See file "How to register" for details on how to register. Registered users with access to email will receive a beautiful set of my own photos!
This document contains style information and should be opened with SimpleText. If the title "User Manual" isn't big and blue, your text reader sucks.
What is Décor ?
Décor allows you to replace the desktop pattern with a background picture of your choice. You can either directly specify a file, or have Décor choose it randomly from a folder. Décor recognizes StartupScreens, PICT, GIF and JPEG files. All changes in the settings take effect without needing to restart your Macintosh. With version 2.5, dragging a file or folder onto Décor is enough to have it displayed, and you can even use scripts to send commands to Décor!
Décor now ships as a fat binary, which means that it will run at optimum speed on the new Power Macs as well as on the classic 680x0 Macs.
Installing
Décor requires System 7 and 32 bit Quickdraw. It will tell you if it can't run on your system.
Décor is made up of two files: the Décor Daemon extension, which should go to the "Extensions" folder, and the Décor application. Note that Décor is no longer a control panel - you can place it anywhere on your disk.
Notes to users of previous versions:
- If you have used a version of Décor prior to 2.5, you should probably rebuild your desktop in order to enable the new drag and drop features and get the correct icons.
- The format used for the Preferences file has changed in version 2.5. If you have used previous versions of Décor, you should throw away the old Preferences file. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Once you have placed the Daemon in your Extensions folder, restart your Mac. Then double-click Décor, click the Picture from file radio button and select a picture using the Choose... button. There you are! Décor should display your picture in the background.
Note: the Décor application is only a front-end used to change settings. It doesn't need to run all the time.
Décor supports balloon help - click on the balloon icon to turn it on or off.
Settings
Here is a description of all the settings you can change to modify Décor's behavior. All changes will take effect immediately - there is no need to reboot.
The settings are spread over several windows. Use the Settings menu to make them appear. The screen may look cluttered when all windows are open, but most of the time you will only need to use the main one.
Main options
Décor presents you with three radio buttons:
Standard pattern
When this button is active, Décor doesn't display any picture - it just uses the usual desktop pattern and waits for you to change its settings. Note that when you select this button, the "Memory usage" figure drops to about 96 kilobytes.
Picture from file
When you select this button, Décor displays the picture contained in a file you choose via the Choose… button. Décor reads Mac II StartupScreens, PICT files and GIF files. If QuickTime™ is installed, compressed PICT files and raw JPEG/JFIF files are also recognized. Only suitable files will be shown in the Choose… dialog. Once you have chosen a file, its name is displayed below the radio button.
Picture from folder
When this button is active, you may choose a folder via the Choose… button. Décor will then pick a picture from this folder every time you reboot, and also every time you click the Picture from folder button. Subfolders will be searched too if you check the corresponding box (see below). The folder name is displayed below the radio button too.
If the folder contains aliases to pictures, they will be correctly resolved. This allows you to create a special "Décor folder" in which you put aliases to your favorite pictures, without having to actually store all of them in the same place.
Note: if the "Picture from file" button is already selected, clicking on it reloads the file. If the "Picture from folder" button is already selected, clicking on it picks a new file from the same folder.
Folder Options
The settings in this group are relevant only when "Picture from folder" is selected.
Also search sub-folders
This tells Décor to search recursively through sub-folders when picking a file from the folder. Note that if there are many sub-folders, this make take some time (say, one second).
Aliases to files are correctly resolved. Aliases pointing to other folders will be followed. Note that it is up to you to avoid loops. A loop occurs if folder A contains an alias to folder B and vice-versa. If Décor encounters an alias loop, it will probably die with a System error 28. If some aliases can't be resolved (for instance, if they point to an unmounted volume) they will be ignored.
Change picture every n minutes
This is one of the coolest new features in version 2.0. If you check this box, Décor will automatically pick a new picture from the specified folder at regular intervals. Use the editable text field to specify how often you want the picture to change. Note that loading a new picture might take up to ten or fifteen seconds and be bothersome if you do it too often.
There is unfortunately no way to load a picture in the background. Maybe with System 8?
Pick files at random/in sequence
These buttons allow you to choose the way Décor will pick files from a folder. If you choose "in sequence", the files are displayed one after the other, in alphabetical order. Otherwise they are displayed in a random order.
