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| Author | Appearance Manager (Read 25047 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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lilliputian
64 MB  Posts: 68 A Good Apple! 
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on: March 02, 2021, 08:24
I know that S7T's official stance for Macs running System 7 is to forego the Appearance Manager altogether, but I'm wondering if it might be useful all the same to compile a list of applications that require Appearance Manager to be installed in order to run in System 7? I know of two (from a LowEndMac article on the topic): IE 5.1.7, and SweetMail 2.2r6 PPC. They apparently work with Appearance Manager 1.0.4. The LEM article in question: https://lowendmac.com/2007/appearance-manager-lets-internet-explorer-5-1-7-work-with-mac-os-7-6-1/ |
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023
Reply #1 on: March 02, 2021, 11:22
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I didn't believe the Appearance Manager anti-hype myself at first ... until I actually tried it out. Yes, it noticably slowed my Mac down. Besides the fact that I don't find it very appealing but then tastes differ :-) Two applications come to mind that require Appearance Manager on 7 - Eudora 4.x (the e-mail client) and the game Diablo 1. Both wanted to force Appearance Manager onto me when I wanted to take them for a test drive on my 8600. Good idea about creating a list!
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #2 on: March 02, 2021, 20:15
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Yes, that's right! And the A.M. is one of the main things that affects the performance of Mac OS 8.x (and in higher Mac OS versions, it's integrated into the OS) since it's required for booting the OS. Maybe that list should be titled: software to avoid or replace! 
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lilliputian
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64 MB Posts: 68 A Good Apple!
Reply #3 on: March 03, 2021, 00:01
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That's interesting, so it's not actually required for Mac OS 8?
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #4 on: March 03, 2021, 02:04
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No the exact opposite!  The appearance manager is an optional addition for Mac OS 7.6.1 and earlier OSes, but in Mac OS 8, while it's still a separate extension, it's required to boot. In fact, you can try it: remove the appearance extension from an OS 8 boot folder and select restart in the finder special menu and you get a warning that you no longer have a valid boot folder 
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lilliputian
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64 MB Posts: 68 A Good Apple!
Reply #5 on: March 03, 2021, 02:37
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Ah, I misunderstood! That's a shame... At least there are these! https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/appearance-addons-appearance-manager
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #6 on: March 03, 2021, 03:57
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Ah yes!  One of the principal reasons I either installed and/or simply enjoyed running Mac OS 8.5.1 on my Powerbook 1400c was the Appearance Manager. It was Apple's incorporation of theming that Kaleidoscope had perfected, but it was wonderful to add an aqua interface using only Apple customization tools in Classic. On slower Powerbooks like the Duo 2300c, I did use Mac OS 7.5.5 for speed and 8.1 for it's updated finder desktop. I always liked pushing the envelope and having new things in older hardware
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #7 on: March 19, 2023, 05:05
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Quote from: Bolkonskij "I didn't believe the Appearance Manager anti-hype myself at first ... until I actually tried it out. Yes, it noticably slowed my Mac down."I haven't noticed much of a downturn in speed when using this in System 7 on Basilisk II/SheepShaver, but no surprise there, as those emu's have no real bottlenecks on more recent hardware. When I do use it on a 7 OS though, I tend to turn the setting to activate only if required by an application, such as Toast 4, or trying out Eudora 4 or RagTime 5. I've also noticed a few posts referencing the Appearance Manager here and elsewhere, as to how it slowed a System 7 Mac down. So I thought I would conduct a test by installing it on my Centris Mac. On doing so, I didn't notice much difference between the two modes on the Centris at all, but I was running it in an activate only if required mode, as I always do. I ran some MacBench 3.0 tests -the final version to run on 7.0 and I'm running 7 Pro on the Centris. Anyway here's a test result of the Centris without Appearance Manager, and here's a test result of the Centris with Appearance Manager. MacBench 3.0 runs its test against a PM 6100/60 file as the 100% benchmark to measure Mac speeds. Of course the Centris's CPU is a lot slower (than a 6100) in the tests. But I didn't expect the FPU test to be as low and I certainly didn't expect to see the drive test to report being faster than the 6100... However, between the with and without Appearance Manager on the Centris trial, there is virtually no difference between the two. I ran this test several times over and they all came back the same as what is shown in these two pics. The Disk tests came back with a .03 difference in favor of no Appearance installed, and the Graphics tests came back with a .07 difference in favor of running with Appearance installed. There are quite a few applications and games that do require the Appearance Manager, if wanting to use them in a System 7 Mac. If you really do need that particular app or game, then perhaps running the Appearance Manager in an activate only when required mode would be a fair compromise. That is, if you don't actually want your System 7 Mac to look like it's running Mac OS 8 but you need to run such and such a program too.
Last Edit: March 19, 2023, 05:42 by MTT
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #8 on: March 19, 2023, 11:44
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I do want my system to look like I'm running 8.1 (which I do ) but I also found out that its not just having the AM installed, but that you need the correct version of the Appearance Manager, with an intact resource fork.As otherwise things can get quite nasty, with all kinds of weird application errors. For that reason I put a file lock on the AM extension in my system folder. PS: Luckily in our world eye candy and good looks are voluntary. So if you want to "enjoy" dull & boring, knock yourself out.
