• wanted to see the type and creator of a file easily
• wanted to change the type and creator of multiple files easily
• wanted to know the pure image size of a graphic file such as JPEG, GIF..., the size that does not include any resource data like thumbnail icon.
• wanted to get the information on the graphic files, or wanted to view them quickly.
• It's a bit troublesome to open and close the "Get Info" dialog to see the infomation of a file.
• wanted to change the lock status of multiple files easily
• wanted to know the size of a big file in KB or MB rather than long-long byte size
• wanted to restore the original memory requirements for an application that you have already changed before.
More File Info CMM Plug-in is the MacOS 8 Contextual Menu Plug-in that realize such things. Main feature of this plug-in is to show the detailed information on the selected file to the contextual menu. However, it also allow users to set or change the following settings.
• File Type and Creator
• FIle lock status (ON/OFF)
• Memory requirements for an application program
Files in archive
More File Info CMM Plug-in (English version) archive includes the following files:
More File Info Contextual Menu Manager Plug-in
More File Info Manual Document
ConfigMFI Support program
ConfigMFI Manual Document
The support program ConfigMFI is used to change the settings for the Type/Creator submenu.
More File Info CMM Plug-in works without ConfigMFI. It's onlyu for those who want to customize the Type/Creator submenu. Please refer the ConfigMFI Manual for more details.
Installation
You must be using MacOS 8 or later. This Contexual Menu Plug-in works only with PowerPC Macintosh computers. So please make sure that you have the right computer. To install the plug-in, simply drag it to the System Folder icon. The Finder will place it in the Contextual Menu Items subfolder. Next time you reboot, it will be loaded.
In addition to this, you need to have the following two files in the Extensions folder of the System folder:
Contextual Menu Extension
SOMobjects™ for Mac OS
To remove a plug-in, just drag it out of the Contextual Menu Items folder. Next time you reboot, it will not be loaded.
Using the plug-in menu
When you control-click on Finder files, the plug-in displays the following menu to the contextual popup menu that appears.
As you see this plug-in displays more detailed information on the selected file. In addition to this, you can change the some of the settings or get more infromation by selecting the corresponding menu items.
*NOTE* Memory requirements (Suggested memory size, Minimum memory size and Preferred memory size) are displayed only if the selected file is an application program. Otherwise, these 3 menu items will not appear.
(1) Type/Creator
When you select the Type/Creator menu item, the following submenu appears.
You can change the Type and Creator of the selected file using this submenu. It displays the type/creator sets you have used before (up to 16 sets from the most recent one). This feature makes it easy to select the type/creator settings you frequently use without specifying from the setting dialog.
If you want to use a new type/creator, select the Other... menu. This will brings up the following dialog to the screen.
In this dialog, you can specify the type and creator in two ways:
(1) Input the Type and Creator letters directly from the keyboard (up to 4 letters for each)
(2) Select a file that has the type and creator you want to use from the standard file open dialog.
To use the method (2), press the Browse... button. It will open the standard file open dialog and let you select a file of which type and creator you want to use.
The title string is an option. This title string will appear on the submenu and make it easier to detect what type and creator is this for.
You can use the ConfigMFI (included in the same archeive file) to add/remove/edit/rearrange the Type/Creator submenu. You can also insert separator lines to make the submenu easier to see.
Besides, you can change the type and creator of multiple files at a time.
(2) Long Version
When you select the Version menu item, a dialog appears and displays the long version string which you see in the Finder's Get Info dialog. The version string this plug-in displays in the contextual menu is so called 'short version string' and it's displayed when you select list view from the Finder.
(3) Lock ON/OFF
When you select the Locked menu item, the following sub menu appears and allow you to change the ON/OFF setting of a selected file. You can also change the lock status for more than one file at a time.
(4) Memory Requirement
When you select one of the memory requirments items (Minimum memory size, Preferred memory size), the following dialog appears.
You can change the memory allocation settings for the application program . Unlike the Finder's Get Info dialog, there's a button called Reset to original. With this button, you can reset to the application's original memory requirements easily. Since changing the memory requirements is dangerous, you can not change the settings for multiple files.
(5) Graphich image info and quick view
When you select GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PICT, Photoshop PSD files, the breif information on the graphic image will be displayed on the menu. The items to be displayed depends on the image type and may vary. This infomation display does not rely on the QuickTime.
When the View Image... menu appears at the very bottom of the More File Info menu, you can view the image by selecting it. The following dialog appears and show the image you have selected.
This feature rely on the QuickTime's Graphic Importer function. Therefore, the type of the image you can view depends on the QuickTime's version.
PNG, BMP, TIFF (in addition to all the types above)
Besides, by selecting multiple image file, you can view them continuously like the slide show.
When you are viewing multiple images, you can abort it in the middle by pressing ESC key.
Note
Since this plug-in displays the information of a file, it works only with a file (or files). It does not work with folders, aliases, disks, trash, desktop printers, and other special items.
If you select more than one file, it displays the information of the last files. But please don't ask me which file would be the last one. Just try to use it with one file at a time.
The memory requirements information is displayed only if the selected file is an application program.
You can select multiple files to change the Type/Creator, or the Lock/Unlock status. But you can not change the Memory Requirements for multiple files. You must select just one file to change the memory requirement settings for the safety sake.
