File Buddy 1.0 was a general file utility, written to make life with all those files a little easier thanks to some of the features offered by System 7, and it grew in small increments until it arrived at version 1.8. File Buddy 2.0 breaks with that tradition by offering a major upgrade in the move from 1.8 to 2.0. Everything it did before it still does, though generally better, and version 2.0 contains a lot of functionality not found in prior versions.
•• Important Note: Users are notorious for not reading these boring Read Me files. Unfortunately, that means they are often unaware of features and other useful information. To accommodate those users that can't stand to read all of the stuff contained herein, information new to the current version, as well as a few other items that I especially want users to read are marked with double bullets like those that start this paragraph.
•• Starting with version 2.2, the section previously called Version History is now called New In This Version because I ran out of space in this file. Version history information has been moved to a separate file.
File Buddy continues its tradition of making significant use of the drag&drop capability of System 7, offering three more options for dropped files, while at the same time providing better access to those who prefer to not use drop keys. Drop keys are user-configurable.
Note that all references to keys you hold down to access drag&drop features assume the default drop key settings. You can change the drop key settings as you see fit using the Drop Keys… command in the Edit menu.
File Buddy 2.0 provides four main areas of functionality: Get Info, file finding, file manipulation (moving, copying, and deleting), and disk cleaning. All are discussed below.
Balloon Help is available for almost everything. If the Balloon Help symbol appears in a dialog box, clicking it toggles Balloon Help on and off. There’s lots of information in the Balloon Help. A lot of people view Balloon Help the same way people used to view the Macintosh–not for the serious user. I’m not one of them, so I put lots of info in the Balloon Help that isn’t available anywhere else. As there is no printed manual for File Buddy, I suggest accessing the Balloon Help. I would strongly suggest touring (moving the cursor around slowly over everything in sight) any windows that have the little balloon picture in them, with the Balloon Help turned on. I decided to provide information this way because it takes fewer words to describe something you’re looking at than to describe something with words alone in a Read Me document. This is especially true given that users often don’t read very much of these kinds of documents if they get very long.
File Buddy can exhibit several different behaviors when one or more items are dropped on it in the Finder. Dropping an alias has the same effect as dropping the item it aliases. Four of these can be assigned as the default behavior (the one that takes place when items are dropped with no keys down) using the Preferences command in the Edit menu. Recommend you try all of the options and see what happens. These four are:
Get Info
File Buddy provides an extensive Get Info dialog. It presents the user with information about files, folders, and disks. Rather than go into a long explanation of the info it gives you, I'll just let you drop a few items on it and see for yourself. If you drop more than one, you can apply any changes you've made (and only the information changed) for all the files you dropped with the Change All… button, and you can navigate between items using the Items menu if you drop less than 30 items. To cancel more than one unprocessed dropped files, hold down the Option key to change the name of the Cancel button to Cancel All.
•• New to version 2.2 is the ability to change the version strings of documents. To change either of the version strings (one is right below the file's name, and the other is labeled Version), double click in the area where it appears. I realize this is not obvious, but the Get Info dialog is crowded enough already, and this interface was easier to implement than something more obvious would have been.
If you find yourself making the same changes over and over, use the Create Drag&Drop… command in the Info Extras menu--after setting the changes--to create a small application which will automatically perform those changes whenever anything is dropped on it. With the exception of the version strings, any change will be recorded and duplicated by the drag&drop, even adding a custom icon. To fool File Buddy into thinking a setting has been changed when it hasn’t been, Option-click the setting. See more information later in this document.
File Buddy’s Get Info dialog creates custom icons the same way as the finder. Well, actually, I think it does a better job than the finder, both in copying icons from one file to another, as well as creating them from pictures pasted in (it dithers, and creates a better mask). Try a few and see. Icons are copied and pasted the same way as in the finder's Get Info. You can add a blank icon by choosing the Paste Blank Icon command from the popup menu you'll see if you click the icon and hold down the mouse button. The Same As… command on the same menu lets you copy the icon from an existing item you select onto the item in the Get Info.
Show Choices
The Show Choices dialog has ten buttons that allow you to choose an action to be performed with the items you just dropped on File Buddy.
View In List
File Buddy has an items list window. It contains a list and several buttons for performing actions on items in the list. Items can be added to the list by dropping them on File Buddy. Any items found by the Find… command or the Find Empties… command are displayed in the items list window.
Make Alias
Items can be sent to File Buddy’s alias creation dialog. Destination folders for aliases can be added to the alias dialog’s popup menu to speed future alias creations. Try it and check the Balloon Help.
