Performa control panel

The Performa control panel was released only on Macintosh Performas starting October 1993. All of its options ended up in a massive rewrite of the General Controls control panel in System 7.5.

The options were:


 * Finder Hiding: The multitasking nature of System 7 meant that, when an application programme was launched, it would run in foreground; the Desktop and any remaining Finder windows would remain visible in the background. However, this was confusing to beginners; they would click on the bit of Desktop still showing, and the Mac would switch to the Finder instead. This option brings back a bit of the old System 6, where an application, when launched (presumably with MultiFinder off), would launch in such a manner that the Desktop was completely hidden from view, thus making a single "click-back" to the Finder impossible.


 * Launcher open at Startup: The Launcher was a launch pad for frequently used applications (or applications Apple was convinced you would use frequently). In later versions, the Launcher would be fully customisable, which enabled users to modify the contents of the Launcher (by modifying the contents of the Launcher Items folder), thereby realising its full potential as a heavy-duty launcher.


 * System Folder Protection and Applications Folder Protection: These were a somewhat limited form of protection for the System Folder and the Applications folder, respectively. When active, they disabled access privileges which would result in any item on the root level of these two folders from being removed. This was very effective in the System Folder (the Finder, the System file and the eventual System Enabler were on the root folder of the System Folder and were quintessential for system startup to operate normally), but less effective in the Applications folder (some applications actually reside inside a folder which is alredy inside the Applications folder).


 * Choose a document saving option: This option would allow the user to select the destination when a document was being saved. The options offered were:
 * Default to folder with application: This would save the document in the folder with the original application inisde. For example, a Microsoft Word document would be saved inside the folder which contains the Microsoft Word application programme.
 * Default to Documents Folder: This option would fully utilise the Documents folder, which would then become a centralised location for all documents.
 * Default to last folder used: This option would choose the last folder used. This was somewhat ambiguous and random, and would potentially choose a new location every time (provided that different folders were accessed).

The Performa control panel ceased existence as of System 7.5.