3. How much does it cost and how to contact the author?
4. Limitations
5. Legal stuff
6. The story
7. What's new in CDFinder 3.1.1?
8. The undiscovered country
9. Acknowledgements
1. What is CDFinder?
This easy-to-use and fast application for the Apple Macintosh creates catalog files of CD-ROMs, hard disks, floppies, ZIPs and almost everything that spins. Using the powerful search functions you can easily locate and display files or folders.
While reading this document please keep in mind that English is not my native language. Nevertheless I hope that the translation is acceptable.
CDFinder displays every known catalog in its main window. You can sort the content by name, size, or label. By changing the name of a catalog, you can influence the sort order for a given catalog (put a space in front of the name to let it appear right on top, if you sort by name).
Using drag&drop (if installed) or the "Create Catalog…" menu item, you can create a new catalog of a volume. To create lots of catalogs at once, try using "Batch Create…", which will eject any volume afterwards.
To display the content of a catalog, simply double click it. To obtain more information about any catalog or any object inside a catalog, simply use "Information".
But what is a bunch of catalog files without the ability to search them? Nothing! That's why you should take a very close look at the "Find…" window. It will allow you to enter the type and content of information you look for, and also narrow the range by including only catalogs with a selected label to the search. You can even search just the already found objects!
CDFinder is fully optimized for the PowerPC processor, but runs very fast on legacy Macs as well. Another positive aspect is the simple fact that you can move the program into the background during time consuming processes to work with other things.
However, CDFinder must handle a real big amount of data, just go and check the size of your catalog folder! Please note that increasing the file system cache using the control panel "Memory" will have no valuable effect at all, on the contrary. CDFinder is using its own sophisticated caching mechanism that simply knows more about the state and importance of the data than the file system. Starting with version 2.7.1, CDFinder will only use system memory to store the catalog data. A very important consequence of this is that you may not increase the memory partition of CDFinder very much, as in previous versions.
Since CDFinder is basically designed to handle huge amounts of huge CD-ROMs and other volumes whose contents will not change very often, the program does not check if anything changes on a volume while the catalog is being created. This can lead to some problems if the volume is in fact changed, which is quite likely to occur for file server volumes. In that case, the content of the catalog may not be completely identical to the content of the volume.
It is possible to change the name of a catalog or a catalog folder by using the "Information" window or directly in the main window. You can also add a comment, which is displayed (the first line only) in the main window if you have enabled that column in the preferences window (panel "Appearance").
For more information, please launch CDFinder and select "CDFinder Help" in the "Help" menu. A detailed list explaining the improvements of this new version can be found below.
2. System requirements
CDFinder needs System 8.5 or newer and a Power-Mac.
CDFinder is fully compatible with MacOS X!
2a. Is there a Windows version?
Yes! On December 18, 2000, CDWinder was released.
- CDWinder can read all existing CDFinder 2.x catalog files and of course the new files created by CDFinder 3.0.
- All catalog files created by CDWinder can of course be used by CDFinder 3.0 as well.
- CDWinder can run in a network, allowing you to put the catalog files on a common file server.
- CDWinder requires Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4, or Windows 2000.
- Togehter, CDFinder 3 and CDWinder 1 are the first cross-platform solution to catalog large amounts of media!
More infos: http://www.cdwinder.de
3. How much does it cost and how to contact the author?
CDFinder has the following pricing:
1- 10 single user licenses, $20 per user
11-24 single user licenses, $16 per user
25-49 single user licenses, $14 per user
50+ single user licenses, $11 per user
A Site License costs $800 and covers all locations for your organization within a 160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles). One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software.
A World-Wide License costs $2500 and it covers all locations for your organization on the planet earth.
For additional $25 I will send you a CD-ROM containing the next version of the program.
Updates are free and can be obtained at the CDFinder-Homepage:
http://www.cdfinder.de
Contacting the author:
My email:
Doerner@kagi.com
My new postal address:
Norbert M. Doerner
Mozartstr. 16
D-64546 Moerfelden-Walldorf
Germany
Japanese version!
