This manual uses the following headings and markers to separate relevant sections:
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Chapter Name
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»» Denotes a Sub-Topic.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE •• is something you must read.
• NOTE • is something you should read.
• CHANGES • highlights things new in this version.
A small description of the contents of each Chapter follows its name.
Version 2.0 is a major overhaul of the way SpaceAlert works. Big changes have taken place in the Warning and Exclusion sections and several features have been added to the Abbreviation, Display and Window sections. It would be well worth your time to read the text in the Usage section to acquaint yourself with these.
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INTRODUCTION
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•• This section describes what SpaceAlert does. ••
SpaceAlert is a utility to monitor space on disks and RAM. It creates a bar which displays information about them. The program is designed to run in the background.
__ System Recommendations __
-68020 or better Macintosh.
-SpaceServer utility for network features.
-System 7.0 or newer.
-95K of free RAM to run.
__ SpaceAlert Features __
-Instantly finds free space on networks WITHOUT mounting volumes first.
-Displays space free, used, capacity and trash in each volume.
-Displays RAM available to open applications, logical and physical RAM.
-Uses relative, subtotal or absolute percentages; or MB & KB values.
-Sorts volumes by any of 7 different attributes.
-Issues different kinds of warnings when space is low on a volume.
-Sets individual or bulk thresholds for volume warnings.
-Excludes volumes from warnings by type or name.
-Abbreviates volume names to display more information at once.
-Can use a double-height window to fit even more information.
-Has extensive Balloon Help support.
SpaceAlert is an application, it is does not alter any System parameters or files or cause malfunctions in other programs. It can also be launched and quit at any time without fear of damaging your work, your System or itself. You do not have to restart your machine to activate it.
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INSTALLATION
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•• This section tells you how to install SpaceAlert. ••
To install SpaceAlert, simply copy it onto your hard drive and place it in the Startup Items folder of your System Folder. If you wish you can also place an alias of it in your Apple Menu Items folder. Since this utility is an application, you do not need to restart your computer to use it, just double-click its icon. If you want to stop using it, bring it to the foreground and quit it.
The first time you use SpaceAlert, the program will put up a welcome dialog. This dialog only appears when no prefs file is found. After you dismiss this dialog the program will run normally. When you want to change the settings just bring SpaceAlert to the foreground by clicking in its windows or selecting its name from the Application menu in the top right of the menubar. At the very least you’ll want to change the settings so that the program automatically goes to the background when it is launched. See the Usage section to find out more about setting the preferences you like.
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INTERFACE
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•• This section describes the SpaceAlert interface: the menus and the bar ••
The most important element of the SpaceAlert interface is the display bar. This is where all the information about RAM and disk usage will be displayed. If you click in the bar you will bring the application to the foreground if it isn’t already there. You can also use the Application menu to do that.
Once in the foreground, you’ll see that there are six menus. They are titled File, Edit, Setup, Font, Size and Style. These menus give you access to the features in the program. Each menu and its relevant menu items follows.
__ File Menu __
-Close Window: used to close a selected window other than the display bar.
-Transfer: used to launch an application without the help of the Finder.
-Quit: Exits SpaceAlert.
__ Edit Menu __
-Works just like it does in any other application.
__ Setup Menu __
-FindServers: finds all network servers with a certain amount of free space.
-Colors Submenu: changes the colors in the SpaceAlert bar.
-Console: displays a window which leads to other settings.
Each icon displays a dialog to edit preferences.
-Page: display information to the right or left of the information showing.
-Align Window Submenu: places the bar at the top, bottom or middle of a screen.
• CHANGES •
There is a new item in the Align submenu which makes the window the same width as the screen and centers it horizontally.
__ Font __
-Lets you select the font for the display bar.
__ Size __
-Lets you select the size of the font for the display bar.
__ Style __
-Lets you select the style of the font for the display bar.
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USAGE
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•• This section explains the way to set up and use the features of SpaceAlert. ••
Most of what you need to know is in the Balloon Help of the program.
