What is Square One?

Square One certainly isn't the only file-launching utility, but it’s definitely one of the best. Square One provides easy access to every file on your Mac by displaying applications, folders, and documents as tiles on a resizable floating palette — the program’s primary interface. To launch an item (or switch between running applications), you simply double-click on the appropriate tile.

Unlike some utilities, Square One doesn’t limit you to a single palette. For example, you might create a Desktop Publishing palette loaded with your word processing, page-layout, and graphics applications, and a separate Games palette for entertainment programs. With each palette, you decide which file icons to include and in what order you want them arranged. You can fill the palettes with either large or small icons, displayed with or without file names.

Connected to each palette is a Document List window, which automatically lists up to ten recently opened files. (Displaying this window is optional.) When you click on an application icon, only those documents opened with the selected program appear in the list. Square One automatically assigns a ⌘-key shortcut to each document appearing in the list — ⌘-1, ⌘-2, and so on — for quick keyboard-based launching. You have the option of making any of the listed documents permanent, so they always appear as choices in the Document List.

Square One also displays a separate Active Applications palette with tiles showing only those applications currently active on your Mac. A single click on any of the tiles jumps you to that application. Like Square One’s main palettes, the Active Applications palette can display icons in two different sizes and with or without file names. You can also have it display memory usage for each of your active applications. Likewise, several other Finder-like commands and features have been added to Square One, so you can now use Get Info on a file, put a PowerBook to sleep, or shut down and restart your Mac without having to return to the Finder.

Another brilliant feature, new in version 2.0: clicking and holding down the mouse on a palette tile now produces a pop-up menu that allows you to launch the selected program or any of its recently opened files. If the tile contains a folder or disk, the pop-up menu displays the contents of the folder or disk with hierarchical submenus four levels deep.

In all this. Square One’s hallmark is flexibility. For example, you can instantly access your palettes from within any application in five different ways — by clicking on a palette visible in the background; by pressing a definable hot key that jumps you directly into Square One; by pressing option-tab to cycle through all your active programs; by using the always-available Square One menu (which the program installs on your menu bar); or by simply moving the pointer to a hot spot on the screen.

Of course, for Square One to be most useful, you must have it running at all times. That means sacrificing some of your available RAM, but not much: the program requires only 400K, which shouldn’t be a serious problem for most users. If you’re really strapped for memory and have to quit the program. Square One’s program-switching shortcuts remain fully functional, and you can relaunch the utility from within any application by using the Square One menu on the menu bar. (If memory is really tight, Square One also lets you quit the Finder to regain another 800K or so of RAM.)

The Last Word

Other comparable file-launching programs are out there, but none does the job as elegantly as Square One. Its slick design, flexibility, and straightforward interface make it a pleasure to use.

Schorr, Joseph. (December 1994). Square One 2.0. Macworld. (pg. 65).

Download Square One for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II