Alias Director was written to make creating, using, and the various aspects of alias management as easy as possible. To provide the maximum in speed and convenience, Alias Director makes extensive use of the drag-and-drop feature of System 7. While there is extensive Balloon Help provided, it is still advisable to read this document carefully to be sure you are fully aware of its feature set and how to access those features.
A note to loyal users of previous versions of Alias Director:
To those of you that have paid your shareware fee and registered, I express my appreciation, and I hope you find this version of Alias Director to be even more useful. To those who faithfully update their copy every time a new version is available, but haven't gotten around to sending in their money, I would just like to say that it does matter. The payments I receive can be the difference between taking my kids out to eat when they visit and staying in for cereal. Honest, and enough said. (If you like Alias Director, keep an eye out for File Buddy, my new drag and drop file utility.)
•• If you aren't going to take the time to read this entire document, note that items marked with the double bullets (••) such as this one contain information I'd really like for you to read, or is new to this version.
Note: New to version 3.1 is the ability to configure the drop keys for invoking Alias Director's myriad drag and drop options. However, for the sake of simplicity, the following describes the use of drag and drop using the default drop key settings.
To create an alias for an item ("item" in this document refers to anything that appears in the Finder--file, folder, disk, or partition--that you can normally create an alias for), drop the item onto the Alias Director icon. A dialog box will appear that contains the item's name in a field for editing, a pop-up menu for telling Alias Director where you want the alias it creates, and some buttons.
The menu contains three choices initially: Apple Menu Items, Desktop, and New Location…. To put an alias in a location ("location" refers to folder, disk or partition) listed in the menu, select it from the menu and click the Create button.
To add a folder or disk to the menu, go to the folder or disk you want to add, and click the button at the bottom whose name is that of the folder or disk you want to add. To create an alias in a location without adding it to the menu, click the Create Alias button.
Once you add a location to the menu, it will be there every time you use Alias Director, unless you choose to remove it.
If several items are dropped onto Alias Director, it presents them to you one at a time to process.
If you don’t want to dig down in your folders to get the file you want an alias for, just double-click on Alias Director to start it and choose Make Alias… from the File menu. Then select the file, folder or disk for which you want an alias. If you hold down the Command key while you double-click on Alias Director, you'll go straight to the Get File box to pick a file, and when you're done, Alias Director will quit automatically. That is, the menus never appear, and it behaves just as versions prior to 3.3 did when double-clicked on.
For those that like to keep aliases on the desktop, but don't like the clutter, there is a checkbox to create the alias without an icon. For more on this, see the technical notes at the bottom.
If you like what you've read so far, great, but there's lots more.
Now for the good part. Once you have used Alias Director as described above a few times, you will be able to use it in an automatic mode most of the time. The advantage to this mode is that you don't have to do anything in the dialog box, because it doesn't even appear.
To create an alias in the Apple Menu Items folder, just drag and drop the item onto the Alias Director icon and hold down the option key while releasing the mouse (hold for a second or two).
To create an alias on the desktop, just drag and drop the item onto the Alias Director icon and hold down the shift key while releasing the mouse.
If, instead of holding down the option key, you hold down a character key, Alias Director will attempt to put the alias in the first location on the menu that starts with that character. For example, I have a folder in my Apple Menu Items folder named “Applications”. To put an alias in this folder, I just drop the item onto the Alias Director icon while holding down the “a” key. That’s it. Alias Director creates an alias with the same name as the original item in Applications and quits, and I never see the box.
If several items are dropped for automatic aliases, they all go to the same place.
In the automatic mode, most problems are handled by showing a message and then skipping the file in question.
Since some of us use spaces to order items in the Apple menu, Alias Director looks for the first menu item whose first non-space character is the character you held down. Also, it only looks for the standard character for the key that was held down. So it will look for a folder that starts with "9" but not one that starts with "(". If it can't find a location starting with the character, it just puts up the usual box. Upper and lower cases are not distinguished in the testing, so don't hold down the control key as you release the mouse, unless you want the alias created automatically without an icon (See below under Other Features:).
