◊ These are MacOS 8 Contextual Menu Manager plug-ins. To install them, just place them in the “Contextual Menu Items” folder in your System Folder, and make sure that the “SOMobjects™ for Mac OS” library in your Extensions folder is enabled. The Contextual Menu Manager only works on PowerPC machines.
◊ When you control-click a file icon, a pop-up menu appears allowing you to quickly perform useful operations on files.
• About MovieUtilities CMM
◊ These plug-ins let you manipulate QuickTime movies in many useful ways. You can:
• Play movies directly from your desktop by using QuickPlayer.
• Convert sounds, pictures, MPEG files, MIDI files, karaoke files to QuickTime movies using ConvertToMovie.
• Convert movie tracks to pictures, sounds, MPEG files, MIDI files, using MovieConverter.
• Merge multiple movie tracks into one single QuickTime movie using MovieMerger.
• QuickPlayer
You can now play any QuickTime movie from your Mac’s desktop by simply control-clicking its icon in the Finder!
QuickPlayer lets you view any kind of QuickTime movie, including playing sounds, viewing 3-D objects and navigating QuickTime VR panoramas and objects.
Besides movies, QuickPlayer can play any other files that can be imported “in place” by QuickTime. An example are AIFF, WAV and .au sounds, as well as MPEG files, animated GIFs and other image formats.
While a movie is playing, a pop-up menu in the movie controller will let you control various settings, such as whether the movie will loop or if the movie window should close after the movie has played.
• ConvertToMovie
When you control-click one or more file icons, ConvertToMovie checks to see if those files can be converted to QuickTime movies. If it is possible, a “Convert to Movie” command appears in the contextual menu:
With QuickTime 2.5, you can convert files of the following types to movies:
AIFF/AIFC, AU, Audio CD tracks, MPEG-1 (with the QuickTime MPEG Extension), WAV, System 7 sounds, 3DMF objects, Photoshop, PICS, QuickDraw Picture (PICT), General MIDI, Karaoke MIDI.
With QuickTime 3, ConvertToMovie also recognizes files of the following types:
In addition to these, any additional file formats are supported through QuickTime-compatible codecs.
• MovieConverter
When you control-click one or more movies, MovieConverter adds a “Convert movie” command to the contextual menu:
Once you choose how you wish to convert the movie, you are asked where you wish to save the document. In the save dialog, you can also choose any available conversion options by clicking the “Options…” button.
The “To QuickTime Movie” conversion is useful when you need to quickly flatten a movie, i.e. remove any dependencies on external files.
If no movie track can be converted using the selected converter (for example, if you choose “Sound to AIFF” when the movie doesn't contain a sound track), MovieConverter does nothing.
• MovieMerger
When you select multiple QuickTime movies and control-click them, MovieMerger adds a “Merge movies” and a “Join movies” command to the contextual menu:
Once you choose a command, you are asked where you wish to save the output movie.
If you choose the Merge command, MovieMerger creates a new movie which contains all of the selected movies’ tracks and makes them start playing at the same time.
This is very useful, for instance, if you wish to quickly merge a video track with a sound track.
Note that if two or more movies contain a video track, the output movie will have two or more overlapping video tracks, some of which could therefore be hidden. You can use MoviePlayer to choose the way the video tracks are layered, as well as their graphics mode (you can set them to be transparent, for example).
If you choose the Join command, MovieMerger creates a new movie which contains the selected movies, sequentially stitched together. The movies are joined in alphabetical order depending on their filenames.
• More Contextual Menu Plug-ins
◊ Check out other cool contextual menu plug-ins! Just point you web browser to <http://www.riccisoft.com/software.html>. A collection of plug-ins for converting and viewing pictures of any format is also available.
And don’t miss Icon Tools, a plug-in which lets you copy, paste, rotate, stamp and apply many effects to any icon in the Finder!
• Shareware: $15
◊ These plug-ins are distributed as shareware and cost $15. If you use them, please launch the Register utility enclosed in the distribution package. Enter your name, your email address (if available), and the number of licenses you wish to purchase. Save, copy or print the data from the Register application and send it to Kagi along with your payment. Kagi will process your registration and forward your payment to us. If you’re on the Internet, an online registration site is also available at the above URL.
◊ Please register: your support is the only way for us to keep working on cool shareware programs. Once you register, you will receive a key to remove the annoying shareware reminder that appears once a day when you use these plug-ins.
◊ Special offer: you can purchase both MovieUtilities CMM and ImageUtilities CMM packages for only $20! This is a 33% discount off the normal price ($15 each)! To take advantage of this offer, simply select the “ImageUtilities + MovieUtilities CMM” item when registering.
• Kagi registrations
◊ Payments sent via email and through the online registration site are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when your registration is done. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days. You will also be notified by email if you provide a correct internet email address. Payments sent via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
◊ If you pay with a credit card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is <sales@kagi.com> and their fax number is +1-510-652-6589. You can either copy the data from Register and paste it into the body of an email message, or you can save the data to a file and attach the file to an email 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.
◊ You can also pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries, or with a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies. In both cases you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-6R
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
U.S.A.
◊ If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You may want to highlight the line that reminds them to include a copy of the form with their payment.
◊ Kagi cannot invoice your company. If you need an invoice, you must act on our behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
◊ Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate cash, check or invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
• Version history
◊ 1.4 - QuickPlayer now starts playing movies much more smoothly. The movie controller now contains a pop-up menu which lets you control various settings and loop movies.
◊ 1.3 - All plug-ins now correctly check for the presence of QuickTime. PlayMovie was renamed to QuickPlayer. QuickPlayer now starts playing the movie immediately. When movies are too large to fit in one monitor, they are now resized correctly. QuickPlayer windows now can be resized and zoomed. QuickPlayer is now able to play AIFF, WAV, .au sounds and any other file that can be imported “in place” by QuickTime.
◊ 1.2 - MovieMerger can now join movies as well as merge them (thanks, Tony!). MovieMerger now sorts input movies in alphabetical order. Added a PlayMovie CMM plug-in to the package.
◊ 1.1 - Sometimes the commands would not appear in contextual menus, now they always do.
◊ All online services and bulletin boards may make it available to their users at no charge other than the normal connection fees.
◊ All non-profit user groups may distribute it at no charge.
◊ All magazines may publish it on floppy disk or CD-ROM without asking us first, as long as we get a copy of the issue containing the software.
◊ All CD-ROM shareware collections and CD-ROM magazines may include it without our prior consent, as long as we get either a copy of the CD-ROM or an offer to buy the CD-ROM at a discounted price.
◊ All redistribution companies such as Pacific HiTech, AMUG or Celestin may distribute it, as long as we get a copy of each medium containing our software and a catalog of the company’s offerings (where applicable).
◊ The latest versions of our products are on <http://www.riccisoft.com/software.html>.
• Thanks to…
◊ Trygve Isaacson, for his great CMM Framework. Check it out at <http://www.bombaydigital.com>.
◊ Alessandro Levi Montalcini, for his help and suggestions.
◊ Alessandro Levi Montalcini, for being such a good friend.
◊ Florent Pillet, for suggesting me to write some CMM plug-ins.
◊ Laurent Debrauwer, Fabien Octave and Florent Pillet for the company.
◊ All my beta testers, for always providing helpful comments.
• Disclaimer
◊ This software should never cause any damage, but you’re using it at your own risk. As independent software developers, we can make no warranties whatsoever on it.
• Have fun!
◊ And don’t forget to register your shareware, so that more cool inexpensive software can see the light in the future.
