How you use the Desktop Pattern control panel varies depending on whether you are running System 6.0 or System 7.0. Operating the control panel is the same under both systems, but bringing up the control panel is different.
If you are running System 6.0, you must select the Control Panel desk accessory from the Apple Menu. Scroll down the list of available control panels until you see the Desktop Pattern icon. Select the Desktop Pattern icon. The Desktop Pattern control panel as seen in Figure 2.1 should appear to the right of the scrolling list of icons. When it is first opened, the control panel will display the pattern that is currently installed in the System as the current desktop pattern.
If you are running System 7.0 you can start the Desktop Pattern control panel by double-clicking its icon in the Finder. It should normally be located in the Control Panels folder within your System folder, but can be located anywhere. If it is not in the Control Panels folder, however, the randomization feature will not work at startup time. If you have made an alias to the Desktop Pattern control panel and have placed that alias in the Apple Menu Items folder, then you can also start the Desktop Pattern control panel by selecting its alias in the Apple menu. When it is first opened, the control panel will display the pattern that is currently installed in the System as the current desktop pattern.
Operation of the Desktop Pattern control panel is easy and intuitive. Most actions can be accomplished by clicking an icon or button on the control panel. Other actions are accomplished through the use of various modifier keys (<OPTION>, <SHIFT>, etc.) combined with mouse clicks or through the use of command-key combinations. The following sections describe how to exercise the functions of the Desktop Pattern control panel.
Viewing and Installing Patterns
You can view the patterns currently stored in the Desktop Pattern control panel by clicking the left or right facing triangles positioned on either side of the pattern display box. Those who have keyboards with cursor arrow keys can also use the left and right arrow keys. After clicking one of the two direction triangles or after pressing the arrow keys, the next pattern will be displayed in the pattern display box in the middle of the control panel, and the name of the pattern will be displayed just above the pattern box. Since the patterns are stored in alphabetical order, clicking the right triangle will display the pattern whose name alphabetically follows the current pattern. Clicking the left triangle will display the pattern whose name alphabetically precedes the current pattern.
Since the patterns are stored by name in alphabetical order, you can go directly to any pattern just by typing the first few letters of its name. The setting of the double click time in the Mouse control panel determines how quickly the letters need to be typed before they register as one word. Longer delay times will allow you to type the names more slowly. You can also use this technique just to get near the desired pattern. For example, just typing the R key will take you to the first pattern whose name begins with the letter R.
Desktop Pattern is shipped with only two patterns stored in it, ‘Gray 50%’ and ‘Blue 50%.’ Other patterns can be imported into the control panel by using the import feature.
Importing Patterns
Desktop Pattern comes with a self-extracting archive of additional patterns. After you unpack the archive, as per the instructions in the first chapter, you should have a folder with six pattern files. Each of these files contain patterns that can be imported into the Desktop Pattern control panel. Importing patterns is accomplished by clicking the Import button at the bottom of the control panel. The directory dialog will appear so that you can navigate to the pattern folder and select a pattern file. Only resource files (file type ‘rsrc’) will be displayed in the dialog. Pattern files for Desktop Pattern are stored as pure resource files, but many other applications can create pure resource files that do not contain any patterns. Opening a resource file that does not contain any patterns will not cause any problems but no patterns will be imported, of course. If you open a resource file that does contain patterns, those patterns will be imported one by one into the control panel. If you need to open a file that does not have the file type ‘rsrc’, you can do this by holding down the <OPTION> key while clicking the Import button. Now when the directory dialog is displayed, all files will be displayed regardless of their type.
If there is more than one pattern in the file, a status window, as shown in Figure 2.2, will be displayed during the processing of the file. It contains a Stop button which will allow you to terminate the operation at any time. If you click the Stop button, only patterns that were imported before you pressed the button will be stored in the control panel. If the pattern has a valid name, that name will be used to name the pattern in Desktop Pattern. If the pattern has no name, then the default name ‘Pattern #??’ will be used where the question marks are replaced by the resource ID of the pattern. This ensures that the pattern name is unique.
