Menu Fonts? A handy desk accessory



Author: Fred Cranston

Date: November  , 1989

Keywords: Fred's Follies column utility font review

Text:
by Fred Cranston
Do you use Menu Fonts? It has been a handy desk accessory.  
In the pull-down Font menu the names of the fonts are shown in their
own Font. For example, Cairo instead of being listed as Cairo comes
down as cairo.  
Beyond, the publisher of Menu Fonts,  has published an upgrade, Menu
Fonts 2. The upgrade is an INIT instead of a DA. 
However, at least for me, the upgrade has a peculiar bug in it. When I
install it as an INIT, it causes a perceptible pause in menu-viewing.
That is, when I click on a menu heading, nothing happens for about
three sec-onds, then the menu listing pops open.  
When I removed Menu Fonts 2 from the System Folder (thus disabling it),
the pull-down menus opened immediately as is normal. Beyond gave me a
beta-ware copy of MenuFonts 2.03 to try. It seems to work with no
problems, so I guess they have solved the difficulty.
I also had a problem with an Excel 2.2 upgrade from Microsoft. When I
put it on my HD-20 and opened it, the menus didn't pull down properly.
I finally replaced my System 6.02 with a 6.02 from Jack Russell and
then Excel worked fine.  
I was not able to find out what was the matter with my System as
everything else worked OK, even Excel 1.5.
Do you have shareware that you don't know how to pay for? Why don't
they put an address in the dialog box?  I have a very nice DA called
Default Font Setter by Cliff Joyce of Dubl-Click Software.  
But there is no address nor amount.  Of course, maybe it isn't
shareware, it does have the little * on it, so maybe I am violating the
copyright law by using it. I am a firm believer in paying for software
that I use but I can't pay for it if there is no address.  
Default Font Setter works very well. I recommend it. I set it to
default at Beverly Hills instead of Geneva.
I just installed a new 40-MB hard disk from LaCie beside my Mac Plus.
It is a SCSI disk instead of the non-SCSI HD-20 that I had been using. 
The SCSI disk seems to open up things faster than the non-SCSI by about
a factor of 3.  
I am well pleased with the disk but not with the documentation that
comes with it. Not only does the documentation assume a greater
knowledge of hard disks than I have but it also has a glorious mistake.
 
In discussing setting up multiple volumes on the disk, it states,
''Generally the 'Maximum Size' of the first volume on your drive should
be equal to or greater than the size of your entire hard drive. This
will allow you to return any subsequent volumes to it should you choose
to do so at a later date.''  
If any of my readers can make sense of this, please let me know.

Copyright © november , 1989 by Fred Cranston