File Buddy, not surprisingly, is a general System 7 file utility, written to make life with all those files a little easier. The following describes its wide variety of Get Info capabilities, as well as its other—sometimes more distinctive—capabilities.
It makes extensive use of the drag&drop feature of System 7, with user-configurable drop keys. Yes, File Buddy is brought to you courtesy of the author of Alias Director, and if you've used Alias Director, it'll be deja vue (well, sort of).
Keep in mind that all references to keys you hold down to access drag&drop features assume the default drop key settings. You may change the drop key settings as you see fit using the Configure Drop Keys… command in the Options menu.
Balloon Help is available for almost everything except the menus. Once the feature list stops growing and I'm not changing the menus, I'll add Balloon Help for the menus. If the Balloon Help symbol appears in a dialog box, clicking toggles Balloon Help on and off.
Note: If you are upgrading from a version prior to 1.2.1, you should remove the File Buddy Prefs file from your Preferences Folder before registering and let File Buddy create a new one. Versions prior to 1.2.1 had a bug that could interfere with registration.
•• Important Note: Users are notorious for not reading these boring Read Me files. Unfortunately, that means they are often unaware of features and other useful information. To accomodate those users that can't stand to read all of the stuff contained herein, information new to the current version, as well as a few other items that I especially want users to read are marked with double bullets that start this paragraph.
•• None-English users: I am gradually improving compatiblity with non-English systems. If you are using File Buddy (or have tried using File Buddy) in another language and are having a problem, please let me know. These are new issues for me, and I will address them as I learn how to do so.
File Buddy provides several Get Info options. File Buddy's default drag&drop behavior (and main reason for being) is to present the user with Get Info dialog box containing extensive information about the item dropped. Rather than go into a long explanation of the info is gives you, I'll just let you drop a few items on it and let you see for yourself. If you drop more than one, you can apply the changes you've made (and only the information changed) for all the files you dropped with the Change All… button. To cancel the whole batch of dropped files, hold down the Option key to change the name of the Cancel button to Cancel All.
File Buddy creates custom icons the same way as the finder. Well, actually, I think it does a better job than the finder, both in copying icons from one file to another, as well as creating them from pictures pasted in (it dithers, and creates a better mask). Try a few and see. Icons are copied and pasted the same way as in the finder's Get Info. You can also add a blank icon by choosing the Paste Blank Icon command from the popup menu you'll see if you click the icon. There's just one thing about using File Buddy to create custom icons. The finder is real stubborn about acknowledging that anyone else has created one of these things. If you create a custom icon for a file or folder that didn't have one previously, you can get the finder to use it by just closing and reopening the folder it resides in, or by clearing the Inited flag before saving your changes. (File Buddy clears this automatically when you paste an icon for a file that didn't have one before so it will show up.) However, if the file already has a custom icon, and you replace it using File Buddy, the finder will doggedly use the old icon until you restart the finder or your Mac. File Buddy therefore offers you the option of restarting the finder if you delete or change a custom icon. It won't offer you the restart option if you have filesharing on, as that can cause problems.
Dropping a file with the Option key down gets information for the application that created the file. Especially useful when you want to change the application's memory allocation or get version info, but neither the application nor an alias to it is handy.
Dropping something with the Shift and Option keys down gets you the finder's Get Info.
Dropping something with the Command, Shift and Option keys down gets you a dialog box for creating an alias.
Dropping a group of items (files, folders, and disks) with the Shift key down gives you size information for the entire group, consisting of the total number of files, folders, their total size, and the space they take up on disk. If there is only one item, you'll get creation and last modified dates instead of the counts.
Dropping a file or folder with the Control key down gets you a standard File Directory box which lets you pick a new location for the item. You can't move something off the disk it resides on, but this can be handy for putting a file or folder into a well-buried folder, especially if you have something like SuperBoomerang.
Dropping something with the Command and Shift keys down brings the item to the desktop.
Remember, all of these drag&drop features operate on the original item if the file dropped is an alias. That's beyond the programmer's control, but just what you want for most of the features.
•• New to version 1.7 is a Select All button in the Get Info… file directory box. Clicking it has the same effect as dropping everything in the current folder--the one whose contents are displayed in the list--on File Buddy, except that any aliases in the folder are used instead of their targets. (This is, in fact, the main reason for adding the Select All feature.) Invisible items are not used.
