The first thing to understand about using Neatnik is that it works from a “parent window”. Your first step in using Neatnik would be to set up one folder window the way you want it in terms of position, size, and View settings. Then you would launch Neatnik and in Neatnik’s Preferences dialog, set which characteristics of the parent folder window you would like to be adopted by the folders contained within that parent folder. Finally, you would select the parent folder as the folder for Neatnik to process; you can do this either by dragging that folder’s (or disk's) icon onto Neatnik’s icon, or using “Select Folder or Disk...” under Neatnik’s File menu. Neatnik will then open every folder contained within that parent folder, set its characteristics, and close it. Although I refer to the parent window as belonging to a folder, it can also be the root level window of a disk, if you want Neatnik to process an entire disk.
Setting the Preferences:
As noted above, Neatnik controls three groups of characteristics of folder windows: position, size, and View settings. Select “Preferences...” under Neatnik’s File menu, and the dialog that appears is divided into these general groups. There are a lot of options to set in the Preferences dialog, so I’ll go through them from top to bottom, with illustrations. Balloon Help is available within the Preferences dialog, if you feel the need of a “memory jog” when you’re setting your preferences.
Setting Position:
First are the settings for controlling the positions of your folder windows:
 
If you choose to have Neatnik set the position of the folder windows it processes, it will set them to open in “cascading” positions relative to the parent window. For example, in the illustration below, “Test Folder” is the original parent window. “Test Sub Folder”, which is contained in “Test folder”, appears slightly down and to the right of “Test Folder”, and “Test Sub Sub Folder”, which is in “Test Sub Folder”, appears slightly down and to the right of that one, and so on:
 
The position settings in Neatnik’s Preferences allow you to set the horizontal and vertical offset (in pixels) of each nested level of folder. The offsets you enter will be reflected in the representation of the windows in the Preferences display.
If you would like all the folders processed to open in the same position, set both offsets to zero. If you prefer that Neatnik not change the positions of your folder windows, simply un-check the “Set Position” checkbox.
Setting Size:
Next are the settings to control the size of your folder windows:
 
• “Windows to Zoomed size”: With this selected, Neatnik will set your windows to the size the Finder considers optimum — just big enough to show the contents without scrolling.
• “Windows to parent window’s size”: Select this, and Neatnik will make all windows the same size as the window of the parent folder you select.
• “Zoomed height, parent window’s width”: This will be useful when you using a List View. When a folder window is set to a List View (view by name, view by date, etc.), the zoomed size of the window will be wide enough to show all the file attributes that are listed. In addition to name, this may include kind, modification date, size, label, etc. You may prefer that your windows not be this wide; perhaps you’d like them just wide enough to show name and kind. The solution is to set your parent window to this width, and select “Zoomed height, parent window’s width” in Neatnik’s preferences.
• “Skip windows that are already in position”: This checkbox takes a bit of explaining. When Neatnik is about to work with a folder, it first checks the current position of its window. If it is already at the position that Neatnik would have moved it to, and if you have this checkbox checked, Neatnik won’t do anything to the size of that window. This will primarily be useful when you’re processing a folder with Neatnik and that folder has been processed before. After processing it the first time, you might go through it and change the size of a window or two. You might also add some new folders, and want these additions to be “neatened”. You can process the folder again, and Neatnik won’t change back the size of those windows that you changed manually, if their position is still “correct” in Neatnik’s evaluation. The new folders, and any folders that you moved, will be processed as usual. Neatnik will reprocess an already-processed folder more quickly with this setting turned on, as it will be able to skip much of the work it normally does with each folder. If the Set Position checkbox (mentioned above) is not checked, then “Skip windows that are already in position” will be disabled. If you aren’t setting the position of your windows, “already in position” isn’t meaningful.
If you don’t want Neatnik to make any changes to the size of any of the folder windows it processes, un-check the “Set Size” checkbox at the top of the group.
Setting View:
The third group of settings are for folder window’s View options:
 
• “Adopt basic View settings of parent”: Neatnik will set the basic View settings of each folder to be the same as the parent window. For the most part, this corresponds to the “View” menu in the System 7 Finder: View by Small Icon, by Icon, by Name, by Size, by Kind, by Label, by (modification) Date. If you are using Mac OS 8.0 or later, the folders will also adopt View by Small Button and View by Button, if the parent window is set to that View.
• “Adopt all View settings of parent”: This is only available if you are using Mac OS 8.0 or later. If this is selected, all the View settings of the parent will be applied to each folder processed. In addition to the “View by” options just mentioned, this also includes such things as whether “Keep arranged by...” is set, and which particular file attribute categories are shown in List View windows.
• “Skip windows that are already in position”: This has the same meaning described above in the section on setting windows’ size. Check this and windows that are already in the correct position won’t have their View characteristics changed.
General Settings:
Finally in the Preferences are some general settings:
 