The separate Japanese version of CDFinder can be found at:
http://www.thinstone.com/UandC/nmd/
Windows version!
http://www.cdwinder.de
Payment directly to the author (Cash only!)
You can pay Cash by simply adding the money to your registration form. This works quite well if the envelope is made of thick paper. I do accept cash in different currencies, please contact me! You can either use the SimpleText document enclosed with CDFinder as a registration form or use the "Registration Form" command found in the "Special" menu in CDFinder.
If you fill in your registration form without using the window provided by CDFinder, please print carefully. My brand new biological character recognition system (BRAIN 3.5) still needs some training ;-)
Payment via Kagi (anything else...)
Online:
You can pay for CDFinder online here: http://order.kagi.com/?1UJ
Regular:
Open the Register program that accompanies CDFinder. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you desire (or Site or Word-Wide licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi. Kagi handles my payment processing.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed by Kagi within a week. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 20 days and if you provide a correct Internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement. If you require a written receipt, please keep in mind that even by airmail it might take a week for a letter to arrive.
After you receive the acknowledgement by Kagi, I will send you the key as soon as possible. Please keep in mind that CDFinder is not my full-time job, so it could be 4 or even 5 days until you receive your key from me. Usually it will only take two or three days.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street PMB #392-1UJ
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment. Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
4. Limitations
The unregistered version of CDFinder will annoy you at every launch with a little dialog reminding you of the benefits of paying the registration fee. The number of catalogs is also reduced to 25, which is surely enough to evaluate the application and its functions.
5. Legal stuff
The application "CDFinder" and all included materials are protected by copyright law. You may not disassemble it or modify it with similar tools.
You may copy the program together with all additional documents as often as you want, as long as you don't modify any part of it. You may not sell it or use it commercially in any other way without my written consent.
If you want to distribute CDFinder on a shareware collection CD-ROM or something similar, you must inform me by e-mail or a written letter. I'd also like to have a copy of the CD-ROM, if possible...
You may freely use the program for a trial period of 30 days. After that, you must register it.
I am in now way responsible for any damage occurring as a result of the use of the software.
6. The story
The whole thing started on one of those days that found me frantically searching my zillions of floppies and CD-ROMs for one particular file. Of course, I just found it on the last possible volume.
After this enlightening event I decided to search my huge software collection for a suitable cataloging tool. Most unfortunately, my search turned out empty.
Some of the tools I found required system extensions - which I do not like very much. One even created alias files of the contents of the CD-ROMs, an unfortunate behavior if you have some million files on hundreds of disks (the Mac OS does not like that!). Some programs were simply too slow or did puke at large CD-ROMs. Some expensive commercial applications were not native or would not run in the background. None of the tools would even use drag&drop!
So I made up my mind and started my own little project. Since some of my friends were quite positive about my ideas, I decided to put the results into a program called "CDFinder". The application should be easy to use, very fast, support drag&drop, work in the background and include powerful search tools.
And here it is!!
7. What's new in CDFinder 3.1.1?
The most current version is available at the CDFinder-Homepage at:
http://www.cdfinder.de
If you use Internet Config, you can also use the menu item "Visit the CDFinder-Homepage..." in the "Help" menu.
3.1.1 (May 6, 2001)
- CDFinder now works together with the PowerFile DVD Jukebox.
- CDFinder now supports printing in Mac OS X!
- The design and handling of the list window column headers is now similar to Aqua.
- CDFinder now catalogs the versioninfo of items inside Apple Installer Archives.
- All comment text input fields accept the Enter key to add a new line to the text.
- In Mac OS X, CDFinder now uses the Preferences menu item in the application menu.
- Several bugs have been fixed.
3.1 (March 24, 2001)
- CDFinder now runs smoothly in MacOS X as a Carbon application. There are still a few minor issues with Mac OS X however: CDFinder won't print yet, drag&drop of any list item to the Trash in the Dock won't delete it, and the list design is not yet fully Aqua-like. These problems will be solved in the next version.
- Several visual interface elements had to be updated for the Aqua look of Mac OS X.