The Desktop folder is handled a little differently. Every volume (disk) has its own Desktop folder. The finder displays the contents of the Desktop folders of all available disks as if everything where in one folder. This is true both in the finder and in file directory boxes. However, if you click Select All in the Get Info… file directory box, what will end up being selected will be everything in the Desktop folder of the disk containing the item which was hilited at the time the button was clicked. This may or may not change in a future version.
•• Also new to version 1.7 is an Items menu in the menu bar whenever you are getting info for multiple files. If there are less than 30 items being processed, the Items menu contains a list of all the items being processed. The name of each is preceeded by a small icon to indicate what it is (file, folder, application, etc.), and the name is in italics if the file is an alias. You can use this menu to get info on the files in the order you prefer. For example, this can be handy if you want to copy an icon from one file to another. Prior to the existence of this menu, I always found that the file I wanted to paste an icon on was processed before the file from which I wanted to copy the icon.
The last item on the menu is the number of items, just for your information. If there are 30 or more items, only the count item appears on the menu.
New in version 1.5:
Creation and modified dates can be changed. If you try to change the creation and/or modification date so that the creation date is earlier than the modification date, File Buddy uses the creation date for both. Note that a number of things use the creation date of a volume (disk) to uniquely identifiy, so I'd avoid changing disk creation dates if I were you.
Many of us have a need to make the same changes over and over again. It may be adding a custom icon to floppies you send out, or setting a label. Or setting the modified date of a file to right now, so another program will see it as changed. It could be setting a label, changing the creator and adding a comment, all at once. The hope is that File Buddy's new ability to create custom drag&drop applications will ease that process, and it works like this: After making the desired changes to an item in File Buddy's Get Info box, before clicking OK or Cancel, select Create Drag&Drop… from the Info Extras menu in the menubar. Type a name in the file directory box that comes up and click Save. (Name it something descriptive, as the icon will not reflect the changes it will make.) File Buddy will create a drag&drop application that will later apply just the changes you had set at the time it was created. To have the drag&drop set an attribute the way it already is, hold down the option key while you click it. So to create a drag&drop that sets the file type to 'TEXT', you could do a Get Info on a TeachText file, and Option-click the Creator field. This will mark it as changed without really changing it.
The drag&drop can make any change File Buddy can--even adding a custom icon--except that it won't change a name. (That might have been handy, but if you drop 50 files on it you wouldn't want them to all have the same name, right?) If you forget what changes the little guy makes, just double-click on him and he'll tell you. The drag&drops File Buddy creates require that you have File Buddy on your computer, and will prompt you to register (if you haven't already), just like File Buddy will. They have their own icon as well, so you can tell them from File Buddy. It should show up automatically, but if the first one you create looks generic or it won't accept files, then a desktop rebuild should fix you up. These drag&drops are not editable. I may add that to a later version if I feel it warrants the time and space. They are also a little larger than I would like, but that's the result of them being built from generic code, and having the full color logos and icons.
AND THERE'S MORE!
File Buddy is not only related to Alias Director, it contains a lot of Alias Director's capability. That explains why…
You can make an alias by selecting Make Alias… from the file menu and selecting a target. An alias creation dialog box will appear that contains the item's name in a field for editing, a pop-up menu for telling File Buddy where you want the alias it creates, and some buttons. This box is also available from the main Get Info dialog box.
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 wish to add, and click the "Add to Menu:" button at the bottom. To create an alias in a location without adding it to the menu, click the Create Alias button. These locations will stay be on the menu the next time you use File Buddy to create an alias.
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.
To create more than one alias of an item, check the "I'll Dismiss" box so that alias creation dialog 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.
Drop an item on File Buddy to make an alias (and skip the menu) by holding down the Command+Shift+Option keys while dropping the item.
•• Alias Director Users: File Buddy does not contain all of Alias Director's functionality. None of the automatic drag&drop alias creation features are available, as the drop keys in File Buddy are devoted to other features. File Buddy cannot lock the alias' name when creating an alias without an icon, it won't let you arrange the items on the alias locations popup menu, and it can't update multiple aliases to the same target.
Some of our everyday, normal actions contribute to an increase in the useless clutter that seems to plague hard drives. File Buddy has the ability to help you reduce some of that useless clutter.
