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- RELEASE NOTES FOR AMANUENSIS
-
- This is a utility of the 'one dumb job' variety. It does one job,
- and does it fast and with minimal hoorah.
-
- Amanuensis is System 7 and above ONLY. Its only interface is Drag
- and Drop, so you cannot use it with earlier Systems. If you
- double-click on it from a System 6 machine, you will get an error
- message and the software will quit gracefully.
-
- To use Amanuensis _with_ System 7 or better, simply select the files
- you want to duplicate and drag them on the program's icon or an
- alias of it. New files will be created, and your original source
- files will remain unaltered.
-
- Amanuensis does this: it duplicates files, combining the Finder
- functions Duplicate (CMD-D) and Option-Copy in one very fast
- utility. It 'sees' files of any type, and it duplicates both the
- data and resource forks. An Amanuensis duplicate is an exact copy of
- the original.
-
- If you simply Drag & Drop files on the Amanuensis icon, new files
- will be created in the same folder as the original. These new files
- will have the extension ".DUP" appended to their names.
-
- If you hold down the Option key while Dragging & Dropping, you will
- be prompted for a different folder/volume to duplicate the files
- into. The prompt takes the form of a standard SFPutFile dialog, and
- the filename prompt is meaningless; we're just navigating to the
- folder you want. If you hit "Cancel", no files are copied and the
- software quits gracefully. If you hit "OK" but are in fact in the
- same folder as the original files, the originals will be duplicated
- as above, with the extension ".DUP" appended to their names. If you
- select a _different_ folder/volume, the files will be duplicated
- under their original names, with no extension appended.
-
- If you use my stuff, you end up with some real jawbreaker filenames,
- e.g., "file.TQM.XP8.TQM". If you hold down the Command key as
- Amanuensis launches, files will be copied into the same folder as
- the original, and the name of the file will be truncated at the
- first period (after a non-period). For example, "file.TQM.XP8.TQM"
- would yield "file.DUP". A file called "...file.TQM.XP8.TQM" would
- result in a new file callled "...file.DUP", since we only truncate
- at a period after a non-period, presumably an extension. And a file
- called "file" would result in "file.DUP", since there is no period
- in the original filename. If you hold down both Option and Command,
- the Option option will be honored (IOW, you will copy with the
- original name to a selected folder).
-
- IMPORTANT: Amanuensis presumes you know what you're doing! The whole
- point of the excercise is speed, so we are skipping a lot of
- overhead and error-checking. For instance, before creating a
- duplicate file, Amanuensis deliberately deletes any file in the
- folder already having that name. The original is safe, but any
- previously made duplicate will be toasted unless it is renamed.
- Likewise, we are not checking to see if the duplicate will fit on
- the selected volume. This stuff is up to you. If this makes you
- uneasy, by all means stick with the Finder.
-
- BUT: This is a nice little tool. For both devlopment and publishing,
- I frequently duplicate files - I take the chance with the original,
- knowing that I can always fall back on the copy. And, very often,
- I'll want to copy a great host of files to another folder - back-up,
- storage, network transfer, sneakernet traffic, etc. The first
- problem is solved with a Drag & Drop. The second with an Option-Drag
- & Drop. Amanuensis is much faster than the Finder, even the Finder
- hacked for bigger buffers, and the more files there are, and the
- larger the files, the faster it is. Moreover, for copying to other
- folders/volumes, navigating by SF has it all over opening a bunch of
- Finder windows (even Finder windows with their zoomRects hacked out
- (grin)).
-
- HOWEVER: An Amanuensis duplicate differs slightly from a Finder
- copy. First, the Finder keeps the orignal's creation and modified
- dates, while Amanuensis uses the current time and date. I can't
- believe this would ever be a problem. Second, Amanuensis duplicates
- the _original_ of an alais, where the Finder duplicates the alias
- itself. This might be an issue, but, of course, you wouldn't gain
- much from Amanuensis copying a 2K file, in any case. And third,
- Amanuensis won't duplicate a folder and all its files, the way the
- Finder will. It doesn't see folders at all, nor volumes, only files.
-
- Greg Swann
- 8/1/98
-