Display Options
Adjust picture size
This setting causes Décor to enlarge or shrink the picture to make it the same size as your screen. If this box isn't checked, the picture won't be modified, so it may be too large or too small.
Maintain aspect ratio
This setting is relevant only when "Adjust picture size" is checked.
If you select this check box, the image's proportions will be preserved when scaling (possibly leaving two plain stripes on the borders). Otherwise, the picture will actually fill your screen in both directions, but it may be distorted.
Scale and crop
This option is taken into account only when "Maintain aspect ratio" is on. Also, it only makes a difference when the image has a different format than the screen. For instance, say the image is as wide as the screen, but it's taller. Then Décor has a choice between cutting a band at the top and another at the bottom (cropping) or reducing the picture to make it fit (but then there will be empty areas on the left and on the right). If the "Scale and crop" option is on, cropping will be preferred, otherwise the image will be reduced.
Scale down only
This setting is relevant only when "Adjust picture size" is checked.
If this option is on, pictures will be shrunk if necessary, but never expanded. This is to avoid getting blocky pictures.
Smart menu bar handling
If this box is checked, Décor will take the menu bar into account when displaying the picture. This way, the top part of the picture will not be covered by the menu bar. There is an exception, though: if the picture has exactly the same proportions as the whole screen including the menu bar, then the top part will be displayed under the menu bar. This is to take into account pictures that were meant to be desktop pictures: they look better this way (some even have a blank area at the top).
High quality dithering
If the selected picture has more colors than your screen, or has a different color table, it may need to be dithered in order to look best on your screen. If you think your picture suffered a big loss of quality, try turning this option on.
Note: Décor is not, and does not intend to be, a high quality graphics program. If you don't want to rely on Décor's relatively poor rendering skills, you should use a graphics program such as GIFConverter to re-scale and dither it. You will achieve a better quality; you will gain time, because Décor will have less work to perform everytime it displays a picture; also, high quality dithering requires a lot of temporary memory, and thus is more likely to fail in low memory conditions.
Tiling
If this option is on, and if the image is smaller than the screen, then several copies of the image will be displayed side to side, so that the whole screen area is covered.
Animate cursor while loading
If you have used previous versions of Décor, you know that Décor usually displays a little scrolling cursor saying "Décor is busy" while loading a picture. This is meant to let you know why the Mac suddenly seems to have frozen. Unfortunately, I have had to break some programming rules in order to display this cursor and I believe it might cause some conflicts with other mouse-related extensions. This is why I let you turn it off optionally.
Custom border color
This allows you to choose the color used to fill the borders, in case the picture is smaller than the screen. If the box is not checked, the standard desktop pattern will be used. If it is checked, you can choose a color by clicking on the rectangle next to it.
If you have a screen with 256 colors or less, Décor won't use exactly the color you chose, instead it will use the available color that matches it best.
When the screen's depth or size change
In order to achieve a maximum drawing speed, Décor stores its picture in an internal buffer with the same depth and size as your screen. If you change the screen's depth or resolution using the Monitors control panel, the buffer can become too large or too small; also, if the buffer's depth isn't equal to the screen's depth, the redrawing speed drops. There are several ways to avoid this. Here is what you can ask Décor to do:
Do nothing
If you select this item, Décor won't do anything special when the screen's characteristics change. As a result, the redrawing speed may be slower, and the displayed picture may be too large or too small. Use this if you don't want to lose time by letting Décor load the picture again.
Hide picture
This tells Décor to hide the picture until the original screen characteristics are restored. This way you won't be bothered by slow redraws. Use this option if you plan to restore the original depth and size soon.
Reload picture
If this item is selected, Décor notices when the display characteristics change; then it updates its internal buffer accordingly (note: this may fail if memory is low) and reads the picture again from the file. This gives the best results, but reading the file takes a few seconds. You can watch the memory usage figure change when you do this.
Note: in order not to hog your CPU, Décor doesn't check the screen's depth and size all the time, so a few seconds may elapse before it starts re-loading the file.
Statistics
This window gives some memory and time figures.
Memory usage tells you how much memory is currently used by Décor. Most of it can be reclaimed by selecting the "Standard pattern" radio button.
Free memory tells you the size of the biggest contiguous block of free memory. Only contiguous blocks are taken into consideration because Décor needs one when loading a picture. If this figure is less than the total amount of free memory shown by the "About your Macintosh" box, then your free memory is fragmented into several blocks. Quitting all apps will solve that.
