How to use...   LOODLE™ has been designed to be as easy to use as possible. Over time a number of user-suggested features have been built into LOODLE™ but the essential operation of the program is still very simple. What you do: Put a 3.5 inch floppy into the disk drive. What LOODLE™ does: Everything else. Basically that’s it. LOODLE™ will automatically prepare a label for printing with the disk’s title at the top and a list of all the files and folders that are on the disk under that. If you keep feeding disks into the slots, LOODLE™ will keep them all in memory as a long list, and you can move back and forth along the list to edit or change the labels. You can add graphics to the design, if you wish. You can change fonts and border patterns. You can choose to omit certain types of information. You can set up the labels anyway you wish, but LOODLE™ does all the measuring and figuring for you. The other thing that LOODLE™ does is prepare a TEXT listing of your disks. After you have fed in all the disks you can prepare a file catalog of all the information on the disks and use your favorite word processor to edit and compile sorted lists of what files you've put on which floppy disks. Or you can import them into LoodleList for an online searchable listing. LOODLE™ can also prepare catalogs of hard disks, Syquest Drives, optical disks etc. Optical disks, for example, typically contain too many files to be readably listed on a label. Use the catalog feature to prepare and then print out a listing of the optical disk’s contents for handy reference... or import it into a data base for quick online searching. To help you use some of LOODLE™’s advanced features, here is an instruction manual for each of the menu commands. Menu Commands: ••• FILE ⌥ Open… This will open a file of labels created by LOODLE™. Only one file can be open at a time. A file is a linked list of each disk fed in to LOODLE™ along with all the files on them, and all the formating information you specify. When you choose Print, all the labels on the list are printed. Files that were created with earlier versions of Loodle starting with 4.0 will automatically be altered into 5.2 types when you save them. ⌥ New This will close any open file, erase all accumulated disk data, and begin a new empty file. ⌥ Save Saves the accumulated data into a special data file for later re-use. ⌥ Save As… Same as every other save as you’ve ever seen. ⌥ Save Catalog… This will save all the disk data as a TEXT file which you can open with your word processing program. You can then print it out, so you’ll have a quick reference of what files are on which disks. First you’ll be presented with a dialog that lets you choose to have the list prepared either (1) as an alphabetical list of all the files, along with the disks that they are on, or (2) as a list of all the disks, with the files and folders sorted under each disk title. You also get to choose the word processor that will be started when you double click the file: MS Word, MacWrite, MacWrite II or plain vanillaTeachText, but the files can be opened by any word processor for the Mac. You can use LoodleList to import catalog files created with the 2nd option (by disks), for an easily searched online database catalog of all your stored files. ⌥ Catalog Drive… Prepares a TEXT file listing of all the files on any attached volume... hard drives, optical drives, even hard drives of file servers, and so on. Loodle first presents a dialog box with the icon of the startup volume in the middle. Click on the icon to cycle through other connected volumes. After you have chosen the volume to be cataloged, the next dialog gioves you the choice of how to list the catalog: either in alphabetical order or by folder order. You also get to select the file creator as in SAVE CATALOG above. The creation dates and modification dates may also be included, as well as the file size. Finally you select a file name for the catalog and where to save it, in the usual manner. ( On larger disks this can take awhile. To alphabetically sort and list our 120 Meg hard drive [≈4000 files] took about five minutes.) Folder order listing will look just like the labels you make for disks, with indentations for each level of folders represented by tabkeys in the text file. Alphabetical listings will include the search path to the file with folder names separated by colons and starting from the desktop level downward (i.e.: if you have a file called “Myfile” inside a folder called “Mystuff” which is inside a folder called “Somefiles” the catalog will list is like this — Myfile SomeFiles:Mystuff: — and if you include creation and modification dates and sizes it will look like this — Myfile 6/17/91 7/21/92 128K SomeFiles:Mystuff:) For files inside compressed archives, the archive file is treated as if it were another level of folder (i.e: in the example above if the folder “Mystuff” were inside an archive called “Mysqueeze.sit” and that archive were itself inside the folder “Somefiles” the listing would be — Myfile SomeFiles:MySqueeze.sit:Mystuff:) In this way, you can locate your file in the volume by tracing the path from the desktop through any number of folders and/or archives to where the file is located. The size listed for a file inside an archives is the uncompressed size of the file - how big it would be if it were uncompressed from the archive. The text file produced is in generic TEXT format and can be opened by any word processor. You can then arrange the tab stops as you wish for a pleasing looking output. The file can also be imported into a data base or a spreadsheet like Excel. For our 4000 file listing the Text file was about 500K on disk. ⌥ Page Setup… Does what this one always does. ⌥ Print Ditto. ••• EDIT Cut, Copy, Paste and Clear do what they always do... BUT only on graphic elements or Comments, not the file listings. You can Cut, Copy, and Paste PICTs from the scrapbook or from graphics programs such as MacDraw, MacPaint, etc. and paste them onto your labels. Pictures will be centered near the top of the label, and the lists of files will be arranged underneath. If you hold down the option key while selecting this menu, it will allow you to Cut, Copy, Paste and Clear the background element (see below). When you click on a picture, Icon or comment on a label, it will be highlited, indicating that it will be the target of the next Edit Menu command. The Edit Menu will change to tell you what it is you are about to cut or copy, and which layer it is in (foreground or background). If you paste an Icon from the clipboard you will get the usual Icon positioning dialog to position it on the label (it will not automatically go where any previous Icon was). The Edit Menu will also change to tell you what it is that you have in the clipboard that you are about to paste. (Note that if you have copied an Icon, the Edit Menu will then say “Paste Icon” even if a comment is hilighted, and when you paste, the Icon will appear in the usual Icon position with