Default Folder is a Mac OS 8 compatible control panel that enhances Open and Save dialog boxes to make it easier for you to manage files on your Macintosh. It provides many of the essential features of the commercial SuperBoomerang and Directory Assistance utilities, but without the infrequently used extras that take their toll in compatibility, memory, and CPU usage.
Default Folder's time-saving Open and Save dialog enhancements allow you to:
• Set up a default folder for any or all applications.
• Switch among recently used folders from a pop-up menu.
• See available disk space and switch between disks from a pop-up menu.
• Click on a Finder window to show it in an Open or Save dialog.
• Open the folder shown in an Open or Save dialog in the Finder.
• Create folders, get information (including changing name, type, and creator),
and move items to the Trash from within file dialogs.
• "Rebound" back to the last file you used.
• Make "Replace" the default option instead of "Cancel" when saving a file with
the same name as an existing file.
• Speed up the display of Open and Save dialogs by turning off custom color icons
in the file list.
Default Folder will operate on any Macintosh running System 7 or higher, including Mac OS 8, and is accelerated for PowerPC.
New in this Release:
Version 2.7.6 fixes a bug which could cause strange, unpredictable behavior and crashes in file dialogs of particular applications, including Photoshop, MarkzTools II, and PageMaker. We apologize for causing instability for the users afflicted by this bug.
Shareware Registration:
Default Folder is distributed as shareware. This means that you may evaluate it free for 30 days, but if you continue using it beyond that time, you must pay a $25 (US) registration fee. Upon registering, you will receive a code to disable the shareware reminder, as well as free upgrades and technical support.
Registrations are handled by Kagi, a payment processing company, and can be done using cash, check, credit card, or a First Virtual account. To register, click on the "Register..." button in the Default Folder control panel, or launch the "Register SCS" application that came with Default Folder. For more details on using the Register SCS application, please refer to the "How to Register" document included alongside this Read Me file.
NOTE: If you registered a previous version of Default Folder, you do not need to register again. Your old registration code will continue to work.
Revision History:
Version 2.7.6 corrects instability and strange behavior caused by Default Folder drawing a Quicktime compressed PICT image in file dialogs.
Version 2.7.5 fixes a cosmetic bug that caused the volume name in file dialogs to be overwritten.
Version 2.7.4 corrects some minor details and fixes one major bug that caused crashes with FrameMaker and with Adobe Acrobat Exchange when a beta version of Acrobat Capture was installed. This version also works around McAfee VirusScan, which previously disabled Default Folder's ability to remember recently used folders, and fixes the broken "Go to last used folder when switiching disks" option. System 8 style icons are now used in the popup menu buttons, and the menu buttons can be permanently displayed, rather than turning on and off depending upon mouse position. "Move to Trash" now makes invisible files visible, and correctly sets up the file so that the Finder's "Put Away" command works.
Version 2.7.3 corrects a bug which caused the "Click in Finder Window" feature to fail to work on some machines. It also allows two folders of the same name on the same disk to be put in the locked folder list in the menu.
Version 2.7.2 adds support for MacOS 8. It fixes a bug that occurred on some Tanzania-based Motorola Mac clones, causing errors when starting applications. Default Folder now correctly handles reentrant file dialogs (even though they're never supposed to happen).
Version 2.7.1 adds some quick fixes to version 2.7, which was very short-lived. The center menu is again optional - apologies to network administrators for not considering your needs more carefully. Warnings about corrupted history data when accessing Novell Netware servers have been eliminated. A correct error message is displayed when a user does not have access privileges to a folder when accessing it using Default Folder's folder menu, and a clickable URL was added to the control panel.
Version 2.7 provides the option to sort the menu of recently used folders by name, adds command keys to the locked folder list, opens folders in the Finder, and fixes a bug that prevented Default Folder from putting items on file servers into the trash. Users can also now choose whether holding the option key down will show all files and folders in the file dialog, and file dialog boxes are now always movable by grabbing the border of the dialog. Once significant bug was fixed: The control panel no longer crashes when adding folders with very long names to the locked folder list.