Last Edit: March 19, 2023, 11:49 by 68040
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #9 on: March 19, 2023, 15:07
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Appearance Manager or no Appearance Manager has been a subject of discussion for as long as System7today has been around. Dan was famously against it and officially I followed his lead, but generally I used it. Mostly I am a text oriented person and for me in use the Appearance Manager made no difference in either the speed of my reading or my writing and the hardware did not seem to struggle with the addition of the Appearance Manager. I do not tend to pay much attention to bench marks, not to say they are unimportant. Overall a system either feels sufficiently performant for my use or it does not. Discussion of Appearance Manager has sort of become a quasi permanent part of the fabric that holds the whole forum together so for that alone kudos to the Appearance Manager.
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #10 on: March 19, 2023, 15:55
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For many years, I used a PowerMac 6100/66 running System 7.6.1 and Appearance Manager. I had noticed how performance had degraded over time, but attributed that to preferences/extensions bloat. Some kind soul pointed me to Dan's article on the Appearance Manager matter. I banned AM from the 6100 and immediately noticed a performance gain operating the OS. Years later, during testing e-mail clients, I installed it on my 8600/200. Same experience - it slowed down operations noticably, especially such as opening / closing / drawing windows. I do not have my own benchmarks to back it up. But my experience is the same as Dan's, which is why I kept suggesting to avoid AM if possible. (apart from the aesthetics) The fact that a GUI add-on like AM does not produce different results on your Centris is interesting, to say the least. I would have figured that impossible, as it defies logic ? What could be the explanation here? If I add weight to something it gets heavier. AM adds a layer of GUI elements on top of existing ones? I do assume the problem to get smaller with faster processor speeds ("throwing Mhz at problems") but as I wrote, I even noticed it on my 8600. Your emulation mileage may vary, of course. Doesn't explain the Centris results though.
Last Edit: March 19, 2023, 16:00 by Bolkonskij
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #11 on: March 19, 2023, 17:02
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The problem with vintage HW is not so much the CPU Mghz, but the limitations of the system bus and the other components. As more sophisticated your graphics becomes has higher the demand for RAM grows - and as more program libraries are involved, as more access to disk are required. Specially the later one is an absolute killer in and off itself. But before the advent of PCI any request on the system bus would block all other components from talking to the CPU. People often underestimate the performance impact I/O operations have, because they get obsessed with MHz numbers. But fact is that in the old days even the slowest CPU was way faster than the quickest hard drive of its day. And the same even went for most memory chips. There is a reason why they invented smart graphic cards with RAM banks of their own. It was mostly to avoid the bottleneck of the system bus and to offload graphic's data from main RAM, where program code was competing for access cycles. Modern day emulators don't have to bother with all that sheyit. I can - and have - setup a 100MB RAM disk for my Basilisk-II system and gave the baby 1GB of main memory on a 16GB RAM host system. My disk volumes are stored on a 256GB SDD and a 1TB SDXC high-speed card. Heck, I am more than twice as fast as the nearest PowerPC. All thx to no system bus bottleneck and virtualized peripherals accessible at the speed of an electron.
Last Edit: March 19, 2023, 17:04 by 68040
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #12 on: March 19, 2023, 18:49
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So when I use Mac OS 8 in Basilisk II, I run Kaleidoscope and turn off all window enhancements, so the Finder feels more responsive than with the Mac OS 8 default and when I use the System 7 scheme, so much so that it's hard for me to tell which Mac OS I'm actually running! I do notice some lag with the stock Mac OS 8 GUI in Basilisk II, but while I notice it, it's not a deal-breaker and my favorite Kal scheme seems a little more responsive anyway, so I never use or see the Platinum theme. I too don't see why the Appearance makes any improvements but I do use Kaleidoscope in all version of System 7 and with or without it, it feels pretty responsive, although one's mileage may vary with any particular scheme you choose to run. As 68040 pointed out, emulated Macs may have an unfair GUI speed advantage.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #13 on: March 19, 2023, 23:59
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What host system are you running on? I've stopped using the Android build a long time ago, because first of all its ooold and full of bugs. It was a godsend at its time, but in the days of chroot'ed Linux installs its just not appropriate anymore. And it also runs atop Android's own "Java" interpreter, which slows down any emulator, as it adds a lot of extra layers between the app and the CPU. A native compiled Basilisk II offers way more means to tune & tweak the system for max. performance.
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #14 on: March 20, 2023, 05:08
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Quote from: Bolkonskij "The fact that a GUI add-on like AM does not produce different results on your Centris is interesting, to say the least. I would have figured that impossible, as it defies logic ? What could be the explanation here? If I add weight to something it gets heavier. AM adds a layer of GUI elements on top of existing ones?"No more puzzled than I was And no, it doesn't explain the Centris results. But an explanation I was alluding to, was that I run it inactively. i.e.; it will only kick-in, if a program is running that requires it. This may explain why the results were almost identical - you wouldn't know it was installed otherwise (though I was most surprised that the graphics test was slightly faster with AM installed). I wish that I had another System 7 capable Mac to run the same tests on, but I don't. However, I was also alluding that it might be a compromise, running with the AM in an inactive mode, as this may be a way to use programs that require AM and not otherwise overly slow down a System 7 Mac. The Mac Garden has a growing list of software requiring AM, which are also capable of running under a wide range of 7 systems if the AM is also present (scroll down in page to see list). There are several linked programs listed on that page, and the list will expand as more software is discovered to be 7 compatible but requiring AM too. Note: The link lilliputian gave above, @Reply #5, goes to the Garden's AM Addons (Themes) page, not to an Apps requiring AM page. The add-on themes found on that page are for the Mac OS 8.5 and later AM, and are not suitable for System 7, or Mac OS 8.1 and earlier.
Last Edit: March 20, 2023, 06:29 by MTT
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