Next comes the name of the last file loaded by Décor.
When loading a picture, Décor needs temporary memory to read in the file, and to dither or decompress it if necessary. The Extra memory figure tells you how much temporary memory was used the last time a picture was loaded. This is only for informational purposes - this memory is not used at all times, it was released immediately after loading the picture.
Next, the time that was necessary to load the current picture is displayed. Typical times range from one second on a Power Mac to 10 seconds on a IIci.
Drag'n Dropping
With version 2.5, Décor lets you drag'n drop files and folders onto it. Here's how:
- Dragging a file onto Décor's icon will display it in the background.
- Dragging a folder onto Décor's icon will display a file picked from it.
- Dragging several files/folders at once will result in a slide show.
If Décor was open before you dragged items onto it, it will stay open; if it wasn't, it will act as a "drop box" and quit immediately after displaying the items.
NOTE: if dragging files/folders over Décor doesn't work, try rebuilding your Desktop.
Also, if you have System 7.5 (or the Macintosh Drag and Drop extension), you can drag files directly onto the file name in Décor's main window (and folders directly onto the folder name). The name will immediately change to that of the dragged item.
Décor & AppleScript
Note: "Décor" is only a front-end (i.e., a user interface). The guy who does the real job of loading and displaying pictures is "Décor Daemon". It's him you want to talk to when writing scripts.
Sending commands to the daemon using AppleScript is simple. I recommend that you use Apple's Script Editor to have a look at its dictionary. You will find that the application class has a bunch of properties which reflect the settings. Changing these properties' values changes Décor's settings, but doesn't draw anything to the screen. When you want the screen to be updated, use the reload event.
Décor is also recordable. If you turn recording on (by pressing the "Record" button in the Script Editor), everything you do in Décor (changing settings, loading new files, etc.) will be written down to a ready-to-use script. This is handy because you don't even need to know what words Décor understands.
For instance, here is a tiny script that loads a new picture from my "Images" folder:
tell application "Décor Daemon"
set source folder to file "Roger:Images:"
reload
end tell
Miscellaneous
If you have several monitors attached to your Mac, the picture appears on the main one only. I know it isn't very cool, but I only have one monitor and it would be very difficult for me to add multi-monitor support.
The selected file and folder are remembered using internal aliases, so Décor should be able to find them even if you move or rename them. If it can't, it will display the desktop pattern instead.
The "Open author's WWW home page" command in the Edit menu requires the Internet Config Extension, version 1.1 or later. It launches your preferred WWW browser and has it display my WWW page. If for some reason this does not work, copy my URL from the menu above and open it yourself.
You may copy and give away this software freely, as long as you distribute the package as a whole, under its original form. You may include it in CD-ROMs or other shareware collections, provided that acquiring the collection doesn't remove the user's obligation to register the software.
See the separate file "How to register" for registering information.
Known Bugs
As far as I know, Décor now works fine with Virtual Memory and RAM Doubler. You should be aware that they can make it much slower, though.
Décor will be unable to display QuickTime compressed pictures when "~QuickTime VM" is installed. ~QuickTime VM is a utility bundled with JPEGView, by Aaron Giles, which modifies Color QuickDraw's behavior in such a way that it always runs out of memory when called by Décor. Since ~QuickTime VM has no effect when VM is off, this conflict will only appear if Virtual Memory is active. Although this is in the "Known Bugs" section, I do not consider this as a bug in Décor.
There is a problem when your monitor is set to "grayscale" (in the Monitors control panel). This causes Décor to be very slow when redrawing the background.
Décor sometimes displays a blank background when the Thread Manager 2.0 or 2.0.1 is installed. Note that it does not occur under System 7.5, although System 7.5 contains the Thread Manager. I suspect it is a bug in some versions of the Thread Manager.
Loading JPEG files might cause crashes if your machine is running in 24 bit addressing mode. As a workaround, try turning 32 bit addressing on in the Memory control panel. (I think I have fixed it in 2.6 - let me know if it still happens).
Décor displays garbage when passed an 8 bit greyscale JPEG file and High Quality Dithering is off. Fix: turn on High Quality Dithering, or convert your JPEG to a PICT file which should be handled correctly. I cannot fix it myself because I lack info on the JFIF format.
