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Tabitha, our intrepid Tabby, handles support issues for us. She says "please be patient, I type using the 'hunt and pounce' method!"
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Having problems? Please make sure to review the documentation, and ensure that you have the latest version. Visit the download page to check the version or to get a full product distribution. If that doesn't help, review the appropriate FAQ, listed here. If you're still stuck, then write to us, and we'll try to help.
If you're having general trouble with your Mac, Apple has online support resources that can help. The Tech Info Library is a wonderful resource for general Mac hardware and software questions, as well as troubleshooting. Apple software updates are also available online.
I have a question about...
General/Company FAQ
- What's with all the AppleScripts?
- First, AppleScript is a cool Macintosh feature, and we wanted to take advantage of it. More practically, there are some things that are simply best automated with AppleScript.
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- Why focus on Macintosh?
- We believe that the Mac market, because of lower competition and less product saturation, offers great opportunities for success. Additionally, due to integrated hardware/software design, the Mac is relatively easy to support.
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- Some of your scripts are meant to run at startup. Is there a way to control the order in which startup items are launched?
- The Apple Tech Info Library has a note which explains the startup launch process.
DeskPictRotater FAQ
- Under MacOS 9.2.2, the desktop picture doesn't change.
- There appears to be a bug in the AppleScript support under that system version. So far as I know, there's nothing to be done to fix it in the script; you can either wait for a possible fix in a future MacOS version, or try DeskPictRotator Pro, which doesn't seem to have the problem.
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- Under MacOS 8.5 and higher, why does the desktop flash when a picture is set?
- The Appearance control panel, which is what sets desktop pictures, requires separate commands to set the picture and to set the picture positioning (filling screen, etc.) The second command, to set positioning, is what causes the flash.
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- Under MacOS 8.5 and later, some pictures do not scale to fill the screen. Why?
- There appears to be a bug in the Appearance control panel. Although DeskPictRotater specifies the picture positioning as 'filling' (fill screen), Appearance seems to always use 'automatic' as the positioning mode for that case. Perhaps this will be fixed in a future release, but I have verified the problem through 9.0.4. If you're a scripter, the following script shows the problem:
tell application "Appearance"
set picture file of monitor 1 to (choose file)
set picture positioning of monitor 1 to filling
set actualP to (picture positioning of monitor 1) as string
display dialog "Picture positioning should be \"filling\" and is \"" & actualP & "\"" buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
end tell
Note that the result will be "automatic." One possible workaround is to scale the picture using a graphic program so that Appearance will be forced to fill the screen. One graphic program I like is MicroFrontier's Color-It! (I have no connection to MicroFrontier; just a happy user.)
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- I want to position my pictures as tiled/centered/scaled instead of 'filling.'
- You can change this by editing the script. The relevant code is toward the end of the script, in the idle handler. For the 8.5 version, edit the second line of this set, changing the word filling to one of tiled, centered, or scaled:
set picture file of monitor 1 to (thePict as alias)
set picture positioning of monitor 1 to filling
Example:
set picture file of monitor 1 to (thePict as alias)
set picture positioning of monitor 1 to centered
For the 8.0/8.1 version, edit this line, changing the phrase 'filling screen' to one of tiled, centered, or scaled:
set desktop picture to (thePict as alias) positioning filling screen
Example:
set desktop picture to (thePict as alias) positioning tiled
Note that this change will affect positioning for all pictures.
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- I am getting crashes which appear to be caused by DeskPictRotater. What could be wrong?
- We know of three things that can cause problems. (Please be aware that DeskPictRotater ultimately only sends a file to Desktop Pictures or Appearance for processing.)
- Some third-party programs will improperly install older extensions (this is a general problem, and may affect other software too). One problem extension in particular is ObjectSupportLib, which lives in the Extensions folder within the System folder. Under MacOS 8 or higher, this is redundant (it's integrated into the System file), and should be deleted. Simply drag ObjectSupportLib to the trash, and reboot. (Please note that at some point Apple may release an update for ObjectSupportLib, and then it would be proper to have it in the Extensions folder. However, at this writing (Jan 1999), we don't know of any such update. For more information, you can try searching the Tech Info Library.)
- There may be a corrupted picture in your pictures folder. This can cause Desktop Pictures (8.0, 8.1) or Appearance (8.5) to crash. To verify a picture (be aware this can cause a crash), drag the picture file to the desktop picture preview area of either Desktop Pictures or Appearance. If the picture preview appears correctly, chances are the file is fine. If the file is suspect, either delete it, or move it out of your pictures folder.
- There could be a bad alias in your pictures folder. To verify this, select the alias in the Finder, and choose Show Original from the File menu. Then, verify that the target is a valid picture file by proceeding as above.
OT/PPP Disconnect FAQ
TBD
Checking Program Versions
Each Sleeping Cat Software product contains version information, which you can see by selecting the program file in the Finder, and choosing Get Info from the File menu. You will see a window like this:
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