2. Make an alias of GetInfo Extreme and leave it on your desktop.
3. When you need information about a file, folder, or disk, just drag-and-drop the file, folder, or disk onto the GetInfo Extreme alias Icon.
What GetInfo Extreme Does:
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Depending on whether the item you are Getting Info for is a file or a folder, you will be presented with one of the following windows after drag-and-dropping an item onto the GetInfo Extreme icon, or using the Get Info command from the File menu:
You may notice that the window looks almost identical to the Finder™'s Get Info window. You can see what a "real" Finder™ Get Info window looks like by selecting a file or folder in the Finder™ (by single clicking on it), and choosing the Get Info command from the Finder™'s File menu. You will see that they are nearly identical except for the presence of 2 or 3 extra buttons in GetInfo Extreme's window.
GetInfo Extreme lets you access More information about the item, Edit the information of the item, or if the item is a folder, set information for all of the files in the folder that match a criteria that you can specify. All of this is accomplished by clicking on one of the "extra" buttons: More, Edit, or Batch. These are described in detail later in this document.
Notice the size information for the folder example: there is what appears to be a discrepancy between 48K and 17,715 bytes, in the size of the folder. After all, 48K is 48,000 bytes, right? [...well, not exactly: 1K is actually 1024 bytes (1024 being 2 raised to the 10th power), so 48K is really 49,152 bytes]. Ahh, but looks can be deceiving! On a 100MB disk, the block size (the minimum number of bytes the Disk Manager can allocate from the disk at one time) is 2K (2048 bytes). This means that even if a you have a file that is only 384 bytes long, it still uses 2K on the disk, because 2K is the minimum amount a space that the Disk Manager can "grab" from the disk. It also means that if you have a 2.5K file, it will use 4K on the disk. Since one 2K block is not enough, the Disk Manager must allocate a second 2K block, just for the extra .5K of the file.
In GetInfo Extreme's Info window, you can edit the comments for the selected item, and find the original if the item is an alias. You can print this window by selecting Print... from GetInfo Extreme's File menu. Of course, you can cut, copy, and paste text into the Comments: area.
If the item is a file, you can set or clear the "Locked" and "Stationery" checkboxes. If the item is a folder, the contents and size of the folder will be determined by counting all of the items in the folder. This operation CAN be cancelled (unlike in the Finder™, if you do a Get Info on a folder that contains, like, 87,000 files, and decide you don't want to wait for GetInfo Extreme to count through all those files, you can cancel the counting. You will still be able to get more info, edit info, and do batch operations; you just just won't know exactly how many bytes worth of data the folder contains. In the Finder™, You CAN'T cancel, and it may take the Finder™ 6 minutes to catalog through all those items).
You can continue to drag and drop more items on GetInfo Extreme's icon while it is counting the items in a folder (or batch processing a folder). Windows behind the Counting Progress window may moved (dragged to a different position on the desktop) by holding down the command key while clicking in the title bar of the window to be dragged. The window will not come to the front (the Counting Progress window will remain in front), but the window can be moved to un-obscure other windows.
There are many things GetInfo Extreme does that complement the operation of the Finder™, and provide the user with an "extreme" amount of information. The criteria feature especially adds power to this handly little utility.
Basic Operation:
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When you click on the More button, one of the following windows will appear, with much more information about the file or folder. This window also may be printed:
Click on the Disk Info button in the More Info window, and the following window will appear with information about the disk that the file or folder resides on. Again, this window may be printed:
Click on the Edit button, and the one of the following windows appear, in which you can edit much of the information about the folder or file.
This window supports cut/copy/past in text items, and may also be printed. Note that dates and times should be in the format shown. You can also specify times in military format without using AM/PM.
Most of the changes you make will be immediately visible in the Finder™. Some changes, however, will not be visible until the folder window that contains the icon of the file or folder being edited is closed and then re-opened. Editing folder-specific information (Top, Left, Bottom, Right, H & V Scroll, and View information) requires that the folder's Finder™ window be closed. You'll have to use the File menu Get Info command, instead of drag-and-dropping the folder onto GetInfo Extreme, or, close the folder's Finder™ window after the GetInfo Extreme window is open.
Click on the Batch button for a folder, and the following window appears, which lets you set information about all of the files in the folder:
This window supports cut/copy/paste in text items, and may be printed. Note that dates and times should be in the format shown above for Edit Info. You can also specify times in military format without using AM/PM.
Using Criteria, you can set information for a sub-set of files in the folder that match a criteria you specify. For example, you could change all of the TEXT files in any folder to Microsoft Word TEXT files (by changing all of the files' creator codes to 'MSWD', the creator code for Microsoft Word). Or, you could set the Label for all files whose name contains "Brubaker Account" to the "Red - Urgent" label. You can even apply criteria to folders to do something complicated like only setting info for files that are inside of folders whose names contain ".SET ME". Criteria is discussed in detail in the next section.
You use this window by "forcing" the attributes you want to be set The attribute bits (the last 9 checkboxes at the bottom of the window) may be forced on or off. To force a bit on, set the bit's checkbox, and set the force checkbox. To force a bit off, set the force checkbox, but leave the bit's checkbox cleared.
Any row in the above window that does not have it's corresponding force checkbox set is ignored.
Criteria
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After clicking on the OK button in the Batch window, you will be presented with the Criteria window, which looks like this:
This window supports cut/copy/past in text items.
The Criteria window is very flexible, and perhaps a little complicated at first. Initially, the Criteria window is presented to you with NO criteria specified, so if you just click on the OK button, ALL files will be included in the batch process.
