AutoCat‚Ñ¢ takes account of all changes as soon as you click in the items ; it is not necessary to close it or to restart your Macintosh.
If AutoCat‚Ñ¢ was not in the Control Panels folder when you started your Macintosh, or if extensions were deactivated (Shift key was held down during startup), AutoCat‚Ñ¢ is deactivated until you restart your Macintosh with AutoCat‚Ñ¢ in the Control Panels folder. In such a case, the On and Off buttons, and the Archiving Mode checkbox are dimmed.
• You can turn on or turn off AutoCat™ with the On and Off radio buttons.
• You can activate or deactivate Balloon Help directly from AutoCat™. Select or deselect the checkbox near the Balloon Help icon.
• If you want the feedback of an AutoCat™ icon during the startup process, click the Show startup icon checkbox. Deselect it if you don't want to show the icon.
• By default, the Cataloged disks folder is the Desktop Folder of your startup disk. You can select a different folder by clicking in the Cataloged disks folder field. A standard dialog allows you to select an existing folder. Don't select a folder on a disk that will be ejected ! (Don't worry, if you make this mistake, AutoCat™ will do nothing when you eject the disk.)
• You can select the Archiving Mode checkbox to quickly catalog a series of disks. You should use this mode the first time you use AutoCat™ to catalog all your disks. In this mode, each disk you insert is cataloged (unless options prevent it) and is immediately ejected. To quit this mode, deselect the Archiving Mode checkbox, or close the AutoCat™ control panel.
• By clicking the Preferences... button, you can change other settings :
- By default, if you hold down the [Option] key while you are ejecting a diskette, AutoCat‚Ñ¢ is deactivated. Don't change this option if you use AutoCat‚Ñ¢ with a lot of disks. If you want to use AutoCat‚Ñ¢ with just a selection of disks, click on the other radio button. AutoCat‚Ñ¢ will then catalog disks only when you hold down the [Option] key. You can also choose one or more keys from among [Command], [Option], and [Control] to act as an override.
- If you wish to save a little room on your hard disk, you can prevent AutoCat‚Ñ¢ from creating customized icons (i.e. diskettes with a small cat).
- If you wish to save a little time while cataloging, you can prevent AutoCat™ from copying the icons of the files it catalogs. If the corresponding checkbox isn't selected, the Finder™ will use standard icons for files or applications, unless it knows the icon of the file (which is the case if the application that has created the file is on your hard disk).
- By default, AutoCat‚Ñ¢ doesn't catalog volumes containing the strings "Untitled" or "Install" (non case sensitive). You can add or remove names in the list. You can type [Command] [A] instead of pressing the Add button, or [Command] [R] instead of pressing the Remove button. The list is a standard list : use [Command] to make discontinuous selections and [Shift] for continuous selections.
- You may want not to catalog files beyond a specific hierarchical level. Just type the value you wish in the correponding field. For example, if you have typed 2, and if there is a file in a folder which is itself included in another folder which belongs to another parent folder, the file will not be cataloged. The default value is 100, which should be sufficient to catalog all the files.
- By default, AutoCat‚Ñ¢ only catalogs volumes with a capacity lower than 2MB (i.e. diskettes), but you can change this value. This could be useful if you use SyQuest‚Ñ¢ cartridges or want to catalog CD-ROMs for example.
