The Standard Palettes
OneClick ships with a number of predesigned palettes. You can use these as they are, or modify them as you like. There are toolbar palettes for a number of programs, and users are always creating new ones for their favorite software. There are several special palettes that OneClick includes that I really love.

The Task Bar At left is my most favorite OneClick palette. This is a tiny palette that defaults to docking in the upper right corner of your monitor. As you launch programs, it automatically adds a button for each. It's basically like the Application menu at the top right of your screen, only better. (Mac OS 8.5's Application Menu tears off and functions similar to the Task Bar.) Clicking on an icon switches you to that program. Best of all, dragging a document to an icon opens that document with that application -- even if that application didn't create the document. For instance, you might have a ClarisWorks' picture. Dragging it to Photoshop will open it there. You can open a Word document in BBEdit, or drag a Netscape HTML file to Internet Explorer. Notice that the Claris Emailer icon is highlighted red? That tells you that Emailer wants your attention -- similar to the blinking upper-right icon on the menu bar, but far more noticeable (and not as annoying). In this case it probably means I've got mail. Do you ever need to change the memory allocated to an application? What a pain it is, finding it on your hard drive. But with the Task Bar, holding down the mouse button over an icon brings up a menu that includes "Get Info" which opens the Get Info window of that app! Do you suffer from memory fragmentation? Unlike the Application Menu on the Menu Bar, the Task Bar displays programs in the order launched -- making it easy to quit apps in reverse order, keeping your memory house in order.

On the far right of the System Bar -- where it currently displays the time and date -- is the Quick Help button. Point your cursor at any of the buttons and Quick Help will tell you what that button does! Great for refreshing your memory as to what those icons mean.

Briefly, the buttons are the following: window list, window toggle, open Chooser, Restart, Shutdown, monitor (sets the color level), sound (sets the sound level), phone book, Control Panels, System Folder popup, desktop items, and application switcher. Whew!

Of these, the ones I use most often are the monitors button, to change the number of colors on my screen, the Control Panels button, and the desktop items list, which shows me all my hard drives in a hierarchal menu so I can quickly find any file in any folder anywhere.

 At left is my favorite, the popup System Folder palette. It's really a separate palette, but it pops up from the System Bar. Each of the items on the System Folder palette opens the related folder. From left to right they are: System Folder, Apple Menu Items, Control Panels, Extensions, Fonts, Preferences, Startup Items, and the OneClick folder (which is inside the Preferences folder).

Have you ever needed to open a folder buried in your System Folder? What a pain to have to dig down and find that folder. With OneClick, you don't have to do that any more: just open the exact folder you want without having to search. Cool!

OneClick includes a cool launch palette. It may not have all the bells and whistles of certain commercial launchers, but it does everything I need. It basically offers you a grid of launch buttons, each with the icon of the application that will be launched. To add a new application, you just drag it to the "add" target button. Even better, you can add documents or folders to the Launch Strip.

The Launch Strip is easily configurable, allowing you to specify how many rows and columns, the size of the icons (big or small), and whether the name of the app is displayed next to the icon. Here are various configurations of the same launcher palette:

You configure the Launch Strip by simply pulling down the Configure Menu (the box with the red checkmark on it). This brings up the menu shown below. You can see how simple it is to change a setting, such as turns names on or off.

There also are options available to you from popup menus on the installed launch items. If you click and hold the mouse on an application, you get the top popup below. It brings up a list of recently used documents and allows you to do things like open the app's "Get Info" box. A folder's popup menu shows you a hierarchal menu of the folder's contents -- similar to what happens when you place a folder on your Apple Menu.

One of the best things about the Launch Strip is that you can have more than one. You could create one just for your main programs, another for games, another for utilities, and another for documents. That's the beauty of OneClick -- it's all up to you!