Décor sometimes runs out of memory after the Mac starts up. If you have Conflict Catcher, asking it to guarantee 128k of free space within the System Heap might help.
Reporting bugs
If you experience any problems with Décor, you can send me e-mail at <pottier@kagi.com> or <pottier@dmi.ens.fr>. I will do my best to fix all reported bugs.
When you report a bug, please give me the following information:
- what version of Décor you are using
- if Décor displays an error message, which one, and which error code.
- if Décor crashes into Macsbug, a log would be useful. Here's how to make one:
+ Type "log <filename>", where <filename> is any name to be used for the log file
+ Type "ip; sc6; sc7; log"
+ Then try "es" to return to the Finder, or "rb" to reboot
Macsbug sometimes creates the file in weird places, so you may have to use the
Finder's Find command to locate it.
Also, feel free to drop me a mail if you want to suggest enhancements, ask questions, etc.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to those who took the time to register! Without your support, I'd have ditched Décor around version 0.9... You made it what it is now!
Special thanks to:
Aaron Giles for the JPEGUtilities code
Marco Piovanelli for the nifty Style editor (although I went back to SimpleText)
René G.A. Ros for some source code and a lot of testing
Stéphane Silvestre for a CD full of goodies. Merci Stéphane!
I have finally removed the full credits list because it was getting huge! Thanks to everybody who sent me email and helped me improve Décor - you know who you are!
Version History
0.9 :
Initial release.
0.9.1 :
Fixed a small bug that showed when renaming a file located on the Desktop.
0.9.2 [Not released] :
Improved the error reporting mechanism, in an attempt to help people send clearer bug reports.
0.9.3 :
The image is now stored in high RAM instead of in the System Heap. This should
reduce the number of "out-of-memory" problems.
Fixed a bug which could appear when using ResEdit's Icon Editor.
Décor should now run on machines with several screens.
And, the image file is now chosen via a regular Standard File dialog and remembered using an alias.
1.0 [Not released] :
Three options are now available: use standard desktop pattern, use a specified file, or randomly choose a file from a given folder. What's more, any changes are reflected on the fly, without rebooting the machine.
Décor no longer requires files to be the same size as the screen.
The author's blurb can now be accessed by clicking on the help balloon icon.
1.1 :
Décor now also deals with PICT files.
There is now a nice help dialog with a scroll bar.
A memory leak has been fixed. It should eliminate the out-of-memory problems experienced by some users.
1.1.1 [Not released] :
Fixed a cosmetic problem with the Choose file dialog (forgot to clear sfScript!)
Eliminated the "file not found" error that appeared the first time Décor was installed.
The help dialog now handles update events correctly.
I now rely on type information in order to recognize StartupScreens ('SCRN').
Hand-Off II™ Supermenu should no longer think Décor is an alias.
1.1.2 :
Eliminated the bus error that occurred when the desktop pattern was the vanilla grey pattern. Thanks to Per Mildner for sending me a very detailed bug report.
1.2 :
Added "Hide picture if depth changes" check box.
Improved dithering when the screen's depth or palette changes.
Décor now uses a preferences file, which makes updating completely painless.
It's now possible to copy text from the help blurb (especially my address :-).
Décor should now behave correctly on systems with several disks.
Fixed some font settings so that French accents don't turn into kanji characters on Japanese systems!
1.3b1 .. 1.3b4 [Not released] :
Added support for GIF files.
Added "Adjust picture size" and "Maintain aspect ratio" options.
Pictures are now correctly dithered when too few colors are available.
Added an animated watch cursor when loading.
(almost) Fixed problem with Quicktime JPEG PICTs.
(minor) Changed the old icon to a more pleasing one.
(minor) Improved the algorithm to pick a random file.
(minor) Both "Choose…" buttons are available at all times.
2.0b1 [Not released] :
Completely redesigned the architecture - now there is a background-only app that does the real job, the cdev doing only the interface. One result is that the memory allocation scheme is more flexible - memory can be allocated/released without rebooting.
Added a slew of new options.
Enhanced error reporting (there is an OSErr code too now).
Improved redrawing speed by installing machine-dependent code.
Added Balloon Help, and moved the documentation to a separate TeachText file, which allows printing.
Added memory usage information.
