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Text File | 1994-10-02 | 7.4 KB | 183 lines | [TEXT/ttxt] |
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- These instructions are for HFS Find version 1.0
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- Introduction
-
- HFS Find searches an HFS volume for files. You may limit the search to
- files that have a particular name, creator, type, or modification date, or
- that reside under a specific folder.
-
- Using HFS Find
-
- When you open HFS Find, a window appears. This window contains
- seven boxes for entering text, eight check buttons, and two push
- buttons.
-
- The seven text boxes are used to tell HFS Find what files you want
- to search for. Each of these is associated with a check button,
- which is located to the left of the text box. When the check button
- is checked, the text box is ACTIVE, which means that HFS Find will
- use the text in the box to determine what files to show. When the
- check button is not checked, the text box is INACTIVE. HFS Find
- ignores the contents of inactive text boxes.
-
- The top two text boxes are used to hold a file type and a file
- creator. The next two are used to hold modification dates. The
- final three are used to hold file names.
-
- A file will be shown if all of the following conditions are true:
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- Either the "creator" box is inactive, or the file creator matches
- the contents of the "creator" box.
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- Either the "type" box is inactive, or the file type matches
- the contents of the "type" box.
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- Either the "Older than" box is inactive, or the modification date
- of the file is earlier than the date in the "Older than" box.
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- Either the "Newer than" box is inactive, or the modification date
- of the file is later than the date in the "Newer than" box.
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- Either all the "name" boxes are inactive, or the file name matches
- the contents of one of the active "name" boxes. It doesn't have
- to match exactly. See below for more information.
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- The check button labeled "Search whole disk" controls where HFS Find
- looks. If the button is checked, HFS Find will search the entire
- volume. When the button is unchecked, HFS Find will only look at
- files and folders under the current folder.
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- You may set the current folder by pressing the "Search From" button.
- You select a file in the folder you wish to start searching from.
- ( There is currently no way to select a folder directly. If the
- folder you want to start searching from contains only other folders,
- there is no way to restrict the search to just that folder. Sorry. )
-
- Finally, to actually start a search, press the "Do Search!" button.
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- Results
-
- When HFS Find finds a file or folder that satisfies the conditions
- you specified, it will present a dialog. At the top of the dialog
- will be the name of the file or directory. Below this is the path
- name. The path will be from the root of the volume if you searched
- the entire volume, and from the current folder if you didn't.
-
- There are four buttons in the dialog. The "Cancel Search" button
- cancels the search. The "Continue Search" button continues the
- search.
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- The "Skip Folder" button does one of two things. If the file being
- shown is a folder, then "Skip Folder" causes the search to be
- resumed, but to skip any files contained in that folder. If the
- file being shown is not a folder, then "Skip Folder" causes the
- search to continue, but to not show any more files from the folder
- that this file is in.
-
- The last button, "Set Standard File Folder", sets the folder that the
- standard file package uses to be the folder that the file or folder
- shown is contained in. When you select OPEN or SAVE AS from the FILE
- menu in most applications, this is the folder that the OPEN or
- SAVE AS dialog will start in.
-
- Stopping a Search
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- Press and hold the mouse button down during a search to abort.
-
- Matching Names
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- A file name matches the contents of a name box if the file name
- starts with the characters in the name box. For example, a name
- box that contains "abc" would match files "abc", "abcd", but not
- "ab".
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- Four characters have special meaning in a name box. "?" matches
- with any single character of the file name. "*" matches any
- number of characters from the file name ( including zero characters ).
- A "$" at the end of a name box matches the end of a file name.
- Finally, ":" followed by another character matches that other
- character.
-
- Here are some examples:
- "*.h$" would match all files that end with ".h". "*.h" would
- match all files that have ".h" anywhere in their name. "a*b?c*d?$"
- would match all files whose name starts with an "a", has a "b" two
- characters before a "c", and somewhere after the "c", has a "d",
- one more character, and then ends. Note that it would NOT match
- a file named "abdc", because the "d" can not be used to match both
- "b?c" and "d?".
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- Dates
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- The two text boxes that accept a data accept two formats. The first
- is MONTH/DAY/YEAR, where MONTH is the month number ( 1-12 ), day is
- the day number, and YEAR is the year. If the year is less than 1900,
- HFS Find will add 1900 before using it. For example, 1/1/86 and
- 1/1/1986 represent the same date.
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- You may instead specify the number of minutes, hours, or days before
- the current date and time. You do this be entering a minus sign,
- the number of mintues, hours, or days, and an M, H, or D ( or m, h, or
- d ). For example, -12h would mean 12 hours before the time the
- "Do Search!" button is pressed. -7D would mean 7 days.
-
- Another Way to Enter Things in the Type, Creator, and Date Boxes.
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- If you press the command key and click the mouse button in one of
- these boxes, you will be presented with a dialog that lets
- you select a file. The type, creator, or date will be set to
- match the file you select.
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- An Example
-
- We desire to find all MacWrite files whose name starts with "Report"
- or "Chapter".
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- Type "macwrite" into a name box. Make that the only active box. We
- then search the whole disk to find MacWrite. When we find it, we
- press "Set SFGetFile directory", and then "Cancel Search".
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- Now we command click in the "creator" box. We select MacWrite from
- the list of files shown. "MACA" appears in the "creator" box.
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- Enter "report" in a name box, and "chapter" in another name box.
- Make those name boxes active. Also make the creator box active.
- Press "Do Search".
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- Another Example
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- We want to decide if it is time to do a backup of our hard disk.
- We did our last backup 7 days ago.
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- Open HFS Find. Type "-8d" ( eight rather than seven to be safe )
- into the "After" box. Activate it by checking it's check box.
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- Deactivate all the other boxes. Make sure "Search whole disk" is
- checked.
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- Press search.
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- You will see all files you have diddled with since your backup.
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- Program Limits
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- Folders more than 32 levels below the folder the search starts in
- will be skipped. You will be told when HFS Find is going to have
- to skip some folders.
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- The path name for a file can not exceed about 1200 characters. If
- it does, the world will end. You should hit the depth limit before
- you hit this one.
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- No text box should contain more than about 35 characters.
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- HFS Find *seems* to work on MFS volumes also, although it was not
- meant to do so. That it does may be considered an accident.
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- Pr