- CDFinder finally displays catalog contents hierarchically, just like the Finder does.
- New Get Info windows for catalog folder display a lot of interesting statistical information.
- Several bugs have been fixed.
3.0.2 (January 19, 2001)
This is another bug fix release. These problems are solved:
- Fixed a problem when creating a catalog of a volume that contains certain archive files. This could cause an almost infinite loop with a incorrect error message after a while.
- Fixed a problem in memory management. This could cause the MacOS to assume there was no free memory left.
- Fixed a problem when opening or converting certain damaged old catalog files.
- Fixed a problem when trying to find in all catalogs of a certain label and there actually was no catalog with that label.
- Files with the suffix ".cdw" (CDWinder!) and no filetype/creator now obtain a proper icon when creating a catalog or opening a ZIP archive.
- CDFinder 3.0.1 incorrectly wrote the version 3.0.0 into the catalog files. Now this number is 3.0.2.
3.0.1 (January 5, 2001)
This is a bug fix release. These problems are solved:
- When updating a catalog, CDFinder 3.0 had always created a new, second catalog.
- The CDFinder-CMM (contextual menu module) and AppleScript could not request CDFinder 3.0 to update an existing catalog.
- In some cases, CDFInder 3.0 did create a new catalog without asking, even though there already was a catalog for that volume.
- CDFinder 3.0 could not display a totally empty catalog.
- CDFinder 3.0 could not be launched on a PowerPC with MacOS 8.1 because it used a function called BlockZero, that is not implemented until MacOS 8.5.
- Finding is faster now.
- If a Find operation turned up exactly one result, a second run of the same operation turned up empty.
- Fixed a problem with FaxSTF 6 and the FaxMenu extension. This caused CDFinder 3.0 to leave the Apple menu almost empty.
- When reading ZIP archive contents, CDFinder 3.0 sometimes did not read long file names correctly.
- If a volume was ejected via the menu in the Batch Create window, that volume and many others in the same drive were not recognized and catalogued.
- The Preferences window now uses the same pane header than the Get Info windows already do.
If you want to know more about the other older versions of CDFinder, be sure to visit the CDFinder-Homepage.
8. The undiscovered country
This will be a very exciting year for the CDFinder project. A lot of important improvements are in development and will be released in several upcoming versions.
The planned features include:
- more export options
- even more AppleScript support
- Reading MP3 Tag info
- Reading Audio CD titles from freedb
- Scanning of Disk Copy image files
- More improvements for multi-user systems!
- Update catalog folders automatically in the background
- Find duplicates
and many more
9. Acknowledgements
First of all I would like to thank my wonderful wife Silvia. Without her patience, the development process would have been impossible.
Also I would like to thank my friend and partner Andy. He not only is the developer of CDWinder, the Windows counterpart of CDFinder, but he also has a lot of other good ideas...
Many thanks to Joerg M. Hieronymus who designed the new logos and icons, and who improved much of the graphics much!
Without the help and the support of the following people, CDFinder would surely be a lesser tool now: Erik Ekengren, Doris Wagner, Giorgio Boccalari, John Zetlaoui, David C. Oshel, Michael Graubart and Thomas v. Landsberg-Velen. Thank you very much!
I also want to thank all of those who help me doing the beta testing and thereby provide invaluable assistance checking the functions and user interface of the software: Wolfgang Warmbold, Martin Girschick, Patrick Röder, Michael Stunz, Manfred Kunkel, Ralf Schlobinski, Heiko und Manfred Richter, Holger Ruhnke, Henny Rose, Marc Kothe, Claus Sterneck, Marc Mennigmann, Stephane Madrau, Tuukka Ilomaki, Okke Rosen, Ryo Chijiiwa, David Heininger, Doug Anderson, Sebastian Duevel, Dennis, Matthias Kahlert.
Of course, without all of your registrations, I might have ceased development long ago! Thank you very much!
The comments and notes of all registered users also helped a lot.
Please send me ideas, comments, notes and Cocoa Puffs or Star Trek books!
