With the myriad of other desktop pattern installers out there, why another desktop pattern manager? Simple: none of them had the features that I wanted. None are native for the Power Macintosh; only System 7.5's Desktop Patterns control panel supports drag and drop; and most don't import pictures as well as I would like. Worst of all, with every desktop pattern installer out there, there is no easy way to preview all the patterns in a file at once, or to import many clipping files in at once. So I wrote one.
Pattern Manager╤╥PatMan╙╤does all those things. It displays patterns with their names in a user-sizable grid, installs patterns into the System File, and sets the utilities pattern (which other desktop pattern installers don't do). It fully supports drag and drop between files, the Scrapbook, the Finder, and any other program that supports drag and drop. Just click on a pattern and drag it where you want it. It fully supports cut and paste (of course). It has the best PICT importer available, and, remarkable for a desktop pattern manager, it has resizeable windows.
Using PatMan
Programs like this are pretty straight-forward, so I won't explain every menu option, just a few more hidden features.
PatMan automatically opens the System Pattern File when you launch it without other documents. The file is called "Desktop Pattern Prefs".
Drag and Drop: PatMan supports drag and drop if you have System 7.5 or the Clipping Extension. Just drag a pattern where you want it to go, to another PatMan window, to the Finder, to the Scrapbook, any program that has implemented drag and drop.
Finder-Style Renaming: To rename a pattern, just click on the name and go.
Desktop Preview: To see what a pattern would look like on the desktop without actually installing, just double-click it. PatMan will restore the desktop when you quit. You can option-double-click on a pattern to actually install the pattern on the desktop.
Picture Importer: Because System 7 patterns must have certain dimensions, the picture importer will appear when you import a picture to allow you to set the color-depth, dimensions, scaling, cropping and view the seams between the repeating portions of the pattern. Drag inside the frame to position the pattern if you are cropping it. Drag the frame's handle to resize it it. Click around other places to see some other options. PatMan imports PICT files, PICT resources, PICT clippings, as well as the less common, but more efficient ppat type. If you turn off the picture importer, PatMan will scale the picture to the closest acceptable dimesions and choose the best bit-depth it can for the picture.
Setting the utilities pattern: Select a pattern, and use the pattern menu. The next time a System Utility (like the Calculator or the Find File dialog) is opened, it will use the selected pattern for the background.
Marking large patterns: A bug in the Mac OS prevents some patterns from displaying properly, see "A Word About Patterns". PatMan marks those patterns in red and warns you when you are importing a picture that has this problem.
A Word About Patterns
There is a limitation in System 7 that prevents patterns with relatively large dimensions from displaying properly at certain bit-depths. Essentially, if the total area of the pattern, multiplied by the monitor depth (in bytes) is greater than 64K, then the pattern's display will get cropped by the OS. There is currently no work around. The larger the pattern, the less chance it has of displaying properly. If you get a warning, just set your monitor to the depth you would like to display the pattern at, and see if it looks good.
The important thing to remember is that only the dimensions of the pattern matter, not its bit-depth. A black and white pattern that is 256x256 isn't going to display properly on a 32-bit monitor, even though it only needs a one-bit monitor to look right. Apple should fix this bug.
Also, patterns dimensions don't have to be square, but they do have to have dimensions that are a power of two.
A Word About Pattern Compression
Desktop Textures, a program similar to PatMan, commits the Macintosh programming no-no of compressing resources of a system defined type (it compresses 'ppat' resources). This is a bad idea because that makes resource editors like Resorcerer and ResEdit crash, as well as any other program that treats standard resources types as, well, standard. PatMan is smart enough to check for Desktop Textures' faux-pas, but not smart enough to work with the patterns that it has compressed. If anyone knows Desktop Textures' compression format, I will happily add support.
You can turn this feature off, and I highly recommend that you do so, even if you don't plan to use PatMan. Tricks like this contribute to the instability of applications, and the perceived instability of the Mac OS. A fix would be trivial, just make the compressed resources of type 'ppat' to a custom type, say 'Ppat' and the problem is solved.
The Future of PatMan
I intend to add many new features to PatMan, but if I waited to ship it, then no one would ever be able to give me feedback. Among the planned additions:
Ñ Scriptability
Ñ A faceless background app to periodically set the desktop pattern randomly from a certain file. This will not be an extension (like others out there), but a faceless background app. That means it won't decrease stability the way an extension does.
Ñ A GIF importer so all the nifty backgrounds on the net can be directly imported.
Ñ A Pattern Information Summary (with dimensions, preferred depth, a list of depths it won't display properly at), a single tile of the pattern, and a scroller that will scroll the pattern unlimited times in any direction.
Ñ A pattern editor with a "Make Seamless" option.
Ñ Ability to import less popular file types, such as WallPaper and Before Dark. (I will need some files in these formats to do this.)
Ñ Better keyboard navigation.
Distribution
Pattern Manager 1.0 is copyright 1997 by Sterling Augustine, however, it is freely distributable on the internet as long as this ReadMe accompanies it, and no charges other than on-line connect charges are made to download it. If you wish to include it on a CD-ROM, or to distribute it for profit (even over the internet) you must get my permission first. I give my permission for it to be included on the Info-Mac CD-ROM, as long as I am given a copy. Please note that when I add the ability to import GIFs, distributing this program for profit will be illegal unless you have a license from Unisys.
The file "From Erik's Desktop Patterns" is a collection of what I consider the best patterns from the series "Erik's Desktop Patterns" (logically enough). Thanks to Erik Jongert (erjonger@is1.vub.ac.be) for permission to include them. These should be enough to get you started. Although I like desktop patterns, I don't design them; I just write software. If you would like to see a pattern of yours included in the next release, send it to me at the address below.
If you would like to use more patterns, use your favorite info-mac mirror and look in the directory /gui/_Textures/.
My favorite Info-Mac pattern URL is <ftp://mirror.apple.com//mirrors/Info-Mac.Archive/gui/_Textures/>. There are many other places on the net to get them. Have fun.
Contacting Me
You can reach me at
Sterling Augustine
Sterling_Augustine@shodor.org
Disclaimer
The standard disclaimer is appropriate. I use this software every day on my own machine and have tested it on a few others, but it is not extensively tested, so I'm sure that it has bugs. While I would appreciate a bug report, if something Really Bad¬ happens to your machine as a result of this software, you alone are fully responsible. Use this software at your own risk.
