Note: The contents of this Read Me file are also available within the online manual in the Sloop Rudder application.
Contents
• About Sloop
• How to install and uninstall Sloop
• How to use the online manual and help facility
• System requirements
• Why register?
• Price
• How to register
• Legal notice
• How to contact me
• Non-English versions
• Version history
• Thanks and acknowledgments
• Other programs by Quadratic
About Sloop
Sloop, by Quadratic Software, is a program that adds cursor focusing to the MacOS. What is cursor focusing? Cursor focusing is a different way to navigate between windows. When cursor focusing is enabled, whatever window the cursor is over automatically moves to the front ("acquires focus") without having to click in that window. This navigational strategy is popular on some other windowing operating systems like the X Window System. Up until now it has not been available for the MacOS.
Sloop generally makes the MacOS easier to use by helping you sail through your windows and applications without having to incessently click your mouse. Sloop improves overall productivity by speeding up window and application navigation. Sloop includes many options for creating a custom solution to suit your needs. And best of all, Sloop makes people who use other operating systems that don't have cursor focusing envious of the enhanced power of the MacOS!
Since I started using the first development versions of Sloop, I haven't been able to stop. When I turn Sloop off or uninstall it from my computer, I quickly become frustrated at all the clicking I have to do. Until I started using Sloop, I took all this clicking for granted and didn't even realize how much time I spent doing it. Sloop is now an essential part of my daily Mac usage. I hope after trying it out for a week or two, Sloop will become an indispensible part of your Mac usage as well.
Sloop actually consists of two programs: the Sloop Sail and the Sloop Rudder. The Sloop Sail belongs in the Extensions Folder of your System Folder. It is what does the actual work of tracking the mouse and switching among windows and applications. The Sloop Rudder let's you customize Sloop by setting various options. The Rudder also includes an extensive online manual and help facility.
How to install and uninstall Sloop
To install Sloop, put the Sloop Sail into the Extensions Folder of your System Folder and restart your computer. Place the Sloop Rudder application anywhere you like. You may want to put it in the Control Panels folder for quick access but that's not necessary.
To uninstall Sloop, drag the Sloop Sail out of your System Folder. In order to delete the Sloop Sail from your hard disk, you must then either restart your computer or choose the Kill Sloop menu command from within the Sloop Rudder.
How to use the online manual and help facility
The Sloop Rudder has an online manual and help facility. To open it up, choose "Help" from the File menu, press the "Help" button in the main dialog box, or press command-H. You can also go directly to a particular topic by choosing that topic from the standard Help menu (the Ballon Help and Guide menu located on the right side of the menu bar).
Once the help facility is open, you can select a topic from the popup menu.
In addition, if you need help on a particular thing in the program (such as a menu item or something in a dialog box), press command-?. The cursor will turn into a question mark. As long as the cursor is a question mark, anything you select will open the help facility to information about the selected thing.
You can also turn on balloon help from the standard help menu (or by pressing the "Help" key on an extended keyboard) to get less detailed information on dialog box elements and menu items.
System requirements
Sloop requires System 7.1 or higher. For the about box and sliders to display properly, you should have a grayscale or color monitor.
Sloop comes in two versions: one for regular Macs (68K) and one for PowerMacs (PPC). You should use the version that is designed for your machine.
Why Register?
There are several reasons to register: First, because you like Sloop and find it useful. Second, because the price is reasonable. Third, to support my efforts to write more good software for the Macintosh. Fourth, an annoying shareware notice that appears every once in a while won't appear any more! Once you register, as detailed below, I'll send you a registration number that will disable the annoying shareware notice.
Price
Sloop has the following pricing:
• Single User License: US$20
• Site License: US$500
• World-Wide License: US$2000
A single user license applies to one person. A site license covers all locations for your organization within a 160 km (100 mile) radius of your site. With a site license you don't need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software. A World-Wide license covers all locations for your organization on the planet.
How to Register
There are two ways to register. If you want to pay with a credit card and have world-wide-web access, you can register online. (A secure, encrypted form is available if your browser supports it). For more information about online registration, go to the Quadratic web site at
<http://www.quadratic.com/>
You can also pay using a variety of other methods with the Register program that accompanies Sloop. Open the Register program. Enter your name, your e-mail address, and the number of single user licenses you desire (or site or world-wide licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi Shareware. Kagi Shareware handles my payment processing.
If paying with credit card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi Shareware. Their email address is <shareware@kagi.com> and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an e-mail message or you can save the data to a file and attach that file to an e-mail message. There is no need to compress the data file; it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via e-mail are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an e-mail acknowledgment when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days.
Please note: You must provide a correct internet e-mail address to receive an e-mail acknowledgment of your payment as well as a registration number.
If paying with cash or US$ check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi Shareware
1442-A Walnut Street #392-HG
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US dollars. Kagi Shareware cannot accept checks in other currencies. The conversion rate for a non-US$ check is around US$15 per check and that's not practical considering that Sloop only costs US$20.
