Disklosure is a floppy formatter. It supports initialization, erasure, verification and desktop file manipulation of any Macintosh 800K and 1.4Mb floppy disks. Disklosure speeds up lenghty tasks such as initializing more than a couple disks from the standard Finderｪ interface, and provides an all-in-one window for customization. Advanced settings to increase the available free space after initialization are also available.
Power Macintosh compatibility
Disklosure runs native on Power Macintosh, since it has been compiled to work on both 68K and PowerPC machines. Although the floppy drive now used in Power Macintoshes happens to use DMA (a tecnology which frees the CPU for other tasks during I/O processes), Disklosure is unable to format disks in the background. Until Apple releases Copland there are no documented ways to do so.
Freeware notice
Having waited in vain for a single registration, I decided to make Disklosure a free software. Spontaneous donations will be gladly accepted. Registering your copy of Disklosure (with or without a donation) will provide you with free updates and other software I've written for the Macintosh. Remember I'm a young student and I'd like to know how far my software has arrived. Is asking for a postcard too much in your opinion?
I do accept e-mail registrations. You can find my mailbox address at the end of this documentation.
Copyright notice
Disklosure is ｩ Copyright reserved 1994-95 by Gabriele de Simone. Free distribution through shareware collections and BBSes is granted as long as no money are requested expressely for this software. If you include Dislosure in a magazine or shareware collection, please mail me a copy of it if possible.
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Main dialog:
･ The ﾔﾉeject diskﾕ and ﾔﾉmount diskﾕ radio buttons determine whether the disk will be mounted on the desktop or ejected when the operation completes.
･ The ﾔUse existing name (if any)ﾕ or ﾔName it:ﾕ radio buttons determine whether the disk will retain its older name (if it was already initialized for the Macintosh) or will be given a new one (typed in the text field just below the button).
･ The ﾔAdd counter to disk nameﾕ check box determines whether a disk number is going to be added to the disk name. This option is available only if the ﾔName it:ﾕ radio button is selected.
･ The ﾔConfirm initialization (Slower)ﾕ check box determines whether the user will be asked for a confirmation when starting any disk-related operation.
･ The ﾔAutomatically operate on disk insertionﾕ check box determines whether the selected operation will begin automatically when the disk is inserted (as if the ﾔGoﾕ button was pressed).
･ Initialization options:
- Safe initialization: this operation includes initialization, verification, disk zeroing with bad block sparing of the disk.
- Normal initialization: this operation includes initialization and disk zeroing with bad block sparing of the disk.
- Erase disk space: this operation provides a fast disk-erasure with bad block sparing but it is only available on previously formatted disks.
- Make ﾔDesktopﾕ file visible: this operation allows you to trash the Desktop file of any disk by making it visible in the Finderｪ. Once trashed, you must eject and later insert the disk to let the Finder rebuild a new one. This operation is useful when the Desktop file still occupies more than the usual 1K of disk space even if all files have been deleted and the standard Desktop Rebuild provided by the Finderｪ doesnﾕt have any effect. This option is only available on previously formatted disks.
- Custom: if you are an experienced user, you can manually select the operation to perform by selecting or deselecting the check boxes just below the button.
･ The ﾔEjectﾕ button simply ejects any floppy disk currently inserted in the Macintosh disk drive.
･ The ﾔGoﾕ buttons starts the selected operation (only available if a disk has been inserted).
Preferences dialog:
･ The ﾔShow about dialog when launchedﾕ check box determines whether the Information dialog will be automatically displayed when the application is being loaded.
･ The ﾔPlay sounds for buttons in the main dialogﾕ check box determines whether Disklosure will play a click sound when any of the buttons in its main dialog are pressed.
･ The ﾔBeep when the operation completesﾕ check box determines whether Disklosure will play a system beep sound when the selected operation is complete.
･ The ﾔForce 800K disks to be formatted as 400Kﾕ check box determines whether Disklosure will initialize standard double-sided low density disks using the old MFS file system. MFS disks have 400K of available space instead of the standard 800K. This option has been added to provide backward compatibility with older Macs.
･ The ﾔIncrease free space on formatted disksﾕ check box determines whether Disklosure will reduce the normal catalog size used for newly formatted Macintosh disks, thus increasing the free space available to the user. This option is not recommended if you need to save many files on your disks, but is seriously recommended if you plan to use them with backup programs.
･ The ﾔCounter separator for disk names:ﾕ text field contains the default character/s to be inserted between the disk name and the disk counter when the ﾔAdd disk counter to nameﾕ check box in the main dialog is selected.
About dialog:
･ The ﾔOKﾕ button closes the information dialog. The same action is performed if the user presses the return, enter or escape keys.
･ The ﾔMoreﾕ button starts the scrolling of the about text. It will automatically change its name after the action it performs on the text. Pressing the tab key is an alternative to clicking on the button.
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How to contact the author:
Suggestions, registration cards and bug-reports can be mailed to:
Gabriele de Simone
via Trento, 3
56100 Pisa
Italy
Internet mailbox:
desimon@cli.di.unipi.it
Check out my Homepage on the www:
http://www.cli.di.unipi.it/~desimon/intro.html
Many thanks toﾉ
Metrowerks, for giving a PowerPC option to the numerous Pascal-written programs. My friends and occasional beta testers Mario Ghezzi and Francesco Fumelli, from the PAN Network.
