ZapResForks can irreversibly damage a file. The author disclaims all responsibility for what you might do to your files using this program. This program should only by used by people who have read this documentation in full. Use this program at your own risk.
What does it do?
ZapResForks allows you to delete the resource fork from files quickly and easily.
Erm, what's a resource fork?
MacOS files are made up of two parts - the resource fork and the data fork. In general, the data fork is used mainly by documents (although PowerPC native applications use it for code also). The resource fork is where all the interface elements of applications are found, and the 680x0 code.
So why on earth would you want to delete a resource fork?
The main reason you might want to use a utility like this is when you are putting together WWW pages in SimpleText. SimpleText is a handy text-editor (you're probably using it right now to read this document), but for some reason it always saves font/style information in a resource fork, even if there is no style information for a document.
Now, the way files are stored on a disk means that one allocation block is needed for the resource fork and one for the data fork. This can mean that SimpleText files, less than 5K in actual size, can take up more than 40K on disk on larger drives! Deleting the resource fork from SimpleText files will delete any style information that is there - saving one allocation block from the disk. On my 1.2Gb hard disk, that amounts to 19K saved per file.
Using the program
To delete the resource fork of a file, use the Zap Resource Fork command in the file menu. A much better method, however, is to drag and drop files onto the ZapResForks application - a quick way to delete the resource forks from hundreds of files at a time.
Shareware
This program is Shareware at US $5. If you want to keep this program, you should use the included "Register" program to pay for it. There are no restrictions in the unregistered version of this program.
Registered users will recieve, along with my eternal gratitude, a development version of the new file management utility I am working on by e-mail. (I do not mail out software on disks due to lack of time, and also because it is not cost-effective for a $5 utility).
Credits
First and foremost, I must thank the author of the utility I had some time back which did the same thing. (Who are you?). I accidentally deleted my copy of the utility - which is why I wrote this program.
In addition, I would like to thank Jacques Azoulai, Pete Lukow, and George Warner for helpful hints and suggestions.
Contacting the Author
Richard Bannister
76 Stillorgan Wood
Stillorgan, Co. Dublin
Republic of Ireland
E-mail: titan@indigo.ie
WWW: http://internetter.com/titan/
Version History
v1.0.1 - 16 August 1997 - Added code to open the ZapResForks home page and send e-mail to the author from the program. (This requires Internet Config to work properly).
