Zipple is a control panel and extension for System 7 which allows you to replace the titles of your Apple, Balloon Help, Keyboard (if you have one), and Application menus with animated images, in color if you have a color screen. The displayed image can depend on the frontmost application, if you like. You can use the ready-made images that come with Zipple, or create your own with the sophisticated editor in the control panel.
Getting Started
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It's easy. Just drop the Zipple control panel icon on your System Folder icon. A box should pop up asking if you want to put Zipple in the Control Panels folder. You do. Now, restart your Macintosh. You should see Zipple's icon drawn at the bottom of your screen, and when you get to the Finder, your Apple menu should be replaced by a spinning earth, the question mark in your Balloon Help menu title should be spinning around, and there should be fireworks in the screen of the Mac on top of your Application menu. If these animations are in the wrong places, read the next section to see how to fix that. If the startup icon had a big X through it, you won't see all this spiffy stuff. Instead, you will have to consult the Troubleshooting section at the end of this manual to see if I have anticipated your problem and can offer a solution.
The Control Panel
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Go into your Control Panels folder and open up the Zipple control panel. A big fat window with lots of confusing stuff should appear on your screen. Don't be overwhelmed, I'll explain everything (except for how something this simple could get this complicated... for that I offer two words: "creeping featuritis"). Here's a detailed explanation of each item in the control panel window, starting at the upper left and working our way generally down and to the right.
Zipple logo/author credit
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Clicking here brings up a dialog box in which you can change where Zipple thinks your Balloon Help, Keyboard (if you have it), and Application menus are. You do this by telling Zipple how many menus are to the right of each of the menus. For example, most systems without a Keyboard menu have 0 menus to the right of the Application menu, and 1 menu to the right of the Help menu. Changes you make here take effect as soon as you click OK. Click Cancel to go back to the settings you had before you clicked the logo. The very first time you start up with Zipple on your system, it tries to figure out where your menus are. If it does it right, you'll never have to use this box.
On checkbox
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This controls whether Zipple zipples or not. Turn it on to turn Zipple on, turn it off to turn Zipple off.
Icon checkbox
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This button controls whether or not Zipple's icon gets plotted at the bottom of your screen when you start up. If errors occur when Zipple is loading, it will always plot the X-ed out icon, regardless of the setting of this control.
Zipple list
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This list shows all the Zipples that have been created so far. You can scroll up and down to see all of them. The currently selected Zipple will animate, so you can preview what it will look like in your menu bar.
Popup menu
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This menu allows you to choose which menu or application you are changing the settings for. The settings for a particular menu or application are governed by the three radio buttons below this popup, and the Zipple list. If you choose a menu title (the first four items), the settings will always apply for that menu. If you choose an application (the rest of the menu) the settings will only apply when that application is frontmost, and you have selected "Front App" for one of your menus. To choose an additional application for which you'd like to have a Zipple, simply choose the "Add New App..." item. A standard dialog box will pop up so you can choose an application. When you do so, its name will appear in the menu, and you can choose a Zipple for it. If you want to delete an application from the menu, just hold down the Command key when you click in the menu, select the offending application, and release. Its menu item will disappear without a trace.
Selection/Random/Front App/None radio buttons
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These four radio buttons and the Zipple list determine what Zipple is displayed over what menu title, or for which application. If you choose "Selection", you must also select a Zipple in the Zipple list. That Zipple will always be used to replace the menu title, or will always appear when that application becomes frontmost. If you choose "Random", a random Zipple will be chosen to replace the menu title at every startup. If you choose "Front App", the image displayed over the menu title will change depending on what application is frontmost. If you haven't chosen a Zipple for the application that is in front, no animation will take place until you switch to an application for which you -have- chosen a Zipple. If you choose "None", no Zipple will replace the menu title, i.e. you will see the regular title. You can choose "None" for an application, but it would make more sense to just delete that application from the menu, as described before. Note that a "Front App" selection will not take effect until you close the control panel. All other choices take effect as soon as you hit "Set".