Delete Empty Icon Files…
System 7's custom icon feature is really great, isn't it? You do a Get Info in the finder, select the icon, paste in the new one, and away you go. I love it and use it all the time. In fact, I've improved on it in File Buddy. And then if you decide you don't want the custom alias anymore, just clear it from the same Get Info, and you're back where you started, right? Well, sort of. When you place a custom icon on a folder or disk in System 7, an invisible file is created to store the icons. When you clear them in the finder's Get Info, the icons are removed from the file, and the custom icon flag is cleared so the finder knows not to try using a custom icon, but the file is still there. It's just empty and invisible. Since I'm not a big fan of unused, empty, invisible files that most users aren't even aware of, File Buddy addresses this in three ways. First, if you clear the custom icon or custom icon checkbox when setting the info for a folder or disk, File Buddy will also delete the file for you instead of just removing the icons. Second, if you do File Buddy's Get Info on a folder, it will tell you if it has an empty icon file and offer to delete it for you. Go ahead and delete it. The alert only comes up so you'll know File Buddy's doing something for you. And third, the Delete Empty Icon Files… command in the Cleaning menu will scan the drive of your choice for empty icon files and delete them, reporting a count of how many it found.
Scan Preferences Folder
Most programs and control panels create a preferences file in your Preferences folder the first time you use them (that's what it's there for, right?). Some—such as QuicKeys—put files in folders inside the Preferences folder. Consequently, lots of us have preferences files for programs we no longer use, since we usually forgot to throw away the preferences file when we throw away the thing that created it. To address this, there's a Scan Preferences Folder command on the Cleaning menu. When you choose it, File Buddy will examine all the files in your Preferences folder and the folders inside the Preferences folder, alerting you to those that don't appear to be used by anything on your computer. For each file you have the option to leave it alone, trash it, or stop the scan. The fact that File Buddy can't find anything that uses a particular file doesn't mean that nothing uses it, so look at the name and make a judgement call.
Find Unattached Aliases…
Anyone who makes even moderate use of aliases knows that an alias can be unable to find the original file it came from, and hence be useless. Find Unattached Aliases… will scan your drive(s) for just such unattached aliases and let you trash them or connect them to another file.
Rebuild Desktop File
The desktop file (known more correctly as the Desktop Database file) stores the file icons used by the finder, as well as informaton needed to locate the appropriate application when a file is clicked on. Therefore, if you have a problem with the "Application not found" alert sometimes when you double-click on a file (when you know the application is on your drive), you may just need to rebuild your desktop file. Also, a disk's desktop file will contain all the icons used by any application you have put on the disk since the last time the desktop file was rebuilt, even if the application is no longer there. Those icons waste space, and rebuilding the desktop reclaims that space. Be aware that comments in the Finder's Get Info window will be lost in this process, but then, that's why I never use comments in the Finder's Get Info window.
Rebuilding the desktop while an application is running can cause the finder to lose that application's icons, so I recommend quitting everything else besides File Buddy before rebuilding the desktop. File Buddy will quit itself immediately before the rebuilding process.
File Buddy will also delete files and folders on a volume, using the Delete… command in the File menu. It's straightforward. You'll figure it out.
•• Version 1.7 22 August 1993
Added Select All button to Get Info… file directory box.
Added “Items” menu to menu bar for File Buddy's get info box.
Fixed a bug that kept File Buddy from noticing that a file’s type and/or creator had been changed if the change was made using the Same As… button.
The Quit item in the Info Extras menu now works when there are unprocessed items.
Version 1.6.4 19 August 1993
A bug that could cause a crash/freeze if you did multiple Get Infos after double-clicking File Buddy to start it has been squashed. Sorry.
Version 1.6.3 7 August 1993
Minor enhancements.
Added a preference to disable the warning that comes up when setting the invisible flag.
Added memory checking to insure there's enough memory to paste in a custom icon without a big boom.
Version 1.6.2 22 June 1993
Fixed a bug that caused some older machines to crash when you selected anything from the Cleaning menu.
Added balloon help to almost all the menus.
Version 1.6.1 14 June 1993
A lot of minor tweaks.
Version 1.6 12 June 1993
The change from Cancel to Cancel All that appears when you hold down the option key after dropping multiple objects once again works correctly.
An alert now tells you the results of a scan for unattached aliases.
The Scan Preferences Folder command is a little smarter now, and should ask about fewer files that are actually used.
Fixed a bug that caused the Show Open Dialog When Clicked checkbox to be checked if you hadn't made any changes, even though the box didn't come up.
All scans can now be canceled by typing command-'.'
The popup menu for selecting a disk to scan now offers the option of scanning local disks only.
