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Text File | 1990-01-09 | 18.6 KB | 391 lines

NeoDesk Recoverable Trashcan by Dan Wilga Copyright © 1990 Gribnif Software, All Rights Reserved. This item is "freeware". There is no charge to use it. It is the property of Gribnif Software and may not be sold, traded, distributed, or marketed by anyone else without the explicit written permission of Gribnif Software. Description ----------- The NeoDesk Recoverable Trashcan is a special desk accessory which hooks directly into NeoDesk 2.05 (or later). It adds to NeoDesk a brand new trashcan which can restore any files that were deleted through it. This "NeoDesk Accessory" is possible thanks to the new "NeoDesk Developer's Kit" which lets you write your own new and exciting utilities which can hook directly into NeoDesk. It can be used to call many of the NeoDesk functions directly from your own accessories. Some additional information about the "NeoDesk Developer's Kit" and "NeoDesk Accessories" is available at the end of this file. Files in this archive --------------------- This archive should include the following files. If it does not you are probably using a modified archive. We recommend you delete it and attempt to get one which is complete. 1. TRASHCAN.ACC - The Recoverable Trashcan desk accessory. 2. TRASHCAN.RSC - The Recoverable Trashcan's resource file. 3. TRASHCAN.DOC - The documentation file you are reading now. 4. TRASHCAN.NIC - New icon for Recoverable Trashcan. 5. PATCH205.PRG - Program to patch earlier copies of NeoDesk 2.05. 6. NEO_ACC.INF - File that tells NeoDesk what "NeoDesk Accessories" you are running. Requirements ------------ To use the Recoverable Trashcan you need NeoDesk 2.05 (or later). You can see what version you are running by looking under the "About NeoDesk..." menu entry. If you are running a version older than 2.05 then you will have to upgrade for the Recoverable Trashcan to work. You can find more information on upgrading below. Patching NeoDesk ---------------- Some earlier copies of NeoDesk 2.05 are only able to utilize one "NeoDesk Accessory" at a time. This can easily be fixed by running the included patch program. The patch program will not affect copies of NeoDesk that have already been patched (and thus were fine to start with). Just follow these simple instructions: 1. Make a backup of NeoDesk (just in case something goes wrong). 2. Run the PATCH205.PRG that was included with this archive. 3. Follow the on-screen instructions. Technical types might be interested in knowing that the patch simply consist of changing the data in the NEODESK.EXE file at offset 421E from "0C46 000A 6C0E" to "5246 4E71 4E71", something that you can easily do with our freeware MEMFILE editor accessory. Installing it ------------- To install the Recoverable Trashcan accessory copy the TRASHCAN.ACC and TRASHCAN.RSC files to your boot disk. A boot disk is whatever disk you normally utilize to turn on your computer. This could be a hard disk or a floppy disk. Consult your NeoDesk manual if you have any questions. You must also copy the included NEO_ACC.INF file to the same directory where you store NeoDesk. This file tells NeoDesk the filename of any "NeoDesk Accessories" which you might be running, in this case the Recoverable Trashcan. If you already have a NEO_ACC.INF file then you should edit it so that it has the trashcan accessory in it. The NEO_ACC.INF file stores a list of all the "NeoDesk Accessories" that NeoDesk should look for. Once you have installed both the Recoverable Trashcan accessory and the NEO_ACC.INF file you can then reboot your system and load NeoDesk. Once loaded you can open a window to your boot disk and drag the TRASHCAN.ACC file to your desktop. Make sure you place it in a convenient place on the desktop, since the icon for the Recoverable Trashcan accessory will now become your new trashcan. You should also make sure you "Save Desktop" so that the icon will remain there every time you reboot the system. Custom Icon ----------- Now you have to give the trashcan a new custom icon (so that it will look like a trashcan and not like a desk accessory). You can either edit your own or use the one we have included. If you edit your own you must remember that the custom icons in the icon editor are processed from left to right, top to bottom. What this means is that if you want to create a custom icon for TRASHCAN.ACC you must make sure that you place it before the "*.ACC" icon that is already in there or your new TRASHCAN.ACC icon will be ignored. You can insert a new icon by dragging the "New Icon" icon and releasing it over any of the icons inside the icon editor windows. If you wish to use the icon that we have included you must make sure that you first create a new icon (before the "*.ACC" icon). Then load the TRASHCAN.ACC icon from the enclosed TRASHCAN.NIC file. You can then copy the loaded icon to the new icon you created. Make sure you delete the one you loaded after you have copied it to the one you created. Operation --------- Use the Recoverable Trashcan just like the older standard trashcan. Any items (files or folders) you drag to it will be deleted from your windows. It works on hard disks, ram disks, and floppy disks. The big difference is that these deleted items will still be available "inside" the trashcan. You can access the trashcan contents by double-clicking on the trashcan or opening its desk accessory entry under the "NeoDesk" menu. You may also choose to remove the older trashcan (so you will not get confused and delete something in the wrong trashcan) by selecting it and choosing the "Remove" option under the "Install Desktop Icon..." menu entry. You CANNOT use this new trashcan to 'remove' desktop icons from your desktop. That is still a feature of the original trashcan. The Recoverable Trashcan will attempt to delete the actual item associated with any icon you drag to it, regardless of whether