ButtonPad is an improved version of the NotePad desk accessory that comes with the Macintosh. ButtonPad lets you categorize your notes into up to eight separate “Quick Access” pads that can be quickly accessed via push buttons. Each pad can be up to 32K in size. This makes ButtonPad ideal for storage of text that is frequently accessed such as telephone numbers, customer information, etc. The quick access push buttons augment the normal open, select, close dialog procedures. You may assign your own labels to each push button and the name of the pad file to be retrieved. The pads are automatically saved if modified. In addition to the quick access pads, you may also access any text file via the normal open command. There is a find command to access specific information, a variable line sort command, and tools for cleaning up text files such as replacing spaces with tabs. ButtonPad will also dial the phone via tones or modem for phone numbers found in the current line. You can print out your pads, adjusted to fit pocket organizers. ButtonPad is a cross between standard notepad, minieditor, and telephone dialer/index card type applications.
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ButtonPad is able to categorize, find, sort, cleanup text files. Because it customized to the particular task it is faster than Hypercard and consumes very little memory. Under MultiFinder is can be kept running all the time and accessed like a DA when needed. A DA version is available, however, for an extra $5 (for a total of $15) for those who send in their shareware fee. This DA version is not shareware and cannot be passed on to others.
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ButtonPad differs in its file access from other Mac programs. When a file is opened by a Quick Access Button or with the Open... Menu item, the file currently in the window (ButtonPad always has a current file) is automatically first written back out to the disk if it was modified. The file indicated by the pressed button or the Open... dialog is then opened, read completely into the current window, and closed. This is a much faster method than normally used and appropriate to a notepad type of application. In general, much of this operation will be invisible. One difference will be with the New... Menu item. New... is used to defined a new pad and you will be asked for a name upfront rather than when you first save the pad. There is never a need to explicitly Save a pad except if you choose to save intermediate results. The current pad will be saved automatically when another pad is accessed or if you quit ButtonPad. The Close Menu item functions exactly like the New menu item saving the current pad if changed and then asking the name of the new pad to be opened. The GoAway box is provided for compatibility and functions like the Quit Menu item. The Save As... Menu item lets you save the current pad under a different name. The new name becomes the current name. The Revert Menu item lets you select another file without saving the contents of the current window. This is only way you can prevent the current window from being saved back onto the original file. The current window, if modified, is always saved when you Close, Quit, New, Save As, or press a Quick Access button.
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There are up to sixteen Quick Access Buttons that are used to quickly load predefined text files. The file to be loaded and the button label are defined by the user via the Define Buttons... command in the Edit Menu. For each button to be used, you would define an existing text file or create a new file and then specify a label for that button. Each button used must have a label. To erase or deactivate a button, clear the label in the Define Buttons dialog box. There also must be a file and label defined for Button 1. Button 1 is automatically activated when the program is started. The buttons will be automatically sized to the label and placed in the button area under the text area.
Different pads are accessed by just pressing the appropriate button. Holding down the shift key will place the insert point at the end of the pad text. You may switch quickly between pads by just pressing the quick access buttons. Pads that have been modified are automatically saved. Buttons that are not defined are not displayed.
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ButtonPad is installed like a normal Mac application and can be placed in any folder. ButtonPad does require a Preference file in the System Folder. This Preference file contains the button and other information and will be created for you automatically if the Preference file cannot be found. In this circumstance, ButtonPad will ask you for the name of the default or Button 1 text file name via a normal Open... dialog box. This file will be assigned to Button 1 and the filename will be used as the Button 1 label. You may change the file and label via the Define Buttons... command in the Edit menu later. There must be a file defined for Button 1 as it is the default pad. There are no “untitled” pads in ButtonPad due to the autosave feature. If you move or delete the the Button 1 file, ButtonPad will not start. In this case, delete the Preference file from the System Folder and restart ButtonPad. Preference files are upward, but not downward compatible across ButtonPad versions.
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ButtonPad has a number of special text transformation functions that can be found in the Special... menu item under Edit. These functions operate on the current pad and are as follows:
Sorting requires some further explanation. Lines in a pad may be sorted either ascending or descending via the appropriate command in the Special... menu. The field "lines per record" may be used to group lines together. Only the first line in a group will be used as the sort key. A line is a line according the current window. The number of lines per record specified must divide evenly into the number of lines in the pad in the current window, i.e. if 3 lines per record are specified, there must be 9, 27, 90, etc. lines in the pad. Also be sure to have a return after the last line (but only one). That last empty line does not count in the total. The number of lines per record is not saved with the pad so it must be entered each time you do a sort. The default lines per record is normally one although the default can be changed with RESEDIT. The ability to specify lines per record allows ButtonPad is act as a simple data base system. You might have a phone directory where the first line is the name, second line the address, and the third the phone number. In this example, you could also use the Dial command to dial the phone. To sort this directory, you would then specify lines per page as three. Be sure to make each entry three lines and you should end each line with a return so that the pad will not rewrap if you change window width.