To create more than one alias of an item, check the "I'll Dismiss" box so that Alias Director box won't go away automatically after creating an alias, which is its default behavior. If you are creating aliases for more than one item, you'll need to uncheck "I'll Dismiss" to progress to the next item.
Alias Director also provides the following capabilities to improve your alias life:
You can create an alias without an icon by checking the No Icon box in Alias Director's dialog box, or by holding down the control key while dropping the item on Alias Director.
Alias Director has a feature I call TrashEmAll. It will move a file (or folder) and all aliases to it on all mounted disks (if possible) to the trash if you hold down the command key as you drop the file (or folder) onto Alias Director. Nothing is deleted, just moved. You can drop either the original item or an alias to it. TrashEmAll will not move the Trash, System, Control Panels, Extensions, or Preferences folders, or disks to the trash, but it will move aliases to them to the trash. If you drop an item with the command key down for TrashEmAll, you'll get a dialog box that lets you confirm that action, or choose another.
Use the Update Multiple Aliases… command in the file menu if you have a number of aliases pointing to something and you want to set them all to point to another item. It lets you pick the old target, the new target, and then updates all aliases that point to the old target to point to the new target, and optionally changes their names.
You can add a folder or disk to the list of locations Alias Director will create aliases in by dropping it onto Alias Director while holding down the command, shift, and option keys.
You can bring the original of an item to the desktop by dropping an alias while holding down the command and shift keys. Some people may find that the item doesn't appear at the expected location. Don't ask me, talk to Apple.
Dropping an alias with the command and option keys down finds the original like the Find Original button in the Get Info… box does. Note that this feature uses Apple Events, and that Apple has promised the next major version of the finder will implement Apple Events differently, and that as a result, this feature will probably break eventually. It has been successfully tested with a beta version of System 7.1. Be sure to read the note below about v2.8.
Dropping an alias with the shift and option keys down does a Get Info… on the original. Note that this feature also uses Apple Events, so ditto the above.
All drag and drop operations support dropping several things at once.
Configuring the drop keys is done using a couple of dialog boxes. As an example, to configure the drop keys for Find Original, double-click on Alias Director and select Configure Drop Keys… from the Options menu, then on the Find Original button in the box that appears. While the next box is visible, hold down the desired keys and click the mouse. If your choice is okay, click OK. Set as many as you wish and click Save when you're done.
A few notes: You can use any combination of up to 4 keys for each action. Though the default settings use only modifier keys, ordinary "letter" keys will work as well. Therefore, you may want to use easy to remember combinations such as 'f'+'g' for Find Original, and 'd'+'f' to create an alias on the desktop. (Adjacent keys are easier to hold down.) Single characters work as well, but are not a good idea because they will override the automatic feature that uses the menu. For instance, if you have a folder named Applications in the Alias Director menu, and you use 'a' to drop an alias into the Apple Menu, you won't ever be able to drop an alias automatically into the Applications folder. Instead, use 'a'+'s' for the Apple menu. Or use any combination of modifiers (command, option, shift, and control) and letters. The only restriction is that the drop keys for an alias without an icon are "subtracted" from the set you hold down before determining what action to take. Thus it is a good idea to reserve the use of a modifier for that purpose only, or use a single character that you won't ever use for the first letter of a folder name, such as "," . The mechanism for recognizing which keys are being held down is really looking at the keys themselves. Hence "1" on a numeric keypad is seen as different from the "1" on the left side of the keyboard. The "1" on the keypad will be denoted by '[1]' as opposed to '1' . (This is a new convention in 3.3, inspired by QuicKeys, which does it this way.) You can use the Configure Drop Keys… button to see what drop keys you're using in case you forget. There is no built-in checking to insure you don't use the same combination more than once, but if you do, it will only work for one.
