This is release 2.1 of the BNDL Bundle. They give informative Icons to those generic files that always seem to be laying around, especially on large hard drives. (As a side note, I would like to say that as my hard drive space has increased arithmetically, the number of generic ICONs has increased geometrically, thus you see why I created the BNDL Bundle) With this utility, you can easily figure out which application was used to create an unidentified document, so that you can either find a copy of the application and open the file, or find a compatible application for it's file type. For example, if you have a Photoshop document which is in a PICT format, the BNDL Bundle will indicate that the file is a PICT, and knowing this, you can open the document with TeachText or some other application which can read PICTs.
As a general rule, I have not included BNDL's for preference files or files which have self explanatory names, even if they have generic ICONs. This is because I would end up creating hundreds of BNDLs for files that can't be opened anyway. I have, however, included many temp file ICON’s.
Installation is simple, just unstuff the BNDL Bundle. They can reside anywhere on your hard drive, though I would suggest your preferences folder for simplicity. It may be necessary to rebuild the desktop on all your mounted drives in order to get all of your ICON’s to look right. If you have not done this before, it is about time you did! Just restart your Mac and hold down the Command and Option keys until you see the dialog box which asks "Are you sure you want to rebuild the desktop?" Hit yes.
Known Problems:
1. Sometimes an application will loose it’s ICON’s for one reason or another, in which case the BNDL Bundle may take over. If you find that the ICON’s for an application that is on your drive have changed to the BNDL Bundle ICON’s, you will need to re-attach the BNDL bits. This can be done with a disk repair program such as MacTools of Norton Utilities, or by rebuilding the desktop. This problem happens frequently on all Macs, and is not related to the BNDL Bundle.
2. I have not created a BNDL Bundle ICON for every program on the market. I have included most of the common software packages and many that are not so popular, but it is not an exhaustive collection. A list of the included applications should be in the BNDL Bundle folder. I will include all new applications which come to my attention, and registered users will receive updates. If you have an application which is not included in the BNDL Bundle, please send me the type, creator and application name for inclusion.
Which Brings me to the whole issue of registering the BNDL Bundle. If you are familiar with shareware, then I am sure you have heard the whole spiel about why you should pay, and you probably don't want to hear it again. If you are not familiar with shareware, don't start a bad habit now, pay the shareware fee. Here it goes:
If you use this program for more than 30 days, please send $10 to the address below. You may pay the fee earlier than 30 days, but not later. Registered users get free updates indefinitely (through e-mail) or a couple times through US Mail. To guarantee indefinite updates through US Mail, please send $15, and your address, of course. Updates are available free to any registered users who send a disk and an SASE. I will accept cash, but as with any mail order it is not a good idea (I promise not to rip you off, though). Send your payment to:
Christopher Drayson
567 Second Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
I can be reached on the internet at cdrayson@antioc.antioch.edu
BNDL Bundle version history:
1.0 First release, only about 20 ICON’s included.
1.1 TEXT ICON included for most programs, 50 more ICON’s added.
2.0 Major update, now one file, now 25% the previous size, ends the need to pre-sort BNDL's, no longer prevents document linking.
2.0.1 Fixed an ICON bug in eight bit video.
2.1 Re-fixed the same eight bit video bug (more completely this time), split the BNDL Bundle into three files to prevent problems when rebuilding the desktop, file size reduced by another 50%.
Warning to ResEdit hackers: If you open the BNDL Bundle with ResEdit, make changes and save the changes, you could lose your application and file ICONs. If you do this, you will need to completely replace the BNDL Bundle. I might also add that I would appreciate it if you would not poke around.