the Comment untouched. About Graphics... The size of the picture you can paste in is limited by (a) the size of the label you’re using, and (b) the size taken up by comments. This means: for 6 to a page forms, the space is 2 9/16th inches wide, and max 1 5/8ths inches tall (a one line comment will take up about 7/32 inch at the bottom, and a two line comment will take about 7/16ths inches (depending on the font used). The 9 to a page labels have a space the same height but only 2 5/16ths inches wide using the wider printing option or 2 inches wide otherwise. The graphic is centered at the top of this space and cropped to fit. The list of file names will be squeezed into any space left over. That means if you have a very large graphic, few or no file names will be listed! At this juncture only PICT type graphics can be used. These are graphics such as you get from MacDraw and MacPaint. It also includes the high res (300 dpi) bitMaps from Canvas, etc. It does NOT include postscript graphics such as produced by Illustrator or Freehand. ••• LABELS ⌥ Label Inserted Disks When this is checked, each disk that is inserted will automatically be included on the list of files to be printed. That's the way most people use LOODLE™. If it is not checked then a label will appear on the screen, but it is not linked to the list, but it will be deleted when the next disk is inserted, and it won't be printed when you select print. ⌥ Add To List This is to add a disk to the list when you've inserted it without selecting Label Inserted Disks first. ⌥ Delete from List This is to delete a disk from the list so it won't be printed. Useful if you pop in an unlabeled disk and find that it’s one you don’t want a label for. ⌥ Go First, Go Last, Go Next, Go Back Used to move back and forth along the list of labels you have created. ••• FORMAT ⌥ Form Layout —> 6 per page / 8 per page / 9 per page /12 per page / Single Choose which of 6 paper formats you will be using. ⌥ Design… This will bring up a dialog box that will allow you to set several options about the way a label looks. You choose fonts for the title and for the listing of files. You choose the pattern to be used for the border, or choose to turn off the border altogether. You choose to have those choices apply only to the disk currently on the screen (and to all subsequent disks) or to all the disks currently in the list. Then you choose a minimum font size to determine just how small to allow the print to be in the listing of files (we recommend no smaller than 6 points). The program always prefers 12 points but it selects a smaller size if there is too much printing to fit on the label at the larger size. You may choose a fixed font size instead, so all the labels will have a uniform look, or so that a size which is the best looking one for the font will always be used. Finally you can choose to have the title centered on the label (the prefered way) or left justified. ⌥ Icon > This allows you to choose an ICON to put on the label and to select it’s position on the label. You may pop a disk in the slot after you choose this to pick an icon off of it, and that disk will not be linked to the list of labels. You can then eject it with the Eject menu choice. ⌥ Format Options > ⌥ Edge & Titles... Loodle prints the disk’s name on the label so it will appear on the edge of the disk. You can have the label name printed on the edge either upside down (so it will be readable while it is in the slot) or right side up (for easier reading in a file cabinet). You may print the name either left justified or centered on the label edge. You may also print out the amount of free space left on the disk. ⌥ Special Characters... LOODLE™ brackets the names of folders like this: «Folder Name», and the name of Stuffit and Compactor Archives like this: •Archive.cpt•. In some fonts these characters may not be printable, or they may be represented by some other characters (Osaka is one known problem). This option will allow you to change the characters used, or to eliminate the character entirely (just enter a spacebar instead of a character). ⌥ Filters… You may select the type of files to be listed: Either folders or files or both or neither! You can eliminate system files and invisible and desktop files, or leave them in. You can also have Loodle list the contents of any archive files made by Stuffit or Compactor. ⌥ Rename Label… Allows you to rename the label with a new title. Note: you rename the Label not the actual disk! ⌥ Comment… Adds a one or two line comment of your choosing at the bottom of the label. If you hold down the option key while selecting the menu for this, you can enter a “background” comment that will appear on all the labels. If you add a comment to an individual label in the usual way, it will appear instead of the background comment on that individual label. If you erase it, the background comment will replace it. ⌥ Multiples… Allows you to make as may copies as you wish of a given label without having to feed the same disk in time and again. ••• OPTIONS ⌥ Print Position > Two choices here: (1) Adjust the position of the printing (Page Position) to correct for any slight misalignments in the printer. (2) Adjust the starting position (Label Position) for printing the first label in the list, so you can take advantage of partly used sheets of label forms. ⌥ Preferences… Choose to either receive or silence warnings to save files when closing a changed list or to save settings when closing the program. ⌥ Save Present Settings Saves the present settings for LOODLE™ including the 6/9 choice, the fonts, borders, etc. ⌥ Auto Eject When checked (the default, and most common way to use LOODLE™), each disk inserted is automatically ejected immediately after the label is prepared. You may unselect this option to allow the disk to remain in the slot so you can copy Icons from the applications on the disk. (Otherwise you can choose the Icon option, then after the dialog comes up, re-insert the disk). ⌥ Eject disk Kicks disks out of the floppy drives. ⌥ Help! On line help. (NB: The Help menu is under the "?" (Balloon) menu if you are using System 7. System 7 users may also turn on Balloon Help in LOODLE for an explanation of menus and dialog choices.) About Background Graphics... If you hold down the option key while selecting the Edit or the Format menus, you will be able to create or to cut and paste Graphics, Icons or Comments which will be placed into the background of all the labels in the list. That way a single graphic element is used in the design of all the labels. You may wish to have your own logo appear on all the disks you label for example. This way you won't have to separately paste a graphic onto each label. It saves memory space too, if you care. You can paste a separate graphic onto a single label in the usual way, and it will conceal the background graphic. If you then delete the separate graphic, the background graphic will reappear. The same trick works for Icons and Comments, too!