Labels II extends the use of the ‘Labels’ Control Panel by offering a set of labels unique to every folder on your hard disk. Instead of deciding what 7 label names best describe the contents of your hard disks, Labels II allows a set of labels to be defined for every folder on a hard disk using the standard Labels Control Panel. So now you define labels for use when viewing your accounting folder and have a different set of labels for viewing your applications folder and a different set for your development folder. Another good reason for using Labels II is that folder labels transfer to other disks when that folder is copied. So if you have a set of labels defined for your accounting folder and you copy that folder to a diskette (or an AppleShare volume), the label names for that folder are copied with the folder. Anyone looking at that folder will now be able to sort and view the contents the same way you did.
How does it work?
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This version is still for technoweenies as it does not have a user interface yet. This version requires that you have a resource file named ‘Labels’ in a given folder and that you have defined the label names in that file using ResEdit. The file type and creator are not important although ‘rsrc’ (type) and ‘lbII’ (creator) are preferred as I will be checking for them (in future versions) to verify I have the right file.
The label names are in resources of type ‘Name’ and are the same format as ‘STR ’ resources. In the supplied ‘Labels’ file, there is an ‘RMAP’ resource that will map the ‘Name’ resource to a ‘STR ’ resource for you so it will open with the right editor. The ‘Name’ resources are simply numbered 1 through 7 for the seven label menu items in the Finder ‘Label’ menu. Changing these labels and closing/re-opening the folder containing the file you just changed will activate your changes. The Finder Label menu will update as well. The following picture illustrates how I plan on implementing the user interface. If you come up with better ideas, please send them to me and I will consider them. NOT!
Seriously, I would love to hear suggestions. As you can see, there will be a new icon in the window allowing you to edit the labels for that folder. Once this interface is complete, the ‘Labels’ file will be made invisible and it’s actual contents will not be made public in subsequent releases. Upon selecting the ‘Labels…’ menu item you will be presented with a dialog that looks exactly like the ‘Labels’ Control Panel allowing you to change the text and color of a label. If no label set existed for a given folder when this item is selected, the current active label set (the system default or a previous window’s labels) will be used. The about dialog will be something cool and utterly fantastic to stare at all day. NOT!
Note:
Label colors are not currently supported in the current version. They will be supported in a future version. For label colors, use the regular Control Panel and they will be honored in all folder label sets.
Known Bugs
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1. Once a label set is created for multiple folders, selecting or opening a folder changes to that folder’s set. If you have multiple folders displayed and a screen saver kicks in, when you terminate the screen saver all of the displayed folders will be listed with the last active set of labels (e.g. the last selected folder). It would be nice to correct this.