In addition to these four behaviors, the following options are available from the Show Choices dialog or by holding the drop keys you set while dropping items on File Buddy. Use the Drop Keys command in the Edit menu to view and configure the drop keys.
Get Finder’s Info
Same as doing a Get Info in the Finder for the dropped item, or the original if the item is an alias.
Get Application’s Info
The same as doing a Get Info in the Finder for the application that created the dropped file. Especially useful when you want to change the application's memory allocation or get version info, but neither the application nor an alias to it is handy.
Group Info
Dropping a group of items (files, folders, and disks) with the Shift key down gives you size information for the entire group, consisting of the total number of files, folders, their total size, and the space they take up on disk. If there is only one item, you'll get creation and last modified dates instead of the counts.
Move/Copy…
Displays a variation on the put file directory dialog box that lets you move or copy the dropped items to another directory. Items can only be moved to other folders on the disk on which they reside.
Move to Desktop
Moves items to the desktop.
Find Original
Drop aliases with this option to find the items to which they point.
Find Similar
Sometimes you want to find items that have something in common with another item. Using the Find Similar option on a dropped item loads every aspect of that item into the Find window. You can then select the pertinant characteristics and do the search.
Remember, all of these drag&drop features operate on the original item if the file dropped is an alias. That's beyond the programmer's control, but just what you want for most of the features.
Creating Custom Icons
The finder is real stubborn about acknowledging that anyone else has created one of these things. If you create a custom icon for a file or folder that didn't have one previously, you can get the finder to use it by just closing and reopening the folder it resides in, or by clearing the Inited flag before saving your changes. File Buddy clears this automatically when you paste an icon for a file that didn't have one before so it will show up. However, if the file already has a custom icon, and you replace it using File Buddy, the finder will doggedly use the old icon until you restart the finder or your Mac. File Buddy therefore offers you the option of restarting the finder if you delete or change a custom icon. It won't offer you the restart option if you have file sharing on, as that can cause problems.
Select All Button in the Get Info… file directory box
A note about the Select All button in the Get Info… file directory box. Clicking it has the same effect as dropping everything in the current folder--the one whose contents are displayed in the list--on File Buddy, except that any aliases in the folder are used instead of their targets. Invisible items are ignored.
The Desktop folder is handled a little differently. Every volume (disk) has its own Desktop folder. The finder displays the contents of the Desktop folders of all available disks as if everything were in one folder. This is true both in the finder and in file directory boxes. However, if you click Select All in the Get Info… file directory box, what will end up being selected will be everything in the Desktop folder of the disk containing the item which was hilited at the time the button was clicked.
Disk Creation Dates
Note that a number of things (like the Finder) use the creation date of a volume (disk) to uniquely identify it, so I'd avoid changing disk creation dates if I were you.
Custom Drag & Drops
The drag&drops created by the Get Info’s Create Drag&Drop command can make any change File Buddy can--even adding a custom icon. Starting with version 2.1, they will even change the name. If you forget what changes the little guy makes, just double-click on him and he'll tell you. The drag&drops File Buddy creates require that you have File Buddy on your computer, and will prompt you to register (if you haven't already), just like File Buddy will. They have their own icon as well, so you can tell them from File Buddy. It should show up automatically, but if the first one you create looks generic or it won't accept files, then a desktop rebuild should fix you up. These drag&drops are not editable.
File List Window
The file list window has an absolute limitation of 16,000 items. However, performance will slow down long before that, and there may be other considerations that impose a lower limit. I have successfully found and displayed over 3200 items with the default memory size of 700K. I don't really know what the practical limitation is on the number of items, so if you are conducting a search that will yield 10,000 items, save your work and hold on to your seat.
•• Starting with version 2.1, holding down the Option key while doing anything that initiates an action to items in the list will signal File Buddy to quit after taking the action. For example, if you hold down the option key while clicking the Show button, File Buddy will quit after sending a show message to the Finder.
AutoDoubler
Several users have commented that they can't change info for files compressed with AutoDoubler. This was a bug in AutoDoubler and has been fixed.
•• Alias Director Users: File Buddy contains most but not all of Alias Director's functionality. None of the automatic drag&drop alias creation features are available, as the drop keys in File Buddy are devoted to other features. And it can't update multiple aliases to the same target. In addition, the next version of Alias Director will have even more functionality of its own.
File Buddy now has the ability to search disks for files and folders matching criteria you specify in the File Buddy Find window. File Buddy provides as much flexibility as I could implement. Try it out and read the Balloon Help.
In addition to the usual Find behavior you expect, File Buddy provides some additional options.
