I wrote Alias Director to make creating and deleting aliases as easy as using them. To take advantage of its best features, you will need to read this document, because it provides a lot of drag and drop functionality. When a feature has something like (2.2) following it, that indicates the first version it appeared in.
AD will operate in an interactive mode or an automatic mode.
Interactive:
Drag and drop one or more items in the Finder onto the AD icon. AD will start up and present a modal dialog box. The items in the dialog box are straightforward and Balloon Help is available for them. (Click the little balloon in the upper right corner to turn Balloon Help on and off.)
A few points, though. When you select New Location… from the menu, clicking Save in the file directory box that appears saves an alias in the folder or disk whose name is above the file list.(2.7) To append folder or disk where the alias was created to the menu in the AD dialog box, click the Add Only button first.(2.6) This location will be there the next time you use AD. You can use this to set up your menu the first time you drag and drop something onto AD.
If you don’t want to dig down in your folders to make an alias for a file, just double click on AD to start it and select the file, folder or disk for which you want an alias.
For those that like to keep aliases on the destop, but don't like the clutter, there is a checkbox to create the alias without an icon. For more on this, see the technical notes at the bottom.
If more than one item is dropped onto AD, it presents them to you one at a time to process.
Automatic:
Now for the good part. Once you have used AD in the interactive mode a few times, you will be able to use it in the automatic mode most of the time. The advantage to this mode is that you don't have to do anything in the dialog box, because it doesn't even appear.
To create an alias in the Apple Menu Items folder, just drag and drop the item onto the AD icon and hold down the option key while releasing the mouse (hold for a second or two).
To create an alias on the desktop, just drag and drop the item onto the AD icon and hold down the tab key while releasing the mouse.(2.5)
If, instead of holding down the option key, you hold down a character key, AD will attempt to put the alias in the first location on the menu that starts with that character. For example, I have a folder in my Apple Menu Items folder named “Applications”. To put an alias in this folder, I just drop the item onto the AD icon while holding down the “a” key. That’s it. Alias Director creates an alias with the same name as the original item in Applications and quits, and I never see the box.
If several items are dropped for automatic aliases, thay all go to the same place.
In the automatic mode, most problems are handled by showing a message and then skipping the file in question. Holding down the shift key while releasing the mouse creates the alias without an icon.
Since some of us use spaces to order items in the Apple menu, AD looks for the first menu item whose first nonspace character is an "a". Also, it only looks for the standard character for the key that was held down. So it will look for a folder that starts with "9" but not one that starts with "(". If it can't find a location starting with the character, it just puts up the usual box. Upper and lower cases are not distinguished in the testing, so don't hold down the shift key as you release the mouse, unless you want the alias created automatically without an icon.
Alias Director also provides the following capabilities to improve your alias life:.
AD now has a feature I call TrashEmAll.(2.0) It will move a file (or folder) and all aliases to it on all mounted disks to the trash if you hold down the command key as you drop the file (or folder) onto AD. Nothing is deleted, just moved. You can drop either the original item or an alias to it. TrashEmAll will not move the Trash, System, Control Panels, Extensions, or Preferences folders, or disks to the trash, but it will move aliases to them to the trash.
You can add a folder or disk to the list of locations AD will create aliases in by dropping it onto AD while holding down the command and option keys.
You can bring the original of an item to the desktop by dropping an alias while holding down the command and shift keys.(2.2)
In addition, if you drop an item with the command key down for TrashEmAll, you'll get a dialog box that lets you confirm that action, or choose another.
Dropping an alias with the space bar down finds the original like the Find Original button in the Get Info… box does. (2.8) Note that this feature uses Apple Events, and that Apple has promised the next major version of the finder will implement Apple Events differently, and that as a result, this feature will probably break. Be sure to read the note below about v2.8.
All drag and drop operations support dropping several things at once.
Version 2.1 29 April 1992
Functionally the same as 2.0, but provides some interface tweaking. The Cancel button now changes to Done if you've added anything to or from the menu, to reflect the fact that neither action is undoable. The name changes back to Cancel if another file is to be processed.
