TypesChange CM Plugin is a Contextual Menu plugin. Contextual Menu Manager was introduced with Mac OS 8. You can find more about Contextual Menus from the Apple Guide, for example.
TypesChange CM Plugin is a utility to change file type and creator codes. Type and creator codes are four character long codes that tell the Finder which application has made the document and what kind of document the file is.
Using
To use TypesChange CM Plugin you need:
Contextual Menu Manager
Appearance Manager
Scriptable Finder to see changes immediately
(In practice, these mean Mac OS 8.0 or later.)
And optionally:
Navigation Services
You need to place TypesChange CM Plugin in the Contextual Menu Items folder in the System Folder. You can do this manually or let the Mac OS worry about that by dragging the TypesChange CM Plugin on the closed System Folder.
Using TypesChange CM Plugin is easy. Just select some files in the Finder, activate contextual menus by control clicking over the files or file, and select ”Change Type & Creator…” from the menu. A dialog appears which asks you to specify new type and creator codes. You can do this either by typing, pasting or by selecting a preset code from the menus. Clicking the Cancel button will dismiss the dialog without changing any codes.
If you selected more than one file, a dialog appears asking how would you like to change your files. Select the option you want. Clicking Cancel will cancel the process. After this dialog, the normal dialog for changing codes appears. It's appearance varies with your options quite logically.
Legal Stuff (I hate these... :-)
TypesChange CM Plugin is Freeware. You don't have to pay anything for using it. TypesChange CM Plugin is copyrighted by me, Petteri Kamppuri, and I retain all rights to myself. You may distribute TypesChange CM Plugin provided you include this file and the Manual file with it, but you may NOT modify it and you may NOT charge anything from it. Also, you may NOT modify this file or the Manual. If you want to include TypesChange CM Plugin as a part of a commercial product (like a shareware collection CD-ROM), you MUST ask me for my permission.
This software and this accompanying document are provided "AS IS", and use is at your own risk. The author (Petteri Kamppuri) will not be responsible for ANY damage caused directly or indirectly by this software.
Version history
Version 1.0.3
October 17th 1999
Fixed incompability with IE and DragThing which might have affected other applications as well.
Version 1.0.2
October 12th 1999
Fixed creation date corruption bug.
Fixed bug with Browse command.
Still tried to polish the error handling.
Version 1.0.1
September 20th 1999
Better error handling and reporting.
Corrections to this ReadMe file and to the Manual.
Minor tweaks here and there.
Version 1.0
December 29th 1998
Just made 1.0b6 final 1.0 when I didn't receive any bug reports.
Version 1.0b6
December 14th 1998
After bug fixes this might be the final 1.0. Please send bug reports!
Fixed hopefully all Appearance Manager related bugs and other minor bugs.
At last fixed the bug related to adding items to popup menus.
Added possibility to edit items in the popup menus.
Added preferences support! Now custom menus are stored in the Preferences folder.
This beta version of TypesChange CM Plugin will expire on December 31st 1998.
Version 1.0b5
December 1st 1998
Added Appearance Manager and Navigation Services support.
Appearance Manager introduced _some_ visual bugs, but I'm fixing them.
This beta version of TypesChange CM Plugin will really expire on December 31st 1998.
Version 1.0b4
November 14th 1998
Removed error reporting when checking files from Contextual Menu Manger
Error reporting caused problems with Internet Explorer 4.01
This beta version of TypesChange CM Plugin will expire on December 31st 1998.
At least it was supposed to. It expired December 1st 1998.
Fix with deleting items from the pop-up menus.
Version 1.0b3
October 30th 1998
This beta version of TypesChange CM Plugin will expire on December 1st 1998.
Some minor bug fixes
When adding creators, the plugin tries to search for the name of the application.
Can delete items from the pop-up menus.
Errors are now reported. Before the plugin would just exit.
Included a manual!
Version 1.0b2
October 25th 1998
This beta version of TypesChange CM Plugin will expire on November 25th 1998.
Fixed a bug which caused an occasional crash when displaying the change dialog
Version 1.0b1
October 16th 1998
First public release
The Author
This program was coded in C/C++ using Metrowerks CodeWarrior Pro 1.
I'd like your comments and ideas so send them to me to the address' below. Bug reports are also welcome. Please provide me with as much information as possible, because otherwise I cannot easily determine the source of the bug.
