Toolbox on Mac
How to run Toolbox on Mac
To run Toolbox on Mac, use a Windows emulator. Toolbox for Mac has been customized to make it act more like a Mac application when it is run under an emulator.
This is the best that can be done for Mac at this time. Years of programmer time have gone into multiple attempts to make a native Mac version of Toolbox, but none of them have yet come to completion. Work on a native Mac version has not been abandoned, but it is moving very slowly.
Intel Mac
For an Intel Mac, the recommended emulator is CrossOverMac. If you are already using an emulator such as Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion, Toolbox will run fine under it. But if you have no emulator, CrossOverMac is cheaper and easier to use. CrossOverMac is available from CodeWeavers. CrossOverMac Standard is sufficient for Toolbox. It costs $39.95. The other emulators cost significantly more, plus they require a Windows license, which is not needed for CrossOverMac.In the future it may be possible to use a free Windows emulator such as Wine, but for now Toolbox is not supported under that.
Installing Toolbox under CrossOverMac
Install CrossOverMac according to its instructions. Set CrossOverMac keyboard and mouse preferences to enable keyboard modifiers for mouse buttons, and to make the left option key act like the Windows Alt key.
Do not try to use the Windows Toolbox installer under CrossOverMac. Instead, use the Toolbox package for Mac.
To install Toolbox for Mac, place the Toolbox for Mac package zip file in your Applications folder and double click it to expand it. The result will be a folder named Toolbox. Inside the folder you will see a file named Toolbox.exe. Put the focus on it, and choose File, Make Alias. Drag the alias to your desktop to make an easy way to run Toolbox.
Using Toolbox under CrossOverMac
The Toolbox package for Mac contains an upgraded version of Toolbox which has been modified to make it more usable on the Mac under Windows emulators. One change is that all of the Ctrl+click combinations have been changed to Shift+click. On emulators Ctrl+click is used for right click. So this change eliminates the conflict between the two different uses of Ctrl+click. Another change is to change Exit on the file menu to Quit, and to give it the standard Mac shortcut key of Command+Q. A number of Command shortcut keys have been changed to become Mac standard shortcuts, or to avoid conflicts with Mac standard shortcuts. The shortcuts are all shown on Toolbox menus, so you can see the details there.
When using Toolbox under CrossOverMac, in a few cases you will have to use the Option key instead of Command. Many Command key combinations work fine, but some of them trigger actions on the CrossOverMac menu instead of the Toolbox menu. For example, Option+O tells Toolbox to open a file. But Command+O tells CrossOverMac to open an executable file so it can run it. If you look at the CrossOverMac menu, you can see the Command shortcuts that it uses. One to notice is that Option+Q tells Toolbox to quit, but Command+Q tells CrossOverMac to quit. Mostly the difference doesn't matter much, but it is safer to use the Toolbox quit command. Also, the Toolbox quit is much faster, and Toolbox will start faster the next time if CrossOverMac stays running in the background.
CrossOverMac cannot make a prj file automatically open Toolbox. So, the first time you run Toolbox, you will have to choose Project, Open to open your project. After that, Toolbox will remember the project and open it again automatically. If you want to change to another project, use Project, Open.
In spite of our efforts to make Toolbox act like a standard Mac program, there are a number of ways in which it has a different look and feel. The most obvious is that the Toolbox menu is not on the top of the screen. The CrossOverMac menu is up there, and the Toolbox menu is in smaller print at the top of the Toolbox window. Another difference is that scroll bars do not look like Mac. A general difference is that in Toolbox all the subwindows are inside a large, general window, rather than being separate windows on the desktop.
One thing to be aware of is that the outer Toolbox window can have scroll bars. If you drag an inner window past the edge of the outer window, a scroll bar will appear on the edge of the outer window. To get rid of those scroll bars, scroll to the far left and top, and drag all windows left and up until they don't overlap the right or bottom edge.
If you bring in a project from another machine, you may find that the outer window is taller than your screen. If you can't see the lower right corner, you can't drag it. One way to overcome this problem is to click the green spot on the upper left corner of the main window. This will bring the window fully onto your screen. If you then close Toolbox and open it again, both choices of the green spot will fit on your screen.
Toolbox Help works under CrossOverMac, except that it gives a misleading message that says "Failed to launch help". But when you press return or click OK on that message, help opens normally. If you click the Help button in a dialog box, you will see the same message, but help successfully opens to the correct topic. The Search button in help does not work, but otherwise help generally works normally. Help may come up completely hidden behind the Toolbox window, so if you don't see it, minimize Toolbox to see it.
One key combination you may need to learn is that Function+delete does forward delete. Forward delete is necessary to join two interlinear line sets into one if you want to adjust the line breaks of interlinear text by hand. You may also sometimes need to use the Function key to get function keys and to get home, end, page up and page down.
One limitation of using a Windows emulator is that Mac native non-Roman keyboards do not work. The way to work around that is to use a Toolbox internal keyboard for special keys. See Keyboard Definitions in the help file for information on how to do this. See Non-Roman Scripts below for information on some particular scripts.
Another limitation is that Mac native rendering for non-Roman scripts does not work. This means that some of the non-Roman fonts provided with the Mac do not render correctly. Toolbox uses the Windows rendering system, so it renders correctly if you use fonts that contain Windows rendering information.
Non-Intel Mac
For non-Intel Mac, there are fewer options. Shoebox for Mac runs well on OS 9 and below, but that isn't very useful. Shoebox for Mac runs on OS X in Classic mode, but not very reliably. Users report that it is usable, but crashes fairly often. Toolbox runs on Virtual PC, but rather slowly. Virtual PC is quite expensive, and the Toolbox team has not tested on it.
A lot of effort has gone into trying to port Toolbox to Mac or make a native Mac Toolbox, but none of the approaches worked out very well. One of the projects got far enough to make a Toolbox Lite that can do basic dictionary editing, but not much else. The only situation we can imagine where this might be of use is a multi-person team in which some are doing simple dictionary building and editing on old Macs. If this is of interest, you can download it below. Note that no further work is planned on Toolbox Lite.
Documentation for Toolbox Lite for Mac
Non-Roman Scripts
Work is in process to make language encodings that include keyboard definitions that match Mac native keyboards for some scripts. To activate the internal keyboard definition turn on "Use internal keyboard" in the language encoding "Options" page.
Devanagri script is available for testing. Devanagri script language encoding for Mac. Please give feedback to the address below.
A variety of Devanagri fonts are available on the web. But if you can't find one you like, you may try Annapurna Unicode font. This font is not supported, but may be corrected or adjusted if you have specific needs. Give feedback to the address below.
Tibetan script is available for testing. Tibetan script language encoding for Mac. Please give feedback to the address below.
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