A utility that shipped with MacOS 7.5 - MacOS 9. Well, it actually shipped first with 7.1, but only for PowerBooks. It displayed a hideable, collapsible floating window which could host various little thingies which performed useful or semi-useful tasks. Changing the system volume, launching apps, opening/closing a PPP connection (remember, this is the System 7 era) or turning file sharing on/off were common uses. Writing a Control Strip Module (CSM) was a standard beginner’s Mac programming project ‘back in the day’. Now largely replaced by Docklings (remember them?), Dashboard Widgets (starting in 10.4), NSMenuExtra (if you’re Apple), or NSStatusItem (if you’re not.)

An abandoned Carbon OSX port is at [http://www.strout.net/info/coding/macdev/openstrip/]

Screenshot:

http://www.macoptions.com/tips/images/csm8.gif