1. To create DiskCopy™ disk images quickly and efficiently:
Using ShrinkWrap™, you can create DiskCopy™ disk images by simply dragging and dropping your floppy drive icons onto the ShrinkWrap™ icon.
2. To provide a convenient and reliable means of mounting multiple disk images on the desktop:
Like Apple's MountImage™ control panel, ShrinkWrap™ will mount image files on the desktop that to the system will appear identical to the original floppy disks. However, since ShrinkWrap™ is an application, it will never cause INIT conflicts and will never require any memory until it's actually run. To mount image files, simply drag and drop the image file icons onto the ShrinkWrap™ icon. Image files can even be mounted as unlocked disks by holding down the Option key during launch.
3. To seamlessly handle image files in their archived form:
ShrinkWrap™ will automatically compress and decompress archived image files on-the-fly with Aladdin's StuffIt Engine™. Now that the StuffIt Engine™ has been released as shareware with the DropStuff with Expander Enhancer package, you don't have to own StuffIt Deluxe™ to take advantage of these convenient compression features.
4. To provide a freely distributable alternative to Apple's DiskCopy™, DART™ and MountImage™:
These products cannot yet legally be licensed for redistribution. Apple Computer, Inc. is working to create a license, but until that time, you may not legally redistribute it once you receive a copy from an authorized Apple source.
Installation
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Install ShrinkWrap™ by double-clicking the self-expanding archive and dragging the ShrinkWrap™ application to a convenient location on your hard drive. You may need to rebuild your desktop if ShrinkWrap™ will not initially accept drag and drop files. Hopefully, you already have the StuffIt Engine™ installed in your System Extensions folder. If not, you should obtain Aladdin's StuffIt Expander and DropStuff with Expander Enhancer and install the software.
System Requirements
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ShrinkWrap™ is a System 7-only application. It is Apple Event aware, 32-bit clean, Power Macintosh, AV, ’040 cache and virtual memory compatible.
Why do we need to deal with disk images?
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Although there is some similarity between disks duplicated from disk images and disks copied by dragging icons, the results are not identical. Floppy disks created from image files are exact duplicates, including the exact icon placement, appearance of all windows, and the correct name of the disk. In addition, with disk images you have the added assurance that all the files have been duplicated correctly and completely. More importantly, Apple's Installer will not recognize disks copied by dragging icons, even if they appear identical in every way.
Some convenient uses for disk images:
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1. Backing up your original floppy disks to removable media:
A Magneto-Optical or SyQuest drive can serve as an excellent means to back up your software. When disk image files are stored in compressed form, they are space efficient but easily accessible with ShrinkWrap™. Just drag the compressed image onto the ShrinkWrap™ icon and the file will be uncompressed and immediately mounted on the desktop.
2. Installing Apple's System Updates and System Software Extensions:
Since most of Apple's System Software, System Updates and System Extensions (CD-ROM Setup, Network System Installer, printer drivers, etc.) are distributed over the net in image file format, it would be convenient to be able to mount the images and run the Installer without ever having to copy the images back to floppy disk. Unfortunately, MountImage™ has a serious bug that causes data corruption when installing from mounted disk images. ShrinkWrap™ does not suffer from this problem.
3. Distributing multiple disk images on floppies:
Using ShrinkWrap™ and the StuffIt Engine™, you can achieve adequate compression to store three or more 800K disk images on a 1.44 MB HD floppy.
4. Mounting HD floppies on older Macs without a SuperDrive™:
For older Macs not equipped with a SuperDrive™, ShrinkWrap™ provides a cost-effective and convenient means of mounting HD floppies on the desktop.
Using ShrinkWrap™
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One or more DiskCopy™ image files can be mounted by dragging their icons onto the ShrinkWrap™ icon:
1. In the Finder, select one or more image files that you want mounted.
2. Drag them over the ShrinkWrap™ icon until it is highlighted.
3. Let go of the mouse/trackball button.
ShrinkWrap™ will open and you’ll see a progress dialog. When everything is mounted, ShrinkWrap™ automatically quits.
If you prefer a “manual” way to mount image files:
1. Double click the ShrinkWrap™ icon to open the application.
2. Choose the “Mount Image File...” command from the File menu.
3. Select the desired image file to mount in the standard file dialog.
>> When mounting disk images via drag and drop or from the application, you can mount the image files as an unlocked disks by holding down the Option key while the images are mounted. <<
Image files can be made of one or more floppy disks by dragging their icons onto the ShrinkWrap™ icon:
1. In the Finder, select one or more floppy disks that you want copied.
2. Drag them over the ShrinkWrap™ icon until it is highlighted.
3. Let go of the mouse/trackball button.
ShrinkWrap™ will open and you’ll see a progress dialog. When all the disks have been read and image files saved to the destination folder, ShrinkWrap™ automatically quits.
To create image files from within the ShrinkWrap™ application:
1. Choose the “Create Disk Image...” command from the File menu.
2. Select the floppy disk volume to copy using the standard file dialog.
Image files can be unmounted by dragging one or more mounted image file icons to the Trash.
>> Do NOT eject a mounted image file. It is very difficult to “reinsert” an ejected disk image file when the system requests it later. <<
Note: If this happens to you, press Command-. to cancel the reinsert requests.