If, however, you only want to batch process a sub-set of the files contained in the folder, you can configure criteria to "filter out" the unwanted files. Once you have a criteria that works for your particular application, use the Save As... button to save it, then the Open... button to read in this criteria at a later time.
Notice the window is divided into 3 distinct and separate sections. Each section acts independently of the others. The result of the 1st section, Attribute Criteria, is LOGICAL AND-ed with the result of the 2nd section, Type Specification.
Attribute Criteria
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In order to utilize the 1st section of the Criteria window, the Use Attribute Criteria checkbox must be set. If this checkbox is not checked "on", all other items in the 1st section are "dimmed", or disabled, and unavailable for use.
Once you have turned on the Use Attribute Criteria checkbox, you can specify exactly what to apply the attribute criteria to: Files Only, Folders Only, or Both.
If you apply attribute criteria to Files Only, then any file within the folder (and all the files in all the sub-folders within the folder) that matches the specified attribute criteria will be included in batch processing.
If you apply attribute criteria to Folders Only, then only files within "sub-folders that match the specified attribute criteria" will be included in batch processing. (NOTE: quotes are used for clarification and grouping -- in other words, if the sub-folder matches the attribute criteria, then the file will be included in batch processing).
If attribute criteria is applied to both files and folders, then both the file and the folder that contains the file must match the specified criteria, in order for the file to be included in batch processing.
The two popup menus and the edit text box are used to actually specify the attribute criteria "rules for inclusion". See the Finder™'s Find window, and click on the More Choices button to see how to specify attribute criteria (in this case, only for the Finder™'s Find command). GetInfo Extreme's Criteria window is based on the Finder™'s Find window.
If attribute criteria is applied to folders (either Folders Only, or Both), then the two checkboxes at the bottom of the 1st section are enabled. There is some ambiguity in applying criteria to folders, and these two checkboxes are intended to help clear up any ambiguity, and provide more flexibility. Without either of the two checkboxes set, the default operation is to (1) Include all sub-folders and batch process all files within sub-folders of any folder that DOES meet criteria, and (2) Keep searching in a folder that does NOT meet criteria (in hopes that it will find a sub-folder within that DOES meet criteria) . The two checkboxes let you override these two default behaviors, either individually, or simultaneously.
Type Specification
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The 2nd section applies ONLY to files, never to folders. The default behavior for this section is to include Any Type. You may elect to override this default behavior by selecting the Only Specified Types radio button, and also selecting one of the 2 buttons: Include or Exclude.
Type Criteria is applied only to files that meet Attribute Criteria in the 1st section (if Attribute Criteria is applied to files). In other words, the file must pass both Attribute Criteria AND Type Specification to be included in batch processing.
If the Include option is used, then only files matching one of the type/creator codes in the list are included in batch processing. If the Exclude option is used, then all files EXCEPT those matching one of the type/creator codes in the list are included in batch processing. An item in the type list can specify either a (type) or a (creator) or a (type and creator).
You can have as many Type Specifications as you like in the list. A file has to match only one of the Type Specifications to be included in batch processing.
Type codes are similar to MS-DOS 3-character extensions (type codes are 4 characters long, though). In the DOS world, .TXT is a text file, .DOC is a MS Word file, .XLS is an MS Excel worksheet, .EXE is an executable program.
In the Mac World:
TEXT type is a text-only file. PICT type is a Picture file. WDBN type is Microsoft Word 5.x file. XLS4 type is Microsoft Excel 4.0 file. APPL type is an application program.
MSWD creator is Microsoft Word (5.1) XCE1 creator is Microsoft Excel (4.0) GIex creator is GetInfo Extreme's creator code.
There are literally thousands of creator codes, and tens of thousands of type codes. (Too many to list here!) NOTE: you can use GetInfo Extreme to find out the type and creator codes of any file.
Adding Types
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When adding types, you will use the following window:
This window supports cut/copy/past in text items.
If you are unsure of the type/creator code you want, use the Select File button to find a sample file that has the same icon (i.e., the same type and creator) as the files you want to include/exclude based on their type and/or creator. If type information is used, but not creator information, then all files of that type, regardless of creator, are included in batch processing. If creator information is used, but not type information, then all files of that creator, regardless of type, are included in batch processing. If both type and creator information are used then only files of that type created by the specified creator are included in batch processing.
Tips:
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Put an alias of GetInfo Extreme on your desktop for easy access to GetInfo Extreme's drag-and-drop operation.
Caveats:
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When drag-and-dropping an alias onto GetInfo Extreme, the Finder™ (unfortunately?) "resolves" the alias (finds the original), so you end up seeing the information for the original item, not the alias. To see the information for the alias item, use the Get Info command from GetInfo Extreme's File menu.
GetInfo Extreme does not allow you to cut/copy/paste the Icon displayed in its window like the Finder does. It does allow you to cut/copy/paste text into the comments area.
GetInfo Extreme does not show an application program's memory allocation sizes, or allow you to edit them like the Finder does.
If you get info for a file or folder, then eject the disk that the file or folder is located on, all information displayed in GetInfo Extreme's windows will be invalid.
Floppy Disks do not use the Desktop Database Manager, (some network file servers may not either), so Icons and Type Descriptions may be invalid for files and folders on these kinds of disks. Also in this case, comments for the file or folder will not be displayed, and changes to comments will not be saved. Everything else will work like normal, though, and most Icons and Type Descriptions will still appear as normal.
Changes and information may not be valid for items in a RAM Disk.
