thanks Loren - i already have Windowshade X and it's wonderful. but unfortunately it doesn't bring back OS 9's window resizing. i tried turning off shadows but that had no effect. good suggestion though.

i have to send an e-mail to Unsanity to see if they can incorporate it into a future version of Windowshade X.

As announced here at MacFixit:

>>Alepin 1.5 "has been created for Mac OS X users who miss the Notepad and Scrapbook features of Mac OS 9."

Anyone tried it yet?

http://www.macchampion.com/

Please report and rate.

- Loren
Keyboard maps for your favorite software!
www.neotrondesign.com

Ditto to everything, Loren! The redundancy and messiness of the file directory organization in X is really irritating—it's like a teenager's room with ancient, dessicated pizzas under the bed and god knows what buried in deep strata of dirty clothes in the closet.

Salsa should get national recognition for the font forum idea, maybe the MacFixit Order of Merit. There are lots of issues about the operation of fonts in X to explore. I for one am trying to get a fix on the whole subject.

I really miss the Scrapbook (where you not only could store images but also run videos and lift stills off them) and the Notebook. I have Moosepad and like it a lot, but Notebook performed its functions with consummate simplicity.

I didn't see this mentioned (but I may have missed it).

Drop Drawers allows you to drag anything to a drawer, so it is easy to develop one or more scrapbooks.

I can't use OSX without drop drawers!

A

Though it's touted as a Stickies replacement, StickyBrain is more like a Scrapbook on steroids. It's a desktop database; you can paste anything into it and search, etc. http://www.chronosnet.com/&/products/sb_index.html

Having said that, I'll say that I tried it (free) for 30 days and haven't yet decided whether to ante up the $30 to keep using it. It's almost too feature-rich -- it's not that it's hard to use but it just may not be small & simple enough for my needs.

Edited by coloma on 07/20/02 07:52 PM.

.
I'm a little surprised nobody else has picked up on this package yet.

I expect many of these will need updates to work with Jaguar, though.

-----
Asps, very dangerous. Indy, you go first.

>>I'm a little surprised nobody else has picked up on this package yet. <<

It's very entreprenurial of Alladin to package fully one third of the Refugee Utilities as a "Power User" package.

The focus here however is on recapturing what's great about pre-X MacOS *within* MacOSX and most of our participants have already got them installed and rated!

The other two-thirds of the Alladin package are new enhancements useful to X-users. I like the idea of Pseudo, for instance-- that seems indispensable in OSX. But it's not a Refugee Utility, which is what folks come here looking for.

- Loren
Keyboard maps for your favorite software!
www.neotrondesign.com

wow, thank you, Pliny II, for the huge compliment! But the praise is, perhaps, a little overstated!

Superstition has a thread going, in OS X Talk, called: Jaguar Changes & Additions. S/he lists the new stuff in one post, & what's missing in the next post.

To that, I have added several things, including some fonts stuff. I hope it all gets sent to Apple.

My biggest beef is, since Apple surely knows how important its platform is to the print & graphic design & typography community, who rely on font technologies & the ability to see & work with fonts, how could Apple not think to consult with the major software companies producing font mgm't software (DiamondSoft for FontReserve, Extensis for Suitcase)??? I have an email from DiamondSoft, in which they blame some of the current problems of the way version 3 works in OS X (it is OS X native) on Apple & OS X. They say, until Apple fixes the fact that in OS X several fonts can be open at once, these problems will continue to exist.

>>how could Apple not think to consult with the major software companies producing font mgm't software<<

Apple should consult with itself! They introduced the single Fonts folder in OS7.x and it was great! There must be a way to recapture that in Unix.

Meanwhile, DragThing 4 has been updated for 10.2. And that added Trash Can still rocks!

re: <<Apple should consult with itself! They introduced the single Fonts folder in OS7.x and it was great! There must be a way to recapture that in Unix.>>

This is just my unsupported opinion, and I feel a little shy even putting it here, because I realize I am not nearly as technically-minded and knowledgeable about the ins and outs of systems & hardware stuff than most other people who post here...

but my guess is that Apple has hired brand-new Unix-savvy people to work on much of OS X, and that they haven't done a lot of dialoguing & sharing of info & consulting with those who have developed the previous couple of Mac operating systems from 7 through 9. It is also my guess that they did very little consulting with what has always been considered one of their most significant customer bases: the graphics, dtp and print market.

Fonts are not the only issue here, but surely, they are a pretty darn significant one to graphic designers. How else to account for the fact that

• fonts seem to render poorly on screen, whereas before, they were so crisp & clear and I used to always greatly prefer it to Windows font rendering
  
• the major software mgm't manufacturers of established programs such as FontReserve and Suitcase claim there is nothing they can do with issues such as jaggie fonts-- until OS X fixes this. I know they give advice about how users can avoid the OS X ability to open two fonts with the same name... but this means that the users (& problem is only vastly compounded if there are multiple users) must go into the many font folders, & take many steps to avoid this. My belief is that this should be done transparently, easily & seamlessly by the OS.
  
• there is no native app provided to allow people to double-click & view fonts from the desktop. When I bought my computer, the salesman didn't seem at first to realize this, and then he advised me to simply view the fonts from within an application! Of course, since they look like crap anyways in the provided AppleWorks, that doesn't leave you with a lot of native options. The only font viewer provided is one to view the Asian fonts -- which I just cannot see most of the graphic design base needing or using, certainly not here in North America. Yes, I downloaded the freeware "X Font Info", but surely it is an oversight to have to rely on 3rd party software to view fonts in your system?
  
• I have not yet found a way to view the new datafork font technology. One would think that they would develop an app for viewing from desktop at same time as creating the new technology.
  
• in OS X, there is not a way I am aware of to view the actual font suitcase contents. And also, because one cannot see a Suitcase icon in OS X, it becomes much harder to distinguish the screen font from the printer font. It seems like these accepted protocols were ignored entirely, and that the developers of OS X seem, in my opinion, to be oblivious and unaware of them.

I hope I don't get accused by anyone of being resistant to change. As a web (& print) designer, I have worked on lots of different software, everything from Photoshop, FireWorks, Freehand, DreamWeaver, Flash, Director etc. I've seen lots of significant upgrades along the way. Many times, even when there are very significant differences which means I must unlearn things and learn a newer interface, I see a software program offering positive interface changes. (Yes, I realize that these upgrades are minor compared to the huge shift from OS 9 to what is essentially a new OS in X... just want to point out that I am very capable of learning new interfaces and finding new interfaces to be superior to the older ones).

Adobe is usually exceptional at this. There are other times, when some aspects of a software upgrade seems to have poorly considered interface, & actually goes backwards. Macromedia has gone up and down with this: many people in the print industry found that the earlier interface of Freehand (under Aldus) was superior to the versions Macromedia first came out with, & opted to stay with 5 rather than upgrade to 7. I will say, though, that DreamWeaver just gets better & better, and the new MX upgrades seem to be a very positive development.