There are many things which you can customize about the behavior and look of SpaceAlert. I took great care in making it extremely flexible. They fall into two categories: Non-Informative and Informative.
»» The Informative Category
This category represents the type of information you want to see SpaceAlert display. To gain access to the settings in this category you need to use the Console. Select it from the Setup menu.
The Console has five big icons representing most of the settings for the program. Each of those five icons displays a dialog when clicked. Display and Abbreviation are the information providers. Let’s start with the Display dialog.
• NOTE •
Most dialogs in SpaceAlert have a little Balloon Help icon at the bottom. If you click in that icon you will enable or disable help balloons. Use that feature to find out what an item in a dialog window does. It is wise to use this feature to get acquainted with all the controls in a dialog. You can also use the balloons to find out about items in windows and menus.
»» Display Dialog
It has four groups of controls and menus. The items on the top control the volume information, the ones in the center left control RAM information, the ones to the right control the size information and the menu at the bottom controls the sort order.
The volume information controls are all checkboxes. To select one of the attributes so that it is displayed in the SpaceAlert bar simply check it. The order in which you enable each checkbox will be the order in which the volume information will be displayed. If you want to display the Volume Name and then the Space Used followed by the size of the Trash, click on those three in that order and uncheck any other checkboxes in this same group. The easiest way to set the volume information to the order you want is to first uncheck all the boxes and then click the ones you want.
• CHANGES •
The names of network volumes will always appear within parenthesis to distinguish them from local volumes. Also new in 2.0 is the ability to label every volume's information instead of just the first one's. Look in the Abbreviation section to find out how to do this.
• NOTE •
The trash feature gathers information about trash on a volume whenever you drag anything into or out of the trash. If you have a large amount of things (say 700 files) in the trash of a particular volume it might take a few seconds for SpaceAlert to find the size of the trash for that volume. Don’t worry, it will not spin your disk forever and it will only do this once as long as you don’t drag anything else from that same volume into or out of the trash. If you only want to monitor trash size, you may find it useful to make the display bar small and place it at the bottom of the trash can.
The RAM information controls are also a group of checkboxes. The RAM information is also displayed in the order you check it but it is always displayed after all the volumes in the SpaceAlert bar.
The size information controls are to the right. They are a group of radio buttons and a pop-up menu. The values in the SpaceAlert bar will be displayed using the value type you select. If you are using percentages, the pop-up menu will let you choose what type to use. Read the balloons to find out more about what each type represents.
• NOTE •
The RAM information is never displayed in percentage form.
The Largest Free Block of RAM is always displayed in KB.
At the bottom of the dialog is the sort pop-up. It lets you select the order in which volumes will be displayed. Remember that RAM information will not be affected by the order in which you sort the volumes.
• CHANGES •
Finally there is a checkbox on the bottom right labelled "One Liners". This option places a return character at the end of an information block. Use it to make the display easier to read. You might want to use it in combination with the "Auto-page" option in the Window dialog and/or the "Double Height" option.
»» Abbreviation Dialog
It lets you control what the volume names and labels look like when they are displayed in the SpaceAlert bar. Volume names are abbreviated by passing them through a series of filters that either keep or throw out parts of the name, passing on the valid portion to the next filter. The only items that don’t affect volume names are the Label radio buttons.
• CHANGES •
Labels are the descriptors used to classify information about volumes and RAM. If the "All Labels On" checkbox below the "Labels" section is off, only the first volume in the SpaceAlert bar will display labels next to the values which they describe. Otherwise all information in every volume will be labelled. The RAM information is always labelled and is not affected by the other filters.
Partial labels are only the first letter of the label name for volume information and the first letter of each word for RAM information. For example, “Free” is shortened as “F” and “Physical RAM” is shortened as “PR”.
One checkbox is particularly important. The First Valid checkbox filters out all but the first character that passes through each filter.
• NOTE •
Case is filtered before Letter; if you use both, the Letter filter will get only one valid letter or maybe none at all. It is best to avoid using both if you have the First Valid option on.