• “Limit processing to xxx levels deep” can be used to control how many layers of folders Neatnik processes. For example, if this item is checked and you set the number to 1, Neatnik will make changes to the folders contained within the parent folder you select, but it will stop there. It won’t process the folders within those “first level” folders, or the folders within those folders, and so on. The parent folder you select is considered level zero, and successive levels are counted from there. If this item’s checkbox is not checked, Neatnik will process all levels of folders.
Note: Until you pay for Neatnik, this setting in the Preferences window will be “locked” on and will have a maximum setting of 5 levels. Once you register Neatnik you will be able to turn off the “Limit processing” check box, or to set it to a maximum of 999 levels if you choose to turn it on.
 
• “Hide Finder while working”: This does just what is says. While Neatnik is processing folders, it actually tells the Finder to open each window, set its size, position and other parameters, and then close it. If “Hide Finder” is checked, most of this exciting action will be hidden from you. Since this means that the windows don’t have to be drawn to the screen, Neatnik should run a little faster this way. Un-check this box and you can watch Neatnik and the Finder do their thing. If you find this more than slightly entertaining, take that as a sign that you should get out more often.
Note: Even with “Hide Finder” checked, there will still be a fair amount of action on your screen while Neatnik is working. “Zoom rects” may zoom hither and yon, and if you have icons visible on your Desktop, these will disappear and reappear as the Finder needlessly erases and redraws them. (This behavior varies depending on your OS version.)
• “Make windows fit on...” popup menu: When Neatnik is positioning windows, it may become necessary to make them smaller than their ideal size in order to keep them from extending past the edges of your monitor. Neatnik will take care of this detail for you. In some situations, you may want the windows to be sized appropriately for a monitor other than your own. If you’re neatening a disk that will be distributed to a wide audience, you can tell Neatnik to keep windows within the boundaries of one of the more common monitor sizes, rather than using the boundaries of your own monitor for reference. With this popup set to “this” monitor, Neatnik will crop windows to fit on the system it’s running on. Furthermore, if Neatnik is running on a multiple monitor system, it will take into account the available screen space on all monitors.
Note: Neatnik may reach a point where it becomes unreasonable to make windows any smaller in order to fit them on the screen. If this happens, Neatnik will stop offsetting windows at that folder level. If there are any folders nested deeper than that maximum “reasonable” level, their windows will simply be given the maximum allowable offset. In other words, at that point the windows will start “piling up” against the edges of the monitor.
Preferences Are All Set; Now What?
Once you have Neatnik’s preferences set, you can process some folders (or disks). Before doing this, you should open the item you want to process, and set the position and/or other properties of the window appropriately, keeping in mind that all the folders within this disk or folder will have their properties set according to this “parent” window. You can select an item to be neatened by using “Select Folder or Disk...” under Neatnik’s File menu, or you can drag the icon of a folder or disk onto Neatnik’s icon in the Finder. Neatnik will then go to work, displaying its progress in a window. In the progress window are two buttons: “Pause” and “Stop”. These function as their names suggest. Unfortunately, Neatnik can’t be switched to the background while it’s working, so the Pause button can be extremely useful. Once Neatnik is paused, you can switch to other applications and work as usual; the Neatnik session can be continued later, as long as you don’t quit from Neatnik. Note that it can take Neatnik a few seconds to respond to a click in the Pause or Stop buttons.
“Odds Bodkins!! It’s really slow!!”
Well, that depends on the speed of your Mac, how many folders you’re processing, and your level of impatience. But Neatnik might indeed seem slow at times. Neatnik works by sending Apple events to the Finder, and these Apple events, and the Finder’s response to them, are relatively slow. There’s not much I (the programmer of Neatnik) can do about that. If you want Neatnik to process your 2GB hard drive, you might want to take your lunch break. If you want it to process the master copy of your 17GB DVD disk, you’d better leave it running overnight. (If you are using Mac OS 8.0, be sure to see the note “Important Warning About Mac OS 8.0” in the next section of this manual before trying to process a large disk.) On the positive side, working through Apple events is the officially sanctioned way of doing what Neatnik does. Neatnik doesn’t have to install any system extensions, or “patch” the Finder.
