This month, MacSense completes an in-depth look at Apple’s new System 7.5. Part I (presented in MacSense October) examined the many Finder enhancements and AppleGuide. Part II, presented here, will examine the benefits and costs of running System 7.5’s major system additions: AppleScript, PowerTalk and QuickDraw GX.

AppleScript

AppleScript’s strength lies in its ability to automate repetitive and cumbersome tasks, in much the same fashion as other less-comprehensive macro-maker applications. In order to create task “scripts”, the application must be “scriptable” (i.e., it supports AppleScript). With System 7.5, Apple has finally made the Finder scriptable. To create a task script, you can simply use Apple’s included Script Editor, whose “watch me” feature will record your actions. System 7.5 also includes a number of prerecorded scripts in an Apple Menu item folder called “Automated Tasks”, for such things as turning on or off the sound or adding an alias to the Apple Menu. 

Do you need it?

AppleScript is not yet a widely-supported technology. Many newly released applications remain unscriptable, and thus task scripts cannot be created for them. Without vendor support of AppleScript, automated tasks are limited to the Finder and a few other select applications. 

AppleScript does have potential, however. System 7.5’s new AppleGuide requires that AppleScript be installed in order for it to actually assist the user (by opening folders, etc.). AppleGuide’s active-assistance help system is an ingenious piece of software and stands to become the defacto standard for Macintosh application help systems. WordPerfect 3.1 is one of the first major packages to included its own AppleGuide help file, and other will surely follow. 

Installing AppleScript adds a modest 160k to the system software RAM requirements. If your Macintosh has only four megabytes of RAM and you are wary of adding new extensions which require significant amounts of RAM, you can choose not to install AppleScript by using System 7.5’s ‘Custom’ install option.

PowerTalk
 
PowerTalk is an integral component of the Apple Open Collaboration 
Environment (AOCE), designed to facilitate digital communication 
and ‘sharing of ideas’ between Macintosh users. As such, PowerTalk 
has been designed primarily for network use; Apple also offers 
PowerShare Collaboration Server software for large workgroups. 
To really benefit from PowerTalk, you will need to have a local 
AppleTalk or EtherTalk network established, with PowerTalk in-
stalled on each machine. 

PowerTalk contains four basic technologies: Catalogs, where you can store address-book ‘information cards’ about persons or groups with whom you regularly communicate; Key Chain Security, which simplifies security by establishing one standard password to access all network servers; DigiSign, an ideally time-saving process which allows you to attach a ‘digital signature’ to documents requiring official authorization; and the Universal Desktop Mailbox.

Universal Desktop Mailbox

When installed, PowerTalk places a mailbox on your Macintosh desktop. Apple states that “PowerTalk gives you a single mailbox icon for all incoming and outgoing mail–including faxes, voice, electronic mail and documents.” In theory, this is a great idea–one place for all your communications. No need to search through sub-folders to find where your software saved certain pieces of mail. 

The reality is very different, however. To get your fax and online-service software to reroute incoming mail to the PowerTalk mailbox requires a ‘mail gateway,’ which Apple says must be “supplied by the vendor.” Though PowerTalk was originally released in last year’s System 7 Pro, vendors have been very slow to provide mail gateways. The most noticeable omissions are from Apple itself: the company has yet to provide mail gateways for its Express Modem Fax software, AppleLink and eWorld. The lack of such vendor support has rendered the Universal Desktop Mailbox next to useless for anything but network mail.

Application support

Despite poor vendor support for mail gateways, many software developers are supporting a PowerTalk ‘mail’ option in their applications. Software such as ClarisWorks 2.1, WordPerfect 3.1 and Microsoft Word 6.0 all support the mailing (and digital signing) of documents from within the application. This eliminates the tedium of saving the document and later attaching it to a mail message.

Do you need it? 

