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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + !Help for !Finder v 1.1 + + Copyright Chris Nelson 1995. + + + + A file search utility similar to the file manager search option in + + + + Windows 3.1 + + + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thank you for acquiring !Finder. This program is Freeware, and may be freely distribtuted provided all files are kept together and my authorship is acknowledged. No fee may be charged for this software, except to cover reasonable distribution costs. Use of the software is at your own risk, and I take no responsibility for any damage or loss caused by its use. You should have received the following files: !Boot !Run !Runimage !Sprites !Sprites22 Templates !Help Brief Overview: !Finder is a multi-taking file search utility which takes a (wild-carded) file name and/or a file type specification and searches a user specified directory for matches. Options include recursive searches, case sensitivity and automatic directory opening. Running !Finder ======= ======= To install !Finder on the icon bar, double click on its icon as usual. In a few seconds, the Finder icon will appear. Using !Finder to find files ===== ======= == ==== ===== Click with the middle (menu) button on the icon bar icon, and a simple three entry menu will appear. Besides the usual 'Info' and 'Quit' options is the 'Find' option. Select this and a dialogue box pops up. Alternatively, clicking with the select button opens the dialog box immediately. There are three text fields to specify, namely 'Filename', 'File Type' and 'Start Directory'. The first and third of these are set up with an asterisk '*' and a dollar '$' respectively. Each field/option is now described in detail: Filename ======== Searches are wild-carded using the normal '*' and '#' characters. '*' means match with any number of characters, or none. '#' matches any single character. All other characters will be searched for explicitly, though only characters acceptable to the filer can be entered. You can type as many '*'s and '#'s as you like in the filename eg. 'a##*s' would match 'arts', 'articles' or 'aspidistras', but not 'abs', you could also type 'a#*#s' and get the same effect. Even quite tricky searches like 'b*art#' would find a file named 'bart_carts', but reject 'blart_cart' etc. File Type ==== ==== This field can be used to enter a file type, either as a textual reference, 'Command', 'Text' etc, or by using the hexadecimal file type i.e. '&fff', or even just 'fff'. Only files matching the file type will be listed. You can enter something in both the 'Filename' and 'File Type' field, or in just one of them. If you do not enter anything in either, (i.e. you delete the '*' in the 'Filename' box and press 'Start', an error box appears. Note, that to simplify entering a file type, if you are not sure what name has been given a specific file type, just drag a file of the relevant type from a filer window into the 'File Type' entry box, and the file's type will appear automatically. Start Directory ===== ========= This defaults to the root directory of the current drive, i.e. '$'. You can enter any valid directory on any valid filing system. For some reason, !Finder has problems with the Resources filing system on the RISC PC, I suspect it is because this system is not a true filing system, but actually represents part of the hard disc drive, IDEDisc4. Like the 'File Type', if you drag a file or directory to the 'Start Directory' entry box, the directory which contains that file/directory is automatically entered for you. There are three options which may be selected and deselected by clicking the appropriate click box. A tick, or cross indicates that the option is selected: Case Sensitive ==== ========= Searches for filenames are carried out case sensitively, this is probably not entirely useful, but was easy to code! Perhaps if someone wants to port !Finder to unix... Recurse ======= If selected, searches are made of all subdirectories below the 'Start Directory', as well as the 'Start Directory' itself of course. Open Directory ==== ========= Sometimes when you are searching for a fairly small number of files, it will be useful to open the filer directory containing the files automatically. Selecting this option causes !Finder to open each directory that contains a file matching the search criteria as soon as it is found. The two remaining buttons are the 'Cancel' and 'Start' buttons. Pressing 'Start' starts the search, pressing 'Cancel' before pressing 'Start' cancels the search before it starts(!) and closes the dialogue box, clicking on the dialog box's close icon also does this. Once a search has begun, pressing 'Cancel' stops the search, closes the dialog box, but leaves the result of the interrupted search on display in the file information window. The 'Status' icon at the bottom of the dialog box is used to inform the user of the progress of the search. It displays the directory being searched and each file found matching the search criteria. File Information Window ==== =========== ====== This window opens automatically as soon as a file matching the search criteria has been found. It contains a list of all the files found in a format similar to the Filer when in full info mode. The title of the window is the 'Start Directory' selected when the search began. In the window itself are displayed the following from left to right: A sprite suitable for the objects type, this may be a directory or an applications sprite if appropriate. The file name rooted in the 'Start Directory', i.e. the path shown here is using the 'Start Directory' as the current directory. This is indicated by the use of the '@' symbol. As an example, if the file entry is '@.downloads.hensa.misc.newsfile', and the 'Start Directory', and window title, is 'ADFS::IDEDisc4.$.internet', then the files full path name is: 'ADFS::IDEDisc4.