| AppSwitcher Control 1.1 | Prestissimo 1.0 | Folder Action Setup 1.0.1 |

AppSwitcher Control is a free application that allows you to customize the Application Switcher in Mac OS 8.5. You may be saying, "Now Adam, there are many applications that do this. What makes this one different?" Well, AppSwitcher Control is different because Pascal Software actually took some time into developing it. It's a true third-party utility, not a third-world hack.

AppSwitcher Control sports a wonderful user interface, combining the settings into graphical representations that are easy to understand. For example, the "Icon Size" is controlled by either clicking on a large or small generic application icon, the same icons that are in the icon/button view options in Mac OS 8.5. The "Position" option is controlled the same way.

AppSwitcher Control also lets you set the built-in keyboard application switcher, that is, pressing a key combination to switch between open applications. The default setting for Mac OS 8.5 is Command-Tab, but AppSwitcher Control lets you set it to virtually any key combination you want, using your choice of Control, Option, or Command keys.

Prestissimo is another high-quality application that customizes the scriptable options in Mac OS 8.5, but it goes beyond the Application Switcher. It also allows you to set "Scroll Bar Options," a feature that was taken out of Mac OS 8.5's Appearance Manager and replaced by "Smart Scrolling."

Prestissimo's interface is not as eye-catching as AppSwitcher Control's, but it is still very usable, and its options are clear. It lets you control both aspects of the Application Switcher: the palette and the keyboard switching. However, my favorite feature of Prestissimo, as I mentioned above, is its ability to control the Mac OS 8.5 scroll bars. You can set the scroll bar to have single arrows, or double arrows in either the bottom/right corner or at both ends. Additionally, you can set the scroll thumb to either fixed or proportional (to the content of the window) size.

Folder Action Setup is a wonderful little application that helps you manage folder actions. If you use Mac OS 8.5's Folder Actions, you know how hard they can be to manage, and going through to each folder with a contextual menu can become time consuming. That's where Folder Action Setup (referred from this point on as FAS) comes into play.

FAS gives you a list of all your current folders with Actions attached, and lets you perform functions with them such as verify and detach. FAS also gives you a list of scripts in your current setup, and supports drag and drop, so you can easily attach a new script to any given folder.

The only problem I have with FAS is its user interface. It becomes a bit confusing when you get into the more advanced options, and is anything but eye-pleasing. Its fonts are choppy, even with font smoothing on 12 pt, and it doesn't take advantage of Mac OS 8.5's navigation services dialog boxes. With a little bit of rearranging and clarification, along with some work on its aesthetics, FAS could be much easier to use.

The Summary
Folder Action Setup works, and works well. The problem is getting it to work correctly. I had it working not long after I opened the application, but a novice, or even an intermediate user might find its interface complex and overwhelming.