If you are familiar with the AppDisk, skip to the last section, "Changes" to see what's new.
SHAREWARE NOTICE
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AppDisk is shareware, if you use it, please send $15 to:
Mark Adams
11215 Research Blvd. #2036
Austin, TX 78759
Any comments/bugs can be sent to MarkA38 on America Online or Maverick.Sft on AppleLink.
INSTRUCTIONS
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AppDisk is a ramdisk. What is a ramdisk? Its a piece of software that lets you use some extra RAM memory as a really fast hard disk. The disk will appear on your desktop just like any other hard disk, and you can copy files to it just like normal. The only difference between a ramdisk and a normal disk is that when you turn the power off to your Mac, or restart, the contents of the ramdisk are lost. This is one reason AppDisk has several options to automatically save a copy of the ramdisk contents onto your hard disk.
The difference between AppDisk and most other ramdisk programs is that the AppDisk gets the memory for its disk from its application memory. Most ramdisks take memory away from your total system memory when you start up, so you can't get that memory back without restarting. To get the memory back with AppDisk, all you have to do is quit the AppDisk program or remove the ramdisk from your desktop by dragging it to the trash.
Using the Appdisk is simple. First, set the size of the ramdisk you want by selecting the AppDisk application and choosing "Get Info" from the File menu in the Finder. In the lower right corner of the Get Info window, there is an editable field labelled "Current Size:". Type the size of the ramdisk you would like into this field and close the Get Info window. Then double-click the AppDisk icon and the ramdisk will automatically be mounted, and should appear on your desktop. The name of the ramdisk that appears will be the same as the name of the AppDisk application(but you can change it just like a normal disk) .
To remove the ramdisk(and get all your memory back!), either Quit from the AppDisk application or drag the AppDisk disk icon on the desktop into the trash.
As long as you want to use the AppDisk, just leave the application running in the background. When you don't want the disk any more or need memory for other applications, quit the AppDisk.
If you change the size of the AppDisk, be sure to copy any files you want to keep onto your hard disk first. Re-sizing the appdisk causes the old contents to be thrown away and a new blank ramdisk to be created.
The best use of the AppDisk(or any ramdisk) is to put applications or documents you use often on the ramdisk. Then when you launch/open them, they will load immediately. If you have applications that load portions of themselves from disk while you are using them, they will speed up considerably on the ramdisk. Other uses include using the ramdisk as a temporary area to compress/uncompress files from archives with Stuffit or Compact Pro. This will speed the compress/uncompress process quite a bit if you are doing it to/from the ramdisk.
If you do have documents on the ramdisk, remember to backup them to your hard disk every once in a while, because if you crash or the power goes out, your ramdisk contents will revert to the last time the AppDisk saved itself.
Another good use for the AppDisk is for people using the new PowerBooks. Since the battery life of the PowerBook is extended considerably if the hard disk is asleep, putting applications in small AppDisk ramdisks will cause them to not read from the disk every time they need to put up a window or do an operation. You can generally keep the hard disk asleep while using your program, until you need to save a document to the hard disk. The new "launch on mount" feature makes this even easier, since you can make the AppDisk automatically run an application inside itself when you first start up the ramdisk. And it can also remove the ramdisk when you quit the application that was started up.
AppDisk Options
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The AppDisk defaults to NOT saving its contents, and will warn you when you quit the application that you are about to lose all the files in the ramdisk. If you would like to save the contents of your ramdisk, you can set up the saving options by choosing Setup… from the File menu.
After choosing Setup…, the Save Options dialog will appear. To turn on the "Save" option, check the "Save AppDisk Contents" checkbox. Once you have turned on the save option, you can save the disk contents in several ways:
1) "Auto-save on quit" - if this is checked, the AppDisk will save itself automatically whenever the application is quit, or the ramdisk is thrown away in the Finder. If this is not checked, then when you quit or throw away the ramdisk, AppDisk will ask you whether or not to save the contents before exiting.
2) "Auto-save every XX minutes" - If this is checked, the AppDisk will automatically save itself out every XX minutes. Simply type the number of minutes between saves in the edit text box. When this option is on, you can also turn the "Audio warning" on, which will play a sound when the save process starts and ends, so you know whats happening when your machine seems to freeze up for a few seconds while saving.
3) "Save" from the File menu - At any time, you may choose "Save" from the AppDisk File menu, and the current contents of the AppDisk will be saved.
NOTE- The AppDisk saves the ramdisk contents into the AppDisk application file, so you don't need to worry about other files cluttering your hard disk. After you save the contents of the ramdisk, the size of the AppDisk application will get larger, depending on how much was in the ramdisk. Only the part of the ramdisk that is used is saved, so if you have 500k in a 2000k ramdisk, the AppDisk application will get approximately 500k larger. If you turn off the save options, the AppDisk application will return to its original size (about 40k).
Other options in the AppDisk are:
"Ignore changes to disk contents" - this option is available if you have Save option turned on. If you turn this option on, the AppDisk won't save the ramdisk contents until it is un-checked. It will always use the last saved set of files to restore the ramdisk when you restart the AppDisk. This option is good to use if you only put files that don't change (like an application) in the ramdisk, since it won't have to save out the contents of the ramdisk every time you quit. With this option on, you can still choose "Save" from the File menu to force a save of the current ramdisk.