The Don’t Abbreviate checkbox bypasses abbreviation altogether thus giving full names and labels. You can also achieve the same effect by setting the right combination in the other controls but this is much quicker.
»» The Non-Informative Category
This category represents the preferences which mostly don’t alter the information that is displayed but rather the way in which it is displayed.
»» Window Dialog
It lets you select the behavior of the display bar. You can choose to make it movable, re-sizeable, double-height or make the program page information automatically. You can also send SpaceAlert to the background when it is launched by checking the appropriate box. It is recommended that you do this.
To re-size the display bar you click and drag in its bottom right corner.
To move it you click and drag anywhere else on it.
It is a good idea to place the bar wherever you want it to be and then change the settings so that it cannot be accidentally moved.
• CHANGES •
The new "Auto-paging" option will page through the information every 15 seconds if it occupies more than 1 page. There is also a menu item in the Align Submenu within the Setup menu that will make it easy for you to center the display bar horizontally.
»» Warning Dialog
Together with the Exclusion dialog it controls the warning features of the program. They can let you stay fully aware of what your free space situation is.
The Warning dialog sets the type of warnings and the thresholds at which the warnings should be triggered. This dialog has two sections. The one on the top has two groups of radio buttons which let you choose which type of warnings to give. The bottom section has a list of mounted volumes and some controls for specifying thresholds. When you are not using individual warnings, volume names are not displayed in the list, instead there is one entry for all volumes.
• NOTE •
If warning is off then no list is displayed.
There are two types of warnings in SpaceAlert. One passive which only lets you know that some volume is low on space by playing a sound. The other active which displays a dialog window which you have to dismiss in order to continue using the computer. This active warning tells you which volume is low and how much space it has left.
To set thresholds you select an item in the list and use the edit text field and/or the slider at the bottom. When you select an item the controls will show the amount of free space in Kilobytes (K) at which that particular volume will trigger a warning. You may type in a value or use the slider to set it.
On the left end of the slider there is a marker denoting that the edge of the slider is either the biggest amount of free space available now (when setting the global threshold) or the amount of free space on a particular volume. If you wish, you may set the threshold to a value that is to the left of the slider's limit by typing it in but beware, that will trigger warnings left and right because you're setting the threshold beyond the space that is currently available.
• NOTE •
The threshold number cannot exceed the capacity of a volume. If you try to type in an illegal number, the program will beep and prevent you from doing so. Also keep in mind that the amount is in Kilobytes, not Megabytes.
To set one warning threshold for all volumes, use the Bulk radio button. The maximum number you can enter now is the largest capacity available.
You can avoid warnings altogether by selecting the Don’t Warn radio button.
• CHANGES •
There is a "Reset" button to the right of the volume list. It zeroes out all thresholds of the current type, either individual or global. This button is disabled if all the thresholds are already zero.
• NOTE •
Warnings will only be triggered once. When you exit this dialog via the Done button, issued warnings will be re-armed. This means that if you received a Warning for a volume, you will get it again. You must also set a new threshold if you change the name of a volume that was in the warning list.
• CHANGES •
Thresholds are no longer reset to zero when you open this dialog as they were in earlier versions of the program. Thresholds are only reset when you use the Reset button.
• CHANGES •
SpaceAlert now has more robust ways of identifying volumes. It is smart enough to distinguish between volumes with the same name but different thresholds.
»» Exclusion Dialog
It lets you screen out warnings. Together with the Warning dialog it controls the warning features of the program. By setting the appropriate checkbox, volumes with that attribute will not trigger a warning. This is useful if you don’t want to be bothered by floppies, CD-ROMs or network volumes.
You can also set a list of specific volumes that will be excluded. Check the Use List checkbox and place a checkmark before the names of the volumes to exclude. Do this by double-clicking on them or using the Reverse button to toggle their status.