If you are not operating on an established network, or if your co-workers or system administrator are not planning to institute PowerTalk for network communications, then installing PowerTalk will be an exercise in futility. In addition, PowerTalk does not currently support DOS or Windows gateways, making the technology unattractive to dual-platform network sites. Theoretically, an individual could benefit from PowerTalk’s universal desktop mailbox to help manage their incoming faxes, e-mail and voice mail messages; without vendor mail gateways, however, this technology is moot.

PowerTalk eats up at least 800k of RAM when installed, requiring an average System 7.5 configuration to grab at least three megabytes of RAM for the system software. (On a Power Macintosh, PowerTalk will require even more RAM.) If you’ve only got four megabytes of RAM, forget installing PowerTalk–because you won’t be able to run any applications other than the system software and a few small utilities!

QuickDraw GX
 
QuickDraw GX is Apple’s radical revision to its antiquated display 
and printing software. With the power to revolutionize desktop 
publishing and printing technology, QuickDraw GX offers a new 
level of flexibility–at a price.

A new way to print

After installing QuickDraw GX you will still have to visit the 
Chooser, but only to select additional printers. The QuickDraw GX 
Chooser allows you to select all printing devices you currently 
have access to, from LaserWriters to StyleWriters–and mount 
their icons on your desktop. Though QuickDraw GX ships with new drivers for all Apple printers, you’ll have to contact the manufacturer to obtain the QuickDraw GX-compatible drivers for non-Apple printers. (Apple’s LaserWriter driver should support most third-party Postscript printers.) 

Once you have selected the printers you wish to use on a regular basis, the fun begins. On your Macintosh Desktop you’ll notice that one of the printer icons has a black border around it. This is the default printer. Clicking once on a printer icon adds a new “Printing” option to the menu bar, with which you can set the default printer, stop and resume printing on that printer and control input tray preferences. 

Double-clicking on the printer icon opens up that printer’s own Print Monitor-style window, where you can see what is currently in that printer’s queue. Simply by clicking and dragging a document icon, you can change the order documents print, change the printer the documents are to print on (by dragging the document icon to another desktop printer icon), and postpone printing indefinitely (by dragging the document icon to the desktop).

You can print a document simply by dragging it onto the desktop printer icon. The system software will automatically boot the originating application, print the document, and immediately close the application. If you’d like to make a document self-contained, you can use the Chooser to create a “PDD Maker” (Portable Digital Document) desktop printer icon. If you choose to print to the PDD Maker, QuickDraw GX makes a self-contained document that can later be printed out on any printer at any resolution, from any Macintosh with QuickDraw GX installed. All required font information is stored within the portable digital document; thus you needn’t worry whether or not your associate’s Macintosh has the correct fonts installed. The PDD is not editable, but may be viewed by SimpleText or simply dragged onto a desktop printer icon for printing.

Though you can use QuickDraw GX to print from any application, newer software written to take advantage of the QuickDraw GX architecture will support GX’s new standardized print dialog box. From within this dialog box, you can choose to print to any printer (and PDD Maker) currently mounted on your desktop, without having to change your default printer or resort to using the Chooser. The dialog box also supports GX Extensions, which offer such features as paper-saving, controlled print time and incorporated document borders and watermarks. Like regular System Extensions, GX Extensions can be added at anytime, and increase the feature set and functionality of QuickDraw GX printing.

Font Handling

Though QuickDraw GX supports TrueType and Adobe Type 1 fonts†, its real strength lies in the new GX font standard. QuickDraw GX fonts offer advanced text-handling features such as automatic formation of fractions and ordinals, proportionate small caps and hanging indents, and 
support alternate characters  which contain swashes, rare 
ligatures and diphthongs. GX 
fonts can also vary in width 
and weight in much the same 
way as Adobe Multiple Master 
fonts. 

The advanced text and font-
handling capabilities of Quick-
Draw GX make it especially 
attractive to graphic design professionals who require a high degree of typographic control. With QuickDraw GX installed, even novice users can output professionally typeset documents.  