The invoice option is for companies with purchasing departments. If that's you, then enter all the data, print three copies of the form, and send it to your accounts payable people. They must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Please do not fax or e-mail forms that indicate cash, check, or invoice as the payment method. These need to be sent through the postal mail with payment. Payments sent via postal mail take time to reach Kagi Shareware and then up to 10 days for processing.
Legal notice
You may copy and distribute unregistered copies of Sloop but you may not sell them for profit. If you want to include Sloop in a shareware/freeware collection, contact me at <support@quadratic.com>. If you distribute unregistered copies in any way, you must include the Sloop Sail, the Sloop Rudder, supporting documents, and the Register program in the distribution. You may not distribute registered copies of Sloop except in the following two cases:
1. If you hold a site license for Sloop, you may distribute registered copies within your organization within a 160 km (100 mile) radius of your site.
2. If you hold a world-wide license for Sloop, you may distribute registered copies within your organization.
Use Sloop at your own risk. Graham Herrick and Quadratic Software make no warranties as to performance, merchantability, or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. No warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose is offered. Neither Graham Herrick nor Quadratic Software will be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages resulting from the use or misuse of Sloop. Some of these exclusions or limitations may not apply in all jurisdictions.
In other words, if the program does something weird, like damages a file or disk, I am not legally responsible. However, if it does do something weird, I'd like to know so I can try to fix it in future versions. Please send bug reports to <support@quadratic.com>.
How to contact the author
My name is Graham Herrick and the name of my shareware company is Quadratic Software. If you find a bug, have comments or suggestions, or just want to say hi, my e-mail address is <support@quadratic.com>. Before sending bug reports, please read the "troubleshooting" section of the "questions and answers" topic in the online manual to make sure the problem isn't already covered.
The Quadratic web page is located at:
<http://www.quadratic.com/>
The Sloop page, which will always contain the latest information and links for downloading the latest versions, is located at:
<http://www.quadratic.com/Sloop/>
My Kagi e-mail forwarding address is <gherrick@kagi.com>. The reason for the Kagi email forwarding address is that if my other email addresses change, the Kagi address will still be valid. So if you can't get through to <support@quadratic.com>, try <gherrick@kagi.com>.
Non-English versions
Sloop is available in several languages besides English. As of now, there are, or should soon be, versions available in Japanese, German, French, and Swedish.
You can download and find out about these different versions at the Sloop web page: <http://www.quadratic.com/Sloop/>.
Version history
July 1997
Sloop 1.0.2 is an update to allow Sloop to recognize MacOS 8 Appearence-enabled applications and the MacOS 8 Finder. In addition, Sloop now recognizes windows in F-Secure, InterScript, and OpenDoc parts like CyberDog. The RAM requirements for the Sail have been cut almost in half. The Sloop Rudder is now “Kaleidoscope-savvy.” (Check out the cool new look! To see this you must be using “Kaleidoscope,” a shareware program by Greg Landweber, Ed Voas, and Fred Bass). Sloop now recognizes the windows of applications opened in the background (e.g. with an AppleScript), without users having to manually bring the applications to the foreground at least once.
This is primarily a maintenence release so other than these compatibility fixes, Sloop 1.0.2 includes no new features or user interface changes. (Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the feature suggestions I’ve received! Expect to see some of them in future versions. MacOS 8 and OpenDoc compatibility took a higher priority this time around).
May 1997
Sloop 1.0.1 fixes a few bugs, and adds one new feature. Specifically, here are the fixes: Conflict Catcher no longer reports damaged resources in the Sail; the help screen no longer reloads if you choose the same topic from the popup menu; the Sail resource fork should be more stable; I fixed a problem where in some applications it wouldn't select windows if only the bottom of a window was showing; you can now add old-style desk accessories to the application lists; I fixed a problem with artificial clicks on the scroll bars in some applications; the Rudder now correctly handles the hiliting of the "Factory" button; the Rudder is now compatible with NoBalloonMenu; there is now better error reporting; and the help topics menu now has separators.
The new feature is this: you can tell Sloop not to switch when the command key is held down.
April 1997
Sloop 1.0 is the first public release of Sloop.
March 1997
Sloop 0.9.x beta are the beta releases of Sloop. These versions are to be distributed through email to beta testers only and are not meant for general distribution. They should not be included in any online archives or put on any CD-ROMs. If you are using Sloop 0.9.x beta and are not a beta tester, please wait until the final version 1.0 is released since several improvements will probably be made.
February 1997
Versions of Sloop before 0.9 beta are in-house development and alpha versions.
Thanks and acknowledgments
Special thanks to John Armstrong who wrote to me with the initial idea for Sloop. He had been searching for quite some time for a cursor focusing program for the Mac. He then wrote to me asking if I, as a Mac shareware author, might be able to make something like that.
I was fascinated by the idea, dived into documentation, and stayed up all that night programming. By morning, ten hours later, I had a working, albeit sketchy, first implementation. This first version had no user interface and no preferences but, for the most part, it worked.