You can create Find Settings files. Double-clicking one of these opens the File Buddy Find window and loads the saved settings into it. This can serve two main purposes. One is to save the settings for a particular kind of file search that you do repeatedly. The other is to make the Find function available without having to start File Buddy and then in a separate action, select Find… from the Find menu. Given File Buddy's normal behavior with dropped files, this requires that File Buddy special case its Find Settings files. If File Buddy is opening exactly one file and it's a Find Settings, it loads the settings. If a Find Settings is one of two or more files dropped, File Buddy treats it as it would any other file.
You can search for files that match some aspect of an existing file using the Find Similar… command in the Find menu, or the Find Similar option for dropped files.
Finding speed can vary widely based on the criteria used. Certain criteria are fast, such as 'name contains', dates, label, file type and creator. Others are slow, such as file size, ignoring items in certain folders, and restricting the search to certain folders.
For example, on my IIsi with 40MHz accelerator:
A 1 sec search for items with names that contain 'tt' finds 72 items.
A 4.5 sec search for itmes with names that contain 't' finds 2039 items.
A 13 sec search for files over 100K finds 264 items.
A 41 sec search for files over 100K and not in the Preferences folder finds 258 items.
•• You asked for it, and thanks to Brian Fitzgerald for the inspiration I needed to give it to you. Version 2.2 brings scanning a file for a string of up to 63 characters during a Find. Scans can be case sensitive if you wish. To speed searches that look in files, certain kinds of documents are not scanned. As of version 2.2, the following are not scanned: Applications, control panels, extensions, fonts, etc.; HyperCard stacks; TIFF, PICT, and Photoshop graphics files; AIFF sound files; QuickTime movies; THINK Reference database files; StuffIt archives. If you have suggestions for others, let me know. The scanning for strings probably doesn't work for users of 2-byte scripts like Kanji. Maybe later, if I can figure it out.
Files compressed by SpaceSaver and AutoDoubler now show up in a Find that uses file type and/or creator. You can speed things up further by specifying addition criteria as well, such as file type or dates.
When doing a Find which uses file sizes, versions of File Buddy prior to 2.0.7 included folders at random. Now, when you set a file size criteria, the item below it is set to exclude folders. You can change it, but if folders are included, their sizes are used in the search. Note that this will slow things down quite a bit.
Some of our everyday, normal actions contribute to an increase in the useless clutter that seems to plague hard drives. File Buddy has the ability to help you reduce some of that useless clutter.
Find Unattached Aliases…
Anyone who makes even moderate use of aliases knows that an alias can be unable to find the original file it came from, and hence be useless. Find Unattached Aliases… will scan your disk(s) for just such unattached aliases and display them in a list, from which you can select them and trash them or connect them to another item.
Delete Empty Icon Files…
System 7's custom icon feature is really great. You do a Get Info in the finder, select the icon, paste in the new one, and away you go. I love it and use it all the time. In fact, I've improved on it in File Buddy. And then if you decide you don't want the custom alias anymore, just clear it from the same Get Info, and you're back where you started, right? Well, sort of. When you place a custom icon on a folder or disk in System 7, an invisible file is created to store the icons. When you clear them in the finder's Get Info, the icons are removed from the file, and the custom icon flag is cleared so the finder knows not to try using a custom icon, but the file is still there. It's just empty and invisible. Since I'm not a big fan of unused, empty, invisible files that most users aren't even aware of, File Buddy addresses this in three ways. First, if you clear the custom icon or custom icon checkbox when setting the info for a folder or disk, File Buddy will also delete the file for you instead of just removing the icons. Second, if you do File Buddy's Get Info on a folder, it will tell you if it has an empty icon file and offer to delete it for you. Go ahead and delete it. The alert only comes up so you'll know File Buddy's doing something for you. And third, the Delete Empty Icon Files… command in the Cleaning menu will scan the drive of your choice for empty icon files and delete them, reporting a count of how many it found.
Find Empties
Lets you select disks to search for empty folders and files. Expect to find several in the Preferences or Extensions folders. If you still have the applications they belong to, just leave them. File Buddy for users of TrashBack™. Thanks to Central Point Software for sending me a copy of TrashBack™ for testing.
Scan Preferences Folder
Many programs and control panels create a preferences file in your Preferences folder the first time you use them (that's what it's there for, right?). Some—such as QuicKeys—put files in folders inside the Preferences folder. Consequently, lots of us have preferences files for programs we no longer use, since we usually forget to throw away the preferences file when we throw away the app that created it. When you choose Scan Preferences Folder command in the Cleaning menu, File Buddy will examine all the files in your Preferences folder and the folders inside the Preferences folder, alerting you to those that don't appear to be used by anything on your computer. For each file you have the option to leave it alone this time, skip it this time and in the future, trash it, or stop the scan. The fact that File Buddy can't find anything that uses a particular file doesn't mean that nothing uses it, so look at the name and make a judgement call.
Rebuild Desktop File •• Some changes new to version 2.1.
The desktop file (known more correctly as the Desktop Database file) stores the file icons used by the finder, as well as information needed to locate the appropriate application when a file is clicked on. Therefore, if you have a problem with the "Application not found" alert sometimes when you double-click on a file (when you know the application is on your drive), you may just need to rebuild your desktop file. Also, a disk's desktop file will contain all the icons used by any application you have put on the disk since the last time the desktop file was rebuilt, even if the application is no longer there. Those icons waste space, and rebuilding the desktop reclaims that space. Be aware that comments in the Finder's Get Info window will be lost in this process, but then, that's why I never use comments in the Finder's Get Info window. In addition, aliases on the rebuilt disk that point to applications on other disks will no longer support drag&drop, and may have generic icons. Stay tuned. A future version of File Buddy may fix them.
Rebuilding the desktop while an application is running can cause the finder to lose that application's icons, so I recommend quitting everything else besides File Buddy before rebuilding the desktop. Because rebuilding the desktop requires quitting the Finder, File Sharing should be turned off prior to telling the Finder to quit. File Buddy will quit itself immediately before the rebuilding process.
••File Buddy lets you select the disks whose desktops should be rebuilt, and it automatically gets the Finder to rebuild the desktop. Only disks with true Desktop Database files will have their desktops rebuilt. This means you'll have to use the old method to rebuild floppy desktops. You'll have to hold down the Command+Option keys when you insert the disk until the Finder asks if you want to rebuild it.
Finding Duplicate Files
This is on the agenda for a future version. It was planned for 2.0, but for a couple of reasons didn't make it in. Sorry, but stay tuned.
•• Version 2.2 2 May 1994
File finding now offers the much-clamored-for option to search for text inside files. Searches can be case-sensitive. Some file types are not searched. Read the Read Me for more details. I have no idea how well it works for users of 2-bytes scripts such as Kanji, probably not at all. Hopefully that will change in the future.
Version strings can now be modified for documents. This lets you use them like comments, except that they survive desktop rebuilds. It was a design decision to prevent modifying them for applications, controls panels, and such. This was to keep users from changing information that could be needed by developers and tech support people. The interface on this is not obvious, so read about it above or use Balloon Help.
Disclaimer:
I have endeavored to make File Buddy as reliable and stable as possible. Nevertheless, it has bugs. I don't know of any, but just about every piece of software with more than 20 lines of code has bugs, ask any developer. I use File Buddy all the time. It works flawlessly for me and I trust it. If I become aware of any problems, I fix them. However, you--as do I--use it at your own risk.
All applications suffer limitations at the hands of the Finder when you drop files on them, and File Buddy is no different. If you drop certain items on any application, the Finder will intercede in the following ways.
If the file is an alias, the Finder will resolve the alias and the application sees only the item it pointed to, not the alias itself. Use the Get Info command in the File menu to work with aliases.
You can't drop the Trash onto an application, because the finder will tell you can't move it off the desktop.
So if you run into these, I'm sorry, but there is nothing I can do.
File Buddy can't read or write the Finder comment when a file is on a floppy for reasons beyond my control. Comments for files on a remote volume appear as junk, but I don't know why. Stay tuned.
•• If File Buddy won't hilite when you try to drop things on it, try rebuilding the desktop file. The Finder does the hiliting, not File Buddy.
Some people use Escapade. I turn it off in File Buddy (you can set Escapade to not do anything when File Buddy is running), as the version I have intercepts a couple of standard calls, and the end result is that some minor things don't work right (like outlines for default buttons). If you don't have a problem don't worry about it. If you do, try turning it off.
•• Non-English users: Compatibility with non-English systems has been improved in 2.0. If you are using File Buddy (or have tried using File Buddy) in a language other than English and are having a problem, please let me know. German and Japanese versions are in the works.
Please contact me if you find any bugs, unexpected behavior, or have a suggestion for a new feature except for the following:
File Buddy's Get Info is modal. This is a design decision. At some point this may change, but for now it seems the best thing to do.
Please don't tell me something like "File Buddy's okay, but what I really want is something different that can program my VCR for me. I'd gladly pay a shareware fee for that." I am available for hire for custom software development, but I charge more than $25 for a custom application.
