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The file finding application for RISC OS computers
 
 

 

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Changes in 1.3

Very little except that the application is now fully 32bit safe. I also took the opportunity to tidy up sprite plotting, as deep sprites seem to have broken this earlier. Though I don't have the machines to test it, the sprite plotting should work correctly on all OSs and with all sprites (touch wood).

I removed a couple of unobtrusive bugs that OS 5.05 noticed, and earlier OSs had not, and that's about it!

Future enhancements may include the ability to search for text within a file.

Changes in 1.2

!Finder first appeared back in 1995, but has evolved considerably since then, and is now fully RISC OS 4 compatible. A list of new features is included below.

  • Since the release way back in 1995 !Finder has had a few bug fixes that only came to light when used with RISC OS 4's new disc format. The problem only showed up when a directory contained more than 77 files, which was why I never noticed it back in '95!

  • !Finder will try to search ArcFS archives and other image filing system directories if the 'recurse' option is selected, but will fail if the relevant image filing system isn't running. A bug which caused !Finder to fall over quite badly when this occurred has been fixed, now !Finder passes on without comment.

  • !Finder knows about DOSDisc, ArcFsArc, SparkFS archives and X-file image filing systems. If you would like !Finder to search other image filing system directories, please send me the filetype for the image file, and I will add them to the list of image types that !Finder knows about. Note that only sytems that allow os_gbpb 11 calls with the image file as the 'directory' will actually work. However any failure will be silent (ie no error is reported), and image files will still show up (as files) in the search provided they match the search criteria.

  • NOTE: Image files will only be treat as directories if the appropriate image filing system is installed, otherwise they will just appear as ordinary files. SparkFS Archives can only be searched if ArcFS is loaded, SparkPlug doesn't seem to provide the appropriate support to allow !Finder to open SparkFS Archives. !Finder has not been tested with SparkFS itself (as I don't have it!).

  • Fixed the display of RISC OS 4's system sprites. These have more colours than in previous versions of the OS, and can appear rather odd, rather like a negative, when displayed on programs not expecting this. The fix is a bit of a kludge: !Finder tries to display the sprites without using the pixtrans table, and if this works, the sprite is a new one, if an error occurs, !Finder uses the pixtrans table as before. It's transparent to the user, though rather inelegant, I'd be happy to hear if anyone has a neater solution. Also this hasn't been tested on RISC OS <4 as I don't have access to a machine running it.

  • Manipulating the dialog box during a search no longer confuses !Finder, which ignores all icons besides the 'Cancel' button after you press 'Start'.

  • !Finder now allows you to search via the file datestamp, either by a specified range of dates, or by an age in days, hours or minutes.

  • You can now specify a size range for the files you are interested in, useful in finding those large files that are eating up your disc space! Try searching for text files greater than 500,000 bytes to discover all those logfiles you'd forgotten about!

  • You can specify multiple file types, separated by commas. You can type these in directly, or drag a number of different files into the writeable field, and they will all be added to the filetype list. Applications and Directories can be searched for by specifying the dummy filetypes 'App' and 'Dir' respectively.

  • Adding a '~' (tilde) character to the front of the filetype string allows you to search for files that do NOT possess any of the types specified in the string.

  • !Finder now has a memory! When you open the search dialog box for the first time, some default values are shown which you can modify before starting your search. After this search has finished (actually, after it starts), when you open the search dialog box, the last values you entered will be in the fields ready for you to adjust them for your new search.

  • !Finder now fully supports interactive help on all dialog box icons, and uses the Message file to do this. If anyone fancies translating this into another language feel free, but please send me a copy so I can include it on the website.

  • The filer window now looks more like the real filer in full info mode. Where the font manager is v3.35 or later, the kern and background blending flags are set. This makes filenames similar to AWAWAW look tidier! and also guarantees that the text will look good even where a different colour background sprite is used as the wimp default.

  • When making selections in the filer window by dragging a dotted 'rubber-band' box around the required files, the window is automatically scrolled (in both x and y directions) when the mouse is moved near to the edge of the window. (Just three lines to describe and hours and hours to implement!)

  • Ctrl-Select on a file or directory entry in the filer window selects all files between the current file/directory and a previously selected 'anchor' selection. Ie. If you select one file, then ctrl-select a second, all files between the two will also be selected. Ctrl-adjust is the same as adjust. Behaviour when several discrete selected regions exist is intended to be fairy intuitive. The 'anchor' entry is the first to have been selected, or if this is subsequently de-selected, then the first selected file in the whole listing will act as the anchor. If no anchor exists, ctrl-select acts like select (and sets the anchor to the current file).

 

 

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.


If you find a bug, the more information you can give me the better chance I have of fixing it. Please include your machine, OS version, and any relevant software (ie image filing systems in use or filer utilities etc), and what you were trying to do when !Finder fell over.


Chris Nelson

e-mail: chris@nhal.demon.co.uk