New to version 3.3 is the ability to arrange the items you install in the locations pop-up menu. Whenever you add a location to the menu, it is appended to the bottom of the menu. To change the order in which the items appear, select Arrange Menu Items… from the Options menu. A dialog box appears with the locations shown in a scrollable list. Just drag them into the order you want them to appear in the menu. Your changes aren't "undoable", but you can always drag things back if you change your mind.
Version 3.4:
The Cancel and Create buttons in the main dialog now change to Cancel All and Create All if you hold down the option key. Cancel All is for changing your mind after dropping several files. Create All will create an alias for each remaining item in the location currently selected in the menu. If it runs into a problem, it will just skip the item.
There's a Check Aliases… command in the File menu that will scan your disks for aliases whose targets can't be found. When it finds such an orphaned beastie, it will show you the path to the alias, the path to the target, and give you three choices. Click the "Trash It" button to send the alias to the trash. Click the "Connect…" button to pick a new target for the alias. Click "Nothing" to skip it.
Version 3.5
There is now a Lock Name checkbox in the main Alias Director dialog box that you can use to lock the name of aliases you create without icons. This makes life a little easier sometimes in the finder. A balloon help has been fixed. Memory management is better. Biggest new feature is the Update Multiple Aliases… command in the file menu, which is described above.
It has been requested by some that I have Alias Director alphabetize the Locations menu. While this sounds good initially, there are two potential problems with that approach. First, since many people use spaces and other characters to force a desired arrangement of the Apple menu items, alphabetizing would more than likely not give people what they really want. Second, if you put 2 locations on the menu that start with the same character, alphabetizing would determine which would be used when you drop something on Alias Director with that character pressed, since it looks for the first menu item starting with that character. The approach I’ve chosen lets you make that determination instead, as well as put your most frequently used items at the top.
Some thoughts:
It has been commented that the technique of using the first character of the folder name is limiting by nature. This is true, but the alternative is to present the dialog box each time, and remember, the goal is to make the whole procedure as fast and unobtrusive as possible. I currently have 10 locations I can put an alias into without seeing a dialog box.
Other comments refer to all the modifier key combinations needed to invoke the other features using drag and drop. Again, what's the alternative? You don't have to use them to access the features, but if you do something often enough, you'll learn the combination you need. This is a little better now that I've made the drop keys user configurable.
•• Version 3.5.1 15 June 1993
I just realized that it was a control panel I have that was changing the cursor to an I-beam in Alias Director's main dialog. Now it should do it for everyone.
Some of the dialogs that were previously using 9 point geneva are now using the standard system font and size. This was to increase the consistancy of the interface, as well as to make it easier for people to read.
Some of the code has been modified to increase compatiblity when used with non-English systems. This stuff is all new to me, so let me know if there is anything more I can do in this direction.
Scans can now be cancelled with Command-"." This applies to scans for unattached aliases, and to TrashEmAll.
You can now restrict the scan for unattached aliases to local volumes only.
Version 3.5 27 April 1993
Added a Lock Name checkbox in the main Alias Director dialog box. A balloon help has been fixed. Memory management is better. Added Update Multiple Aliases… command to the file menu.
Zoom rects have been added for certain boxes, just because I like them.
I'm sending out a different registration code starting with version 3.5. It will work with the old one for now, but a future version may not. So be sure to tell me you are registering version 3.5 or later.
Version 3.4.3 13 March 1993
A bug that caused a crash when some users selected "Check Aliases…" has been tracked down with a user's help and fixed.
Version 3.4.2 3 March 1993
I was informed by a user in France that the auto alias creation into folders on the menu was not working properly on foreign keyboards. It does now.
Version 3.4.1 20 February 1993
An upgrade to Alias Director just isn't complete without a 3-part version number, so here's 3.4.1, which finds more unattached aliases in some cases, and updates the icon on an alias that has been updated to point to a disk.
Version 3.4 20 February 1993
A Check Aliases… command has been added that will scan disks for aliases whose targets are no longer around, and the Cancel and Create buttons now change to Cancel All and Create All when you hold down the option key.