The icon editing popup that you see when you click on an icon in File Buddy's Get Info box now has a Paste Blank Icon command. If you use it, File Buddy will do just what it says. Then only the file or folder's name will appear in the finder.
Some code changes have been made to make File Buddy a little more internationally compatible by making more extensive use of the script manager features of System 7.
In most cases, dialogs and alerts now all use the standard system font and size. This change was done to increase the consistancy of the interface with standard practice, as well as to make them easier for people to read.
Dialogs and alerts now use color icons on color macs, because I think they look cool.
Version 1.5.1 19 May 1993
My brilliant programming strikes again. Some people reported that the label, file type, and creator menus weren't being intialized properly. Now they should. Question is, why do so may things work so well on my little si, and break on the fancy models? <grin>
Version 1.5 15 May 1993
A bug that could cause a crash when scanning the Preferences folder has been fixed. A bug that could cause a crash after leaving the Get Info has been fixed. Some other smaller bugs were found and fixed. The main info box draws better the first time up.
Creation and last modified dates can be changed.
File Buddy now creates little applications that you can use to speed up the process of making those changes you do over and over again.
Version 1.4 30 April 1993
Most of the changes in version 1.4 are the result of comments from users. Given File Buddy's wide range of abilities, it isn't surprising that different users would have different ideas about how it should behave and what features should be available when.
File Buddy now uses preferences to govern its behavior at startup and when something is dropped on it. The two options if you double-click to start File Buddy are to display its menus and wait for you to pick something to do (the old behavior), or to put up a Get File directory box with several options for what to do with the file you choose from it.
There is now an option to display a dialog box which presents several actions you can choose from when you drop something on File Buddy with no dropkeys held down.
File Buddy's Get Info window was already packed, so there is an Info Extras menu accessible from the menu bar when File Buddy's Get Info window is available. It lets you make an alias, trash or move the current item, and clear the Type: and Creator: menus.
Several small things have been tweaked, including improvements to the code that you probably won't notice.
Version 1.3 19 April 1993
Some dialog box enhancer control panels (Escapade for one) interfere with cutting, copying, and pasting icons. To get around this, I've added a popup Edit menu that you can use for these editing operations. Simply click on the icon and hold the mouse down more than 1/2 second to get the menu to pop up.
There's a new Cleaning menu. The Delete Empty Icon Files… command has been moved to it. A Scan Preferences Folder command has been added to help clean out old preferences files, as well as a Find Unattached Aliases… command to track down unattached aliases. And there is a Rebuild Desktop command.
A manual Restart Finder command has been added to the Options menu because I wanted to be able to restart the finder today and I didn't have an easy way to do it. (Didn't want to use Command-option escape.)
File Buddy is smarter about its Get Info's "Kind:" for certain kinds of files.
Version 1.2.3 17 March 1993
File Buddy will now add a custom icon to all files in a group if you add one to the initial file and click the Change All button.
Version 1.2.2 12 March 1993
A bug that kept certain file types from appearing correctly on the "Type:" menu has been fixed.
Version 1.2.1 24 February 1993
A bug that prevented registration is fixed. Thanks to Jerry Goldstein, I was able to track down the bug that caused a crash when restarting the finder if no other applications were running. You can now drop stationery files on File Buddy. You can "cut" a custom icon. A bug with Revert has been fixed. A few very minor things were tweaked.
Version 1.2 20 Feb 1993
More bugs have been fixed. Two features are added. The Group Info works a little differently if you only drop one item. Instead of item counts, you get created and modified dates. In the Get Info dialog box, there are new pop-up menus for the Creator: and Type: fields. Any time you change a creator or file type, File Buddy will remember the change and make it available on the appropriate menu in the future. I frequently need to change these and I wanted a simpler way to do it. (••)You can remove individual items by selecting them with the Command key down, and you can clear a whole menu using the appropriate command in the Info Extras menu.
Version 1.1.1 18 Feb 1993
Seems I accidently left a DebugStr in version 1.1, which will cause it to crash anytime the Use Custom Icon flag is changed and no debugger is installed. My sincere apologies for that oversight.
Version 1.1 17 Feb 1993
The option to restart the finder promised in v1.0's Read Me document is in. So is some visual feedback when you copy or paste an icon. On the other hand, two bugs reported by a user are out. File Buddy is now smarter when you set a file's stationery flag.
