I have a love-hate relationship with Balloon Help. It can be really useful when I am checking out a new program, (and don't feel like reading the manual :-) ) but it can be excruciatingly annoying when left on and you have to see the darn thing drone on about every single item you happen to pass with the cursor. Thanks, but I already know what a scroll bar is.
Anyway, here's a solution: Just use one of these BalloonPopper FKEYs!
Whenever you hit the key, Balloon Help will be toggled on or off. Included are 5 copies of the resource, each with a different ID number. So, if you want to toggle Balloon Help by typing command-shift-6, you should use the one numbered 6. If you want to type command-shift-5, use the one numbered 5. Simple.
If you are using System 7.1 or greater, you can stick one of these in the Fonts folder (yes, I know, they aren't fonts, but the System thinks they are). You don't even need to reboot. For the easiest install with System 7.1 or greater, just drag the file to the System Folder icon. The Finder will ask you if you want to put the file where it belongs. Click on “OK”, and you’re all set.
If you are using an older System than 7.1 you can use Suitcase or something similar, or hold your breath and use ResEdit to install one.
These programs are public domain (heck, you know it was a simple program to write when the documentation is five or six times longer than the source code) so feel free to give them to anyone and everyone. Please do include these instructions though.
Customization:
The first time I sent these out I got a lot of people mailing me asking me why there weren’t files for the numbers from 0 to 4. Well, you see Apple has reserved those numbers for it’s own use, and if I put BalloonPopper on them, I might collide with something Apple did later on. Still, if you really, really want to use one of those numbers for BalloonPopper, you can use ResEdit to change the resource ID#. Be warned that if you make it 1 or 2, you lose the original uses for those keys (which was the magic-eject of your internal and external floppy drive. Since nowadays barely anyone has a second floppy drive, this most likely isn’t a problem.) If you want to use ID#3, you must edit your System file to remove the “screen shot” FKEY, which takes a picture of your desktop for you. Not a good idea. As far as I know, ID#4 isn’t used anymore (it used to be the screen dump to the ImageWriter printer). It seems that ID#0 was never used for anything in particular.
One last thought: As of version 1.1, the resource is sent out to be memory-resident. This is to make life easier for the PowerBook people who want to avoid spinning up their hard drive just to flip off Balloon Help. If you are on a desktop Mac, and want to save the 114 bytes, you can open the file with ResEdit, open the FKEY resource, then select “Get Resource Info” from the Resource menu. Just switch off “Preload”, and switch on “Purgeable”, and leave the rest of the flags alone. Still, the whole resource is only 114 bytes, so you're not losing too much memory if you leave it resident.
Update for version 1.1: Improved documentation (especially for the question I got a zillion times - Why can’t I use numbers 0-4?), my email address changed, and the actual code got a lot smaller (heck, let’s save a few bytes if we can - no more Gestalt glue!)
Any questions, comments, chocolate chip cookies, or advice on getting into grad school for Computer Science to <David.Shaw@acm.org>
Enjoy!
David Shaw
Newark, NJ (USA)
March 5, 1994
Midterm Season. Yet another lovely distraction finished. (Now I need to find another distraction.)