$.internet.downloads.hensa.misc.newsfile'. Note that !Finder makes no assumption about the lengths of file names, and if you have !LongFiles by Jason Tribbeck, !Finder has no problems. One thing to note though, is that as !Finder retrieves files in the order they are stored in the directory, it will get file names greater than 10 characters in the wrong order. This is because !LongFiles renames a file to something like, '(C)JPT-###', where ### is a ID code, and stores the actual long file name in a hidden file. This means that all files that have the long names (>10) will appear in !Finder's window wherever '(C)JPT-###' would appear. This is not a problem, as !Finder does a full alphanumeric sort when it has finished the search, this uses !Finder's copy of the file name, and order is restored. Next comes the read/write access in the same format as the filer window displays. I.e. WR/ means read/write access granted to you etc. The file size comes next, again in a similar manner to the filer windows. The file type in text where possible, else in hexadecimal. Finally, the date/time of creation of the file is given. Text is displayed in the 'Homerton.Medium' font by default. You can alter this by editing the !Run file for !Finder and altering the line that begins *Set finder$font i.e. to say: *Set finder$font Trinity.bold If the specified font is not found, !Finder will complain and adopt the system font. Font selection comes in a later version! Note that you can select to use the system font by editing the !Run file to say *Set Finder$font System instead of a fancy font; this avoids the font not found errors. Note that 'System' has to be typed as shown as the selection is case sensitive. Files in the display window can be manipulated in several ways: Double clicking on a file or application performs a filer_run. Double clicking on a directory opens the directory as usual. Holding down the shift key when double clicking on an application line, opens the directory just like the filer. Similarly, holding down the control key when opening a directory prevents the !Boot files of any applications within the directory from being run. Adjust clicking does not close the file display window, I do not think this is terribly useful personally, but if people particularly want it, this can be implemented. Items can be selected by clicking once on their display line, using the select button clears any existing selected files, clicking with the adjust button adds files to the existing selection, if any. The adjust button can be used to toggle files in and out of the selected group. If you click and hold down either the select or adjust buttons when the mouse is somewhere between file lines, a simple drag box appears. Moving the mouse stretches the box like a rubber band. When the button is released, the files within the box alter their selection status as if they had been clicked individually with whichever button was held down during the drag. I.e. if the select button was being pressed, all files within the box are selected, all those outside are deselected. If the adjust button was being pressed, files within the box are toggled into or out of the selection depending on the previous status. Files outside the box are unaffected. Note that only the file name itself is highlighted when a file line is selected, even if the button was pressed anywhere else on the line. Once a file or group of files have been selected, you can drag the files/directories into an application window, or to the icon bar. I.e. click and hold down the select or adjust button when over one of the selected files. An icon appears (RISC OS 3) or a square dashed line (RISC OS 2). If only one file is selected, the icon will be that appropriate to the file or application or directory. If several files are selected, the 'package' sprite is shown if this is defined, otherwise !finder's own multiple selection icon is used. In any event when the file/files are dragged to another applications icon or window, the application can load or insert the files as appropriate. The only exceptions are the filer windows. The filer uses a different mechanism for moving files around between filing systems and so, at the moment, attempts to drag files to filer windows are ignored. This may be implemented in a later version. Clicking the menu button opens the menu for the filer window. This has the five sort options available to the display. These are 'Path', 'Name', 'Type', 'Size' and 'Date'. The last three are fairly straightforward, the files are sorted into order of file type (alphanumeric), size and date/time respectively. 'Path' and 'Name' both sort the files according to their names. 'Path' uses the whole pathname for the file, 'Name' just uses the leaf name. This can be useful where several files share the same leaf name but are in different directories, like a C/C++ project for example. In order to make picking out the leaf names easier, when the 'Name' type sort is selected, the filenames are shown right-aligned within the file window. Incidentally searches can be performed before all the files have been found, although the sort is not multi-tasking, blame C's qsort for this. If you do this you should be aware that any matches found after performing this search will be added to the bottom of the window like before, all is not lost however, as when the search is completed, !Finder will sort the window using the sort option you selected automatically. It is possible to run two or more searches simultaneously, but all that happens is that one waits until the other has finished before continuing. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Well that's about it, I have several ideas for improvements to !Finder, perhaps the most useful would be to graft it on to the Filer rather than have !Finder on the icon bar. This will probably mean attatching it to the filer's menu using a filter. When I find out how to do this, I will give it a whirl! RISC OS 3 PRM's going cheap anyone? Another idea which will be quite straightforward given the structure of !Finder, is to allow file searches requested by other applications via the wimp message system. This would perform a search in the background, and the results of the search would be passed to the application that requested it, a file at a time. I hope you find !Finder useful, feedback from user's would be appreciated, especially if it is positive ;-) In particular, if there is an obvious omission from !Finder, why not e-mail/write me and I will try to add it. P.S. !Finder was written in C++ and is therefore quite large for what it does. However, memory management is reasonably effective, and a large search (like the whole of your hard disc), will only temporarily increase the size of !Finder's wimp slot. When the display window is closed, all the memory used will be released. Chris Nelson e-mail: c_nelson@bbcnc.org.uk s-mail: #4, 74 Lexham Gardens, Kensington, LONDON, W8 5JB Arcade User #1804 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Version History 1.00 16th March 1995 First release of !Finder 1.10 27th March 1995 Fixed an irritating bug that could crash the application when cancel was selected in the dialog box. Also tightened up some internal coding. Removed bug that caused problems if dialog box was closed when a search was in progress, but no file had been found. This also caused problems if the search was unsuccesful. Yet another bug found which caused problems when only one file was found. Fixed it. Dialog box appears centred on the screen. File windows appear terraced across and then down the screen, so as to avoid too much overlap. Tightened up memory management. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++