Welcome to PowerScan! It was written when a friend asked for a simple program that would scan his harddisk and report if there were several copies of the same file. I started out with the idea of hacking together a very simple application.
However, when I demoed an early beta version to another friend he said it looked a lot nicer than existing shareware disk scanners. That encouraged me to continue the development and this is the result.
PowerScan needs System 7, and runs comfortably in a 512K partition. Remember though that large scans consume memory so you may need to increase the allocation if you scan big disks.
I have tried to make the interface simple while still retaining as much power as possible. Most actions can be performed by clicking a button or dragging and dropping. If you need help on any menu, button or dialog item, turn on Balloon Help™ and place the mouse pointer over the item.
You can do this in several ways:
» Start PowerScan and click the “Scan disk/folder…” button in the main window. Then select a folder where scanning should start.
» Go to the Finder™ and drag a disk or folder to the PowerScan icon (which must be on the desktop or in an open window). PowerScan launches and scans the object(s) you’ve dropped. This works even if PowerScan is running.
» Insert a floppy disk (or SyQuest cartrige, CD-ROM or whatever…) when PowerScan is the active application and the disk will be scanned and ejected automatically. This autoscan feature can be turned off.
When clicking the “Find duplicate files” button in a directory window PowerScan quickly compares all files in a directory with each other and lists any duplicate files in a new window.
Click the “Save to text file…” button to save the list to a file which is readable by any application that opens standard text files (a word processor is preferrable as it can set tabs needed to view the columns).
It is often useful to combine two directories into one so you can find duplicate files in different folders or disks. Drag the file list to the destination window to append a copy to the end of the other window’s list.
Select “Scan Options…” from the Options menu to open this dialog box:
The radio buttons are used to scan different types of files. One option, “Scan with filter”, lets you select files that match a user-defined file filter (see below).
The “Auto disk scan” checkbox enables the automatic scan mode mentioned above. Note that autoscanning only takes place if PowerScan is the active (frontmost) application when you insert the disk.
• Shortcut: If you hold down the Option key while clicking “Scan disk/folder…”, while dropping a disk/folder on the icon in the Finder™, or when inserting a disk, PowerScan will take you to the Scan Options dialog before starting the scan operation. •
File filters are edited in a dialog which you open by selecting “Edit File Filters…” from the Options menu:
Filters provide a powerful way of scanning selected parts of a disk or folder. You can create filters such as “Graphics applications”, “Excel documents” or “Control panels”.
It is also possible to make a filter part of other filters. This means you can tell PowerScan that the filter “System files” includes the filter “INITs & cdevs” and the filter “Fonts”. Just drag filters from the Available filters list (left) into the Filter components list (right).
Each filter has a number of components and each component defines a combination of a file type and creator. PowerScan can test for equality (=) or difference (≠) when comparing these fields.
Note that scanning time increases when filters get more complicated.
Select “Find Options…” from the Options menu to open this dialog box:
Check those fields that have to be equal for two files to be considered identical.
Note that the “Date last changed” field listed in the directory windows doesn’t include seconds. This means that two files that seem to be equal may in fact have different modification dates.
• Shortcut: If you hold down the Option key when you click “Find duplicate files” PowerScan will open this dialog before processing the directory. •
» Balloon help is available for windows, menu items and dialog boxes. Use it!
» Keyboard control: You can scroll a directory window by using arrow keys, page-up, page-down, home or end keys. There are also two high-speed scrolling modes that are enabled by holding down Option or Shift+Option while clicking in the scrollbar (or using the arrow keys).
» Option-key shortcuts also work with keyboard equivalents. For example: you can type Command-Option-S to open the Scan Options dialog before scanning.
» PowerScan is 32-bit addressing and ’040 compatible and it should work with all possible screen setups. I have tested it on various Macs including LC, SE/30, IIsi, IIci, IIfx and Centris 650 (mine :-) ), all running System 7.0, 7.01 or 7.1.
Version 0.50-0.65 -- Developer versions that only my beta testers got.
Version 1.0 -- Released April 30, 1993.
Version 1.0.1 -- Released May 6, 1993. Fixed compatibility with 68000 machines and solved the “Out of memory” alert when launching PowerScan by dropping an icon on it.
…are something I might or might not release. Possible enhancements include printing, network scanning, more filter/search options, Compact Pro/Stuffit archive scanning… If you have any suggestions I’d be glad to hear them!
If you have any bug reports, comments or suggestions just mail me at any of the following addresses:
Internet: jonasw@lysator.liu.se
AppleLink: sw1369
Snailmail: Walldén Systems HB
Jonas Walldén
Rydsvagen 252 c:11
S-582 51 Linkoping, Sweden
Shareware is a system where you can try software before you buy. This does NOT mean you get it for free; if you use it you have to pay the shareware fee. For private users this shareware fee is a postcard (guess everyone can afford that!) and for companies it’s $10 per user.
You can give unmodified copies to your friends as long as you don’t charge for it. Please include this Readme file when copying.
Legal mumbo-jumbo: I make no warranties, either expressed or implied, with respect to this software. It is provided as is and no responsibility or liability is taken for any damage or loss of data caused by using this software.