Version 3.3.2 28 January 1993
A bug was introduced in (I assume) a recent revision that causes all aliases created to have the same file type and creator when multple items are dropped for automatic alias creation. This affected only the icon displayed, not the operation of the alias. Now it's fixed.
Version 3.3 13 January 1993
With time and numerous revisions, Alias Director has acquired far more features than I originally envisioned, and in some ways the interface reflected that. In particular, configuring the drop keys and registering required navigating through too many dialog boxes due to the lack of menus. So now there are menus that provide access to these as well as the dialog box that lets you arrange the items in the locations menu, and the alias updating feature. The Update Alias… command in the File menu lets you choose an alias and connect it to a new target. Pick the alias using Get File box that comes up first, and then the new target in the Get File box that comes up next. This is handy, for example, if you have an alias buried somewhere that you want to connect to a new version of its old target.
Version 3.2.1 5 November 1992
3.2.1 fixes a bug that my awesome programming introduced in version 3.2. My apologizies to those that had a problem with 3.2. Version 3.2.1 has a new icon, so this is the last time you'll have to rebuild your desktop when you update versions.
Version 3.2 24 October 1992
While functionally the same, the file directory box used by Alias Director when you double click on it in the finder has been polished up a bit. The New Locations directory box has been reworked to be more intuitive, and both now have complete balloon help.
Version 3.1 2 October 1992
Two features are new to version 3.1. First, there's an option to do a Get Info… on the original by dropping an alias on Alias Director. Second, and far more challenging to implement, is the ability to set the drop keys the way you want them.
As I sit here writing the changes for version 3.1, I want to say thanks to the people who have sent in their shareware fees, some of whom have been generous enough to send more than I asked. Special thanks also to those who took the time to include their impressions of Alias Director. Both are most appreciated.
Version 3.0 18 August 1992
Introduced in version 3.0 is a shareware reminder. Every 10 days, starting the 10th day after the first time you use Alias Director, it will remind you that it's shareware, and that you need to send in your shareware fee. When you send in your fee, you'll receive a registration code that will stop the reminders. I have reluctantly added this "feature" because so few people have been sending in their money. I've worked hard and long on Alias Director to make it a program people will find useful and well designed. I think it's worth what I ask for it and I think my time as a programmer is worth over $1/hour.
I hope you agree.
Version 2.8 28 June 1992
A new Find… command has been added to find the original the way the finder does. There's a glitch in the Finder you may want to work around for this feature. After the original has been found, if the folder containing Alias Director is open, the Finder leaves Alias Director in a selected state. You can't drag and drop onto it until you have deselected it . The simplest workaround is to put AD in a folder that is closed all the time and use an alias for AD.
Version 2.1 29 April 1992
Functionally the same as 2.0, but provides some interface tweaking. The Cancel button now changes to Done if you've added anything to or from the menu, to reflect the fact that neither action can be undone. The name changes back to Cancel if another file is to be processed.
A note for System 7.1 users:
New to 7.1 is the fonts menu. Even the finder hacks aliases to the Fonts menu. When the finder creates an alias to it, it installs a custom icon so it will look like the fonts menu. (Go ahead, make an alias to the Fonts menu and check its size in the finder's Get Info.) I chose not to mess with this, so aliases to the Fonts folder created by Alias Director will look like aliases to any other folder.
•• From time to time I get a message from someone who has installed Alias Director and can't drop files on it. This is usually because the desktop database file is not fully informed about Alias Director. If you have this problem, try rebuilding your desktop file. Also, I occasionally get a comment that a user can't use Alias Director to make an alias of the trash, a locked file, or some such thing. I can't do anything about that. The finder gets in there and does it's magic with aliases, locked files, the trash, and other such things before it ever even tells an application that the user has dropped a file.
It may be the case that aliases for some disks or certain special items won't have the right icon when the alias is created. (This is because Alias Director’s author doesn’t know enough to tell Alias Director how to do it.) It shouldn't happen often, but if it does, the finder will take care of it the first time you use the alias.