After this, John helped me considerably as I cleaned up the code, added preferences, and debugged the initial development and alpha versions. He offered many suggestions along the way and tested out every major change to the code.
So without him, this project would never have come to completion.
Thanks very much to Mamiya Natsuki who donated his time to design Sloop's icons.
Thanks to the following beta testers and other people who have helped me to improve Sloop:
Wayne Babineau, Bill Bandes, Denis Chagnon, Karl Cook, DDunkerley, Michel Eytan, Jon Gotow, Gernot J. Gutjahr, Larry Haff, Simon Hakiel, Chikara Hashimoto, Roma Hinton, Peter Hoerster, Jim Isaac, Akitoshi Kimura, Chris Li, Michael Lilliquist, Ray Lindsey, Jac Lundqvist, Tony Meyer, Bill Moore, Kazuhisa Nakagawa, Roger M. Poor, Andy Rogers, Fuminori Takeda, Ed Thome, Koichi Tsubo.
Thanks to the following for making suggestions on or reporting bugs in Sloop 1.0: Pepi Acebo, Merijn Broeren, Kiwhan Chung, Matt Clark, Jimmy Collins, David-Artur Daix, John Dannecker, Bob Dixon, Philip C. Dixon, Alex Feinman, Terry Harpold, William Lane, Jan Leppink, Yongsheng Liu, Bob McDaniels, Jared Mellin, Rocky Mullin, Takashi Nishigaya, Oso, Parker J. Palmer, Don Parker, Nicholas Riley, Randy Robb, Dave Roode, David Salomon, Francis Schwebig, Ken Slocum, Allen Smith, Jim Stelljes, Karl Warschau.
A lot of people have had input on Sloop ranging from a single email or two to extended testing. If I kept thanking everyone who sent in suggestions or bug reports, Sloop’s memory footprint would grow too large. But I want those who do send in reports or suggestions to know that your input is much appreciated. Thanks!
Special thanks to all those people who have paid for programs I have written and those who will pay for my programs in the future. Your material support has made it possible for me to write new programs like Sloop.
Thanks to Metrowerks for making CodeWarrior, a fantastic development environment for the Mac, and, of course, to Apple Computer, for making the Mac itself and the MacOS which allows enough flexibility to be able to do things like Sloop. (If you're a Mac fanatic like I am, you might want to check out <http://www.evangelist.macaddict.com/> for information about joining Guy Kawasaki's excellent EvangeList mailing list.) Also thanks to Jon Zobkiw for his book "A Fragment of Your Imagination" and Dave Mark for originally teaching me how to program the Mac Toolbox with his numerous books and articles.
Thanks also to my cat, Willy Bob, who likes to sit next to my computer and bat at the cursor with his paw as it moves around the screen, inspiring me to do more things with the cursor.
Of course, any problems with this program are due to my own coding and shouldn't be blamed on any of these folks. Except perhaps on Willy Bob whose voluminous shedding of cat hairs clogged up my mouse and may have resulted in an inaccurate perception of cursor movement.
Other programs by Quadratic
Here are a few of the other programs released by Quadratic. They are all available at the Quadratic web site, InfoMac, and other Macintosh shareware archives. Check the Quadratic web site to find out about the most recent versions.
•ClipAppend: This is a simple control panel that extends the normal functionality of cutting and copying text to the Macintosh clipboard. Usually, when you cut or copy something to the clipboard, you replace whatever is stored there. But with ClipAppend installed, you can add text to the clipboard instead of replacing text.
•Finder Windows: Have you ever wished that the Finder had a simple "Window" menu like many other applications? Finder Windows is a control panel that adds a "Window" menu to the Finder. You can now see a list of all the Finder's open windows, choose among them, stack them, and arrange them.
•KeyCommander: Don't you hate it when applications don't have command-key equivalents for some frequently-used menu items? KeyCommander is a control panel that lets you fix that problem by allowing you to add command-key equivalents to applications. And it does all of this in RAM without directly modifying the applications themselves. It features a snazzy user interface.
•File Merger: This is a small drag-and-drop utility that merges together the data forks of files such as text files. It is useful if you download binhexed segments off of Usenet, work with large text-based data files, and other things.
•Sokoban 3D: This computer game, based on the classic Sokoban game, puts you into a 3-D puzzle from the first-person point-of-view.
•Addiction Manager: This is a program that helps people manage their addictions to computer games or other stuff (like the internet).
The Sloop Sail, Sloop Rudder, and this Read Me file are
Apple, ResEdit, Power Macintosh, Mac, and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. MacOS, Finder, Balloon Help, and System 7 are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. X Window System is a trademark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. PowerPC is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Sloop, Sloop Sail, Sloop Rudder, Quadratic, and the Quadratic Software logo are trademarks of Graham Herrick.
Other brand names, software titles, company names or products mentioned in this documentation are registered trademarks, trademarks, or tradenames of their respective holders.
