Getting Information

There are two ways to get information on extensions using Extension Overload: You can request a full report on all you extensions, or you can look up an individual extension in Extension Overload’s database.

Creating a report

To create a full report, click the “Create Report” button in Extension Overload’s main window.
A Save dialog appears in which you can give a name to the report file and choose a location where it is to be stored. When you click Save, Extension Overload scans your system folder for all extensions and control panels, both active and disabled. From this information, it creates a tabular text file at the location specified. This text file can be opened with any text editor, such as SimpleText, by dragging it on top of the program icon.

Note: In rare cases, an Extension Overload report may be too large to be opened by SimpleText. In these cases, you must use another text editor, such as the excellent shareware editor Tex-Edit Plus, which is available at <http://www.nearside.com/trans-tex/>.

Because the report file is tab-delimited text, it can also be imported into any database or spreadsheet application, such as FileMaker or Excel.

The contents of a report

Every Extension Overload starts with a header, where the version which created the report is noted, the user for which is was registered, and the time when the report was created.

The body of the report consists of four sections, one each for active control panels, disabled control panels, active extensions, and disabled extensions. (One or both of the two sections for disabled files may be empty, if there are no disabled files of the type in question.)

Each control panel and extension is listed in one line in the appropriate section. The individual information items in each line are divided by tab characters.

Each line contains, in this order, the name of the file, its version, its file size, its creator code, its type code, and whether information about the file is available in Extension Overload’s database.

Searching an individual extension in Extension Overload’s database

To get information on an individual extension, click the “Search Database” button in Extension Overload’s main window to open the Search Database window.

First, decide whether to search for the name of an extension or in the descriptions of extensions and choose the appropriate option from the pop-up menu. Searching for names is normally better, especially if you are trying to find out what an unknown extension does. However, if you have a task in mind and would like to find an extension that might perform it, searching for this task among extension descriptions can be very useful.

Next, enter the term for which you are looking into the Contains text field. Normally, when you are trying to find out what a particular extension does, you enter all or part of the name into the field.
When you have done so, click the Go! button. Extension Overload searches its database and displays all extensions that match your search criteria in the list in the middle of the window.

For each extension, the list displays the name, the version which is described in the database, and the vendor (if it is known). To view an extension’s description, click on its entry in the list. The description is displayed in the Information section of the window.

If this information is known, the vendor’s e-mail address and/or web page is displayed at the bottom of the window. To send an e-mail or visit the web site, simply click the appropriate button. Extension Overload then automatically launches your preferred e-mail client or web browser. (This feature requires Internet Config or Mac OS 8.5 or later.)

To close the Search Database window when you are done, click the Done button.