Choosier - a zone-happy replacement for Apple's Chooser
Choosier is a replacement for Apple's Chooser desk accessory. It is
designed to work best when there are a large number of zones on the
AppleTalk network where it is being used. Choosier is being made
freely available for everyone to use. Choosier is a spare-time
activity of the author,
Mark Smith, and it is not officially supported in any way. Here is a
screen shot of Choosier in action.
Table of Contents
Choosier is made freely available by the University of Michigan for
everyone to use. The latest version is 1.01b2 and it is distributed as
a fat binary designed to run optimally on both 68000 and PowerPC-based
Macintoshes. Refer to the README file that
is enclosed with the application for some hints and shortcuts for
using Choosier.
Click here to download version 1.01b2 of Choosier.
If you would like to join a mailing list where new releases and other
interesting information about Choosier is announced, send e-mail to:
choosier.announce-request@umich.edu
If you are willing to test new, pre-release versions of Choosier and can
provide speedy, useful feedback, send e-mail to:
choosier.testers-request@umich.edu
General comments, questions, and Choosier bug reports about should be sent to:
choosier@umich.edu
Current features:
- Automatic parsing of AppleTalk zones into a hierarchical list.
- Resizable windows.
- Support for multiple windows open at the same time.
- Many keyboard shortcuts to ease navigation.
- Configurable using a Preferences dialog.
- Fat binary application.
Futures coming in later Choosier releases:
- Ability to run when no AppleTalk zones are present
- Support for turning AppleTalk on and off.
- Support for QuickDraw GX printers.
- Shortcut files and scriptability.
Some Chooser device packages are known to not work with Choosier. The reasons
for the incompatibilites vary; where Choosier is at fault we will attempt
to fix the problem in a future release. Here's a list of Chooser Devices
that do not work correctly when used from within Choosier:
- All QuickDraw GX Printer Drivers - Choosier will not
show these devices at all. This will be addressed in a future release.
- All Serial Printer Drivers - Choosier will not
show these devices at all. This may be addressed in a future release.
- NFS/Share (by Intercon) - will hang the Macintosh
completely when used from within Choosier. This is because Intercon
assumes that NFS/Share will be opened in a dialog window (which is true
for Apple's Chooser but not for Choosier).
- PDFWriter (by Adobe) - the PDFWriter picture
normally shown in the Chooser device list is not shown in Choosier
1.0. This is merely a cosmetic bug and it will be fixed in the next
Choosier release.
- NuBus Macs and System 8+ - Choosier will crash
PowerMacs running System 8 or greater with NuBus
Architecture. This includes Macs with 1 and 2 as the second
digit of their model, aka 7200, 6115, 8100.
- PowerMacintosh G3 - Choosier will cause PowerMac G3s
to crash with a type 10 error.
If you need to use one of these devices, you will need to use Apple's
Chooser Desk Accessory.
Choosier can be customized for use at a specific site. This requires the
use of a resource editor such as
Apple's ResEdit and some technical know-how. The basic steps are:
- Start Choosier, adjust the preferences for your site, and save them.
- Make a copy of the Choosier application using the Finder.
- Open the "Choosier Preferences" file (located in the System Preferences folder) using a resource editor.
- Open the Choosier application copy using the same resource editor.
- Copy 'ChPr' resource id 128 from the Choosier Preferences file to the
Choosier application copy and save the change.
You will now have a stand-alone Choosier application that uses the new
preferences.
The
complete source code
to Choosier (written using Metrowerk's
CodeWarrior C) is now available. This will be useful to
those who want to make serious changes or to anyone who can use some of
the code. Please share your changes if you do make any. If you are
interested in working with the Choosier sources, please join the
developers list by sending e-mail to: choosier.developers-request@umich.edu
Send comments about this page to:
choosier@umich.edu
Go back to RSUG home page.