Set button
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Use this button to lock in and save your settings for the current menu title or application. Your changes are not saved until you hit this button, which allows you to fiddle around without affecting your saved settings.
Speed scroll bar
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This determines how fast the Zipple over the currently selected menu is animated. Move it all the way to the right to go as fast as it can go. Move it all the way to the left to go very slow.
New… button
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So, you wanna make a new Zipple, eh? Well, this button is the key to paradise. Just click it, type in a name for the Zipple in the dialog box that pops up, click OK, and you're all set to start editing.
Delete button
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Just as yin has yang, so too does New… have Delete. Use this button to eradicate an offensive Zipple from the face of the cosmos. Careful! This isn't Undo-able yet.
Import/Export button
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You've just created a Mona Lisa Zipple with waggling eyebrows and smirking lips. You wanna show it to someone else, but you don't wanna lug the whole Zipple file around. Or, your buddy hands you a disk saying "Check out this cool Zipple!". What do you do? The answer: Import/Export. Clicking this button brings up a dialog box with two scrolling lists and a couple of buttons. The list on the left is a list of the Zipples currently available to the Zipple control panel. The list on the right is empty at first, but that will change as you get further into this. You can create a new file to export Zipples to (the New… button), or open up an existing file to import from or export to (the Open… button). These two buttons bring up the standard Macintosh file dialogs we all know and love, so I'll assume you know how to use them. Now you've got a file open. Its name appears over the right list, and if it had any Zipples in it, they appear in the list below the name. Click on a Zipple in the left list. Notice how the Export button lights up, indicating that you can now export. Click on a Zipple in the right list. The Export button changes to an Import button. Coolness. When you're all done here, click the Done button to get back to the main window.
NOTE: if you created your own Zipples with an earlier version of Zipple, you must use the Import option to bring them into this version, since version 1.8 uses a different format for storing Zipples. If you just copy the resources over with ResEdit or something, they won't work. Zipples that you -export- from version 1.8 can be imported by any version of Zipple, even earlier ones.
Frame editing box, toolboxes, and palette
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This is where you can get down to the serious business of editing the frames of your Zipple. Just above the frame editing window are two toolboxes that offer some neat features. The left hand toolbox allows you to choose between editing in pencil (pixel at a time) mode, and paint-bucket (lots of pixels at a time) mode. When the cursor passes over the editing box, it'll change into a pencil or a paint-bucket to remind you which mode you're in. On black and white screens, the pencil always draws and erases black pixels. In color mode, it's more like a crayon. You can choose a color for it from the palette of 16 colors to the right of the editing box, and then draw and erase pixels in that color. The 15th color is different, which is why it looks different (it's the one with the little box in it instead of a color). Pixels filled with this "color" will appear in the editing box with small dots in the middle of them. They will turn the same color as the menu bar background when the Zipple is drawn in the menu bar. In black and white, this palette contains 16 black and white patterns (the background color business doesn't apply). The paint bucket spills out the pattern selected in the palette (in black and white), or the selected color (on color screens).
The right hand toolbox allows you to perform some pretty nifty operations on the current frame. The first two icons allow you to rotate the frame in 90 degree increments. The other four allow you to nudge the entire frame one pixel in the indicated directions.
You can use the standard edit menu cut, copy, paste, and clear functions.
Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the editing box to scroll through the frames of the Zipple.
You can undo changes made to a frame, but once you scroll to a different frame, or select a different Zipple, your changes to the frame become permanent.
Grabber button
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All right. You're no artist. You can't even draw flies. Have no fear. You can grab those nifty pictures that professional graphic artists get paid to draw, touch them up a bit, and make them into the coolest Zipple ever. All you need is the handy-dandy grabber, which you can access by hitting this button. Again a dialog box comes up with two scrolling lists. The left list contains the frames of the current Zipple. The right hand list is initially empty. Just like in the Import/Export dialog box, use the Open… button to open up a file to grab pictures out of. The right list will fill up with the resources that the file you opened contains. Currently, Zipple looks for CURS (cursor), SICN (small icon), ics# (black and white small icon), kcs# (small keyboard icon), kcs4 (color small keyboard icon), and ics4 (color small icon) resources. To grab one of these, simply click on it in the right list, hold down the mouse button, and drag it to the appropriate frame in the left list. The frame will light up when you are in the right place. Let go of the mouse button, and the picture is copied over. When you are done, you can hit the OK button to save your changes to the frames, or hit the Cancel button to undo any changes you have made to the frames, thus restoring the Zipple to its state before you opened up the Grabber. (A good way to make a Zipple for an application is to grab some icons out of it, then animate them.)
