What is Now Utilities 6.x, Web Publisher, Up-To-Date & Contact?

Now Utilities include all these:

•     Now AutoType
•     Now FolderMenus
•     Now Menus
•     Now QuickFiler
•     Now Save
•     Now Shortcuts
•     Now Startup Manager
•     Now SuperBoomerang
•     Now Tags
•     Now WYSIWYG Menus
•     Now Mail
•     Now Profile
•     Now ScrapBook
•     Now Toolbox
•     Web Quick 1.2.1

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Now Utilities is almost legendary in the Macintosh world. In the ultimate in flattery, Apple has integrated several of its innovative functions into its own OS and plans to take others, such as Now Tabs, into its elusive Copland update.

But how does the average Mac enthusiast, who purchased the Macintosh for its elegant simplicity, approach this overwhelming collection?

Be skeptical of the hype. Despite the plethora of new and improved features and options in version 6.5, the most helpful items are also the easiest to use. Now Super Boomerang’s main component hangs out in the Apple Menu, listing just about everything you’ve worked on recently, be they files, folders, or related items from a recent folder. Moreover, it offers pull-down menus from within the Save and Open dialog boxes, speeding that task exponentially. It also provides other options, such as the ability to create hot keys for a given file, but it wins best item in this collection precisely because its major functions are so wonderfully obvious.

Runners-up in this collection include Now Scrapbook and Now WYSIWYG Menus. Unlike Apple’s own scrapbook, Now Scrapbook lets you organize your material much in the way you might make font sets. It’s especially useful for anyone involved in multiple multimedia projects since it allows you to include every sort of media, including QuickTime movies, in a given set. WYSIWYG Menus shows how each font really looks within an application’s font menu, utilizing hierarchical submenus to organize families. Within its control panel, WYSIWYG also enables you to see the complete lettering of a given set — even if the font is Post Script. And finally, it allows you to make font sets for different applications, a process that can be arcane from within the program itself (yes, we might be talking Photoshop here).

The above control panels in themselves may be worth the $90 price, especially when combined with Now FolderMenus, which allows you to see hierarchical menus within a folder just by holding the mouse on the folder icon (in just the way the shareware program PopupFolder does) and Now Menus, an utility which allows you to organize custom menus from the Apple Menu and along the top of your desktop. Now FolderMenus can be excruciatingly slow but it's useful, and while Now Menus urges you to customize your computer into oblivion, some people find it a decent substitute for Marathon.

Unfortunately, too many of these utilities are either unnecessary or have been better duplicated by competing applications. While NowSave recalls in SimpleText form all of your keystrokes before a crash, the data is rarely left in useful form, and its actual save function only helps the rare soul who doesn’t have Command-S etched into memory. Apple’s “Find File” command (System 7.5 and later) makes Now QuickFiler irrelevant. Now Shortcuts works adequately, but both OneClick and QuicKeys are infinitely superior at creating macros. And the shareware program TypeIt4Me (available on MacAddict’s first Super Phat Disc) is both easier to use and more reliable than Now Autotype, which tends to act like HAL in “2001” if you don’t do everything exactly to its specifications.

Finally, Now Startup Manager 7.0 (make sure to download the 7.0.1 revision, available at Now's Web site), which was available free last summer as a stand-alone application, does not yet compete on Conflict Catcher. It resembles ConflictCatcher. It suggests extension links, its one improvement over Conflict Catcher. However, it fails to mimic Conflict Catcher’s simplicity. You can't scroll the info boxes as in Conflict Catcher, and it doesn’t offer a “Close and Restart” option in its application menu. It doesn’t even offer a custom menu in the menu bar, which would offer the abflity to edit a given set in the way Conflict Catcher does.

Finally, Startup Manager is has a few personality problems. It caused one Power Mac to crash every time at shutdown, which could dent productivity. This problem came up occasionally on other machines, too. Moreover, when the application was uninstalled, it moved several basic extensions (such as Desktop Printer Monitor) into the “Extensions (Disabled)” Folder, in a sort of cyber-equivalent to sending out dead flowers. Still, Conflict Catcher 3 works better than the new Startup Manager and is worth its stand-alone price.

Now Utilities seems to be at a turning point. Many of its other benefits can be cobbled together through competing, oftentimes superior programs. If you have to have some of the cohection’s features, such as Super Boomerang, the package may be worth the investment, but be careful, be very careful what you allow to be installed and remember: productivity only counts if you’re working, not configuring utihties.

Weisman, Robyn. (December 1996). Now Utilities 6.5. MacAddict. (pg. 78).

Download Now Utilities 6.x, Web Publisher, Up-To-Date & Contact for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

System Requirements

From Mac OS 7.1 up to Mac OS 7.6

Compatibility notes

Architecture: 68K + PPC (FAT)

Note: There are some bugs under Mac OS 7.5.3 and 7.5.5 specifically.

 

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II