Gumshoe is the ultimate power user’s “Get Info” utility for the Mac. It displays virtually every scrap of information the Finder and/or the desktop database contains for any application, file, folder or disk, and allows almost all of the information to be edited. Make a file or folder invisible. Change its creator and type. Give it a custom icon. Rename it, move it, launch it, give it a new creation, modification or backed up date, even change an application’s suggested memory partition and version resources, all from Gumshoe’s extended “Get Info” window. Gumshoe even allows you to replace the standard icon for any file type/creator combination and see the changes without having to rebuild the desktop. (You do have to restart the Mac, but that’s much less painful than a restart and a rebuild.)
Gumshoe can display its information in one of two modes: “standard” or “extended.” In standard mode, the scope of the information Gumshoe presents is similar to that of the Finder’s “Get Info” command, with the addition of the file’s/folder’s flags and its creator and type. Depending on your preferences settings, you may also be able to access Gumshoe’s powerful icon pasteboard dialog from standard mode. The preferences settings also determine whether the flags and creator/type are editable or “display only.”
We made an effort to include everything we could conceive of anyone ever, under any circumstances, wanting to reference or modify in the extended mode. Extended mode was designed with programmers in mind, but anyone who likes to “poke around in the Mac’s innards” should find it interesting. For those who find that thought scary, Gumshoe has a preferences setting that allows you to “lock” it into standard mode, disabling the extended mode completely.
One final note: you may notice that when you get information on a folder or disk, Gumshoe will often give a different size for the disk’s or folder’s contents and a different count for the number of items in the disk or folder than the Finder does in its “Get Info” window. The information Gumshoe gives is (at least to our way of thinking) more accurate. Apple, in its infinite wisdom, decided that if a file is invisible (such as the file containing the custom icon for a folder), it also doesn’t take up any room on the hard drive. However, the file is there, and does take up room, so Gumshoe includes invisible items in its count of items and size.
Apple does have a point: a user who gets information on an “empty” folder with a custom icon might be confused to learn that the folder contains one item and takes up 8K (or whatever) of space. You can’t see any items, so it must contain zero items; and if it contains zero items, it must take up zero K of space.
However, since Gumshoe was designed with power users in mind, we thought you might be interested in knowing how much precious drive real estate your “empty” folder was actually occupying.
(If you don’t believe us -- some folks are just too indoctrinated by Apple’s way of thinking -- create a new folder and populate it with several dozen “empty” folders, each of which has a custom icon. Use the Finder’s “Get Info” command to verify that the Finder says the outer folder takes up zero K for however many folders it contains. Then put the whole mess in the Trash and watch the amount of free space on the drive go up when you empty it.)
Requirements:
Gumshoe will run on any Macintosh running any version of System 7 (up to and including 7.5.3). Gumshoe requires a minimum of 650K RAM, but likes it a lot better if you can give it at least 800K. If you have the RAM to spare, give it 1024K. The more RAM you give it, the more “info windows” you can have open at once.
What is “shareware?”
Shareware is not free, and it is not public domain. Gumshoe is copyrighted material and Shepherd’s Pi Software reserves all rights to it. In this respect it is no different than any other software you might purchase from any other company. You do not have unrestricted rights to use and distribute Gumshoe in any manner you see fit simply because it is referred to as shareware. Read the License Agreement in the Gumshoe folder, which constitutes a legal agreement between you and Shepherd’s Pi Software concerning your use and rights to distribution of Gumshoe. By using the software you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this agreement.
Shareware is a way to try out software before you buy. You may use Gumshoe for 21 days with no obligation. Then, if you decide to keep it, all you have to do is to fill out the registration form (also in the Gumshoe folder) and send it, along with a check or money order for $15.00 (sorry, no credit cards) to the address at the bottom of the form. This entitles you to at least one free upgrade and information on any new releases from Shepherd’s Pi Software. If you decide you don’t want to keep Gumshoe you must delete the installed copy of it from your computer.
If you want to give copies of Gumshoe to your friends or upload it to a BBS or other electronic on-line service, you may do so, as long as you include all of the files in the Gumshoe folder. If you want to distribute copies, however, you should duplicate the Gumshoe folder before launching Gumshoe for the first time (this will ensure that everyone will receive the benefit of the full 21 day free trial period).
Don’t abuse the system. Besides being illegal, keeping and using shareware without meeting the author’s terms for payment discourages those of us who do such things from continuing to provide good, reasonably priced software.
Gumshoe Known Bugs & Incompatibilities:
Gumshoe occasionally has trouble correctly reading the memory partition sizes for applications which have been compacted by MindVision’s Application VISE. Although Gumshoe correctly changes the partition sizes for such applications, the next time you get information on the application it will appear as if the partitions have not been changed. We’re still trying to find a work-around for the problem, and if I do we will post a free upgrade with the fix.
We’re also trying to find a way to flush the Finder’s cache so that a restart is not necessary after modifying icons. The Finder can be extremely stubborn about such things.
Gumshoe Version History:
Version 1.0.3p2: Released July 1996. Slightly 'leaner and meaner' than 1.0.3p1, and also contains updated contact information.
Version 1.0.3p1: Released the day after we released version 1.0.3 when we realized that we had accidentally uploaded a beta copy as version 1.0.3, with a known bug that kept the new button in the Extended info window from working. Version 1.0.3p1 is what should have been uploaded as version 1.0.3. (Sorry about that…)
Version 1.0.3: Release early April, 1995. Extended Info window totally re-arranged for ease of use and compactness. It now fits within the built-in monitor of SE’s and Pluses. Added a button to the Extended Info window to allow you to pick a file with the same Creator and/or Type you would like to use for the item displayed. Improved support for ‘vers’ resources (see “What’s New In Version 1.0.3”). System extensions and control panels are now listed as such in the “Kind” area (both Standard and Extened mode). Added serial number protection.
Version 1.0.2p1: Released early Mar, 1995. Patched to fix bug that caused incompatibility with Now SuperBoomerang.
Version 1.0.2: Released late-Feb, 1995. Fixed “Unimplemented Trap” bug that kept Gumshoe from running on machines without Color QuickDraw.
Version 1.0.1: Released Feb, 1995. Fixed bug that reported a disk to be a folder when the disk was drop launched on Gumshoe. Fixed bug that left the Move button active on the extended window when getting info on a disk (although trying to "move" an entire disk to another location is error trapped well enough to keep version 1.0 from crashing, this button should never have been active for disks in the first place). Also fixed bug calling 'DisposeHandle' on a handle that had already been disposed.
