What Are Floating Palettes?

Floating palettes are small windows that "float" above an application's windows. Usually they contain buttons and tools for executing commonly used functions or changing editing modes. Many Mac applications use floating palettes: Adobe Illustrator, PageMaker, and Photoshop are three examples. That's Photoshop's toolbox on the left. Normally when you use your Mac to create a document, you can switch between several document windows and only one is in the foreground -- that is, active. Floating palettes are always active. Because they are always frontmost, they can obscure your document window. Generally you can move floating palettes to any location on your screen and they'll stay there, though every application is different.

The OneClick Way
OneClick is entirely palette-based. The program allows you to create as many floating palettes as you like. You can completely customize every palette so it has just the buttons and functions you want.

At their simplest, a palette contains a few shortcut buttons. More complex palettes can actually adjust their size and change on the fly, making them seem like a stand-alone program.

For an example of a simple palette, here's the one for ClarisWorks.

This is a simple palette that functions as a toolbar, similar to the toolbars in Microsoft Word and other programs. Most of the cute little icons do things you're already used to doing: creating a new file, opening, saving, printing, etc. In fact, these OneClick buttons are so simple most contain only a single instruction (a reference to the menu command to be executed)!

To tell you the truth, I don't find such palettes extremely useful since I generally use Command-key shortcuts for frequent operations. The real power of OneClick is customizing it and creating your own palettes that fit the way you work.

Take the print command above. I often like to print out documents using the Laserwriter's 4-up feature to print four pages reduced, on a single piece of paper. One of the first things I did with OneClick was to duplicate the print button above and make it automatically set my printer settings to 4-up and print the document. So with one click I can either print normally, or 4-up!

Some OneClick Palettes
What do OneClick palettes look like? Here are a few sample palettes:

You have nearly infinite flexibility in customizing how floating palettes look and function. While the palettes above look totally different, they are all ordinary OneClick palettes. Even the collapsed Launcher palette is a just a palette -- albeit a very small one. Notice how the Launcher palette, at the lower left, has a drag bar on the left side instead of a title bar at the top? That drag bar is really just a OneClick button with a pattern of dots for the icon. By using OneClick buttons as artwork, you can create nearly any design!

OneClick allows you to create as many Floating Palettes as you want. Floating Palettes can be unique to a single application, or be universal, and show up everywhere. Any palette can easily be shrunk, collapsed, or hidden. Some palettes are designed to shrink to stay out of your way when you aren't using them -- the Launcher palette is an ideal example. Collapsed, it's a tiny rocket ship icon. Expanded, it shows you all your installed applications. Collapsing or expanding is done by simply clicking!

Since OneClick allows you to create or install as many palettes as you want, it is in effect hundreds of programs in one! I've replaced dozens of extensions and control panels with OneClick.