Mac Menu Help

Name:	Mac Menu
Version:	4.0
Last update:	2020-10-21 07:12:03

Introduction
Activation
Quick start
Dialogs description
Menu Items Description
Mac Shell Syntax
MacMenu programming interface
Getting info
Key Bindings
Preferences
Known problems
License and Disclaimer
Index

Introduction

Mac Menu for Alpha allows you to achieve all kinds of files manipulations from Alpha and to interact with the MacOS file system with maximum flexibility.
You can act upon selections of files taken out of a folder or a hierarchy of folders and subfolders: the selection is made using a regular expression (regexp) and setting various additional conditions. You have thus full and extended control on which files you want to manipulate.
Actions executed on the selected files are: copying, moving, renaming, duplicating, trashing/untrashing, locking/unlocking, making aliases, selecting/unselecting, listing, modifying end of lines, changing creator type.
You can also get complete system information about all kinds of elements such as files, folders, disks, processes etc. and set new values for certain properties (change a type, a creator, a modification date, sharing status etc.). Commands are also provided for basic Finder's tasks: emptying the trash, restarting the computer etc.
All the commands are available from a menu called Mac Menu but the package also implements a shell to execute all these functions from a command line. For instance, just type empty at the prompt of Mac Shell to empty the trash. A very simple syntax is provided to write commands and to navigate in the MacOS files system.
All these actions are executed without leaving the Alpha editor. To perform some actions, the package makes use of Apple Events sent to the system.
See the tutorial file and read more information below for a complete description of all the items available in Mac Menu.

Activation

To activate the Mac Menu, go to Alpha ↣ Global Setup ↣ Menus and select the Mac Menu checkbox.
Once it is activated, you have a new menu represented by the Mac OS logo in the menu bar.

Quick start

Suppose you have a folder containing all the pages of a Web site and you want a list of the image files having extension gif or jpeg. In the List Files dialog window, specify the folder and click on the Extensions button. In the new window check gif and jpeg and press OK. This brings back to the previous window in which the Files Filter is now set like this:

    .*\.(jpeg|gif)

Click OK and you get the list you wanted. You could have specified In all Subfolders in the Process popup menu to get a list including files in the nested subfolders.
Suppose now you want to send to another folder a copy of the files taken out of this structure whose names meet the following requirements:

first letter is A or P
the extension is htm or html
the name contains a suffix _XY
the files were modified after Dec 25, 2000
their size is less than 128k (to exclude big images for instance)

You have to build a regular expression representing the first three conditions. In the Copy Files dialog window, the Files Filter should be:

    [AP].*_XY\.html?

Then click on the Add conditions button and in the new window, set the last two contitions like so:

    Modification date after 2000-12-25
    Size greater than 128k

leaving the other fields blank. Clicking on Apply brings back to the previous dialog in which you set the paths of the source and the target folders. In the Process popup menu, choose in all Subfolders. Now click on Copy and there you go. The copy sent to the target folder will reproduce exactly the same hierarchy of folders and subfolders but will contain only the files corresponding to the required scheme.
Now suppose you want to rename the selected files. You want the new name to be like this:

first letter Q instead of A or P
following letters unchanged
no _XY suffix
extension old
all file names in uppercase letters

Unless you cancelled in the Copy Files dialog window, all your settings will have been preserved when you open the Rename Files window. You have just one modification to do in the Files Filter regular expression: add a pair of parentheses to capture the .* part which will be refered to as \1 in the substitution expression:

    [AP](.*)_XY\.html?

The replacement string will then be:

    Q\1\.old

To have uppercase letters, click on the Add options button. In the new window, click on the Casing checkbox and choose UPPERCASE in the popup menu. Click Apply then click Rename. That's all there is to it.

Dialogs description

Almost all the dialog windows in which you specify the options and conditions related to some kind of file manipulation share common elements.