it is a desktop icon or not. You can still select any icon from the desktop and remove it using the "Install Desktop Icon..." menu entry. The contents of the trashcan are displayed in a special dialog box. The drive buttons to the right indicate what drive you are presently looking looking at. The scroll area to the left will list any deleted items (files or folders) in that drive which can be recovered with the Recoverable Trashcan. These items are sorted alphabetically by path and name. Folders will be indicated by the standard "folder character" to the left of any folder names. If there are more items than fit in the scroll area you can use the arrows in the vertical scroll bar to see them. In theory the Recoverable Trashcan can handle an unlimited number of deleted items per drive. The horizontal scroll bar lets you read any filenames which (due to their long path) are too long to fit in the scroll area. By clicking on the appropriate "d", "t", or "s" button you can change the display to the right of an item's name to show that item's date, time, or size. If any items are displayed with a "gray field" over the filename that signifies that the items' paths no longer exist. That means that when you restore them, you will have to create the folders that they require. In color, this "gray field" is displayed with as a "red field". There is also an option, to the right, to turn on or off the confirmation the trashcan gives every time you drag something to it. This option is permanently saved in the TRASHCAN.RSC file whenever you change it and then quit out of the trashcan. You can select any item or group of items by using the mouse. Any item you select will remain selected even if you scroll the list. You can use the [Shift] key to add and remove single items from a group of items. Selecting any item will turn on the two buttons at the lower part of the dialog box, [Undelete] and [Delete Permanently]. The first option, Undelete, allows you to recover all the items that you have selected. An item is restored to the same drive and folder as where it was deleted from. If there already is an item with the same name as the deleted item you will receive a name conflict box. At this point you can either rename the file, skip that file, or abort the entire operation. There is also the possibility that the path of the deleted item no longer exists. In this case the trashcan will give you the option to create the folders needed to recover that item (or you can just abort recovering it). The second option, Delete Permanently, allows you to delete all the items you have selected from the Recoverable Trashcan. This is similar to using the older standard trashcan. Since you will be unable to recover any items deleted with this option, use it with care. Using this command will also return any disk space that was used by deleted items. Usage ----- You should try to always make it a habit of deleting your files & folders through the Recoverable Trashcan. That way there is less of a chance that you will accidentally delete an item that you did not mean to delete. It is important to remember that deleted items (which are in the Recoverable Trashcan) will still consume valuable disk space. You should check the trashcan at least once a week and delete any items that you are not planning to recover. If you run out of disk space you should probably consider emptying out the trashcan. You might even find it convenient to remove the built-in NeoDesk trashcan from the desktop so that you do not get confused and delete something important by accident. Remember that if you delete permanently a folder full of files NeoDesk still has to delete every individual file inside of it one by one. This means that very large folders might take some extra time to delete. The folder name will remain displayed in the Recoverable Trashcan while it is busy deleting all of its contents. The Recoverable Trashcan will temporarily delete any read-only files without any additional warning. When you select "Delete Permanently" it will then ask for confirmation before removing any read-only files permanently. How it works ------------ Whenever you delete a file or folder the Recoverable Trashcan deletes that item's name from the "file directory" leaving all of its sectors marked as "in use" so that no other file will overwrite it. It then writes to a hidden TRASHCAN.DAT file, in the root directory of that disk, all the information needed to later recover that "deleted" item. The TRASHCAN.DAT file holds all the information for all the deleted items in that particular drive. If you delete or recover the last item in the trashcan for that drive, the TRASHCAN.DAT file is removed. By looking for a TRASHCAN.DAT file in any disk, the trashcan is able to tell if any items have been deleted in that disk (and are waiting to be recovered). With the data in that file it can then "undelete" any deleted items. If there are no deleted items in a drive (waiting to be restored) then there will be no TRASHCAN.DAT for that drive. To delete an item permanently it actually restores the item first and then erases it from the disk. The restore stage is needed to insure that everything is back to normal before it is actually deleted. This method also assures that the Recoverable Trashcan never has to touch the very sensitive File Allocation Table (FAT). Warning! -------- You should never attempt to reorganize or repair a drive using programs like TuneUp, DL_II, or ICD CleanUp when you have files in the Recoverable Trashcan! These programs will interpret any deleted files, that are still inside the trashcan, as "lost clusters". If you go ahead and reorganize a disk with one of these programs or "fix" the lost clusters, any deleted items (waiting to be recovered) will be lost or damaged. Also the information in the TRASHCAN.DAT file, for that drive, will no longer be accurate. Only use programs like TuneUp, DL_II, or ICD CleanUp after