Importing Pictures
Desktop Pattern can also read and convert pictures files. Picture files are files generated by graphics programs and saved in the ‘PICT’ format. When you click the Import button on the control panel, it will display not only pattern files (file type ‘rsrc’) but also picture files. If you select a picture file, the contents of that file are read into Desktop Pattern and converted into a pattern.
Installing Patterns
on the Desktop
To install the currently displayed pattern onto the desktop of your Macintosh, merely click within the pattern display box. This will immediately change the desktop pattern and will store that pattern in the System file so that it will be used the next time your Macintosh is restarted (if the randomizer function is not used). Hitting the <RETURN> key will also install the pattern onto the desktop.
Depending on the depth to which your monitor is set, the depth of the pattern and the size of the pattern, certain patterns may display incorrectly. Large, deep patterns typically will not display correctly on Macintoshes set to 16 or 24 bits per pixel. This is because the Macintosh tries to expand the pattern to the depth of the monitor so that it can be drawn quickly. If the size of this expanded data becomes too large, problems result. While trying to install these patterns should not cause any problems, it is best not to use patterns that do not display correctly on your system. An alternate solution would be to reduce the depth setting of your monitor to eight bits.
Copying and Cutting Patterns
You can copy the currently displayed pattern into the clipboard by typing <CMD>C or selecting ‘Copy’ from the Edit menu. This places a number of items into the clipboard so that they can be pasted into other applications, such as paint programs, ResEdit, the Scrapbook, etc. The pattern is placed in the clipboard as a picture (‘PICT’ format) and as a pattern (‘ppat’ format). The picture version can be used by paint programs and most other applications. The pattern format is used by programs such as ResEdit that can edit patterns directly. In addition, the name of the pattern is placed in the clipboard in text format. This is done so that when pasted to and from the Scrapbook, patterns will retain their names.
Just as patterns can be copied into the clipboard, they can also be cut (copied to the clipboard and then deleted). This is accomplished by typing <CMD>X or by selecting ‘Cut’ from the Edit menu.
Pasting Patterns
Patterns and pictures can both be pasted into the Desktop Pattern control panel by typing <CMD>V or by selecting ‘Paste’ from the Edit menu. If the clipboard contains pattern data (‘ppat’ format), that data is used to create the new pattern. Data in the pattern format can be created using ResEdit or when existing patterns are cut and pasted back into the control panel.
If the clipboard does not contain any pattern data, Desktop Pattern will look for picture data. In this way, any picture created in a graphics program can be pasted into Desktop Pattern and converted into a pattern. Since the height and width of patterns must conform to certain values (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc. pixels), the control panel will center the picture within a pattern of the nearest size. The pixels around the edge of the picture will be used to fill the area surrounding the picture if necessary.
Color pictures can take up quite a bit of memory, and problems can arise when creating and storing large patterns. For this reason, Desktop Pattern limits the amount of memory that patterns can occupy to 32767 bytes. If you paste a picture that will create a pattern that exceeds this limit, the control panel will scale the picture to a smaller size so that this limit is not exceeded. The scaling is always done proportionally to preserve the relative sizes of objects within the picture.
Normally Desktop Pattern reduces the size of pictures while leaving the depth of the pattern at eight bits per pixel. If you prefer, Desktop Pattern can reduce the depth of the pattern before it reverts to scaling the picture. Typing <SHIFT><CMD>V or by holding the <SHIFT> key down while selecting the ‘Paste’ command from the Edit menu will force Desktop Pattern to make the pattern as large as possible at the expense of pattern depth. When using this option, the number of colors used in the picture should be considered. Patterns with a depth of eight bits per pixel can accommodate 256 different colors. Patterns with depths of four and two bits per pixel will have 16 and four different colors respectively. Desktop Pattern will not reduce the depth below two bits per pixel. Pictures are always converted to patterns by using the default system colors. If your picture contains unusual colors, then some discrepancy will be evident in the final colors used in the pattern.
If the clipboard contains any text data, that data will be used to name the new pattern. If no text data exists, the default name ‘Pattern #??’ is given to the pattern. The question marks are replaced by the resource ID number of the new pattern.