Main selection dialogs

The top part of the dialog is an edit field in which you write a regular expression describing the naming scheme of the files you want to act upon. It is very important to note that it obeys the regular expressions syntax and not the so-called globbing syntax used in some Tcl commands. For more info about the regular expressions, read the Regular Expressions file in the Help Menu. Regular expressions are a very powerful syntax designed to describe abstractly almost any kind of strings.
The top part of the dialog windows also contains two check boxes called case sensitive and negate filter: check or uncheck them as you want. If the negate filter checkbox is checked, Mac Menu will search for files which do NOT correspond to the files filter regular expression. If the case sensitive checkbox is unchecked, Mac Menu will not take casing into account: uppercase and lowercase letters will be considered equivalent. The Add Conditions button calls a new dialog window in which you can specify additional options concerning the MacOS type or creator of the files, the date of creation or modification and the size (in kbytes). Dates are indicated in the ISO format (yyyy-mm-dd).
NB: the negate filter flag, if set, negates the filtering regular expression but NOT the additional conditions. They are... additional.
A pop-up menu lets you specifiy whether an action should be taken on all the files corresponding to the filter in the current directory, or should be extended to the subfolders down to a specified level as well or even to all subfolders, subsubfolders etc.
Almost all the dialog windows contain an edit field to specify the source folder: the folder in which to look for files or the folder at the top of the hierarchy if subfolders are concerned too. You can write the complete path of the source folder in the edit field or use the Set button to browse through the file system with a standard dialog.
When relevant (to copy or move files), an additional edit field lets you choose a target folder. If files are taken out of a hierarchy, the hierarchy will be transported to the target folder: if corresponding subfolders do not exist in the target folder, they will be created automatically. If the target folder itself does not exist, it is created too so you can specify the name of a non existing folder in the edit field. Use the Set button to choose an existing folder.
All the dialog windows have at least two buttons at the bottom: one to execute the desired action, one to cancel.

Renaming dialog

The Rename Files dialog window contains a specific field to set the renaming scheme: it uses the substitution syntax of regular expressions. So you can use the special substitution symbols: & to designate the entire match, \1, \2 etc. to designate sub-expressions corresponding to pairs of parentheses in the files filtering regular expression. A button called Add Options brings up a new dialog window in which you can choose more options. They concern casing, incremental numbering and truncating. Tey have the following meaning:

the casing option is self explanatory: change to UPPERCASE or lowercase, Capitalize Words or Capitalize first letter only.
the numbering facility has various settings: numbering from zero or from one, appending the number at the beginning or at the end of the new file name, number in increasing or decreasing order. The padd with zeros option corresponds to the insertion of zeros at the left of the number when necessary: such as in 01, 02 etc. or 001, 002 etc.
the truncating facility lets you specify a format for the new file names. The default value is 8.3 which corresponds to the MS-DOS limitation concerning file names: eight letters at most, a dot, three letters at most after the dot. The general syntax is m[.n] which means a single integer or two integers separated by a dot as in the 8.3 example. In the first case all file names will be truncated to a maximum of m characters whereas in the second case, if a file name has an extension, the part before the dot will be truncated to a maximum of m characters and the part after the dot to a maximum of n characters.

Other dialogs

The Trash Files dialog has no target folder field: the target is the trash. The Untrash Files dialog is different from the others and proposes two options: last trashed or all. In the first case, will be untrashed (i-e sent back to their original position in the files system) only the files most recently trashed from the Trash Files item in the Mac Menu. This is a sort of undo facility if you have accidentally trashed files or have a remorse. With the all option, all the files currently in the trash will be untrashed.
The Change Creator dialog has an additional button called Other: if a creator type is not in the popup menu, you can specify another one. This button brings up a new dialog with an edit field to enter the new creator type (four chars maximum). If you do not know the creator type corresponding to an application, use the Same as button and indicate the application or any document created with this application. The Apply button selects the new type and brings back the Change Creator dialog ; the Add&Apply button has the same effect but additionally records the new type in the popup menu to make it available for future use (the list is reset though each time Alpha is relaunched: to make an addition permanent use the Mac Menu Preferences. See section below about preferences).
The Extensions button is a facility to specify files with particular extensions. It brings up a new dialog with several checkboxes: select the extensions you're interested in by checking the corresponding checkbox. The corresponding files filter regular expression will be built automatically in the main dialog window. If an extension is not mentioned in the Predefined Extensions dialog window, you have two possibilities:

for a temporary usage, enter it in the Other extensions edit field. A list of space-separated extensions can be entered there. You can enter the extensions with or without the dot, this makes no difference.
for a permanent usage, you might want to add your favorite file extensions to the Mac Menu Preferences (see the section about preferences below). In this case, the new extensions will have a checkbox of their own.

Information dialogs

The information windows display information about all kinds of items: files, folders, volumes, applications, processes or basic hardware. They almost all have a Dismiss, a Get Text. The File Infos dialog also has a Set button. With the Dismiss button, you simply quit the dialog. The Get Text button sends the collected information to a separate text window.
The Set button allows you to set some properties: the corresponding fields are editable (an edit field for a variable or a checkbox for a flag). You validate your modifications with the Set button. Note that if your file is locked the modifications are not appliable: you must first unlock it. Be aware of what you are doing: changing low level properties is potentially dangerous. Don't play with the system files. In the case of a shared volume or folder, and if file sharing is on on the system, there is an additional Sharing button which gets and displays the complete sharing information about the item.

