7.1, then this patch disables the shutdown function provided by the power key (which is pressed to start the machine). I had a control panel that used that key for a different purpose, so I wanted to switch off the shutdown function offered by System 7.1 for the Quadra 840. Note that later system versions (7.5 and later) implement this function in a different (and official) way; you need other utilities to disable the function under these system versions. System 7.5 offered the possibility of shutting down by pressing the power key for the first time for other Macintosh models.

Bio ESS (Oct 1992, version 1.0, size 30 KB)

This is a tutorial stack for use in Hypercard (the Hypercard player is freely available from Apple computer). It shows some examples of Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESS), simple game theory models used in biology. This was originally created for a practical (part of the behavioural ecology course) at the University of Berne.

Unfortunately obsolete: OneClick script

And finally, I once wrote a small AppleScript for Eudora that opens the first unread message of a mailbox. It used to run best in conjunction with the macro utility OneClick, so I had submitted it to the archive that WestCode Software,the producer of OneClick, maintained. However, OneClick only used to work in Mac OS 7/8/9, and as I recently discovered, its web site had disappeared as well, so this script is no longer useful.

Actually, the Applescript part of this utility runs fine without OneClick, but it then only works for Eudora mailboxes in the top level mailbox directory (due to some limitation in Eudora); this being a big limitation, I decided that there is no point in offering this script anymore.

	Caret Patch (Feb 1998, version 1.0, size 8 KB) This small system extension sets the width of the caret (the blinking line indicating where text is inserted) to 2 or 3 pixels in any dialogue or text window that uses the standard TextEdit routines provided by the Macintosh system software. This will work e.g. in SimpleText and any dialogue for saving files.
	After Dark No Interrupt (Nov 1997, version 1.0, size 8 KB) A module for the screen saver AfterDark. It disables key combinations to break into the debugger and to interrupt the current process, two ways to quit the screen saver that circumvent any password protection set in AfterDark.
	Thicker Caret for Word 5.1a (May 1995, size 21 KB) This offers a function similar to the caret patch mentioned above, but works only for Microsoft Word 5.1a for the Macintosh. Based on this version, there is another plug-in for Word that is smaller, more elegant and also offers a thicker I-beam cursor; it is written by Evert-Jan Nijhof and can be found in the Info-Mac software collection, under ~~ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch//mirror/Info-Mac/text/thicker-cursors-word5-pim.hqx~~ [The Info-Mac ftp archive no longer exists.]
	SysEnabler088 Patch (Jan 1995, size 18 KB) If you have a Macintosh Quadra 840 AV and run System 7.1, then this patch disables the shutdown function provided by the power key (which is pressed to start the machine). I had a control panel that used that key for a different purpose, so I wanted to switch off the shutdown function offered by System 7.1 for the Quadra 840. Note that later system versions (7.5 and later) implement this function in a different (and official) way; you need other utilities to disable the function under these system versions. System 7.5 offered the possibility of shutting down by pressing the power key for the first time for other Macintosh models.
	Bio ESS (Oct 1992, version 1.0, size 30 KB) This is a tutorial stack for use in Hypercard (the Hypercard player is freely available from Apple computer). It shows some examples of Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESS), simple game theory models used in biology. This was originally created for a practical (part of the behavioural ecology course) at the University of Berne.

Some Utilities for the Macintosh

Introduction

Unfortunately obsolete: OneClick script

Other useful links for Macintosh users