Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac 1993 September/September 93.iso/Archives/Utilities/System/Finder/FinderView/• READ ME! About FinderView

Text File | 1992-07-14 | 8.9 KB | 211 lines | [TEXT/Rich]

        FinderView 1.0.1

      Created by Go Endo
            _______

    NOTE: FINDERVIEW WORKS
    ONLY WITH SYSTEM VERSIONS
         7.0 or higher
            _______

    "FinderView" installs command keys in Finder 7.0.x's “View“ menu. It allows
you to switch between various “views” — by Name, by Icon, by Date, etc. — just
by using simple command keys.

    FinderView is a Control Panel. To install it in your Macintosh, you just
drop it into the Control Panels folder in your System Folder, and restart your
Mac.


• 1. What does "FinderView" do for me?

    With FinderView, you no longer need to pull down the “View“ menu and click
on a selection to determine how items are displayed — by Icon, by Name, by
Date, etc.

    Type a quick command key, and your view of a window's contents changes
instantly - from, say, a view "by Icon" to a listing "by Name" or "by Date" -
or back to "by Icon."

    You can quickly change views, without the need to touch your mouse.

    And, if you wish, you can use FinderView to customize the command keys.

    NOTE: IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE COMMAND KEYS, WE EXPLAIN BRIEFLY WHAT
THEY ARE AND HOW TO USE THEM A BIT LATER IN THESE INSTRUCTIONS.

• 2. Why is FinderView necessary?

    In the "good old days" of System 6.0.x, all you needed to add some command
keys to the Finder’s menus was ResEdit.

    In System 7, on the other hand, some menus -- such as the "Views" menu --
are constructed at run time, and there’s no easy way to modify them. To
customize the Views menu, you need ..... FinderView!

• 3.  Opening FinderViews...

    Once you have placed FinderView in the Control Panels folder of your System
Folder and restarted your Mac, FinderView is ready to use. In fact, if you’ll
look in your “Views” menu, you’ll see that default command keys have already
been installed.

    If you’d like to change the “default” command keys installed by FinderView,
simply open FinderView and type in new command key choices. To open FinderView,
 pull down the Apple menu and click on the “Control Panels” entry; then, when
the Control Panels folder appears, double-click on FinderView.

    NOTE: FinderView REQUIRES System 7. If you try to run it under System 6, IT
WILL
CRASH. Also, FinderView creates a preferences file called "FV Pref" in the
Preferences folder inside the System Folder. Don’t ever move, rename or delete
this file while using "FinderView."

• 4.  Using the "Auto-number" option:

    If the Auto-number check-box is clicked "on," (as it is when FinderView is
first installed), FinderView automatically places command keys numbered 0
through 8 in the “View” menu. The numbers start with 0 for the topmost choice
(“by Small Icon“) in the menu and continue with 1 (for “by Icon”), 2, 3, etc.,
until all choices appearing in the View menu are numbered.

• 5.  Choosing your own preferred Command keys:

    To turn off the Auto-number option, click your mouse in the check-box. The
“x” will disappear, and a row of boxes appears in the FinderView Control Panel.
Each one corresponds to a possible choice in the View menu. You can enter the
command keys which you’d prefer for each View menu item.

    NOTE: Only the command keys corresponding to items enabled by Views Control
Panel will appear on the View menu.

• 6. What is a Command Key?

    Just in case you’ve never used one, a “command key“ is a simple key
combination (you usually just press two keys at the same time!). You can use a
command key to replace pulling down a menu (or several menus) and making a
choice with your mouse. Usually, it’s MUCH faster and simpler to just press a
couple of keys than it is to move your mouse or trackball all around to get it
to the right menu item, then click on it.  For example, to enter “Command-P,“
you simply press the Command key (the key with the propellor design on it, near
your space bar) and the “P“-key at the same time. That’s easy, fast, and yet
VERY powerful — in most Macintosh programs, command-P is the shortcut to tell
your Mac to Print whatever document is open!

    Many of the items in your Macintosh menus already have command keys set up
to replace a mouse click.  If you look in the “File” menu at the top of this
screen, you’ll see — to the right of each choice — its command-key equivalent.
Command-S does the same thing as pulling down the File menu and clicking on
”Save.” Command-O issues the same “Open” command as pulling the menu down and
clicking on Open. Command-N creates a “New“ document, and so on. The same is
true for the “Edit” menu and most other menus in most Mac programs. Start
looking for them! — using them can save a LOT of time for you.