All the above functions are “undoable” by Reverting (in File Menu) to a copy of the file on disk.
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There is a series of find and replace commands residing in a section of the Edit menu:
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ButtonPad will “dial” the phone for you by producing the appropriate touch tone sounds through the Macintosh speaker or via a Hayes compatible modem attached to the serial port. The touch tone sounds may be used either by holding the phone receiver up to the speaker or by using a product such as “HyperDialer” that couples the speaker output electronically to the phone set. Those with modems may prefer the modem dial option (touch tone or pulse) which uses the modem as a dialer. The desired option is selected via the Configure... menu item. When the Dial command is envoked via Cmd-D or the Dial menu item, ButtonPad will search the current line from the cursor forward looking for a phone number. A phone number is defined as a string that begins with “{“ and ends with a “}“. The number itself may contain “1234567890*#(),-” and the space. The characters “(),-” will cause a 100 ms delay rather than a tone and thus may be inserted when delays are needed for special dialing situations. The braces are used in case there is an address on the line. The entire phone number may be up to 32 characters and may not wrap onto the next line. In the Configure... Dialog you may specify a dialing prefix that will be appended to the beginning of each number. Holding down the shift key while envoking the Dial command will inhibit the dialing prefix. When dialing via the modem, you will be presented with an alert after the number is dialed telling you to pick up the phone. You will need to press "OK" or return. This function is to signal the modem to hang up and get itself off the line. If you press "OK" or return before picking up the phone, the call will be terminated.
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There is a menu item called Configure... where you can change ButtonPad's window width, font, font size, a dialing prefix, and print margins. These settings will be remembered in the Preferences file. The window width is specified in characters. The width in pixels will be the number of characters specified times the width of the "M" so the width will only be correct for monospaced fonts like monaco or courier. In the font popup menu, you will find a special font called "AltMonaco". AltMonaco is just like Monaco except that the control characters for tab, linefeed, and return will be identified in the text. ButtonPad's defaults are a width of 40, a size of 9 points, the normal Monaco font, and zero print margins. You will notice that the width will change if you change the font or size. The print margins (top, bottom, left) are specified in picas where there are 72 picas to the inch. A value of 72 for one of the margin will provide a one inch margin. These margins will be in addition to the device physical margins (the Laserwriter has a .25-.5 inch mechanical margin). The ButtonPad preference file will be called "ButtonPadPrefs" and will reside in the System Folder.
The ButtonPad defaults and certain other parameters may be changed using ResEdit. None of these changes should be attempted by those who are not familar with ResEdit. If you do make changes, keep a copy of the original program.
To change the Preferences Filename, double click on the STR resource entry and then double-click on the resource that is labeled “Prefs Filename”. You will then see a Dialog box that looks like the one below. You may change the name in the “TheStr” text box to something else. Leave all other entries alone. When done, save the results.
The default size of the text window, font, default record size for sorting, character size, and print margins may also be changed in a similar manner. The default text window must be between 40 and 132, the font name must be spelled correctly, the font size must be 9, 10, 12, or 14, and the print margins must be between 0 and 1000. Given that everything can be changed through the Configure... dialog, ResEdit would only be used to change the Prefs filename or the default record size for sorting.
You may also change the default upper top left corner of the window and the window height. The upper top left corner and height are expressed in pixels.
Again be careful when you change any of these values since the program does not necessarily check for correctness.
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The DA version of ButtonPad is obtainable by sending by sending in the $15 shareware fee. The DA is almost exactly the same as the application version. All files and configuration setups are compatible. Both may be used where one or the other might be more convenient at a given point. The ButtonPad DA is installed with Font/DA Mover or something like Suitcase™. The menu arrangement is somewhat different with all the menu items under a ButtonPad menu. Of particular note is that the normal items found under the File menu are under the ButtonPad menu item. Remember the DA version of ButtonPad is not shareware or freeware. It is licensed to the individual who sent in the shareware fee.
Thank you for supporting the shareware effort. Remember, if you find yourself using ButtonPad, a shareware fee of $10 would be appreciated. $15 will get you the latest version of ButtonPad plus a DA version. At any point, you may send $3 to get the latest version. I will try to keep everyone informed of major upgrades.