† Type 1 fonts must be “enabled” for QuickDraw GX, which is automatically done during installation. If you need to enable a Type 1 font thereafter, you can use the bundled “Type 1 Enabler” utility.

Technology, at a price…

All that glitters is not gold, and prospective users of QuickDraw GX will discover this very quickly. 

QuickDraw GX is a monster. When installed (but not currently active), QuickDraw GX demands an extra 1200k of system RAM. When you are actually printing something, QuickDraw GX will grab another 1500k, if it can. (Contrast this to the traditional PrintMonitor’s 120k requirement.) On Power Macintoshes, the situation is much worse. QuickDraw GX is the only comprehensive component of System 7.5 which is native for the Power Macintosh, providing such machines with a tremendous speed boost for display and printing functions. Because it is native PowerPC code, however, the RAM requirements to run the software are considerably larger. Apple clearly states that Power Macintoshes require a minimum of 16 megabytes of RAM to run QuickDraw GX. Indeed, with GX installed on a Power Macintosh, the RAM size of the system software enlarged by a minimum of 2000k. 

QuickDraw GX also suffers a few other problems. Applications which don’t support the new GX print dialog box do not allow you to use GX Extensions for advanced document handling, and make it necessary to use the Chooser to change default printers. Even some new applications (such as Microsoft Word 6.0), which support the GX printer dialog box, do not actually support GX’s special characters or advanced font-handling. Finally, QuickDraw GX is currently a Macintosh-specific technology. In order to have a significant market impact and challenge the dominance of competing page-description languages, Apple will have to quickly finish porting QuickDraw GX to the Windows platform and persuade Windows users that GX is a better technology than PCL 5 or Adobe Postscript.

Final Thoughts

System 7.5’s basic enhancements add functionality and are worth the upgrade. Even if you never create your own automated scripts, you should install AppleScript for the benefit of AppleGuide. If you are contemplating installing PowerTalk or QuickDraw GX, you must ask yourself two basic questions: “Do I really need either technology?” and “Do I have enough RAM?”

The RAM demands of PowerTalk and QuickDraw can easily make the upgrade to System 7.5 an expensive endeavor if you must purchase additional RAM to functionally use your Macintosh. Loaded to the hilt with System 7.5 and a few basic extensions (Express Modem software, After Dark 3.0, QuickTime 2.0 and RAM Doubler), my LC 575 requires 5939k RAM for the system software. Because I use neither PowerTalk, QuickDraw GX or the Express Modem’s fax software, I have reduced my system RAM requirements to 3768k. That’s still ridiculous. Though we can assume that RAM and hard drive demands will continue to increase as technology advances, can we afford such a sudden increase right now?

My final complaint with System 7.5 is its disrespect for any type of desktop icon organization. With two hard drives, a CD-ROM, three network printers, one serial printer, the PDD Maker, PowerTalk Catalog, PowerTalk mailbox and the Trash, you’ve got 11 semi-permanent icons on your desktop. That’s quite a mess, especially on a 640x480 display. 

Attention: Apple

For System 8.0, Apple should take a closer look at its PowerBook Control Strip–and use a similar design for desktop organization. For instance, if a user wanted to access the contents of their hard drive(s), they could simply drag open the “Volumes” Strip. Within the Volumes Strip, there would be icons for every hard drive or CD currently mounted. With the Volume Strip hauled out, (in user-configurable horizontal or vertical orientation), you could access hard drives as you would normally, double-clicking your way through their contents. 

When users have QuickDraw GX installed, a “Printing” Strip would appear, containing all currently chosen printers. If PowerTalk is installed, a “Mail” Strip would be created, giving the user access to their mailbox and catalogs when required. When the user is done with printing, mailing or accessing their hard drives, a simply click tidies the desktop. 

If you’re listening, Apple, please take note. 

We'd like to hear from you what you think about System 7.5. Please send us e-mail at MacSenseEd.@eWorld.com. (If you're an eWorld subscriber send your letters to MacSense Ed.) We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity.