To report errors, suggestions, or whatever, send e-mail to fab@kagi.com.
My Web site is at http://www.kagi.com/authors/fab/
DonÕt bother copying the above data out of this document, for there are handier menu items inside my application (see Edit menu).
ChunkJoinerª documentation
The latest version of any program of mine is usually available on the Info-Mac and Umich archives and their mirrors.
This document has styles in it. You may view them with a text editor such as Tex-Edit by Tom Bender or Style (1.2.1 or later) by Marco Piovanelli, or Apple SimpleText by Tom Dowdy.
¥ PURPOSE
× ChunkJoiner lets you join (concatenate) a group of documents into a single piece. To use it, simply select the documents you want to join, and drag&drop the entire group on top of the ChunkJoiner icon.
The purpose of the software is to concatenate:
- binary files previously split, maybe on a non-Macintosh computer;
- plain text documents (the options mostly apply to this case);
- HTML documents; use these settings:
Insert Text: Header=Ò<HTML>Ó, Footer=Ò</HTML>Ó
Skip Headers & Footers: Within each chunk, skip the data up to and including Ò<html>Ó and skip the data beyond and including Ò</html>Ó (Ignore Case both checked)
- RTF files (this works only sometimes).
× The inquiring minds out there (such as Rick Moerschell) will try dropping hundreds of documents onto ChunkJoiner in a single shot, just to witness it failing miserably.
It happens that the System does not call ChunkJoiner when you drop too many items onto it. Thus, I am inclined to think it is not my fault.
× If the Finder view is set to by Icon or by Small Icon, the documents are joined in the selection order. That is, click on the first document, shift-click on the second, and so on, then drag&drop. To use the document name alphabetical order, view by Name, Select All, and drag&drop. With this method, you can join also by Size, Kind, Label, Date, Version, or Comments. Any reverse order is possible too.
× You may choose the appearance for the newly created document. You may also set the name of the application able to open the resulting document; Finder 7.x and later can read this name and show it to the user if the application is not present.
× ChunkJoiner physically combines the documents, so using it on segments produced by StuffItª, Compact Proª, etc. is meaningless. Future versions may support the StuffIt Engine.
I received several questions about joining Word (and other word processorsÕ) documents together. Sometimes you can accomplish this task by saving the documents in RTF format, join them, then open the resulting document. I say ÒsometimesÓ because IÕve been told that the RTF trick works without a hitch with WriteNow 4 and its ÒRTF (MS Word)Ó filter; it does not work with WordPerfect 3.1 (the WP RTF filters are very buggy, apparently), nor with Word itself.
× You can launch ChunkJoiner multiple times in a networking environment, as well as from a locked disk (CD-ROMs are welcome; by the way, if this application is included on a CD it would be nice to send me a complimentary copy of it).
× ChunkJoiner is intelligent enough to use temporary memory (when available), so you do not have to get mad setting its memory partition (unless you want to join many documents). Furthermore, it works even if you have not enough memory to read entirely the documents you want to combine. When virtual memory is active, ChunkJoiner cleverly optimizes its memory allocation scheme in order to minimize disk activity when joining large documents.
× ChunkJoiner can only be used under System 7 or later; if you try to start it up under older versions of the System you will get an error message. Sorry, System 6 users!
× You cannot double-click the application and open documents one by one; use drag&drop instead!
× When joining, you should hear one distinctive sound for each document that is being joined. You can turn this option off. The sound is played asynchronously, so that the Mac is not interrupted when concatenating. If you are working on a Macintosh equipped with an Apple Sound Chip and lots of documents are being gathered, you might hear sounds one over the other. If the Macintosh has no Apple Sound Chip, you might hear only one sound at a time.
× ChunkJoiner operates on data forks, because by joining resource forks you would obtain a corrupted resource fork.
¥ DISCLAIMER
× ÒNo warranties at all, either express or impliedÉÓ ÒAll trademarks are held by their respective ownersÉÓ and all that stuff.
This application should do no damage, but if it does then you will be on your own. Let me know of any bugs you run into, anyway.
¥ THANKS TOÉ
× Stephen W. Carson suggested the documentation fixes in 1.1.1.
× Art Cohen suggested the Join in reverse order option.
× Ian Feldman urged me to support setext, the markup language he invented.
× Traci J. Ingram suggested the features I added in 1.1.
× Alessandro Levi Montalcini, who helped as always.
× Jim Luther wrote the fantastic, highly recommended library MoreFiles.
× Peter N Lewis & Quinn wrote the superb InternetConfig. (And much moreÉ)
× Masatsugu Mark NagataÕs suggestions were invaluable, absolutely.
× Mark Nobles suggested the header, separators and footer (digest) option.
× Alberto Ricci, for aesthetical suggestions regarding my icons, and beta testing.
× Paolo Sasso, whose user interface objections helped a lot in improving this application.
× Giuseppe ÒPeppinoÓ Ventura tested on his lowly Mac Classic.
¥ ENJOY YOURSELF,
and remember that more and more shareware authors are going commercial or worse, going Windoze, because they receive almost nothing. If you donÕt pay for good shareware software today, you are likely to pay much more in the future for exactly the same features, plus a nifty package, a good manual, and perhaps a copy protection scheme or a serial number; you know you donÕt need the package, or the copy protection, and undoubtedly you will not want to waste your time reading manuals.
