I asked myself, "What widget could you absolutely not live without on your Mac?" And the answer was (drum roll, please)... ApplWindows! No, it has NOTHING to do with Microsoft... It is an old control panel that allows you to access your Finder menu just about anywhere you want and upon switching to an app in the Finder menu, ApplWindows will hide all other apps for you. "Other softwares do stuff like that", you say? Well, yes and no. FinderPop is great and I use that heavily. Wapp Pro is cool too. BUT, ApplWindows behaves in ways they don't! Let me say it again: I can't imagine not having this widget, ApplWindows, on all my Macs. And everyone that I have gotten to use it says the same, "a must-have". Glom it: http://207.208.148.74/files/ApplWindows.sit IT IS FREE, and works with OS 9.1 perfectly even though it is an oldie (1992!)<br><br>¥À¥

Old habits die hard--I'm glad to see you're still loving ApplWindows, nycdewd. ;)<br><br>What are my must-have utilities... probably CM Tools 3, for quick and easy file management... A Better Finder Rename comes in mighty handy for renaming MP3s and the likes... GoMac is exceptional, as well, although I'm trying to use my new iBook without it to see if I can manage... finally, ResEdit, so I can remove those blasted ads from AIM. :)<br><br>

well application windows will maybe do some things I don't do.. I have had it installed in the past but I have so much other stuff I must have removed it thinking what does this do that I don't already have... I have some 175 items in my extension folder (and we all know how many of those items are folders full of more extensions), lugging 50 control panels around so I may as well be patriotic to the American nature of this equipment and install 51.... see if that gives me some more conflicts.<br><br>Oh yeah and I concur I am a GoMac addict... ResEdit is probably the application I use MOST whether I am online or not..(apart from ICQ AIM and Eudora which all run whenever I am on net, which is mostly). Almost every application I have has been opened and scrutinized, pulled apart and put back together again in ResEdit. None of them have a standard splash! (why just an hour ago for an experiment I removed Eudora's splash entirely, even though I had recently made a batch of 30 splash's for it). Some applications like IE now have animated splashes, others like Virex have a single pixel splash. MS Office has all its splashes removed.. golly it loads fast without them! I have changed bits here, bits there to suit myself with absolutely no knowledge of how that will make me come unstuck until it happens. Then I have to back out of that corner, see why that happened, see if I can do anything about it, see whether I want to bother trying that particular hack or not... It is and has been all a learning process not really going anywhere with any purpose just seeing what makes these things tick and whether I can change defaults to suit my tastes or whether I want it at all. .<br>Maybe I will get a life and a job and go back to just using a database application and a word processor but I doubt I could ever live that simply... I would always be saying "I wonder if ResEdit can change that..." <br><br>..

I like the entire AB series... especially ABFC&T to get all of those files into BBEdit or iTunes documents... and ABFR to rename them when needed.... <br><br>I also like having my hierachy of files listed in a folder in the Apple Menu, so that I can get to them quickly...<br><br>***<br>"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." <br> -- Ecclesiastes 10:2

My must-have tip - BeHierarchic. It is awesome, organises your Apple menu. Well worth the money, and then some. Its just about the only 3rd party system enhancer I use...<br><br>Cipher13<br><br>

Oh, and, USBOverdrive if you use USB mice. The ultimate USB driver... it rocks. Set your mouse to the fastest speed...<br><br>Cipher13<br><br>

For me at work most of all i could not live with out ResEdit i spend about a hour of my day just fixing students Flietype and Ceator problems uuurghh Quark and Indesign are the biggest problem!!!<br><br>And at home since i only use X on my macs I would have to say Snard its a dockling that acts like a launcher keeping you dock nice and clean....<br><br>Oni<br><br><br><br>this is my signature do you like it?

yep Be Heirachic is one of those In my 51 control panels<br>but I would have to say that Default Folder and Sleeper which apart from GoMac and Finder Pop were my first purchases. These two fine apps from StClair are must haves.<br>Extension Strip and DragThing are also must haves, well at least one or the other.<br>I have USB overdrive somewhere but haven't bothered to install it yet<br><br>..

Agree about both BeHierarchic and USB Overdrive. I just wish that Overdrive were available for X. Alessandro Levi, who wrote the app, says it's forthcoming, so I'm hopeful.<br><br>And that's true too/--Shakespeare, King Lear

IMO, USB Overdrive is sort of pointless, for Mice at least...<br><br>If the company that makes your mouse can't write their own drivers, then it's probably a bad mouse... MS's Intellimouse Explorer control panel is great....<br><br>Also, Behierarchic is good, but last time I used it, it had some incompatabilities with some software I was using... so I started making my own aliases, and organizing the folders the way I wanted them... too bad I guess....<br><br>Oh, and yes, St. Clair's software is tops...<br><br>***<br>"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." <br> -- Ecclesiastes 10:2