Hello NeXT community: We now have permission to use Metro Tools as a Hobbiest license from Gordon the Author.
I actually have sold many copies of Metro Tools at Alembic Systems and Optimal Technologies and Black Hole, Inc through the last 30 years and am just now discovering this feature.
If you are the original Authors please respond as it looks like Metrosoft.com is now a different company , starting back in 1999 :)
If you've been following along, you know, I'm a newbie in developing NeXT software wink wink for NeXT Hardware .
Even after 30 years in my pursuit of discovering good old NeXT apps capabilities ; I continue to stumble across GEMS like Metro Tools with hidden in plane sight functionalities.
All of these fun applications have been available for NeXT and after all these years and I'm still finding Easter eggs.
As I've started to go in depth into finding out, if there ever was an application that was capable of doing a slideshow as I was endeavoring to create one from scratch , to my surprise here it is , this is probably the very first screen saver slideshow because NeXT developers invented the screen saver with backspace app.
And sure enough, when I discovered Metro tools had nitelite and with in it a module called slideshow, sometimes things happen at just the right time in life .
I call it manifest destiny, good karma indeed so I thought I would share the feature called nitelite under Metro tools with you all .
Low and behold slideshow , eureka in that it let's NeXT hardware owners , Previous NeXT 68K emulator Users and NeXTSTEP Intel create a little custom screensaver slideshow with your photos and or images .
And by using Toy Viewer.app , as you will probably import them if you have an NFS shared folder like I do as JPEG images or by Zip or SD.
Well Toy viewer let you easily convert them to tiff files and then presto they become compatible with custom NeXT screensavers and custom logins that need tiffs to work.
Nitelite is here in Metro tools, so hope this helps somebody out there further enjoy their NeXT Computer and save it from getting screen burn. I'll be able to create a nice screensaver with lots of fun photos of NeXT and Steve Jobs as a built-in screensaver for my future ZULU SCSI Cards with NeXTSTEP 3.3 Master ISO SD's.
I think people will really enjoy this especially when , they find out they can import their own photos and easily make a custom slideshow screensaver for the good old NeXT hardware. As I suspect not many people out there even know this was possible. As always have a great day! Here is the App and yes I have reached out to the original Author Gordon as well to see if he may have the source or will grant us hobbiest licenses through linkdn
https://fsck.technology/software/NeXT/NeXTSTEP%20Applications/Metrotools%20NeXTSTEP/Best regards, Rob Blessin Continuing to carry the NeXT torch for the growing NeXT retro community!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RO8qPq7QEw
Very very cool. The amount of amazing innovations that came out of next is just staggering. Weirdly, still, no one really investigating it all.
We're blessed to have you Rob (no pun intended) constantly uncovering more and more important computer history! Thank you for all you do!
Update 3/31/24 Great new we can now use Metro Tools as Hobbyists from the Author Gordon :
NeXT Community : 3/31/24 Update Good News, we can now freely use Metro Tools , thank you Gordon
We appreciate it! and yes Gordon gave me permission to use the below correspondence as well and
yes I will give him a copy I happen have an original for him
lol:)
Forwarded from Gordon Van Huizen
http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/Utilities/MetroTools/files/page388_3.pdfHi Rob,
My apologies for the slow reply...it's been a busy week. It's great to hear from you! I am indeed the co-author and publisher of Metro Tools. It's FABULOUS to hear that you are keeping the history of NeXT alive (quite literally) through your all your efforts. I'll check out your YouTube channel and web sites to learn more about what you're doing. Congratulations on your project with the MIT Media Lab (and beyond). What a great way to increase the exposure of NeXT...it's fascinating to me that so many people seem to be unaware that Steve did anything between leaving Apple, leading PIXAR and the second phase of his tenure at Apple. It's great that people will be able to see firsthand what he was able to do at NeXT and get a glimpse into what that community and time was like. You definitely have my permission to use NiteLite to display images as part of that project, or anything else you do WRT keeping the history of NeXT alive. I'd truly be honored to have some code from the past running in support of that aim! A link to Mendix.com would be great, but more importantly please let me know when the display is up and running. I split my time between Portsmouth NH and NYC these days and would love to check it out if possible.
Very cool that you still have some copies of Metro Tools. I believe I have a box containing the various MetroSoft products we releases...but if I can't find it I may buy a copy from you. And I'll definitely keep my eye on your BHI site. I haven't had an operational NeXT system for 10 years or so, and you message reminds me that I should look into getting one while that's still possible.
Many thanks for reaching our, Rob. It really made my day. All the best to you!
Gordon