Version-up History
2.01 Mar 10, 1998
• I screwed up! I have included the beta version of 2.0 to the released 2.0 archive by mistake. The beta version has a bug and does not change the Type/Creator for any in the list after the first eight. To avoid the confusion, I changed the version number of actual 2.0 to 2.01.
2.0 Mar 1, 1998
• Added the feature to display the brief information on the popular graphic image file (GIF, PICT, JPEG, PSD, TIFF). Also you can view the image quickly.
• Expand the number of maximum Type/Creator submenu items from 8 to 16. Now the settings are stored into the separate preference file.
• Bundled the ConfigMFI program which let users to change the Type/Creator submenu setting easily.
• Changed from Mailware to Shareware ($10)
1.42 Feb 12, 1998
• Fixed a problem that the menu of this plug-in sometimes (or always) does not appear on the Contextual menu.
1.4 Feb 6, 1998
• Changed the way to change the file lock status to using submenu
• Added the KB or MB size after the exact byte size depending on the size of the file.
• Added the 'Browese...' button to the type/creator setting dialog
• Improved the interface to change the type/creator using submenu and displaying up to 8 sets of the most recent type/creator to the submenu.
1.3 Jan 25, 1998
• Added the file lock/unlock status menu item and make it changeable.
• Added the memory requirements menu items and make them changeable when the selected file is an application program.
• Added the feature to change the Type/Creator for the selected file(s).
1.2 Jan 13, 1998
• Added the file creation date (with seconds), the file modification date (with seconds), and the short version string to the menu item.
1.1 Jan 4, 1998
• Fixed a major bug which cause system error, finder restart, etc...
1.0 Jan 3, 1998
• First release. But because of a major bug, I stop distributing in one way.
How to Register the shareware?
More File Info CMM Plug-in (v2.0 or later) is distributed as shareware.
You are welcome to try More File Info CMM Plug-in free for a period of 30 days. If you like it and decide to keep it after the trial period, you are expected to pay the shareware fee and register your copy of More File Info CMM Plug-in.
More File Info CMM Plug-in has the following pricing:
• Single user licenses - $8 per user
• Single site license - $160 per site
A site license covers all locations for your organization within a 160 km radius of your site (100 miles). One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using this software.
Paying for More File Info CMM Plug-in is fairly simple. You can select either one of the following payment method. In any case, Kagi shareware handles my payment processing.
(a) Register online at the Kagi WWW site
You can register the shareware online from Kagi WWW site using the browser.
The URL for the registration page is:
http://order.kagi.com/?VC
You can also jump to this online registration page from author's home page:
http://www.vcnet.com/hide/download/
(b) Register by E-mail, FAX, mail
Open the Register program that accompanies the software. Enter your name, address, E-mail address, and the number of single user licenses you wish to purchase (or Site licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register and send the data and payment to Kagi shareware. More specific on the Register program to follow. Kagi shareware handles my payment processing.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can E-mail or FAX the data to Kagi shareware.
Their E-mail address and FAX numbers are:
E-mail: sales@kagi.com
FAX number: +1 510 652-6589.
You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an E-mail message. There is no need to compress the data file. It's already pretty small. If you have a FAX modem, just Print the data to the Kagi shareware FAX number.
Payments sent via E-mail are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an E-mail acknowledgment when it is processed. Payments sent via FAX take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet E-mail address you will receive an E-mail acknowledgment.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi shareware
1442-A Walnut Street #392-VC
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi shareware cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Kagi shareware cannot invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not FAX or E-mail payment forms that indicate Cash, Check, Invoice as the payment method. As far as I know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via FAX or E-mail and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi shareware and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct E-mail address, you will hear from Kagi shareware when the form is processed.
If you do not have an E-mail address, you should consider selecting the Postcard Receipt so that Kagi shareware can inform you of your registration code. Kagi shareware transmits the registration code via E-mail and paid postcard receipt only.
Please do NOT send registrations directly to me, you will only delay your receipt of the registration code, as I will have to forward it to the Kagi service.
Thank you for supporting shareware concept. I hope that this software will increase your productivity. Your comment, bug report, etc... are always welcome.
Download and distribution / Copyright
You can download the most recent version of More File Info CMM Plug-in from the following site:
• Info-Mac
• Download.com (http://www.download.com/ )
• Author's home page (http://www.vcnet.com/hide/download/ )
More File Info CMM Plug-in may be freely distributed via electronic bulletin boards, user groups, and person to person. When distributed, all accompanying files (README, Register program, etc.), are to distributed with the software without exception. The software is not to be included with any commercial software or any public domain/shareware package sold for profit without proper written consent from the author. For the permission, please contact the author by e-mail <hide@kagi.com>.
Disclaimer
While the author of this software has made every effort to deliver a high quality product, The author does not guarantee that this product is free from defects. The author is not responsible for any damage to the purchaser's computer system or data and in no event will I be responsible to the purchaser for any consequential, incidental, or indirect damages (including but not limited to damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, or loss of data) arising out of the use or inability to use this product, even if I have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Because some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, the above limitations may not apply to you. The use of this software includes the complete agreement of this disclaimer.
Special Thanks to:
Trygve Isaacson for the great and easy-to-use frameworks for the CMM plug-in development.
