Switch-It! & MultiLaunch (Re: Multiple Applications on IIGS)

[bazyar@teal.csn.org (Jawaid Bazyar)]

uerics@mcl.ucsb.edu (Eric D. Shepherd) writes:

>Remember the rumors that WestCode was working on a "MultiFinder" for the
>IIGS?  Then remember hearing that it was cancelled?  Well, Alan Bird
>posted the prototype version on AOL recently and _it works!_

  There are many people who couldn't get it to work at all, including
myself.  I finally removed all DA's and Inits and it then at least didn't
hang on launching programs.  Its implementation as a CDEV makes it
difficult to use programs that it is not compatible with (do you shift
boot to keep the CDEV from loading?  You lose all your DAs and inits
and other CDEVS! Go through and turn them all off with Get Info?
Back to square one).
  I ran through some of the Switch-It! bug reports under MultiLaunch,
and sure enough, most of them were in ML.  Conflicts in font manager
usage between word processor apps, illegal methods of tool patching,
and all manner of evils are present in MultiLaunch.

>I've already tried it, and had the Finder, Teach, and AppleWorks GS all
>going at once (NOT multitasking, but instantly switchable).  It puts a
>menu in the upper-right corner of the menu bar, which allows you to look
>at memory stats for each application, launch applications, and add
>applications to the menu for future use.

  So does Switch-It!; so what's the difference? Switch-It! is a tested,
completed, commercial product.

  The GEnie sysops refused to post MultiLaunch after their dissection of
it; this staff includes Matt Deatherage and Jim Murphy, two highly 
respected individuals in the realm of IIgs debugging and evils-testing.

  Of course, Switch-It! isn't free; MultiLaunch is. But will you 
trust your data to a program that may/may not crash at any particular time?
There's a point where MultiLaunch stops being 'neat' and wants to be
useful, but it's got too many problems.

  I respect Alan Bird (he's beaten us to a number of projects :-), 
but ML is nothing to rave about.

-- 
 Jawaid Bazyar              |   Ask me about the GNO Multitasking Environment
 Procyon, Inc.              |   for the Apple IIgs!   
 bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu         |   P.O Box 620334
 --Apple II Forever!--      |   Littleton, CO 80162-0334   (303) 933-4649