• CHANGES •
SpaceAlert is now smart enough to distinguish between different volumes with the same name. It also automatically keeps unmounted volumes in the exclusion list. Unmounted volumes appear with a diamond before their name. To remove them permanently from the exclusion list, leave them unchecked.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
One last point about preferences. To revert all settings to their shipping values quit SpaceAlert and drag the file “SpaceAlert 2.0 Settings” to the trash. That file is in the Preferences folder of your System folder.
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NETWORKS
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•• This section describes the FindServers feature. ••
You can skip it if you don’t have a network.
The FindServers feature is a unique tool that lets you query network servers to find a certain amount of free space. When you use it, you are asked to supply an amount in Megabytes to look for. Instantly, you get a list of volumes which meet the criteria.
A window will appear with a heading that states the amount of free space in MB you’re looking for. One by one, qualified volumes will be added to the list. Once a search is ended the total for the number of volumes found will be added at the end of the list.
Although the FindServers feature works extremely fast, there is a Halt button provided so you may stop the search at any moment. It is unlikely you’ll ever use it.
When a volume is found the name of its computer is listed first, then the name of the zone in which that computer is found. Under these two is a list of the volumes from that machine that qualify in the search. To easily distinguish between computers, zones and volumes, each category is indented a few spaces from the left.
If you do a search for only 1 MB, which is the minimum amount, you will get a list of most if not all the servers available.
• NOTE •
The maximum number of volume names returned in the list is twenty. If you need a higher limit, contact me to provide you with a modified version of SpaceAlert that will fit more volumes in the returned list.
FindServers is a tremendous time saver for large companies with many servers and lots of volumes. Using it can help lower network traffic by preventing people from mounting multiple volumes just to look for space. It can also save users a lot of time and frustration while saving Network Administrators a lot of grief.
There is one caveat. Of course, it is a BAD IDEA to save files on a network anywhere they fit. DON’T DO THAT. Instead, use this feature to see which of the volumes where the data SHOULD go are available to take it, then just mount one of them by using the Chooser and put files where they belong.
To resume monitoring information with SpaceAlert after a FindServers search, you must dismiss the list by using the Close Window command in the File menu or clicking the window’s close box. You must also dismiss the window if you want to make another search.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
FindServers requires that the SpaceServer application be running on any servers from which you expect to get information. SpaceServer is a separate shareware program but the good news is that a site license with unlimited copies for it costs only $10.
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UNIX AND SPACEALERT
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•• This section tells you how to use SpaceAlert in a Unix setup. ••
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
The network features of the program work even if you don’t have Macintoshes as your servers.
Here is some information about how your company could use SpaceAlert & SpaceServer in its Mac network to let clients monitor their disk space and find free space on servers quickly, avoiding the frequent mounting and unmounting of network volumes. You can use both programs if your servers are running System 7 or A/UX or even if you have non-Apple (i.e. Sun or other brand) servers running Unix…
If you have a large Macintosh network (10 to 300+ Macs) with several file servers and many clients chances are the clients waste a lot of time when a server fills up trying to look for a volume with enough space to take the data they have. They have to go to the Chooser and mount volumes without knowing beforehand if they will find space there.
SpaceAlert can help. It allows clients to instantly get a list of the volumes available on the servers which have a desired amount of free space, WITHOUT mounting the volumes first. This saves people a lot of time, especially if you take into account their collective mounting/unmounting of network volumes.
The SpaceAlert and SpaceServer utilities are both very small, stable applications (not INITs or control panels) that are designed to run in the background on Macs that have System 7 or newer. They do not patch any System parameters or files, thus making them compatible with all your existing software.
SpaceServer is a tool for letting SpaceAlert clients find free space on a server. It exchanges information with clients very quickly when it is queried.
The combination provides a very simple and elegant solution to this administrative problem of mounting/unmounting that has distinct advantages, most notably that it works if you don’t have Macintoshes as your servers. Depending on the organization of the volumes and departments in your company, you could do the following for each server/department or all at once.
If you have Apple, IBM-compatible or other Workstations running Unix as your file servers:
You can run SpaceServer in any one of the Mac clients on your network. You have that one client Mac mount all the volumes of a particular server, say, a SparcStation for example, which people want to find information about.
