The Control Strip is a user interface

User interface

The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...

 component of the "classic" System 7

System 7

System 7 is the name of a Macintosh operating system introduced in 1991.System 7 may also refer to:* System 7 , a British dance/ambient band* System 7 , 1991 album* IBM System/7, a 1970s computer system...

 Mac OS which and remained until the Macintosh OS X system replaced the class Macintosh OS in December 2001.

History

The Control Strip was initially released in 1994 with the PowerBook 500 series of notebook computers and the PowerBook Duo 280

PowerBook Duo

The PowerBook Duo was a line of small subnotebooks manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from 1992 until 1997 as a more compact companion to the PowerBook line. Improving upon the PowerBook 100's portability , the Duo came in seven different models...

 subnotebook

Subnotebook

A subnotebook is a class of laptop computers that are smaller and lighter than a typical laptop....

 computers, at that point shipping with System 7.1. Later on it was made available to desktop and portable Macintosh computers, beginning with System 7.5.3.

With the move to Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, Apple initially attempted to integrate the Control Strip’s features into the Dock

Dock (computing)

The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of the Mac OS X operating system. It is used to launch applications and switch between running applications...

. After this was found to be too clumsy, most of its features were again duplicated in the menu extra

Menu extra

A menu extra, menu item, menulet, or status item in Mac OS X is a small icon or sometimes a word that appears at the right of the menu bar. They often provide quick ways to use applications or display information , or control system-level variables...

s of 10.1.

Features

Somewhat like the system trays of other operating systems, the Control Strip allowed easy access to status information about and control of simple tasks such as screen resolution, AppleTalk

AppleTalk

AppleTalk is a proprietary suite of protocols developed by Apple Inc. for networking computers. It was included in the original Macintosh released in 1984, but is now unsupported as of the release of Mac OS X v10.6 in 2009 in favor of TCP/IP networking...

 activity, battery status etc. Each task appears as a button-like popup menu called a module, these modules are managed in the Finder as individual module files, which have their own folder in the System Folder ("Control Strip Modules") and are executed alongside the Control Strip as it starts up or can be dragged directly onto the strip while it is running.

The Control Strip always anchors itself to the closest horizontal screen edge (left or right,) but can be freely moved up and down both sides of any display by the user. It defaults to the lower left corner of the primary display on fresh systems.

Users can choose whether to turn the Control Strip on and off and even set a hot key to hide and reveal it using its control panel

Control panel (Mac OS)

Under Mac OS 9 and earlier, a control panel is a small application which enabled the user to modify software and hardware settings such as the sound volume and desktop pattern. Control panels differ from extensions in that they allow the user to specify options, whereas extensions provide the user...

. Two buttons at either end allow the Strip to be collapsed and expanded (with the one opposite the screen edge also allowing the strip to be resized when dragged), while two more buttons just inside those allow one to scroll through a very full Strip. Holding down the option key while clicking turns the cursor into a distinctive hand shape that allows one to drag the Strip around the screen, rearrange modules within the Strip and drag modules out.

Extendibility

Control Strip modules were also available from many third-parties. For example, Conflict Catcher

Conflict Catcher

Conflict Catcher was a popular utility software application for the Mac OS, written by Jeff Robbin and published by Casady & Greene. It aided Macintosh users in solving operating system conflicts with extensions and control panels...

 included a Control Strip module to switch extension sets, while DAVE

Thursby DAVE

DAVE is a commercial grade Microsoft Windows file and print sharing SMB/CIFS software for Apple Macs from Thursby Software Systems.It was introduction in 1996 and Microsoft DFS supported added in 2002....

 used one to toggle SMB/NetBIOS networking. Some novelty modules even consisted of calculators, calendars and games. Like the System Trays of other OSs, this was often abused to insert a flotsam module that merely launched and quit a given application.

External Links

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://controlstripoutlet.comControl Strip Outlet at the Internet Archive

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

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