Those limitations aside, I do welcome ideas.
Well, that's all for now folks. File Buddy works without a hitch for me, and version 2.0 has been tested more than previous versions, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that it may have a fit on a differently configured system. PLEASE let me know if you find any bugs, so I can fix them asap. A few people have already helped me track down bugs that never showed up for me, and I appreciate that.
Hope you like it.
I want to thank the people who registered a prior version of File Buddy for their financial and moral support. Without their appreciation, File Buddy 2.0 would never have been done.
Thanks to those users--too numerous to list--who reported bugs so I could fix them and you could have a better product.
Thanks to everyone on CompuServe that helped me with technical questions, especially Bill Monk. Thanks to everyone who tested some version of File Buddy to see if I had been successful in fixing a bug I couldn't reproduce.
Special thanks to my boss, Lee Buck, of Software Designs Unlimited Inc. for his patience on those days after I worked on File Buddy ‘til the wee hours of the morning, for allowing me to do some testing at work, and a few bits of code. Thanks to Rob Terrell, Dave “Uncle Dave” Moffat, and the rest of my associates for ideas and testing.
File Buddy is shareware. Shareware is try-before-you-buy-software. (It is not use-it-as-long-as-you-like-for-free software. That kind of software is called freeware.) If you like it and use it, please register as follows:
If you haven’t registered a previous version of File Buddy or Alias Director, you can register for $25. Registered users of any version of File Buddy prior to 2.0 can upgrade for $10. Registered users of any version of Alias Director can register for $20. (Alias Director and File Buddy users should include their registration codes.) As little as $10, $20 or $25 seems, it really makes a difference--at least in my case--when people send it in. It takes a lot of time to design, write, and debug software. It then takes even more time and a little money to send out registration codes and provide technical support. And then there are taxes, but this has been so much fun, let's not get depressing.
CompuServe users:
File Buddy 2.0 can be registered via CompuServe's SWREG using registration ID 1851 ($30). Registered users of any version prior to 2.0 can use ID 1914 ($12).
Why $5 more?
1) CIS takes 15% for this service.
2) I really like checking the mail every day for registrations. (I don't get them every day, but I like checking.)
3) There is a delay of up to 60 days for me to get money from SWREG registrations.
4) I enjoy seeing the variety of checks, letterheads, logos, little notes, postcards, even pictures of users, etc. They satisfy a part of me that's a people person. I like to see your handwriting, (or that you print your checks), what kind of stamps you use, reading your comments about my work, etc. Getting a check once a month from CompuServe won't do that.
So why do I set up with SWREG? Because it's very expensive for people outside the US send US funds, and I don't want them to have to do that. I don't mind asking a user to send me a check in the mail, but I do feel bad if he has to pay $25 extra just to get a money order for $25 in US funds. People inside the US can use SWREG if they want to. Finally, the discount for Alias Director users is not available if you register via SWREG.
Site licenses at reasonable rates are available. Just let me know how many copies you wish to register and I'll give you a price.
•• Foreign Users: If you are outside the US, please send the fee in US funds. At best, my bank has to submit foreign currency and checks to a federal reserve bank to collect payment, which entails a delay. At worst is the case of the $25 check from someone in Italy whose bank wanted $35 to process it. I still have it. US cash is OK by me, and brand new specimens of your currency are an option if I agree ahead of time.
I do not take credit cards. I'm just a guy writing software and getting a few checks. I looked into this and it would be a big hassle for me at the present time to set myself up to accept credit cards.
Please do not send registered mail. The only practical difference seems to be that I usually have to make a special trip to the post office to get it.
When you register, PLEASE let me know where you got it, more important, WHAT VERSION you are registering, (••) and MOST important, that you are registering File Buddy 2.1, as I have more than one piece of software out there, and they use different registration codes. If you send me a check and all you say is "for shareware", I'll take your name down, cash your check, and when you write me and say "Why didn't you send my File Buddy registration code?", I'll send it.
•• If you have an Email address, PLEASE include it. I'll Email your registration code to you, and it will get there much faster. Written replies are done on a batch basis, so it may take a few weeks to get a response if I don't have an Email address for you. I can mail to CompuServe, AOL, Internet, AppleLink, Genie, and NiftyServe addresses.
File Buddy may not be included in any collection of shareware or public domain software without my express knowledge and permission. This is principally to insure that only the most recent version is used, reducing the possibility that an older, possibly less stable version is distributed unnecessarily. You may, however, distribute it to your friends and local BBS's as long as it has not been modified and you include this File Buddy 2.2 Read Me document in its original form.
