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dksal2.lha
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DiskSalv2
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DiskSalv3.txt
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1993-10-22
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The DiskSalv 3 Question and Answer Sheet
by Dave Haynie
I figured there might be a few questions about DiskSalv 3 that I could
answer in advance here. I suspect a few folks out there are wondering
what happened to that $40 they sent me last June, and they're of
course right to wonder. You all may also wonder about the future of
DiskSalv, which of course is what this is all about.
* Dude, where's my manual!
That's a perfectly reasonable question, so here's the story. From
the beginning of DiskSalv 2 (or thereabouts), I had planned to write
a professional quality (well, "the Danes call it Quality") manual to
go along with DiskSalv 2. I belived this a reasonable thing to do,
because of the complexity of some of the more advanced features in
DiskSalv 2, some of the questions I get along the lines of "this
failed, how do I fix it", and other things not easily addressed in a
relatively small ASCII help file. Obviously a manual costs money to
make, and I honestly didn't mind the idea of making a bit of a
profit after about three years or so (not exactly continuous) in the
development of DiskSalv 2.
So after the release of DiskSalv last June, I started writing the
manual. One thing I really hadn't considered was what to do about
non-English (in an American sort of way) versions of this manual.
The folks who helped me out with locale files and even in some cases
localized "cheap" manuals for DiskSalv 2 did a fine job, and they
have my sincerest thanks. But any sort of commercial version would
need a local distributer and obviously some profits for this local
distributer. After asking around a bit, I found some interest in
this idea, but most folks though I would need some differentiation
from the Shareware version to make this possible.
Thus, DiskSalv 3 was born. I did, after all, have this long list of
"neat stuff" I didn't have a chance to put into DiskSalv 2, and this
seemed to be just the incentive. Of course, this puts a big delay
in the manual release (originally planned for by the end of August),
but I think in the long run it'll be worth it for anyone who's
ordered the manual.
* Hey, I ordered that manual pretty early. Don't I get some special
consideration?
You sure do. Anyone who ordered the manual will get DiskSalv 2
updates until DiskSalv 3 ships. No matter how long that takes. And
of course, you're at the top of the DiskSalv 3 list.
* You sure nailed that August release! How long after your January
release date will I really be waiting?
Sure, I'm no Kreskin, but I'm determined to ship a very complete
DiskSalv 3 release by the January 2 release date. I fully intend to
be stuffing disks and, hopefully, manuals into boxes all day on
January 1, if not before then. Well, once the hangover's gone
anyway. If the manual's not done by then (it's not totally under my
control, of course) you'll still get the DiskSalv 3 shipped, with
the manual shortly following. The miss of the August date was due
primarily to my change of strategy, not a really bad sense of
timing.
* Gee, I haven't received anything from you yet. What's the deal?
If you've registered for DiskSalv 2 in any category, you can expect
a registration confirmation in the mail shortly. I decided to print
up an official registration certificate and a DiskSalv 2 sticker for
your floppy, which goes out to everyone who's registered. If you
ordered updates or the commercial deal, you'll be getting the
registration form and a floppy with the V11.28 release on it.
* What about DiskSalv 2?
The V11.28 release is a pretty significant update. While there are
only a few new features you can see, lots of internal stuff has been
improved. I intend to keep DiskSalv 2 alive as Shareware in
parallel with the commercial DiskSalv 3. While I don't expect to
add many major new features to DiskSalv 2, it will progress. Any
bugs in the actual operation of DiskSalv 2 will be fixed as quickly
as I can get a handle on them. I imagine that some enhancements
will continue to be added to DiskSalv 2. Once the smoke clears with
the DiskSalv 3 release, some DiskSalv 3 features may eventually
migrate to DiskSalv 2, though substantial differences in the
internal structure of the two programs will keep them separate.
* Hey, I thought the DiskSalv 2 GUI was damn near perfect! Why mess
with success?
The DiskSalv 2 interface was kind of an evolutionary thing. I got
the idea for some of its original elements (anyone recall the
"Teaser.pic" file that went out with DiskSalv V1.42 long, long ago)
by looking at the NeXT computer we got and programming on a Hedley
Hires screen. I didn't know all that much about GUIs, user
interfaces, etc. but I figured anything was an advantage over
DiskSalv 1.x.
At one point along the way, the Commodore Software Engineering group
approached me about their licensing DiskSalv 2 for inclusion in
Workbench, as a replacement for DiskDoctor. Being Engineers all, we
set aside any legal issues and did a design review on an early
DiskSalv 2. In the process, I learned about GadTools, the Style
Guide, AmigaGuide, Locale.library, etc. Although negotiations broke
down (this had nothing to do with Software Engineering), much of the
DiskSalv 2 design was influenced by what I though appropriate for a
Workbench tool.
A commercial program has a few options not available to a Workbench
tool. The software group has some pretty tight space allocations on
Workbench disks. Adding one disk may not seem like much, but if you
multiply the cost by a million systems a year or so, it adds up. On
the other hand, a single floppy has tons of space for a tool like
DiskSalv, even packages with lots of extra stuff. So a bit more
user friendliness can go into the program. DiskSalv 3 attempts to
bring the DiskSalv user interface up to a commercially acceptable
level. It does not, however, confuse a utility program with a video
game as do some commercial utilities. Overly fancy tools that only
work on custom screens look like toys, waste memory, and rot the
intellect. Look at a table saw or a drill press sometime -- very
functional and ergonomic tools, but rarely offered in sixteen
colors.
* Enough hype, pal. What does DiskSalv 3 actually get me?
Well, you could look over either "advertisement" file. But what the
heck, I have your attention now, so I'll summarize. DiskSalv 3 has
the same basic major modes now in DiskSalv 2. Some changes are made
to these:
Salvage
A powerful new "Set Filter..." function allows a large
variety of pattern-matching operations. Any number of complex
patterns can be defined, with optional Load/Save to/from disk.
So you can, for instance, filter out all the commercial stuff
you already have on floppy up on that bookshelf. Actions
offered are inclusion, exclusion, and stop on match.
Undelete
This can often be done in-place, rather than as a
"recover-by-copy" operation like Salvage.
Validate
Repair
The Validate function has been folded into the Repair
function, it's now a Repair-specific "Fast Scan" option. This
has always been the case (eg, Validate and Repair differ only
by their disk scanning function), now it's just a bit more
obvious.
Some new major modes have been added:
Check
This mode is essentially the Repair/Fast Scan (eg,
Validate) operation done without any actual writing to disk.
You can get a list of what needs to be fixed without actually
doing the repairs.
Backup
This is a full or incremental backup operation, using
the same enhanced filter functions, file browser, and output
generator provided for the Salvage mode.
Cleanup
This mode "cleans" a partition of all deleted data. This
makes a disk "DiskSalv-proof", for security, for release
disks, or just to eliminate some past history from a disk to
make future Undeletes or Salvages a bit easier to take.
Map-Bad
This mode does bad block mapping on a valid partition.
It tests every block, and will move any failed blocks out of
the way, whether allocated by the file system or not.
Finally, some enhanced functions are provided to deal with
partitions. As before, partitioning information can be entered by
hand or found by searching a disk. In addition to loads and saves
in ASCII format, Rigid Disk Blocks can now be read or written.
Device level bad-block mapping is supported on new disks, with bad
block lists generated manually (entered by hand) and/or via the same
disk test routines used for the Map-Bad major mode.