Editing Pattern Names
Once you have created and pasted in a new pattern or have imported patterns from external files, you will need to be able to change the default name assigned to the pattern. This can be done by clicking the pattern name just above the pattern display box or by typing <RETURN> with the <OPTION> key down . This will cause an edit box to appear around the name. The name is now ready to be edited using standard text editing techniques. The entire name is initially selected to facilitate easy deletion of the name. Clicking elsewhere within the text will move the insertion point to that location. If you click outside the edit box or press the <RETURN> key, the text will be saved as the new name for the pattern and the edit box will disappear. Since all names for patterns stored in Desktop Pattern must be unique, you will not be allowed to enter duplicate names. If the name that you have entered is the same as the name of another pattern, the control panel will add a number to the end of the name that you are editing in order to make the name unique.
Deleting Patterns
Deleting the currently displayed pattern is easily accomplished by hitting the <DELETE> key or by selecting ‘Clear’ from the Edit menu. The alert dialog illustrated in Figure 2.5 will be presented indicating that deleting a pattern can not be undone. If you wish to delete the pattern, simply click the Delete button. Otherwise click Cancel. If you click the Delete All button, the control panel will proceed to delete all the patterns. If there are multiple patterns stored in the control panel, a status dialog similar to the one used for importing and exporting that indicates the progress of the operation will be displayed. This dialog will give you a method of stopping the operation at any time before it is completed. If you wish to delete the currently displayed pattern and want to bypass this confirmation dialog, hold the option key down when you type <DELETE> or select ‘Clear’ from the Edit menu. The ‘Gray 50%’ pattern can not be deleted.
Exporting Patterns
You can create your own external pattern files by clicking the Export button at the bottom of the control panel. A directory dialog will be presented that gives you the opportunity to name the new file and to specify the location where it will be stored. If you click the Save button, every pattern stored in the control panel will be written out to the file in the pattern (‘ppat’) format. If there are multiple patterns to export, the status dialog will be displayed so that you can monitor the progress of the operation and stop it if desired. The ‘Gray 50%’ pattern is not exported.
Randomizer
The Desktop Pattern control panel contains code that can be run when your Macintosh starts up. This code can select one of the patterns stored in the control panel at random to be used as the desktop pattern for the current session. This startup code will make its selection from the patterns that you have indicated to be used. Patterns are marked for use by the randomizer by clicking the small box above the pattern display box and immediately to the right of the left triangle. A small X will appear in the box to indicate that this pattern is marked for use by the randomizer function. Clicking the randomizer box again will remove the mark. Alternately you can hit the <ENTER> key on the numeric keypad to toggle the state of the randomizer box. If you hold down the <OPTION> key while clicking the randomizer box or when typing <ENTER>, all patterns will be unmarked. This is a quick way to start fresh or to disable the randomizer function.
During the startup sequence, when the randomizer code is run it will display its icon to indicate that the randomizer code is running. When the code first begins, it displays a small Macintosh computer with a blank screen. If the randomizer function successfully selects a pattern and installs it, this icon will change to a Macintosh computer with a desktop pattern installed. If no patterns are selected for use by the randomizer function, the code will display a red question mark on the screen of the Macintosh icon. If a problem occurs, i.e. the randomizer code can not find a needed resource or if the Macintosh on which Desktop Pattern has been installed does not have Color QuickDraw, a large red circle with a slash through it will be superimposed on the Macintosh icon. You can also prevent the randomizer startup code from running by holding down the <SHIFT> key during the startup process. The startup code will not allow itself to run and will display the Macintosh with the red circle superimposed.
Displaying Pattern Information
If you click on the pattern display box while the <SHIFT> key is down or if you type <SHIFT><RETURN>, Desktop Pattern will display a dialog that details some of the important attributes of the currently displayed pattern. These attributes include the pattern’s name, its pixel depth, its size in pixels and its total storage size. Clicking the Continue button will dismiss the dialog.
Help and About Desktop Pattern Information
You can request online help for Desktop Pattern by clicking the help box above the pattern display box and immediately to the left of the right triangle. This action will display a summary of the operating instructions for the control panel. Clicking anywhere or pressing a key will cause the instructions to disappear. You can also request additional information about Desktop Pattern and Calico Publishing by clicking the upward pointing triangle at the bottom of the control panel. Clicking the Calico logo or the Desktop Pattern title will also display this information.
