- 1 General Questions
- 1.1 What does JDiskReport do?
- 1.2 Where do I get the latest version?
- 1.3 Is this freeware or shareware or what?
- 1.4 How can I help to improve this tool?
- 1.5 How does JDiskReport compare to its competitors?
- 2 Using Features
- 2.1 Can I run JDiskReport from a command line?
- 2.2 How can I invoke JDiskReport for a specific folder?
- 2.3 How can I export data to my spreadsheet app, e.g. Excel?
- 2.4 How can I exclude directories from the disk scan?
- 3 Troubleshooting
- 3.1 I experience printing problems. What can I do?
- 3.2 How to report bugs?
- 4 Java and Swing Questions
- 4.1 Can I get the source code?
- 4.2 Can I get the source code for free?
- 4.3 What about opening the sources?
- 4.4 Can I get the look&feel utilized in JDiskReport?
- 4.5 What icon set do you use?
- 4.6 How did you integrate the animations?
- 4.7 Can you recommend a Swing tutorial or book?
- 4.8 How can I make my application look like JDiskReport?
- 1 General Questions
- 1.1 What does JDiskReport do?
- JDiskReport enables you to understand how much space the directories and files
consume on your disk drives. More...
- 1.2 Where do I get the latest version?
- The latest version is available at www.JGoodies.com.
- 1.3 Is this freeware or shareware or what?
- This is ad- and nag-free uncrippled no-charge binary software that
never expires. You can use, copy and redistribute it indefinitely.
However, it is protected by German and international copyright laws.
Refer to the license agreement for legal terms of use.
- 1.4 How can I help to improve this tool?
- You can test, send bug reports and ease-of-use comments.
Also, you can help me finance the future development by purchasing
one of the professional code packages: JGoodies Looks or Swing Suite.
Last but not least you can motivate me to go on and send friendly mail.
- 1.5 How does it compare to its competitors?
- JDiskReport is a cross platform tool and free of charge.
It focuses on understanding what's going on with your disk space.
There are other tools that help with cleaning hard disks.
JDiskReport does not [yet] show the free disk space;
consumes a lot of system resources: both memory and processor time;
the disk drive access is slow; it has weak support for platform specific mechanisms,
e.g. Windows network drives need to be mapped before they are accessible.
- 2 Using Features
- 2.1 Can I run JDiskReport from a command line?
- Yes, in a command line invoke:
javaw -jar jdiskreport.jar
- 2.2 How can I invoke JDiskReport for a specific folder?
- You can set the runtime argument path. JDiskReport will
then skip the start panel and scan the given path. In a command line invoke:
javaw -jar -Dpath=<user path> jdiskreport.jar
Note that the user path should be embraced by quotes on Windows platforms.
If you have installed a Windows edition of JDiskReport there's a shortcut
for the above procedure: you can select a folder in the Windows Explorer
and then run JDiskReport from the Explorer's popup menu.
- 2.3 How can I export data to my spreadsheet app, e.g. Excel
- You can export table data via the system clipboard.
First, choose the view in JDiskReport that you want to export.
From the View menu choose Copy to Clipboard,
which will write the table data as tab-separated list
to the system clipboard.
You can then paste the data into many spreadsheet applications
that support this format.
- 2.4 How can I exclude directories from the disk scan?
- You can specifiy a list of directories that will be permanently excluded
from all disk scans. See the Filter tab in the Preferences.
- 3 Troubleshooting
- 3.1 I experience printing problems. What can I do?
- See the list of limitations.
Check whether you can update your Java2 Runtime Environment.
- 3.2 How to report bugs?
- See contact.
- 4 Java and Swing Questions
- 4.1 Can I get the source code?
- I provide free libraries for the l&fs, layout system and animations
used in JDiskReport, see www.jgoodies.com/freeware/.
My Swing Suite product contains the full sources for
the JDiskReport application and the underlying framework,
see the Swing Suite at www.jgoodies.com/products/.
I have already published essential code parts -
the disk scan and directory chooser - with accompanying
articles in the German Java Magazin,issues 08.2001, 01.2002, and 02.2002.
You can find an article about the general techniques used in JDiskReport
in the German Java Magazin issue 08.2001.
And I plan to publish more source code and articles in English
- I just need more time and money to prepare this.
- 4.2 Can I get the source code for free?
- I wholeheartly like to help you, and more generally the Java community,
to write Java client applications that look good and work well.
And I believe that reading the JDiskReport sources and using
my framework and looks can significantly improve your Java GUI
and speed up the development process.
I'd like to use my skills and capabilities and work for the community, fulltime.
And I'm looking for a way how to finance my efforts, where my favorite is
to be hired by a major Java promoter like Sun.
Recently this became reality, and so I could open source the foundation
libraries. Some portions are still closed source and are available in
commercial code packages; but I plan to open these too.
- 4.3 What about opening the sources?
- I plan to open source JDiskReport. And I will immediately open the complete source code
if I cannot maintain the tool in a good quality.
- 4.4 Can I get the look&feel utilized in JDiskReport?
- The free JGoodies Looks package contains the JGoodies Windows l&f
and the JGoodies Plastic l&f family, see www.jgoodies.com/freeware/.
- 4.5 What icon set do you use?
- I have copied or derived most icons from the eclipse project, see www.eclipse.org.
- 4.6 How did you integrate the animations?
- The animations are based on my framework for high-quality time-based real-time animations.
It is a pure Java implementation of a subset of the W3C SMIL animation specification,
see www.w3c.org. It comes with a Swing integration and default renderers that utilize Java2D;
but you can use it with other widget toolkits and rasterization engines.
Check out the free JGoodies Animation package, see
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/.
- 4.7 Can you recommend a Swing tutorial or book?
- There are several tutorials and books that can help you get started with
the Swing widget toolkit, widgets, and basic configuration.
The Swing book by Robinson and Vorobiev is one of the better books.
I haven't found a tutorial or book that helps you build effective
Swing applications, i.e. that look good and work well. And I'd like
to fill this gap.
- 4.8 How can I make my application look like JDiskReport?
- If you'd like to quickly improve your application's appearance, and usability,
I recommend to check my Swing short course Metamorphosis, see
www.jgoodies.com/freeware/metamorphosis/. And you may consider to use the JGoodies looks
and framework.
If you either need an introduction or reference about do's and don'ts in
GUI design, read Jeff Johnson's GUI Bloopers.
If you are busy and can't find the time to read 500 pages, just look at
the book's contents and check whether you have an idea what all the topics are about.
In this case, I guess, a medium skilled GUI designer will read about 50 pages.
A thin book and recommended reading is Designing Visual Interfaces by Mullet & Sano.
If you read 100 pages of this book, you will learn the most valuable
basics of user interface design, and more generally, design.
It is useful for the daily work of every GUI developer.