There are several ways to optimize one's use of AutoCat, and the following are a few hints and reminders.
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When you get tired of the Index Box Card, remember you can always double click on the box buttons on the AutoCat Index Card to go straight to the catalog cards.
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If somehow you get the floppy disk catalog prompt in a hard disk box or vice versa just go back to the AutoCat Index page and use the proper button to return to your card. This resets the parameters.
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If things appear to be hung up, such as field scrolling or the appearance of data in fields after a catlog read, just move the cursor into or out of the field it is in and this will get everything moving.
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AutoCat tries its level best to keep all the cards indexed properly and to keep things in order. There are a few ways to throw it off, however. The following are tips to avoid that kind of confusion. Try not to delete cards from the middle of a box. It is better just to erase the fields and leave the card blank until you wish to fill it with another disk. You may delete cards from the end of the box if you will no longer need them. If the card order or the index box does get confused just delete the disk cards first, then the box card, and then reclick the box button to start a new set. It only takes about five minutes to redo a whole box.
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Use only one Hard Disk box for each hard disk on line. Each one will contain however many pages of 500 files or fewer are necessary to hold all of the disk's catalog information.
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When you become comfortable with AutoCat, you may wish to delete these help files in order to make more room on your disk. You will need to "un-check" the Protect Card and Protect Background options. Trashing the help files will not affect the stack's performance.
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In general, it is inefficient to nest folders more than about ten deep. AutoCat will only display the first ten levels in the display pathway box, but it will still launch your file. The one exception to this launchability (if you will) is if the total pathname is greater than 255 characters, in which case the Mac Operating System, HyperCard, and AutoCat will all be dismayed.
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Use the Disk Eject buttons instead of Command-Shift-1 or -2 if you need to eject disks otherwise you will get continually prompted to reinsert disks you are finished with. In any case AutoCat should take care of most of the ejecting by itself.
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You may want to launch documents directly with an alternate application, e.g., MacWrite documents launched with Micrsoft Word 3.01. Just go to the Applications page, copy the previuosly recorded Microsoft Word pathname, and paste it below the original. Then change the creator to MACA, so you have one name pointing to Word with the MSWD creator and another with the MACA creator. Then you can launch either type of document directly.
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