This chapter will get you up and running with CatFinder and cover some of the basic features of the product. If you register CatFinder you will be sent complete documentation on all of CatFinders features. Enjoy.
Installation
Installation of CatFinder is easy. Create a folder on your hard disk and drag the CatFinder application into the folder. That's it.
Running CatFinder
Double-click on the CatFinder icon to launch the application. The CatFinder shareware notice will be displayed. This notice will be displayed everytime you start CatFinder until you register and receive your registration code. Select the "Try it" button.
The first time you launch CatFinder you will not have any catalogs so the CatFinder main window will be empty. CatFinder will prompt you to catalog your first disk. When prompted select the OK button. The following dialog will appear.
 
Any disk you have currently mounted will appear in the selection list. You can eject or insert disks to modify the selection list. Once you have a disk mounted that you want to catalog, select the disks name and click the OK button.
Once you have selected a disk, CatFinder will display a progress message while it reads the disk. The larger the disk the longer this process will take. Diskettes will usually only take a couple seconds, CDs can take 5 to 10 minutes because of the number of files and the slow access time of CD ROM drives.
When CatFinder has completed cataloging the disk, it will return to the main window and a new icon representing the disk will appear as shown below. CatFinder attempts to determine what type of disk was cataloged and display an appropriate icon. There are some cases where CatFinder may not correctly identify a disk type. In this case, you can modify the disk type by selecting the catalog and choosing Info from the File menu.
 
Drag and Drop Cataloging
An easy way to catalog disks is to take advantage of the drag and drop feature. From the Finder, you can take the icon for any disk and drop it on the CatFinder icon. If CatFinder is not already running it will start and catalog the disk or disks that you dropped on it.
To make this feature easy to access, you can create an alias to CatFinder and place it on your desktop so that you can easily drag disk icons to it.
Browsing Catalogs
One of the important features of CatFinder is how easily and quickly it allows you to browse a disk's catalog. The interface is similar to that of the Macintosh Finder and therefore intuitive to Macintosh users.
To browse a catalog, either double-click on the disk icon or click on the triangle next to the disk icon. A double-click on a disk icon will open a new window that contains the disk contents. Clicking on the triangle will cause the main window list to expand to include the disk contents.
In this way, you can quickly browse the contents of any disks you have cataloged with CatFinder.
Finder Launch and Select
CatFinder is System 7 aware and supports sending Open Events to the Finder. You can select files from CatFinder's windows to be launched under the Finder or brought forward in a Finder window.
For example, you are browsing a catalog in CatFinder for a file. You find the file and wish to launch it. You could insert the disk, go to the Finder and browse through the disk to find the file then double-click on it to launch it. Or you could use CatFinder's Launch option under the Finder menu. CatFinder will prompt you to insert the disk that contains the file and tell the Finder to launch it for you. If the disk happened to already be mounted, CatFinder would detect this and launch the file without prompting you for the disk.
The Select option under the Finder menu works the same way, except that instead of launching the file CatFinder tells the Finder to open the folder that contains the file and bring it to the foreground.
Reports
A report of the contents of a disk can be generated by selecting a disk from the main window and then selecting the Report option from the Catalog menu. Disk reports can be printed or exported to files by selecting Print or Export from the File menu.
Searching Catalogs
A catalog can be searched by selecting it in the CatFinder main window then selecting the Find option under the Catalog menu. CatFinder can search on the following file or folder criteria:
- Name: Names that match or contain a supplied text string are selected.
- Size: Items that are larger or smaller than a specified size are selected.
- Kind: Files of a selected kind are found, i.e., text files, control panels, etc.
- Type: Files that have a specified Type signiture are selected.
- Creator: Files that were created by a specified application are selected.
- Label: Files that match a specified label are selected.
- Creation Date: Files created before or after a specified date can be selected.
- Modification Date: Files modified before or after a specified date can be selected.
Up to five of the above criteria can be combined to create complex searches. For example, you could find files with a name containing the string "taxes" that were created with Microsoft Excel after the date January 1st 1995.
When a Find command completes, the results are presented in an easy to understand window that allows you to easily determine the location of a file or folder. You can generate a Find report can be generated from these results which can be printed or exported to a text file.
Printing Labels
CatFinder can print disk labels for the disks you have cataloged. CatFinder's default label size is set to work with standard Avery 5196 (2 3/4" X 2 3/4") labels.
CatFinder allows you to customize the label layout so you can print on different types of labels.
If you are printing on a Postscript capable printer, such as a LaserWriter NT, you should set the print area to be as large as possible. This is done via the Options button on Page Setup. If this is not done, CatFinder labels will be clipped by the page margins.
Organizing Your Catalogs
CatFinder creates a separate file for each catalog it creates. This allows you to easily manage the catalogs as you would any document created by an application. You can copy and delete catalogs from the finder without running CatFinder.
By default, CatFinder stores the catalogs in the folder that the application was launched from. However, you can make CatFinder store the catalogs in any folder by modifying the Startup Catalog Folder under the Preferences. This allows you to store catalogs in different folders to cut down on the clutter that can occur when you have cataloged many disks.
When launched, CatFinder will load all the catalogs in the Startup Catalog Folder. If you split your catalogs across multiple folders you can access catalogs in folders other than the Startup Catalog Folder by using the Get Catalog option under the File menu.