you have emptied out the Recoverable Trashcan. Because all the information for the deleted items of a disk is stored in a hidden TRASHCAN.DAT file you have to be careful that you do not copy that file to another drive. For example, the NeoDesk DiskCopy function will copy the TRASHCAN.DAT if you use the "Files Only" function. The same effect is caused by dragging a disk icon to any open window. If you do so, the Recoverable Trashcan information for that disk (the one it was copied to) will be inaccurate. You can, however, perform disk copies as long as you use the "With Format" or "No Format" options. In either case the TRASHCAN.DAT along with all the deleted items will be copied. This is because those commands make exact duplicates of the disk (an "image" copy), including all of its contents. Under the worst case scenario you will only lose the deleted items inside the trashcan. You can always restore a drive back to its correct state (if for some reason the Recoverable Trashcan is not working correctly) by using a utility like TuneUp or DL_II to restore the "lost clusters" and by deleting the hidden TRASHCAN.DAT file. TOS bug information ------------------- Because the Recoverable Trashcan requires that a "media change" be executed so that NeoDesk & TOS both realize that files have been deleted or recovered, there is the possibility that you may run into a nasty TOS 1.0/1.2 bug. The bug occurs when special circumstances in a drive's file structure cause the system to crash whenever a media change is executed. NeoDesk 2.05 will execute a media change whenever you press [Esc] on any drive's window. Thus, you can see if any of your drives have this problem by pressing [Esc] from NeoDesk 2.05 on each drive's window. This problem can also be caused if there are more than 98 folders in any directory. You cannot use the Recoverable Trashcan on any drives showing this symptom. If you do, the Recoverable Trashcan will attempt to detect this and tell you, though there is a chance that it might crash. In either case nothing will happen to any of your files. This bug is related to the "40 Folder Bug" and is NOT fixed by FOLDRXXX or any other 40 folder fix. This problem was corrected in TOS 1.4 (and newer ROM versions). You can try to change "the special circumstances" of that drive by rearranging the folders in the root directory. There are no real guidelines for this, it is simply a matter of testing. We found that moving the first folder in a drive to another drive, placing some odd file in that drive, and then moving back the folder will usually change the drive structure enough to fix the problem. (By placing some odd file back on the disk before you move the folder back to it makes sure the folder does not end up in the same directory entry). Disclaimer ---------- As you would expect with software of this nature, we make no warranties concerning the ability of this accessory to recover deleted items or to perform as claimed. The software is provided "as is" and you should only use it at your own risk. We cannot be responsible of any loss of data that results from the usage of this accessory. Upgrading NeoDesk ----------------- If you are running a copy of NeoDesk which is older than version 2.05 you will have to upgrade to be able to use any of the "NeoDesk Accessories". You can upgrade to version 2.05 (the present shipping version as of the time this document was written) by: 1. Sending back your original INSTALLED NeoDesk 2.0 disk. 2. Enclosing $5(US) to pay for duplication, postage, and handling. (European customers should include an additional $3 to cover additional shipping costs.) Future version may have slightly different upgrade policies. If you are not sure, call first. NeoDesk Developer's Kit ----------------------- The "NeoDesk Developer's Kit" is a complete instruction guide which will allow you to develop your own desk accessories which directly hook up with NeoDesk 2.05 (or later). This allows you to write new features and utilities for NeoDesk or to use many of the NeoDesk functions in your own accessories. Both the NeoDesk Recoverable Trashcan and the NeoDesk CLI were written using this developer's kit. Knowledge of desk accessory programming, the 'C' language, and pointers is required. The kit can easily be converted to work with any higher level language. It includes sample source code, header files, complete documentation, and sample accessories. This item is planned for commercial release in early 1990 and requires NeoDesk 2.05 or later. NeoDesk CLI ----------- The NeoDesk CLI is a complete command line interpreter accessory which works out a GEM window. Includes both MS-DOS and UNIX style commands and allows for the easy creation of batch files, interactive menus, and more. By hooking directly into NeoDesk it is able to keep a relatively small file size (since it calls many of NeoDesk's functions directly) and it also gains certain advantages over any other CLI. Among those are the ability to execute any program directly from a desk accessory. This item is planned for commercial release in early 1990 and requires NeoDesk 2.05 or later. Extra information ----------------- If you have downloaded this and do not own NeoDesk you can purchase it directly from us. NeoDesk is a complete replacement to the built-in GEM desktop which comes with the Atari ST. Unlike other programs which simply give you one or two features, NeoDesk has hundreds of new exciting features and comes with a complete 90+ page manual. Contact us for a flyer or more information. If you have any other questions or comments, please feel free to write or call. You may contact us at: Gribnif Software P.O. Box 350 Hadley, MA 01035 Main line: (413) 584-7887 Fax: (413) 584-2565 Order line:(800) 999-GRIB <- Orders only! No technical support. Technical support for the Recoverable Trashcan is only available to registered users of NeoDesk 2.0 - The Desktop Alternative (version 2.05 or later).