"Launch on mount" & "Un-mount on quit" - If you have the Save option turned on, you can then click this checkbox and select an application file inside the ramdisk to be run whenever you startup the AppDisk. This way, when you double-click the AppDisk icon, it will create the ramdisk and automatically run the program you selected on the ramdisk. If you have this option set, you can also tell the AppDisk to un-mount itself if it sees the application it launched on startup has quit.
KNOWN BUGS
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There is currently a conflict with File Sharing. If you have File Sharing turned on, you can not quit the AppDisk, because the System leaves AppleShare files open on the AppDisk (even if the disk isn't being shared!). This seems to be a bug in the System, and I haven't found a way around it other than to turn off File Sharing before attempting to quit.
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CHANGES
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Version 1.6.1
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A bug in the ramdisk driver that caused conflicts with several backup programs (Redux in particular) and some installer programs was fixed. The bug caused the ramdisk icon to be garbage and could cause programs to crash.
Version 1.6
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A new option has been added to the setup - "Warn of file loss on quit". Normally if you quit the AppDisk and don't have any save options on, you will get an alert warning you that you will lose your files if you quit. If you don't want this warning to come up, un-check this option and AppDisk will quit quietly.
A bug that made it impossible to save a ramdisk bigger than 16 megs was fixed. This version has been tested with the save options on up to 50 megs.
A conflict with newer versions of the Access PC extension has been fixed.
Version 1.5
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Two new options have been added to the Setup dialog(its getting a little crowded in there!). "Launch app. on mount…" allows you to select an application on the AppDisk that will be automatically launched whenever you start up the AppDisk. If you have this option checked, then you can also check "Unmount AppDisk when startup app. quits", which will make the AppDisk automatically remove itself from the desktop and quit whenever it sees the application that it launched at startup is no longer running.
The AppDisk no longer gets confused when saving if you move the AppDisk application or rename it.
A conflict with Apple's PC Exchange control panel that caused the ramdisk to not show up when you ran it has been fixed.
Scanning an AppDisk with Disk First Aid and other disk recovery programs no longer gives "Non-HFS disk" or "missing backup directory blocks" errors.
Switching back to the AppDisk application would sometimes leave the cursor a watch, but doesn't any more.
"Ignore changes" - now you can choose "Save" from the File menu in AppDisk to force the current ramdisk to be saved, even if "ignore changes" is on.
Version 1.4
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A new feature has been added to the "Setup" dialog. If you have something saved in the AppDisk and the "Ignore changes to contents" checkbox is on, no changes will be saved when the AppDisk quits or you restart/shutdown. This way if you have something you know doesn't need to be saved every time the AppDisk quits (like an application file, or a data file you don't change but simply use as a reference), the AppDisk won't even attempt to save changes to the ramdisk when you quit it. WARNING - if you have this item checked and put an important file on the AppDisk, it will NOT be saved. The next time you start up the AppDisk it will just have the original files in it. Turning off the checkbox returns the AppDisk to normal save operations.
Fixed a bug that caused the machine to crash if you ShutDown with the AppDisk running (only in System 7.0.1).
Fixed a bug with the System 7 Tuneup that would sometimes cause the AppDisk not to mount the ramdisk when it was launched.
Lowered the minimum memory size to 350k, so you can make smaller ram disks easily.
Version 1.3
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A new "Audio Warning" option has been added for the Timed Save option. If you turn this on, whenever the AppDisk does its timed save, it will play a sound before the save starts and when the save is finished. This lets you know whats happening when your machine seems to freeze up for a few seconds.
If you paste a new icon onto the AppDisk application in the Finder's Get Info window, whenever a new AppDisk is created, its disk icon will be the same as the new application icon.
A warning was added when you launch the AppDisk after changing its size, so that you don't automatically lose all of the old AppDisk contents.
The minimum suggested Multifinder size has been lowered to 768k, so you can set the size of the AppDisk lower than 1024k without getting the Finder's warning alert.
This version has been tested on a Quadra 700 & 900, and works fine. The size of the AppDisk has been tested up to 256 megs, although for more than 99,999k you have to set the size by editing the 'SIZE' resource in the AppDisk via ResEdit.
Version 1.2
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Finally solved the last save bug. Previous versions still could save the contents of the AppDisk incorrectly if you ran the AppDisk from inside the Startup Items folder and then restarted. This final fix should solve the problems.
Fixed a bug that caused AppDisk to not clean up some driver stuff after it quit. This didn't cause any crashes, but could eventually fill up the driver table if you ran AppDisk a billion times.
Added a cool new about box.
The ramdisk volume will now appear with a mondo cool color icon when it is first mounted on the desktop!
Version 1.1
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A new setup option has been added, "Switch to background after launch". If this is checked, the AppDisk will switch back to the Finder after it is set up(good for using AppDisk in the Startup Items folder).
A bug which caused the contents of the ramdisk to be saved inconsistently when restarting
the mac or quitting from the AppDisk has been fixed. The contents of the AppDisk should be saved under all circumstances now if an orderly Quit or Restart/Shutdown occurs(if the "Save on quit" option is checked").
Fixed a bug that caused crashes on 68000 machines.
AppDisk now uses much less processor time while in the background.
Fixed a bug that allowed you to quit the AppDisk while there were still files open on the ramdisk. This would leave the ramdisk open on the desktop with no ram or driver and generally cause very bad things to happen.
