September 21, 1998 Shareware Fee: $20 Tiger Technologies Window Monkey Download Pros: entertaining and functional; easy to install, setup, and use Cons: no contextual menu support     Window Monkey 1.2.5 is an amusing control panel that serves both an entertaining and functional use, although the former overshadows the latter.     Window Monkey allows you to use one of the 44 included textures to a window, or any others that you add to the control panel, breaking the textural boundaries that previously limited you only to the desktop. A new addition to the View menu appropriately titled "pattern" presents you with a small preview of each of the available patterns while inside the control panel use can specify the color of the text that should be used with the pattern (so you don't end up with black text on a dark background). Granted, some patterns are bound to make windows a little harder on your eyes than the Finder's standard black/grey color scheme, but that's the only sacrifice you'll have to make if you want to add more colors to your windows     As far as its functional use, Window Monkey adds an icon menu bar, which can be toggled on or off, that presents you with a list of the current application's windows, the others programs you have loaded (and access to a specific window in a program via a hierarchical menu), and a list of recent folders. This makes navigating through windows in the Finder and other applications a snap, especially if you have one window hidden behind another. When in an Open/Save dialog box, this icon menu changes to a folder icon, allowing you to quickly jump to a recent folder (similar to Action Files).     At $20, Window Monkey is reasonably priced for a utility that adds some useful and visually pleasing additions to the Mac OS.   -MS © 1998 The MacNN Review