Version 2.6.1 allows you to copy text in the online help dialog, and also fixes three bugs. WordPerfect no longer crashes when Default Folder is installed, Default Folder's "Click in Finder Windows" feature no longer disables Popup Folder's shortcut buttons in file dialogs, and a long-standing problem with initialization of some data structures in memory has been corrected. The latter should fix problems some users have experienced with corruption of Default Folder's preferences file, random type 11 crashes, conflicts with Speech Recognition, and "Not enough memory" errors when opening applications
Version 2.6 corrects two bugs and adds new features. Clicking on a Finder window will switch the file dialog to that folder. Showing the "top level" of a disk or the last used folder on the disk when you switch between disks is now an option. Aaron-style folder icons have been added. Registration is now handled by Kagi Shareware. Changes made using Default Folder's Get Info command are now reflected immediately in the Finder. The "Please Register" reminder could cause crashes in Excel, and would result in incorrectly refreshed windows in 4th Dimension. This has been fixed by displaying the reminder at startup, rather than in file dialogs.
Version 2.5.7 corrects several bugs. The Get Info dialog will now correctly rename, lock, or unlock files and folders. Default Folder no longer crashes when you eject a DOS formatted floppy from within a file dialog. The Get Info and Move To Trash now always work on the currently selected file - some applications confused them in the past. The help dialog in the control panel now comes up much faster on slower Macs running non-US system software.
Version 2.5.6 fixes a problem with the control panel crashing when used with KanjiTalk or the Japanese Language Kit. This just required changes in the layout of code segments to avoid dependencies on the A4 register across segments - no source code was changed.
Version 2.5.5 corrects problems with the Default Folder Prefs file becoming corrupted on Macs running System 7.5.1. The software has also been reorganized internally to allow the use of plug-in extensions and to reduce memory usage. The substitution file capability has been migrated to a plug-in extension, since few people use it.
Version 2.5.4 fixes a problem with the startup icon disappearing when Now Startup Manager was used.
Version 2.5.3 adds additional "power user" features that can be used by holding down the option key when using "Open" dialogs and when moving items to the Trash. Rebound information is also saved across restarts. A conflict with Apollo 1.13 was fixed. Apollo's "Groups" configuration dialog performed an unusual (but logical) series of toolbox calls that hadn't been anticipated.
Version 2.5.2 fixes some incompatibilities with 68000-based Macintoshes. It also introduces color buttons for the pop up menus in the file dialogs, and a much better method of displaying duplicate folder names in the pop up folder menu. Special thanks go to Ari Weinstein for the button colorization idea, which should have been added long ago, but no one ever thought of it.
Version 2.5.1 fixes a bug that caused crashes at startup if the user hit Cancel in the Prefs dialog and it was the first time the Prefs had been used since installation.
Version 2.5 adds a number of new features: Variable folder history length, Get Info, Move to Trash, option-arrow hotkeys and hotkeys for other menu selections, tracking applications by creator type, making "Replace" the default, and turning off fancy file icons. VISA and MasterCard payments are now accepted, and an online registration form has been added to make registration easier. Several bugs were also fixed: The Finder sometimes got confused when a disk or CD was ejected using the Eject button in the file dialog. The cursor would not be restored until the mouse was moved if the "Show Default Folder cursor during disk access" option was turned on.
Version 2.48 fixes several minor bugs. In the control panel, selecting the rebound feature under System 6 could cause an error when closing the Preferences dialog, sometimes resulting in a system crash. In file dialogs, click selection at the Desktop level was erratic when an Appleshare volume, a floppy, or a CD-ROM was being used . Also, the first selection made after the file list was refreshed did not select the correct file or folder. Fixes were also made to make Default Folder operate correctly on PowerMacs and to remove a conflict with DiskCheck.
Version 2.47B fixes an error in the patch to StandardGetFile() that resulted in folders being omitted from file dialogs. The StandardGetFile() function is apparently very seldom used, since the problem went undetected for more than two years.