Edit Color checkbox
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Click here to edit the frames of the Zipple in color. Each Zipple has a color and a black and white version. If you're always running in color, you can ignore the black and white version. It won't mind.
Frame+/Frame-
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As the names try to indicate, these buttons insert and delete frames from the current Zipple. An inserted frame will look just like the frame before it. If you try to delete a frame from a Zipple with only one frame, Zipple will ask if you want to delete the whole thing. It's up to you.
System Requirements
====================
Zipple uses very little processor power, and thus is suitable for use on any Macintosh. It requires System 7 or later, and works just as well in color as in black and white. Zipple uses about 5k of memory on black and white machines, and about 10k on color machines. Of course, if you create massively long Zipples, these requirements will increase somewhat.
Troubleshooting
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Zipple is a very stable piece of software. I've heard very few reports of it causing trouble. I've fixed (or attempted to fix) all known bugs and glitches as they have been reported to me, so if something does go wrong, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.
If you get the X-ed out icon at startup, this indicates that Zipple could not load itself into memory properly. This happens if you have a System earlier than System 7. Solution: get System 7. It's been out for three years, it's stable, and hey, I run it on my wimpy little Macintosh SE and it runs just fine. Besides, System 6 is not nearly as cool. So there. Nyah. It can also happen if you don't have enough memory. I can't say much here except: get more. Zipple doesn't require that much memory at all, so if it is having memory problems, you will be too. Now, you may be expecting a long list of other weird crashes and incompatibilities, but I'm sad to say I've only heard of one. I had two reports of Zipple crashing when the Import/Export and Grabber dialog boxes were brought up. This is fixed in version 1.8 (finally!).
Holy mackerel! This thing is incredible! How much?
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Zipple is shareware. If you feel like sending $10, by all means do so. If you feel like sending a nice letter or postcard, do that. If you want to send a cool shareware product of your own, please do! If you don't feel like sending anything, don't send anything. There are no annoying registration dialog boxes full of accusatory language getting in your face, no hidden time-bombs that cause the program to stop working in a month, no bugs that are only fixed in a version available to people who pay, nothing like that. A program with that stuff in it isn't shareware, it's a demo. Shareware is complete, working software that you can try before you buy. If you use a piece of shareware, you should pay for it. However, my attitude about payment is a little more laid back than most. After five years as a student, I realize that money is tight, people are forgetful, etc. etc., so I don't get worked up about it. But remember, shareware is a valuable institution, so do your best to keep it alive.
Send your checks (US$ drawn on a US bank), postal money orders, postcards, letters, disks, etc., to:
I was inspired to write Zipple by the Earth extension written by Stefan Bilaniuk. In fact, I snagged the Earth and Earth II images from versions 1.0 and 1.1 of Earth. Bob Andris sent me the color Spinning Apple, 3-D Spin Apple, and Finder Zipples. Lloyd Wood made many helpful suggestions, most of which were incorporated into version 1.2. Scott Gruby reported a serious bug in version 1.3, allowing me to quickly squash it. Mark Manning gave me a very detailed and helpful description of a bug in version 1.3.1. Mason Bliss (author of the fine freeware screen saver Basic Black) prodded me into actually getting version 1.7 done. Mason Bliss, Bob Andris, and Carl Constantine reported bugs in 1.7 that I eradicated in 1.7.1. Jim Pailin helped me finally fix the bug in Import/Export and the Grabber.
Version history
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1.8
* Addition of "Front App" mode, allowing you to change which Zipple appears over a menu depending on which application is in front.