Limitations:
All applications suffer limitations at the hands of the finder when you drop files on them, and File Buddy is no different. If you drop certain kinds of files on any application, the finder will intercede in the following ways.
If the file is an alias, the finder will resolve the alias and the application sees only the item it pointed to, not the alias itself. Use the Get Info command in the File menu to work with aliases.
You can't drop the Trash onto an application, because the finder will tell you you can't move it off the desktop.
So if you run into these, I'm sorry, but there is nothing I can do.
File Buddy can't read or write the finder comment when a file is on a floppy for reasons beyond my control. Comments for files on a remote volume appear as junk, because I haven't figured out a way to get them. Stay tuned.
•• If File Buddy won't hilite when you try to drop things on it, try rebuilding the desktop file. The finder does the hiliting, not File Buddy.
Some people use Escapade, a Control Panel that enhances dialog box behavior. I turn it off in File Buddy (you can set Escapade to not do anything when File Buddy is running), as the version I have intercepts a couple of standard Mac toolbox calls, and the end result is that some minor things don't work right (like outlines for default buttons). If you don't have a problem don't worry about it. If you do, try turning it off.
Please contact me if you find any bugs, other unexpected behavior, or have a suggestion for a new feature except for the following:
File Buddy's Get Info is modal. I expect it to stay that way for a while.
Please don't tell me something like "File Buddy's okay, but what I really want is something different that can program my VCR for me. I'd gladly pay a shareware fee for that." I am available for hire for custom software development, but I charge more than $15 for a custom application.
Those limitations aside, I do welcome ideas.
Well, that's all for now folks. File Buddy works without a hitch for me, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that it may have a fit on a differently configured system. PLEASE let me know if you find any bugs, so I can fix them asap. A few people have already helped me track down bugs that never showed up for me, and I appreciate that.
Hope you like it.
File Buddy 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 $15 shareware fee. Registered users of Alias Director may register for $10 (include your Alias Director registration code). As little as $10 or $15 seems, it really makes a difference--at least in my case--when people send it in. It takes a lot of time to design, write, and debug software like this. It then takes even more time and a little money to send out registration codes and provide technical support. At some point the fee will go up, either after I add an extensive Find command, or after I add the ability to list files on your disk, by various criteria and work with them through the list, both of which are on the aggenda for future versions. But for now, users of previous versions can continue to upgrade for free.
At the request of CompuServe members outside the US, registration payments can now be made via CompuServe's SWREG. File Buddy's registration ID is 932, and the cost to the user is $20.
Why $5 more? (or, Why would I prefer you not use SWREG?)
1) CIS takes 15% for this service.
2) I really like checking the mail every day for registrations. (I don't get them every day, but I like checking.)
3) There is a delay of up to 60 days for me to get money from SWREG registrations.
4) I enjoy seeing the variety of checks, letterheads, logos, little notes, etc. They satisfy a part of me that's a people person. I like to see your handwriting, (or that you print your checks), what kind of stamps you use, reading your comments about my work, etc. Getting a check once a month from CompuServe won't do that. Let's face it, would you rather get a check and an autographed book from your favorite author, or a note from CompuServe that he'd registered, and 85% of his fee? I got the first.
So why did I set up with SWREG? Because it's very expensive for people outside the US send US funds, and I don't want them to have to do that. People inside the US can use SWREG if they want to, but I'd prefer they didn't. If you just can't register without SWREG, use it. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing what you send in my mailbox someday. In addition, the Alias Director discount is not available if you register via SWREG.
Site licenses are available. Just let me know how many copies you intend to use and I'll give you a price.
I do not take Visa. I'm just a guy writing software and getting a few checks.
When you register, PLEASE let me know where you got it, more important, WHAT VERSION you are registering, (••) and MOST important, that you are registering File Buddy, as I have more than one piece of software out there, and they use different registration codes. If you send me a check and all you say is "for shareware", I'll take your name down, cash your check, and when you write me and say "Why didn't you send my File Buddy registration code?", I'll send it.
•• If you have an Email address, PLEASE include it. I'll Email your registration code to you, and it will generally get there much faster. Written replies are done on a batch basis, so it may take a few weeks to get a response if I don't have an Email address for you.
File Buddy 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, reducing the possibility that an older, possibly less stable version is distributed unnecessarily. You may, however, distribute it to your friends and local BBS's as long as it has not been modified and you include this File Buddy 1.7 Read Me document in its original form.
•• The following address is new in the sense that it is more "Post Office correct" than that previously given.