    To avoid conflicting with the existing Finder command-keys, which use
letters of the alphabet, FinderView uses numbers for its command keys. To enter
Command-2, just press the Command key and the “2” key at the same time.

--• AN IMPORTANT REMINDER •--

    If you decide to choose your own “View” menu command-keys, FinderKeys will
offer a complete list which includes every possible type of view supprted by
the Finder. However, some of these views probably won’t be displayed in your
“View” menu, even if you assign them command keys.. Here’s why, and what to do
about it (if you decide to):

Only the specific types of views which you’ve chosen in the “Views“ control
panel (it’s also in the Control Panels folder in your System Folder, along with
FinderView) actually appear in your Macintosh windows and in the “View” menu.
For example, unless you’ve turned on “Version” and “Type” in the Views control
panel, that kind of information won’t ever appear in your  normal Mac windows.
However, two types of views — “By Icon” and “by Small Icon” — are ALWAYS
included in the Views menu, so they’re not listed in the “Views” control panel.
You can’t eliminate “by Icon” and “by Small Icon” from the View menu choices,
even if you want to.

An example —
Let’s say that you choose (in the Views control panel) to NOT have your Mac
windows display “version numbers“ beside each file name.  (Incidentally,
there’s a good reason for not wanting it displayed — showing version numbers
can slow-w-w-w your Mac ‘way down!) When you pull down the “Views” menu, you
won’t see a “by Version” choice. And when you look at a text-based (non-icon)
window, it won’t have a column which shows the version numbers of all the files
listed. That’s true even if you’ve used FinderViews to assign a command-key to
“by Version.” Unless it’s also chosen in the Views control panel, “by Version”
won’t appear in the “View” menu, and the command-key which you’ve assigned
won’t work.

• A HELPFUL HINT for keeping your Mac speedy •

The more types of information you have displayed in your normal text-based Mac
windows, the slower the windows will be to open. Some types of information,
such as “version“ and “comments,” can cause a really dramatic slow-down. For
that reason, the Mac is normally set so that this information is NOT displayed
— and it won’t be, unless you turn it on in the Views control panel. You
shouldn’t set the “Views” control panel to show either of those types of
information in your normal windows, unless you really need to have it visible
ALL of the time. After all, you can see a file’s version and comments any time
by selecting the file and calling up the “Get Info” box from the File menu or
by typing Command-I (that’s the letter “I,” as in “info”), which is the
command-key equivalent of choosing “Get Info.”.

(And while you’re at it, you might want to go to your General Controls control
panel and shut off “Menu Blinking,” too. Having it turned on can also slow down
your Mac quite a bit.)

• 7.  Shareware info

If you like this software, send $10 US to

            Curt Crippen
            10359 Wildwood Rd.
            Bloomington, MN 55437

If you have Japanese Yen handy, you can send ¥1500 to

            Go Endo
            8-14-5 Nishimaiko Tarumi
            Kobe, 655 Japan

Author of this program can be reached by internet address

            [e-mail]

• 8.  Commercial Distributers

    I don't prohibit commercial distribution of this software as long as the
following conditions are met.

        1.  This "About FinderView" file is enclosed.
        2.  In your distribution package, it is CLEARLY stated that the
receiver is NOT waived from paying the shareware registration fee.
        3. You send a registration fee for at least 5 copies. After all, you
DID like this software.

• 9.    Version History:

1.0.1     July 14, 1992 - Fixes a bug which prevented the choice for “by Label”
from appearing when auto-number is off. It also corrects a misspelling in the
Views menu when FinderView was installed. Both problems stemmed from the same
typo error.
    The “About FinderView” documentation is rewritten and expanded to make it
somewhat easier to read and understand.
    Some additional info. for the user is now displayed in the FinderView
window.

1.0          June 26, 1992 - The original release! It worked fine, except for
the above.


        FinderView 1.0.1
      was witten by
                Go Endo

    Brought to you by
            DevilCat
      Cybernetics Co.

Supplemental programming and documentation
assistance by Steve Jolly, Atlanta, GA.