* Eliminated masks again. Sorry to keep changing like this, but I -really- didn't like using masks. To eliminate them, I had to steal one of your colors. I took the darkest gray since it was basically black, and none of my Zipples used it anyway -grin-. Now, every pixel that is painted with this "color" turns the same color as your menu bar background. If you import a Zipple or grab a frame that uses what would have been this color, I dither black and the middle gray to replace it.
* You can change the speed of Zipple's animation for each menu, instead of having just one speed for all of your menus.
* Zipple no longer draws over iconic menus added by other programs, eg OtherMenu, as long as you notify it of their existence.
* The Zipple list draws (marginally) faster, and handles long names more elegantly.
* The Grabber can now grab kcs# and kcs4 resources.
* Zipple no longer crashes when the Import/Export or Grabber windows are brought up. This only affected some machines, which was why it was so hard to track down and fix.
* Now using the Gestalt 'SAVR' selector -properly-! You want to do a Gestalt( 'SAVR', &result ); if ( (result & 0x02) != 0 ) you're blanked. This should alleviate the problem of Zipple "disappearing".
1.7.1
* Bug fix. Three bugs are fixed in this version, and one feature is added.
* No longer crashes when "Set" is hit on a black and white machine.
* No longer displays strange colors behind the Zipple on a color screen.
* No longer draws over the Keyboard menu instead of the Help menu. Now you can pick a whole separate Zipple to run over your Keyboard menu!
* Now using the Gestalt 'SAVR' selector to find out if the screen is blanked by a screen saver.
1.7
* Major upgrade. Now requires System 7.
* Allows Zipples to appear over the Apple, Balloon Help, and/or Application menu simultaneously.
* Added masks to stop turning all the white pixels in the Zipple the same color as the menu bar.
* Requires less memory than before on black and white machines.
* No longer draws on the screen when the Basic Black screen saver is active.
* Added clockwise frame rotation button. -duh-
* The cursor changes shape in the editing box to indicate pencil or paint-bucket mode.
* Fixed a cosmetic flaw in the Grabber window.
* Using an adapted version of Pete Resnick's excellent driver 2.1.8 code to install the driver.
1.6.1
* Bug fix release.
* No more crashes while nudging or rotating frames in the color editor.
* Fixed the very last bug in the operation of the speed control.
1.6
* Added toolboxes.
* Added the ability to Undo changes made to frames while editing.
* Put patterns in the black and white palette.
* Fixed a cosmetic flaw in the list of Zipples in the control panel.
* Clicks in the editing box with no Zipple selected no longer crash.
1.5
* Balloon Help added.
* Added a paint bucket feature to the color editor.
* Fixed a couple of bugs that caused memory leaks when editing.
* Fewer "Out of Memory" errors under System 6 and MultiFinder.
* Fixed a bug that prevented Zipple from working on a Macintosh Plus.
* The 'Clear' command now updates the frame editing box properly.
* Fixed a bug in the operation of the speed control.
* Tightened up the code a bit, making it a little smaller.
* Using Patrick Beard's "ShowIconFamily" code to draw the startup icon.
1.4
* Added the "Grabber".
* Changed the interface of the Import/Export feature somewhat.
* The Cut command can now be used, in addition to Copy, Paste, and Clear.
* Editing commands now use the standard Clipboard.
* Fixed a cosmetic flaw that arose when Zipple was used with Rival.
1.3.1
* Bug fix. Version 1.3 would crash machines at startup.
1.3
* Zipple now REALLY always uses the color images when it should.
* You can now choose to have a random Zipple picked at startup.
* Zipple can now draw over the Apple, Balloon Help, or Application menus.
1.2
* Zipple now always uses the color images when it should.
* Double-clicking on a Zipple in the list chooses it as your current Zipple.
* The speed control now works more sensibly.
* If an error occurs, the X-ed out startup icon ALWAYS appears.
1.1
* Import and Export of Zipples.
* Support for copy, paste, and clear operations on frames.
* No more white artifacts on the screen when your menu bar is not white.