Version 2.47 fixes the conflict with the Inline Tsuika Kinou extension distributed with KanjiTalk System 7.1. The conflict which caused Claris Works macros to run very slowly in file dialogs has been fixed. A switch to turn rebounding off has been added in the Prefs dialog, and rebounding is now much more intelligent. Users must explicitly turn rebounding back on when upgrading from previous versions. Holding down the option key within a file dialog displays the pop-up menus without the mouse being over the volume name. The list of recently used folders is now saved with each link set, so switching link sets switches your list of recently used folders.
Version 2.46 fixes a bug which caused crashes if an extension displayed a dialog box after Default Folder loaded at startup but before any application (including the Finder) was launched. Problems arose with Apple's Cache Switch and Magnus' Empower.
Version 2.45 adds features and fixes bugs: Added another pop-up menu which allows you to switch link sets and modify them on the fly. Made rebound and recording of recently used folders more robust - they now work consistently on all machines. Added CompuServe registration info. Added on-the-fly switching of link sets from the pop-up menus. This feature must be turned on in the control panel preferences dialog when users upgrade from previous versions.
Version 2.42 fixes a minor bug that caused preferences from older versions to be misread, running Default Folder in "always switch" mode until the preferences were changed in the Control Panel.
Version 2.41 adds a host of minor features: Added "rebound" feature under System 7. Added styled text to the online help (it's about time…). Added support for substitution files. Added user registration. Default Folder will now annoy users who've had it installed for more than 30 days without registering. The #INCLUDE directive can now be used in imported text files to load links common to more than one set from a single file. Fixed a bug that would cause file dialogs not to refresh correctly if an error message was popped up on top of them. Properly close the preferences file when an error occurs. Fixed a conflict with QuickTools PowerStrip that caused the default folder to not be set correctly. Fixed a bug with DeskScan II. They don't save and restore registers properly in one of their patches, which caused update handling to crash in file dialogs. Changed method of detecting when a folder is "used," so Default Folder always notices that you've been somewhere and puts the folder in the recently used folder menu.
Version 2.33 fixes some minor bugs: The list of locked folders is now sorted correctly by folder name rather than by full path name. When a disk is ejected, if the current application has a link to a folder, the file dialog is set to that folder rather than just going to the next mounted volume.
Version 2.32 adds a feature and deals with a couple of ill-behaved applications: Added an option in the Preferences dialog to always switch to an application's default folder, even if the application was launched by double-clicking on one of its documents. Added additional exception resource entries to handle FileMaker Pro and Microsoft Excel specially. The former doesn't respect a document's folder, so Default Folder always switches to FileMaker's default folder, and the latter won't open the startup macro file unless Default Folder puts off the directory switch until the first file dialog is called up.
Version 2.31 fixes several bugs: An incorrect system patch caused applications that were using the new System 7 StandardPutFile() file dialogs to display the prompt incorrectly. The code switched heap zones while handling the Preferences file, causing address errors on 68000 based machines on startup or shutdown if the prefs file didn't exist. Import didn't understand pathnames containing only a volume name. An attempt to truncate the pathname during import and export resulted in an infinite loop under System 6.
Version 2.3 fixes several bugs, adds some new functionality, and increases robustness: Erroneous code caused applications that were using the new System 7 file dialogs with filter procs to crash. An error was fixed in the balloon help resources. The old name, DFaultD, was dumped in favor of Default Folder due to complaints that the name did not adequately imply the utility's function. Default Folder now uses a preference file, like all good Mac programs should. The internal representation of links was changed to improve robustness. Folder links were previously remembered only by their directory ID number, which could change if the user deleted the folder and replaced it with another of the same name, or if the folder was restored from a backup. The full pathname of the folder is now saved and used as a fallback if the directory ID method fails, making the "Can't find this folder!" error message much less likely to occur. Note that pathnames longer than 255 characters can't be used, so the directory ID method will have to do in these cases. The capability to print a registration form was added to the control panel in the help dialog. Import/Export was added to allow simple editing of links in text format. Special-case handling of certain applications was made extensible, to allow additional 'problem' applications to be accommodated without recompiling. To deal with a few ill-behaved applications like Claris' FileMaker Pro 2.0, a flag was added to tell Default Folder to always switch to the default folder, even when the application is launched with a file. The icon was changed (again) to follow the current "control panel look" conventions.
