- You're getting ready to install that new software you just bought, or you're trying to download a large file from your favorite cyberspace place and you find there's not enough room on your hard drive...
- Or you're looking at your stack of CDROMs trying to remember which one had that file you've been looking for...
Well, DiskSurveyor doesn't promise to make your hard drive any bigger, but it does show you, GRAPHICALLY, what or who's hogging all that space. Click on a folder and zoom in for a closer look. Or zoom back out. And with the press of a key, you can create text files that list all the files found on CDROMs or any other volume. No longer will you have to waste valuable time navigating through folder after folder trying to figure out which files need to be archived or trashed to free up precious disk space.
DiskSurveyor requires System 7 or greater and at least 256 colors (or shades of gray) are recommended.
DiskSurveyor. An exciting new way to look at your hard drive and CDROMs.
Whether it was with my first 80 Meg hard drive or my present 2 Gig hard drive, I always seemed to be turning around and finding it to be 99% full. Or when it came time to backup the hard disk, I would try to remove all the 'extra' and 'unnecessary' stuff to make the backup set smaller (When I first had that 80 Meg drive, I used to back it up on a tall stack of floppies, so anything that didn't HAVE to be backed up made the chore go a LOT faster). And lastly, I was getting overwhelmed with the shear amount of information that I had on CDROM.
Now I just create a text file for each of my CDROMs, put them all in one folder on my hard drive and use a program, like my favorite text editor BBEdit, that has the capability to search through multiple files. No more CDROM shuffling.
A Quick Overview of How DiskSurveyor Works
The easiest way to use DiskSurveyor is to use the System 7 feature of dragging and dropping. Simply put the cursor over the volume or folder you'd like to examine, press the mouse button (don't let go), drag it on top of the DiskSurveyor icon and release the mouse button. You can also just launch DiskSurveyor by double-clicking the DiskSurveyor icon.
Once you've scanned the volume or folder, you will see all the folders and files found within (in the same proportions as the space allocated). The name of the volume/folder is in the panel on the left side of the screen. The column just to the right of it contains all the files/folders found 1 level down. In the next column to the right (if there is one) are all the files found 2 levels down. And so on.
To see what's in a folder, just click on it. To zoom back out, just click on the arrow button in the left vertical bar. As you move the cursor around, the name of the file/folder you are pointing to is displayed in the bottom status bar.
The memory requirements for DiskSurveyor are initially set to 800k bytes. This will allow you to scan volumes or folders containing slightly more than 6000 files. If your volume or folder exceeds that number, do a Get Info on the DiskSurveyor application (under the File menu in the Finder) and increase the Preferred Size accordingly.
Text File List Feature
To make a text file that lists all the files on a volume or folder, simply hold down either the Command () or the Option key (whichever one is chosen in the Preferences dialog) while you are dragging and dropping or when you Open and Select a volume/folder. The file will be created in the same folder (or on the Desktop if the volume/folder is there) as the item being scanned.
The resulting text file lists the files/folders found (one to a line) in the order they were scanned. Each line tells you the file/folder's Type and Creator, the Date Last Modified, the Size (if over a megabyte it will be a number followed by a 'k' which is the number of kilobytes; if over 100 megabytes it will be a number followed by an 'm' which is the number of megabytes) and the Name of the file/folder.
When viewing the text file, as in the following example, use a fixed-spaced font such as 9 point Monaco so that all the columns line up.
See the note in the following section about making text files that open up in your favorite text editor or word processor.
Preferences
The Preferences dialog allows you to configure DiskSurveyor in a number of ways.
You can select what color family you would like to view the folders in, what color family you would like to view the files in and what background (if any) you'd like to use. The only limitation is that folders and files can't be the same color families (that would be a little confusing).
If you prefer the Option key to the (default) Command key for the Text File List feature, this can be changed.
To allow the text files created by DiskSurveyor to open up in your favorite text editor or word processor, you can type the 4-character Creator code in the Preferences dialog and any text file created after that will be saved just as though you had saved it from your text editor/word processor (so double-clicking it will launch your text editor/word processor). If you need to find your text editor/word processor's Creator code, just scan the hard disk where it is located with the Text File List key pressed and open the resulting text file and search for your text editor/word processor's application file.
Some common Creator codes are:
R*ch BBEdit
ALFA Alpha
ttxt SimpleText (Beware: SimpleText will not open files larger than 32k bytes)
WPC2 Word Perfect
MSWD Microsoft Word
Why You Should Send In Your Shareware Registration Fee
Although this software certainly fulfills a need that I had, I have had to work many long hours making this software as easy to use and polished as I could. By sending in your shareware registration fee, you are supporting my efforts and telling me that it's worth my time and effort to create software like this. The more payments I receive, the more likely I am to make further enhancements to DiskSurveyor and to develop other software. And if you have any feature requests, I will be much more receptive if you are a REGISTERED user.
This software is being distributed in a fully-functional (uncrippled) form that allows everyone to take it for a 'test-drive'. The one thing it does do (for the UNREGISTERED user) is to pause a short time and reminds you to register before it commences scanning the disk or folder. When you send in your shareware registration fee, I will give you a registration code to disable this slightly annoying plea to register and you will never see it again.
Registered users will also be notified (if they provide an e-mail address) when new versions of DiskSurveyor or other TwiLight Software products are released.
How To Register
To become a registered user, send $5 (US) cash or check (no foreign checks) made payable to Tom Luhrs along with your name, address and e-mail address (for fastest response) to:
Tom Luhrs
TwiLight Software / DS110
53 Austin Road
Amherst NH 03031-2519
USA
For your convenience, you may also fill out and print the file named 'Registration Form'.
In return you will receive a registration code that, together with your name (make sure your name is written just the way you want it to appear on the opening splash screen), will personalize your copy of DiskSurveyor.
How To Contact TwiLight Software
Web Page URL: http://members.aol.com/TwiLightSW
E-Mail: TwiLightSW@aol.com
Distribution
DiskSurveyor must be distributed in the same form that it was released in with no documentation or software missing or altered. It may not be sold or offered for sale, or included with any other product offered for sale, except with the express written permission of Tom Luhrs and TwiLight Software. Failure to receive permission promptly should not be taken as consent. Companies that distribute shareware/freeware/public domain software for profit are expressly prohibited from distributing this software with the following exceptions: 1) commercial on-line services (such as America Online) and 2) if this software is being distributed on CDROM and a copy of said CDROM is mailed to the address above.
Limited warranty
DiskSurveyor has been tested on a number of different models of Macintosh computers, different versions of the operating system and with a variety of commonly distributed extensions and control panels. Every known bug has been removed. I will try to fix any bug that I can duplicate on my own machines, but I will not buy other people’s software for compatibility testing. Any damages incurred through the use of this software beyond the shareware registration fee will not be the responsibility of Tom Luhrs or TwiLight Software.
History
Version 1.0 - Sept 1, 1996
-Initial release.
Version 1.0.1 - Sept 12, 1996
-Fixed problem with Cut/Paste in Registration/Preferences dialogs.
-Fixed low memory problem.
Version 1.1 - Oct 16, 1996
-Name change. Apparently another company has the rights to the name 'DiskMapper' for their product which runs under Windows. (However, that product functions substantially different than this one, even if it does 'map' the 'disk'. So much for what I thought was the perfect name for this application. C'est la vie.)
-Fixed problem with preferences file when running the application from a volume that wasn't the Startup Disk.
