Every time you run an application or desk accessory you will see the Thunder 7 Activation dialog that allows you to activate Thunder 7 in that program. While most all programs gracefully handle Thunder 7’s intrusion, there may be some that conflict with Thunder 7 when they are first run. Thunder 7 has a mechanism which allows the Activation dialog to be bypassed.
When the Command key is held down when you first launch an application or desk accessory, Thunder 7 will not present the Activation dialog. Thunder 7 will silently add the application or desk accessory to its “Don’t Ask Anymore” list. If, in the future, you decide that you wish to activate Thunder 7 in the application or desk accessory you have previously excluded, you will have to add the program using the controls in the Thunder 7 control panel as described in the manual on page 9.
Automatic Dismissal of the Activation dialog:
After 5 minutes in the Activate/Don’t Activate alert, Thunder 7 beeps 3 times to alert you it wants your attention. After 10 minutes in the alert, it automatically clicks the Don’t Activate button. This is so that Thunder 7 never hangs up a scheduled application launch forever (like automated backups etc.).
Suggest Spelling Window:
The “Keep suggestions window open after Replace” option does not work with Microsoft Excel. Therefore, after an interactive correction is made using the Suggest Spelling window, the window will close itself, regardless of the setting for this option.
If the Replace icon is not highlighted in the Suggest Spelling dialog, hitting the return or enter key will dismiss the dialog.
New Interactive Checking & Glossary Expansion Enhancements:
Thunder 7 can now fix doubled capitals. If you type two capitals together followed by a lowercase letter, the second capital you type will be automatically converted to lowercase. There is no override for this function.
Thunder 7 can also convert two hyphens typed in a row to an em-dash. If you type a hyphen *after* typing an em-dash, it changes to an en-dash. If you type a hyphen after typing an en-dash, it changes to an en-dash (in other words, hyphens after the second hyphen serve as a toggle). You can override hyphen conversion by holding down command-option while typing the second hyphen.
It’s now possible to include as part of a glossary expansion the time or date expansion string, and Thunder 7 will substitute in the time and date before doing the glossary expansion. This makes it possible to, say, include the date in a signature by including a glossary entry like “emgtd” -> “Evan M. Gross td”. The only current rule is that the time/date string inside the glossary entry must be a token on its own, i.e. surrounded by white space or by a separator.
A new checkbox in the Shorthand Glossary options “Type separator after expanding” allows glossary entries to be expanded _before_ the separator character is typed. This is especially useful for those users who work extensively with databases and spreadsheets; Thunder will make the glossary expansion before moving on to the next cell or field. If you use this option then it is not possible to type a shift-option-t character from the keyboard.
Selection Modules:
Selection modules whose names appear in italics can manipulate text but will cause formatting (if any) to be lost. The other selection modules will maintain formatting as long as Thunder has a compatibility module that allows it to translate the formatting of the text.
Capitalize Strictly - This selection module does the equivalent of “Lowercase” then “Capitalize Words” in one pass.
WriteNow Patch Folder No Longer On Disk:
Because relatively few (new) Thunder 7 users are using the old version of WriteNow, we have deleted the WriteNow Patch from the disk.
Incompatibilities and Other Gotchas
--------------------------------
PageMaker Installer:
There is a conflict with the PageMaker Installer program and Thunder 7. Please turn off ALL extensions whenever using any Installer application.
NowMenus 4.x:
NowMenus can override the menu drawing for Thunder 7 in Claris and Microsoft applications such that you will not see the command-key equivalents for the items in the Thunder 7 menu. The best work-around (since these applications have their own complex menu definitions) is to turn off NowMenus in all Claris and Microsoft applications.
Thunder 7™ Miscellaneous Changes and Fixes Since 1.5.0
The bullet (•) was added to the version number to differentiate the golden 1.5.4 release from a corrupted version that was accidentally sent to 14 people. Although we are sure we have tracked down the corrupted copies, we had to be sure that the correctly working version is properly identified. Another sad case of “human error.”
Thunder 7 1.5.4
--------------
• Fixed problems with the old sound manager, the new sound manager, and sound problems with PowerMacintoshes.
• Plain TEXT files can now be added as dictionaries.
• Fixed a problem with Excel 4.0 where it uncerimoniously delete Thunder’s menu from the menu bar when you close the last open window.
• Fixed a problem with applications that use custom window types for their windows which made Thunder unable to work with them (Full Contact is an example).
• Fixed problems with typing characters with ASCII values higher than 216 in glossary expansions.
• Fixed a bug in the WordPerfect module that put corrections in the text off by one character if you replaced a word with a hyphen in it and updated it for the 3.0 version.
• New WriteNow 3.x/4.x and PageMaker 5.0 module.
• Check Selection will no longer delete text objects from Illustrator.
• Fixed a major sneaky problem with '040 machines involving the caches.
• Fixed problems with 9 to 5 Software’s Letters module and interactive checking.
Thunder 7 1.5.3
--------------
• New compatibility modules for MacWrite Pro, ClarisWorks (1.0 & 2.0), and Works 3.0.
• Thunder 7 now detects when you’ve unexpectedly or force quit an application and it needs to reactivate itself.
• Added to the suggestion algorithm for words with: two errors in them, improper consonant doubling like “proffesional”, and two incorrect vowels, like “encorparates”.
• Fix bug adding case-sensitive entries to the glossary so they don’t get added lowercased.
• Fix potential crash bug when expanding glossary entries while typing very quickly (>90 words per minute).
• Fix bug where you couldn’t expand more than 2 glossary entries if you were typing very quickly ahead of Thunder 7.
• Fix bug typing in numbers (with command-number) in the check selection dialog.
• Fix a long-standing bug that would cause crashes when the dictionary editor dialog closes.
• Fix problem pasting back into PageMaker from selection modules.
• Made the preferences files a great deal less likely to corrupt itself.
• Fix some assorted problems with detecting missing capitals at the beginning of sentences with spell checking and the capitalize sentences selection module.
• Fix a bug in double space suppression present when typing into DAs.
• Fix bug adding case-sensitive entries to the glossary so they don’t get added lowercased.
• Fixed a bug where it might take quite a few seconds after playing an error sound before the volume is restored to what it was before.
• Fix bug where the corrections couldn’t be pasted back into Spiral after a Check Selection.
Thunder 7 1.5.2
--------------
• Fixed problem where PageMaker complains about import/export filters.
• Fixed problem with non-loading at startup time on SEs and Pluses.
• Fixed problem creating Ghostwriter files for windows that have titles > 31 characters.
• Fixed hang with Launcher Control Panel that comes with the Performa System software.
• Redraw progress dialog after prompts in some Selection Modules.
Thunder 7™ 1.5.1
---------------
• Fixed a menu conflict with ON’s MeetingMaker.
• Fixed Remove button under System 6.
• Fixed possible bug when drawing color icons on color QD machines under System 6.
• Fixed miscellaneous control panels bugs under System 6.
• Fixed a bug in the Space Runs to Space selection module.
• Made the preferences file less prone to corruption.
• The Selection Module progress dialog says the name of the Selection Module being used.
• Fixed the position of the Paste Changes/Search Replace alert.
• Made newly created or loaded dictionaries or glossaries in the Add to Dict. or Add to Gloss. dialogs to be selected automatically as the destination for new words.