To unmount image files from within the ShrinkWrap™ application:
1. Choose “Unmount Image File...” from the File menu.
2. Select the image file volume to unmount using the standard file dialog.
Here are some details about the Preferences dialog:
1. The group of three “Destination:” radio buttons indicate where the image files and StuffIt™ archives created by ShrinkWrap™ should be stored. Selecting “Same as ShrinkWrap™” will use the folder where the running ShrinkWrap™ application currently resides. Selecting “Prompt for destination” will prompt you for a destination with a standard file dialog at runtime. Finally, selecting “Use:” will allow you to specify a folder of your choice. Note that you should always choose your destination folder to be located on an unlocked volume with plenty of free disk space.
2. The “Select” button allows you to chose a specific folder as the destination folder. If ShrinkWrap™ for some reason can't find this folder on startup, it will default to the startup volume desktop folder.
3. Selecting the “Save as DiskCopy™ image files” check box will cause ShrinkWrap™ to create disk images with DiskCopy™'s creator signature. This may seem unimportant, since the files are of identical format and the same file type. However, DiskCopy™ rather arrogantly refuses to use disk images created by any other application but itself.
>> If you intend to use DiskCopy™ to copy ShrinkWrap™ disk images back to floppies, be sure “Save as DiskCopy™ image files” is checked. <<
There are advantages to saving a disk image with ShrinkWrap™'s creator signature, though:
a. ShrinkWrap™ image files will be instantly mountable by just double-clicking the image file icon.
b. ShrinkWrap™ image files get a cool new icon with racing stripes in the upper-left hand corner.
c. DiskCopy™ image files will be stuck with a generic icon if a copy of DiskCopy™ is not located somewhere on the destination disk.
4. Checking the “Automatically expand StuffIt™ archives” check box will cause StuffIt archives (and StuffIt self-extracting archives) to be automatically UnStuffed, then the resulting image file to be mounted.
5. Checking the “Delete archive after expanding” check box deletes the image file archive from the disk after it has been UnStuffed into its original image file. Use this feature carefully.
6. Checking the “Automatically Stuff™ image files” check box will cause all image files created with ShrinkWrap™ to be automatically compressed into their own StuffIt™ archive.
6. Checking the “Delete original after compressing” check box deletes the original image file from the disk after it has been Stuffed into an archive.
Make sure you have enough available RAM:
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1. ShrinkWrap™ currently uses Quinn & Peter Lewis's MungeImage™ driver to mount image files. This driver is fairly well established and much more stable than MountImage™. Basically, MungeImage™ mounts disk images by creating a RAM disk the size of the floppy, then copying the contents of the image file to the RAM disk. This is a very solid practice that effectively avoids data corruption problems since it doesn't need to access the File Manager from the driver level, an incestuous procedure that causes all the problems for MountImage™. However, to mount an image file using the MungeImage™ driver, you must always have as much free memory as disk capacity you wish to mount.
2. The system heap will expand when memory blocks are allocated to the MungeImage™ driver to mount disk images. When you unmount disk images, the corresponding memory is freed. However, the system will not compact and resize the system heap until the free memory is required by another application.
3. ShrinkWrap™ has a minimum memory partition of 1600K because 1440K is required as a buffer while reading HD drives. If you set the memory partition less than the minimum, the application will still function, but you will be unable to create HD image files.
Anti-Viral Utilities:
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Some anti-viral utilities may consider ShrinkWrap™'s activities to be “suspicious” in nature and will stop processing to warn you of some events. If this happens to you, I recommend switching to a less invasive anti-viral utility like John Norstad's Disinfectant.
The "ShrinkWrap Temp" Folder:
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A temporary folder called “ShrinkWrap Temp” may transiently appear while the StuffIt Engine™ is UnStuffing image file archives. This folder is required since the public interface to the StuffIt Engine™ does not currently return a list of the files UnStuffed and I needed to create a known location where ShrinkWrap™ can retrieve the UnStuffed images. If ShrinkWrap™ is interrupted and the “ShrinkWrap Temp” folder is left on your disk, delete the folder and it's contents and try again.
ShrinkWrap™ is Freeware
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Freeware is software freely distributed via local bulletin board systems (BBS), commercial on-line services, user groups, and between friends. You are allowed to use freeware as much as you like for as long as you like, as long as you say good things about the author. I ask for no monetary compensation. (I would only use the dough to pay for wasteful things like volumes of Inside Macintosh and PowerPC compilers.)
Please share this software with every Mac user you know!
Keep in mind, however, that ShrinkWrap™ is still copyrighted and that you do not have the right to sell or alter it in any way without my written consent. I also will not be liable for any damages, including lost of data, lost profits, cost of cover or other special, incidental, consequential or indirect damages arising from the use of this program.
In Planning for Future Versions
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1. Creating a floppy disk from an image file.
2. Mounting a new image file.
3. Mounting a new image file with the contents of a folder by dragging & dropping the folder onto the ShrinkWrap™ icon.
4. AppleEvent support for compression software other than the StuffIt Engine™.
5. Eliminating need for using a temporary folder to receive UnStuffed images.
6. More graceful handling of Eject by the driver.
7. PowerPC native code.
8. Balloon help.
Contacting the Author
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If you would like to obtain the latest version of ShrinkWrap™, suggest new features, or complain about a bug, just contact me at:
