03.10.02
Extending MacOS 9 with Control Panels
There are a few extensions and control panels that I nearly require for me to be able to efficiently use MacOS 9. Here’s most of the Control Panels:
Default Folder
This guy helps me navigate through my folders on my hard drive when I’m saving files. Being a web developer, saving files in *exactly* the right place is eccential to getting work done. Getting it there quickly saves me hours of navigation each month. This used to be performed for me by “Click, there it is!” back before most of my apps used Navigation Services.
Okey Dokey Pro
Not so much a time saver as a frustration saver. ODP hits the Enter key. (Remember we’re talking OS 9 here.) It generally does this for dialog boxes that take over your whole machine and won’t let you do anything until someone (or something) hits the OK button. This can be really frustrating when you’ve set your machine to do something and then walked away, and then the computer just sits and waits when a simple OK would take care of things.
Prestissimo 1.5
4 words: Double headed scroll bars. I use Prestissimo to place the little up and down arrows at each end of the scroll bars, an option that the built-in Appearance control panel doesn’t let you do. I hate that. I run Prestissimo *once* when I first install the OS. And then never again. Prestissimo lets you do lots of other stuff, but I don’t use any other function.
Super Save
There’s two things that Super Save does. One: It hits Cmd-S every 10 minutes. It’s Autosave for every single application I have. You do have to be a bit careful in Photoshop to always be working on Duplicated images of the originals, but that’s a practice you should be into anyway. Plus, you can set which applications to be active for.
Two: It captures your keystrokes and saves them to a file. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a browser crap out on me just as I’m about to send off a web-based e-mail or after writing a long note to a discussion board. Each of these times I was able to go back into my little key capture file and reconstruct the pearls of wisdom that fell from my finger tips. (Italics added for sarcasm.)
Tomorrow I’l list out some Extensions and Applications that I can’t live without. Finally I’ll wrap up with MacOS 9 built-in features that I’ve grown to love.
Your assignment: Tell me how to deal with each of the issues that each of the control panels take care of when I move to Mac OS X. The Discussion board is open.