Version 2.2 4 May 1992
New to version 2.2 is the ability to move a file or folder to the desktop by dropping an alias for it onto AD with the shift and command keys down. Please note: Since it isn't generally allowed to have two things on the desktop with the same name, I've provided a mechanism for handling the case where the alias "My File" on the desktop is an alias for "My File" which resides somewhere else. In this case, AD will change the name of the alias to "My File 2" and then proceed to move the original to the desktop. If you plan to make use of this new feature, you may want to give the desktop alias a different name of your own choosing. The simplest thing to do would just be to add a space at the end, as in "My File ". Unfortunately, for some reason, if AD renames an alias with a custom icon (as in the case of one with no icon) confuses the finder, so it displays a generic icon until the next time the alias is double clicked on. Don't ask me why.
Version 2.2.1
AD 2.2.1 creates a complete set of blank icons when the No Icon option is selected. Previous versions created only a minimal set of icons. While the old ones are fine, it may be the case that at some point the difference would cause a problem.
Version 2.3 6 May 1992
Set the locations of files moved to the trash by TrashEmAll so they would appear together in a neat column instead of all over the place in the trash. Also insures you can "Put Away" an original in the trash, even if it was in the trash when you used TrashEmAll.
Version 2.5
It was requested that I find a way to implement AD's drag and drop TrashEmAll, move-to-desktop, and add-to-menu features without requiring the user to remember their key down requirements. So I did.
Version 2.6 13 May 1992
A few people noticed that some aliases created on the desktop wouldn't support drag & drop. This has now been fixed. As a part of that fix, the desktop is now a permanent choice on the menu. Also, a bug that could result in a freeze when creating a blank icon has been fixed.
Version 2.7 19 May 1992
The New Location… file directory box has been modified to be a little friendlier. And it won't jump any more.
Version 2.8 28 June 1992
A new Find… command has been added to find the original the way the finder does. This may well break when the next major upgrade to the finder comes out, but don't blame me, blame Apple. Also, there's a glitch in the Finder you may want to work around for this feature. After the original has been found, if the folder containing AD is open, the Finder leaves it in a selected state. You can't drag and drop onto it until you have deselected it . The simplest workaround is to put AD in a folder that is closed all the time and use an alias for AD.
Additional Notes:
It may be the case that aliases for some disks or certain special items won't have the right icon when the alias is created. If this is the case, the Finder will take care of it the first time you double click on the alias.
It seems that while the aliases created by AD work fine when double clicked, aliases for applications won't support drag & drop if created on a disk other than the one that has the original application. This shouldn't be a problem in very many cases. If you need this, create the alias on the desktop and drag it to the desired folder.
Locations on the menu that AD can't find when it starts up (such as those that have been deleted or reside on unmounted disks) are grayed out and can't be selected. If you hold down the command and shift keys, any item can be selected for removal from the menu. This allows you to remove items that are no longer available.
AD creates and uses a preferences file in the Preferences folder called AD Repositories. If you change the name, a new one will be created.
If a disk is inserted while the AD dialog box is visible, AD will mount the disk and make any locations residing on the disk available in the menu.
Balloon Help is available for everything, including the finder icon and menu items. Turn it on and check out everything, as it contains some helpful stuff.
Please let me know of any undocumented features (sometimes referred to as "bugs" by jealous programmers and irate users) so I can fix or document them.
Click on the name in the AD box for the About… box. It contains most of the short cuts for drag & drop.
Hope you like it.
Alias Director is shareware. If you like it and use it, please send the $7 shareware fee. It took a lot of time to design and write. In case you're interested, it contains a little over 2700 lines of code.
Alias Director may not be included in any collection of shareware or public domain software without my express knowledge and permission. You may, however, distribute it to your friends as long as it has not been modified and you include this Read Me document in its original form.
Laurence Harris
23 Hilltop MHP
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-933-9595
CompuServe: 76150,1027
Internet: 76150.1027@compuserve.com
Technical Notes:
AD creates aliases that are identical those created by Finder v7.0, but as mentioned above, application aliases for applications on another disk won't support drag & drop unless they are created on the desktop. This may or may not be changed in a future version of AD. Future versions of the finder may do things a little differently in creating aliases, and as a result, a remote possibility exists that the aliases AD creates won't work some future version of the finder. Since one would expect aliases created by Finder v7.0 to work with future versions of the finder this is not likely any time soon, but you are warned.
If you choose to create an alias without an icon, AD gives the alias a custom icon that is blank. If at any time you want the regular icon to be displayed, just clear the blank icon as you would any custom icon by doing the following:
Select the alias; choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder; click where the icon would normally appear in the Get Info box (to the left of its name); choose Clear from the Edit menu.
I have endeavored to make AD as safe and robust as possible. Please inform me of any problems or bugs you encounter.