2.0b2 [Not released]:
Yet more changes... the cdev has been turned into an application, thus becoming a first class Mac citizen. In the process, I changed the interface and split the settings into several windows.
Décor now correctly resolves aliases when picking files from a folder.
Turned the documentation to a stand-alone styled document.
Two new creator types have been introduced - this should solve all icon problems.
Scanning a folder took a very long time - this has been fixed.
2.0b3/2.0 :
Changed Décor's icon to reflect the fact that it is no longer a control panel.
Changed the animated cursor to show who's hogging the CPU...
2.5b1 [Not released]:
Décor is now scriptable and recordable.
If QuickTime™ is installed, the "Choose file" dialog shows a preview.
Loading pictures is faster, especially for plain PICT files or StartupScreens.
GIF89a files are now recognized.
Aliases to folders are now followed when searching a folder.
The picking algorithm doesn't pick the same file twice.
Clicking on a button in Décor works even if the window wasn't active.
When loading a file fails, the error message includes the file name.
Modified the INIT in an attempt to be PowerPC friendly.
A bug which could cause Décor to enter an infinite loop has been (hopefully) fixed.
2.5b2 [Not released]:
Fixed a bug which caused a crash when closing the About box with Cmd-W.
Fixed a bug and improved error reporting when the Prefs file can't be read.
2.5b3 [Not released]:
Fixed a nasty bug which caused a crash when changing the screen's depth (and
possibly in other circumstances too).
2.5b4 [Not released]:
Redesigned the whole memory allocation scheme. Hopefully fixes the problems with VM and RAM Doubler.
Fixed two bugs in the GIF decoding algorithm, one of which was fatal and yet had gone unnoticed since version 2.0.
Reduced disk footprint by 30K (back to the size of 2.0)
2.5b5 [Not released]:
Fixed a bug which could cause a crash when resolving an alias to a remote volume
Aliases to volumes are correctly recognized.
Worked around a bug in 2.5b4 which prevented Décor to work on System 7.0/7.0.1
Completely fixed the problem with Quicktime.
When running out of RAM, the Daemon says how much is left in the error message.
2.5b6 [Not released]:
Décor now reads raw JFIF files when QuickTime™ is installed.
Window position is saved in a more "Apple-kosher" way.
Added a dirty fix for the conflict with the StuffIt Engine.
Various internal changes.
Added my WWW address in the Edit menu...
2.5b7 [Not released]:
First PowerPC native version.
JFIF files are now recognized when picking files from a folder.
2.5b8 [Not released]:
Fixed problem with JPEG files containing a compressed preview.
Added basic Drag Manager support.
Added Drag'n Drop features (drop box mode + 'odoc' event).
Changes in the settings should now be recorded even if the machine crashes.
Fixed a possible crash when running on a PowerMac with QuickTimeLib.
2.5b9 [Not released]:
Fixed a bug introduced in 2.5b8 which would lock the machine when changing settings.
2.5 :
Basically identical to 2.5b9.
2.6b1 [Not released]:
Added "Scale down only" and "Smart menu bar handling" to the Display Options.
Décor now detects changes of the screen resolution.
Displays the file name and the loading time in the Statistics window.
Fixed a bug which would cause a type 11 error on Power Macs with PICT files.
(Tried to) fix a bug which would cause a crash when loading JPEGs in 24 bit addressing mode.
2.6 :
Updated Balloon Help.
Now recognizes suffixes .gif .jpg .jpeg .pict (the file type is still checked first).
8 bit QuickTime-compressed PICT files are now displayed correctly (instead of dithered to black & white).
2.6.1 :
INIT icon now goes correctly to the second row when the first row has been filled.
Correctly handles aliases within folders when the screen depth changes.
Displays a polite message when passed an old-style StartupScreen (from the Mac 512K era).
Wrote a French version.
2.7b1 :
Added tiling option.
Added scale and crop option.
Revamped the About box.
Added the 'Animate cursor while loading' option (to try preventing some conflicts).
Added a menu command to open my home page in one fell swoop if Internet Config 1.1 is installed!
2.7b2 :
Fixed a bug which caused incorrect drawing when the screen size/depth had been changed and the picture was hidden.
More memory allotted to the Daemon on 68K Macs.
Planned improvements
These are ideas that were suggested to me. I will probably implement them in some future version. If you have other ideas, drop me some email!
Log errors to a file instead of displaying alerts.