Version 2.23 fixes one bug and some inconsistencies in the code: Default Folder would sometimes crash under System 7 when trying to enforce a link if the folder had been deleted and the sound volume was set to zero (SysBeep crashed when trying to flash the menu bar).
Version 2.22 fixes a very nasty bug: A late night typo introduced a bug which could cause the program stack to get corrupted, resulting in crashes at random times after a customized standard file box was invoked. Thanks to Aron Nelson for finding this one as a conflict with Handoff II.
Version 2.21 fixes a very minor bug: A misplaced HLock() call caused an unpleasant interface bug when Default Folder was used with the OpenWide control panel.
Version 2.2 adds support for System 7.0 and the following additions: Fixed a bug in the patching of traps which caused Default Folder to crash on startup under System 7. Under System 7, DFaultD patches InitMenus() rather than InitAllPacks() to catch the startup of applications. This was necessary because at InitAllPacks() time, the Apple Events which tell the application which files to open hadn't been posted yet. The startup message which displayed the current link set was removed, as per Apple's guidelines. Support was added for Apple Events that are used to open and print documents from System 7 aware applications. Balloon help was added for the control panel device and for the Finder's balloon help. The icon for Default Folder was changed - some marketing people at a company that briefly licensed Default Folder thought that the old icon was too suggestive of bondage or some such. The interface for the control panel was cleaned up considerably (thanks to the unnamed company which licensed Default Folder for helping me with that). The link set editor has been modified to make it more intuitive. The pop-up menu now presents a couple of buttons rather than mysteriously popping up from out of the volume name. The pop-up menu for file dialogs has been enhanced to support switching between drives and saving the last folder used on each drive. The pop-up folder menu has been given a "New Folder" command to allow the creation of folders from within file dialog boxes.
Version 2.02 adds two bug-fixes and a couple of additions: A programming error caused the Default Folder control panel to crash under Multifinder 6.1b7 - it actually should've crashed in other situations, but I just got lucky in prior system versions. Fixed a bug that caused the control panel to crash when adding folders on a TOPS network. TOPS is unusually picky about the way it patches one system trap. Holding down the shift key at startup now disables DFaultD, and the icon displayed indicates so. Holding down the command key when launching a desk accessory disables DFaultD so that it won't change the directory.
Version 2.0 adds a bunch of new features and two bug-fixes: Added support for desk accessories, the most clamored-for feature. Added a pop-up menu similar to Boomerang's, which remembers the last 10 folders you used. The menu also lets you switch to an application's default folder whenever you want, and lets you "freeze" folders in the menu permanently. Included a scrolling help window in the control panel which explains things much more clearly. Added an options dialog to let you turn off the startup message, turn off the pop-up menu, set the command key equivalent for switching to the default folder, and some other, more technical stuff. Bulletproofed everything a little better against problems which occur when Default Folder is run on machines without adequate features (specifically, HFS and System 6.0). Fixed a bug which caused the wrong volume name to be shown in the disk-switch alert (a very strange interaction with the system error handler). Fixed a conflict with Quickeys version 1.1 (even though that version's obsolete, and has been for quite some time).
Version 1.01 fixed a bug in 1.0 that caused the Add... and Link... SFGetFile dialogs to "not show" the last item if the list had to be scrolled. This was simply my naive assumption that the System would resize the list box to an even number of text lines before displaying the files, which it doesn't. What resulted was that the last file or folder name was shown, but the list box was sized so that you could only see 2 pixels at the top of the file name. Whoops. A simple ResEdit fix. Thanks to D.L. Fuller for pointing this one out. The Add... and Link... functions were also modified to remember the last disk and folder they used.