It seems that while the aliases created by AD work fine when double clicked, aliases for applications sometimes won't support drag & drop if created on a disk other than the one that has the original application. This shouldn’t be a problem in very many cases. If you need this, create the alias on the original’s disk and drag it to the desired folder. Fixing this would require futzing with the desktop database file on the target volume, and I'd prefer to not do that.
Locations on the locations menu that AD can't find when it starts up (such as those that have been deleted or reside on unmounted disks) are grayed out and can't be selected. If you hold down the command and shift keys, any item can be selected for removal from the menu. This allows you to remove items that are no longer available.
Alias Director creates and uses a preferences file in the Preferences folder called AD Repositories. If you change the name or delete it, a new one will be created.
If a disk is inserted while the Alias Director dialog box is visible, Alias Director will mount the disk and make any locations residing on the disk available in the menu.
Balloon Help is available for everything, including the finder icon and menu items. Turn it on and check out everything, as it contains some helpful stuff.
Please let me know of any undocumented features (sometimes referred to as "bugs" by jealous programmers and irate users) so I can fix or document them.
Hope you like it.
•• Alias Director 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 send the $10 shareware fee. As little as $10 seems, it really makes a difference--at least in my case--when people send it in. It took a lot of time to design, write, as well as to fix reported bugs. In case you're interested, it contains about 4200 lines of code. When you register, PLEASE let me know where you got it, and more important, WHAT VERSION you are registering.
•• If you have an Email address, PLEASE include it. I'll Email your registration code to you, and will get to you much more quickly.
Alias Director 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, and to reduce the possibility that a buggy version would be used. You may, however, distribute it to your friends as long as it has not been modified and you include this Alias Director 3.5.1 Read Me document in its original form.
•• The following address is new in that it is more "post office" official than the previous address:
Laurence Harris
1100 W. NC Highway 54 BYP Apt 29-J
Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2826
919-933-9595
CompuServe: 76150,1027
AOL: LHarris
Internet: 76150.1027@compuserve.com
Alias Director creates aliases that are identical those created by Finder v7.0 and 7.1, but as mentioned above, sometimes application aliases for applications on another disk won't support drag & drop unless they are created on original disk and moved. This may or may not be changed in a future version of Alias Director. Future versions of the finder may do things a little differently in creating aliases, and as a result, a remote possibility exists that the aliases Alias Director creates won't work some future version of the finder. Since one would expect aliases created by Finder v7.0 to work with future versions of the finder this is not likely any time soon, but you are warned.
If you choose to create an alias without an icon, Alias Director gives the alias a custom icon that is blank. If at any time you want the normal icon to be displayed, just clear the blank icon as you would any custom icon by doing the following:
Select the alias; choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder; click where the icon would normally appear in the Get Info box (to the left of its name); choose Clear from the Edit menu.
A file or folder can be moved to the desktop by dropping an alias for it onto Alias Director with the shift and command keys down. Please note: Since it isn't generally allowed to have two things on the desktop with the same name, I've provided a mechanism for handling the case where the alias "My File" on the desktop is an alias for "My File" which resides somewhere else. In this case, Alias Director will change the name of the alias to "My File 2" and then proceed to move the original to the desktop. If you plan to make use of this new feature, you may want to give the desktop alias a different name of your own choosing. The simplest thing to do would just be to add a space at the end, as in "My File ".
Unfortunately, for some reason, if Alias Director renames an alias with a custom icon (as in the case of one with no icon), it confuses the finder, so it displays a generic icon until the next time the alias is double clicked on. Don't ask me why. It would seem there are a number of bugs in the finder.
If you have been using a version of Alias Director prior to 3.2.1, the version number in the icon will not change until you rebuild your desktop file. If you have rebuilt your desktop after installing version 3.2.1 or later, or you've never used a version prior to 3.2.1, this doesn't apply to you.
I have endeavored to make Alias Director as safe, robust, and useful as possible. Please inform me of any problems or bugs you encounter.
