What is Suitcase II?

Sometimes success can be its own worst enemy. As anyone in show business knows, there's nothing tougher than following a hit. Take Suitcase, for example. The original was so good that it practically became a necessity. But now there's Suitcase II — which is even better. Unfortunately, the audience has become more sophisticated, so it’s a lot harder to impress. Nevertheless, Suitcase II deserves to be a hit.

The biggest improvement in Suitcase II is in its increased file-management power. Rather than recognizing specific filenames such as Fonts, DAs, Fkeys, and Fonts/DAs, Suitcase II remembers any font, DA, sound, or Fkey file you open on any available disk and reopens it for you next time, regardless of its name. And assuming you have the RAM, you can now open up to 99 such files.
The original Suitcase displayed only desk accessories in the Suitcase DA window, but Suitcase II lists the contents of any font, DA, Fkey, or sound file if you click on the appropriate button.

When displaying fonts Suitcase II shows you any font in an open font file in any size or style. Just select it and click on the Show button or doubleclick on the font name. This window also tells you the name of a screen font’s matching downloadable printer-font file if it has one. This information is a big help for people who have inadvertently changed the names of their downloadable font files. And you can keep those downloadable fonts in any folder or disk that contains a font file opened by Suitcase II. Plus you can share them across a network.

And if you prefer seeing Font menu lists in their own typefaces, Suitcase II can provide them, either all the time or only when you hold down a modifier (Option, Shift, or Command) key while opening the Font menu. Since it takes a while for Suitcase 11 to read through all open font files to create such a menu, I prefer to press the modifier key only when I need this feature. You can even choose which modifier you prefer to use.

You can rename any DA or sound and rename or renumber any Fkey from Suitcase IIs window, and you can have your most frequently used items at the top of the list or in alphabetical order. And when you’re in Multi Finder, you can hold down the modifier key to suppress your DA list, making more room for the application list at the bottom. Suitcase II remains at the top of the list, however, in case you need to select a DA.

Previous versions of Suitcase warned against opening or closing font files from within applications, because most applications create their Font menu at the time you open them and do not update them in response to newly opened or closed font files. I have tried closing font files while in Microsoft Works and found that although Zapf Chancery was still listed on my Font menu, the copy on-screen deteriorated into Geneva once the file was closed. When I highlighted it and reselected Zapf Chancery from the menu, nothing happened.

This version can update Font menus dynamically in applications that can accept the new font information — a nice idea, but more applications will have to be upgraded to accept the update information before this feature becomes useful.

Two utility applications come with Suitcase II: Font Harmony, and Font & Sound Valet. Font Harmony solves a major problem that has plagued Mac font handling. Many applications refer to fonts by their ID number. Before Suitcase, all fonts had to be installed in the System file. Font/DA Mover automatically renumbered any font whose number matched a font already installed, so no two fonts could have the same number. Suitcase changed all that, because multiple files could now be opened. Different fonts could have the same number if they were in different files, so you could select one font from your Font menu, only to have a different one (unexpectedly) show up on-screen or at your printer.

Font Harmony resolves font-numbering conflicts among many font files. Open them all within Font Harmony and click on the Harmonize button. Font Harmony examines all fonts in all open files and makes certain that each has a unique ID number. The Check/Fix button checks font files for the correct file format and makes the necessary corrections.

A second font-handling problem on the Mac is that it automatically creates bold, italics, and other styles in the Style menu by altering the regular screen fonts. From a typesetter's point of view, Helvetica Italic is not the same as a slanted version of regular Helvetica, however. For proper typography, you need separate screen fonts and downloadable printer fonts for each style. This necessity has led to a congested Font menu (Bodoni Laser, Bodoni Italic, Bodoni Bold, Bodoni Bold Italic),

Font Harmony can combine all the members of a font family into a single listing (e.g., Bodoni) on the Font menu, thus making the Font menu smaller and less confusing. You can access the correct downloadable printer font by selecting Italic, Bold, or both from the Style menu.

A menu item lets you choose whether or not to include condensed and extended fonts when combining families. Your choice depends on whether the applications you are using have those choices in their Style menu. (PageMaker does not have them; Ready,Set,Go! does.)

I'm concerned about nonstandard font storage. Someone who has combined families including condensed and extended will lose the ability to access the condensed and extended styles in any application that doesn't have those menu items. In fact, if your menus don't have those choices, there is no way to know whether your font files contain those styles. Therefore, although I highly recommend using Font Harmony to resolve numbering conflicts, I believe you should carefully weigh your own situation before combining families.

Since the majority of applications don’t have separate Style menu listings for condensed and extended type, I suggest you exclude those styles if you decide to combine families, and keep copies of the uncombined fonts in case you change your mind.

With so many fonts, DAs, sounds, and Fkeys available, disk space has become ever more valuable. Font & Sound Valet compresses font and sound files to make them smaller on disk, and Suitcase II can use the compressed files directly — actually, it decompresses them in RAM. Like combining font families, this change is fine as long as the compressed fonts and sounds remain with someone who knows they have been altered. Friends who don't have Suitcase II, however, will not be able to use them.

I tested Suitcase II, version 1.2.2. Everything in the Suitcase II package worked exactly as I wished. The Suitcase II window is a joy to operate, mostly because of its utter simplicity. As a previous Suitcase user, I jumped right into this new version without even thinking about it. I tested this version on several network installations and found no compatibility problems.

The manual is clearly written. In addition to describing the operation of Suitcase II, Font Harmony, and Font & Sound Valet, it provides a step-by- step troubleshooting section.

Suitcase II may be riding a major hit’s coattails, but this is one sequel that’s a hit on its own.

Lewis, Darryl. (June 1989). Suitcase II. MacUser. (pgs. 51, 58).

Download Suitcase II for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

Minimum Requirements

• Macintosh 512Ke

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II