Using SpaceServer as a remote server, you ignore local volumes and export the real server's volume names from the client. Then when the server fills up, other clients who want to find free space on the network just use a menu command in SpaceAlert. They will instantly get a list of all the server volumes which satisfy their request, without using the Chooser and without wasting any time at all.
Besides saving people time, administrators don't even have to worry about interrupting the servers because it's only a client machine running the program.
The FindServers feature is very quick, needing only a minimal amount of information to be exchanged between each SpaceServer and SpaceAlert during a search, so network traffic is not adversely affected. In fact ZiffNet/Mac (MacUser On-Line) called it "fast" and "magical" in their review.
The special client machine in which you mount the Unix volumes does not need to be completely dedicated because SpaceServer uses very little processor time and memory. As long as you do not tie up the machine doing something else which disrupts background processing a lot, like rendering a 3-D image all day for example, things should be great.
The only thing you would want to do is change the name of the special clients to something which identifies the true name of the server which each represents; you wouldn't want your users to get confused about where a volume is. Something like "SpaceServer_for_ServerName" would do.
If you’re using servers that are running System 7 you can just run SpaceServer directly on them with no need to do the above.
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PURCHASING
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•• This section tells you how to buy/register SpaceAlert. ••
• CHANGES •
SpaceAlert is shareware, meaning try-before-you-buy software. Try it for a while to see whether or not it suits your needs. I guarantee that you'll like it; and if you do, please pay the asking price of $10 for you and your family's personal use or $21 for a site license with unlimited copies for your company. Otherwise if you don't like it you don't have to pay me for it. I'll even give you all the tech support you need regardless of whether you've paid or not.
Although the price of SpaceAlert is small and might seem insignificant, it is extremely important that you actually pay me for it. Think about it, $10 is less than the price of a pizza, you certainly can afford to pay it. $21 is practically nothing to any company that uses computers but it goes a long way for me. Please pay your fair share.
• NOTE •
Registered FreeSpace! 2.1.2 users can upgrade to SpaceAlert for free. Please e-mail or phone me to place your name in my private SpaceAlert customer database.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
Make your check out to Hugo Diaz and mail it to the address listed in the next section.
The "About..." box in the program also has the correct price, name and address to send your payment to.
•• IMPORTANT NOTE ••
You need SpaceServer to use the FindServers feature of SpaceAlert. The use of SpaceServer is NOT included in the above price. The good news is that SpaceServer is only $10 for a Site License with unlimited copies. It's virtually nothing but it is important to me that you actually pay that amount. Thank you.
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GETTING HELP
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•• This section tells you how to contact the author for help and feedback. ••
If you should encounter a problem with this program or have any questions, comments, praise or suggestions you can contact Hugo Diaz, the author, at the (617) 924-8768 phone number in the United States. Let him know if there is a feature you would like to see in SpaceAlert. Feel free to ask for support or to comment even if you haven't paid for the program. With your feedback maybe I can win you over in the next release.
• CHANGES •
You can also e-mail me at America Online screen name SpceAlert (only 1 'a') or via Internet as SpceAlert@aol.com. Look in the "About..." box of the program for contact information and pricing.
You may also mail a letter (and your payment) to the following address:
H Diaz
32 Whites Ave #6608
Watertown, MA 02172-4351
USA
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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•• This section describes the Copyright information. ••
SpaceAlert is protected by Copyright Laws and International Treaties signed by the USA and virtually every country in the world. Unauthorized use, duplication or distribution is illegal.
»» LEGAL MATTERS
This program may be freely distributed provided that:
-It is not sold or rented.
-It is not modified in any way.
-It remains together with its documentation.
-It is not included in a bundle with any other software.
If you’d like to distribute this software on any media (CD-ROM, diskette or other bundle) for which you charge a price, you must get express written consent from the author first. This specifically means any shareware distributors, user groups and CD-ROM publishers.