Menu Items Description

Here is the list of all the menu items of the Mac Menu with explanations. Some items are obtained if you hold the Option Key down while opening the menu.

Main Mac Menu

Copy Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source and target folders and various options. Copy the selected files to the target creating the same hierarchy in the destination folder. The original files remain in the source folder.

Move Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source and target folders and various options. Move the selected files to the target creating the same hierarchy in the destination folder. The original files are removed from the source folder. Note that, as is the rule with MacOS, moving a file to another volume means in fact copying.

Rename Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the replacement expression, the source folder and various renaming options: the Add Options button brings a new dialog to set casing, numbering and truncating options. Rename the selected files according to the new scheme.

Duplicate Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options. Duplicate the selected files in their original folder.

Trash Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options. Sends the selected files to the trash: the files are not deleted until you empty the trash.

Alias Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options. You can also optionnally specify a target folder. There are two possibilities:

if no target folder is specified (empty field) or if it is the same as the source folder, then the aliases are made in the same folders (and subfolders if they are in a hierarchy) as the original files
if a target folder is specified then all the aliases are sent to this folder no matter where the original files are located in the source folder, i-e even if the In hierarchy flag is used. If this target folder does not exist, it is created.

Remove Alias Files

(obtained while pressing opt) Brings up a dialog in which you specify the source folder and the subfolders level. Remove all aliases found in these folders.

Lock Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options. Lock the selected files in their original folder.

Unlock Files

(obtained while pressing opt) Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options. Unlock the selected files if they are locked.

List Files

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options. Simply makes a list of the files selected according to the files filter and the various options and display it in a separate window. The Sort by pop-up menu allows you to choose one of five options (or no option) so that the list returned is sorted according to the selected criterion. You can sort by: Modification date, Creation date, Size, Kind, Labels. Check the Include Criterion checkbox to include the value of the criterion for each item in the result.

Delete Rez Forks…

Lets you delete the resource fork of all the files. Use with caution, this is not undoable.

Change Eols

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and the environment the files belong to in order to convert the line endings between the various plateform specific types (mac, unix and win). For instance if you choose to convert eols (end of lines) from unix to mac, only Unix type files will be converted to the Mac type. If you choose all, conversion applies to all three kinds of files.

Change Encoding

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder, the current encoding of the files, and a target encoding in order to convert them to this encoding.

Change Type

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options: a popup list lets you choose the new type you want to assign to the selected files. Use the Other button to find another type.

Change Creator

Brings up a dialog in which you specify the files filter, the source folder and various options: a popup list lets you choose the new creator you want to assign to the selected files. Use the Other button to find another creator.

Mac Shell

Opens a shell in which all the Mac Menu functions can be executed from a command line. See below the Mac Shell section for details on the syntax of this command line.

Mac Infos Submenu

File / Folder / Application: With these three items, a standard system window lets you designate the file, folder or application about which you want to get system information.
Volume / Process: With these two items, a list of all mounted volumes (and shared disks on remote computers) or a list of currently running processes lets you choose the one you want information about.
Hardware: Provides general hardware information about your computer (clock speed, CPU, etc.)
Mac Menu Bindings: Shows all the key bindings available with the Mac Menu in a separate window. See the Key Bindings section below.
Mac Menu Preferences…: Display the preferences dialog.
Menu Shortcuts…: Lets you set custom keyboard shortcuts for all the menu items.
Display Bindings: Display in a separate window the keyboard shortcuts available to access the various features. See section Key Bindings below.
Mac Menu Tutorial: Opens the tutorial file.

Mac Utils Submenu

Empty Trash: Empty the trash.
Eject: Eject a removable volume (floppy, Zip, CD-ROM etc.). If there are several ejectable volumes, a list shows up from which you select the one you want to eject from its drive; if there is only one ejectable volume, it is automatically ejected.
Sleep: Puts the computer to sleep.
Restart: Launches the process of restarting the computer.
Shut Down: Launches the process of shuting down the computer.

Mac Shell Syntax

The Mac shell provides a command line facility analogous to the Tcl shell (cmd-y) or the now obsolete Toolsever shell already available in Alpha. You can open it with the Mac Shell menu item or with the ctrl-cmd-y key combination. This section lists all the commands available in the Mac Shell.
The main commands are help, files and infos. There are also commands which allow you to navigate in the MacOS files system: pwd, cd, ls, ld. Additionally you have a few utility commands: empty, eject, restart, shutdown which behave like the corresponding menu items. Please see the tutorial (choose Mac Menu Tutorial in the Get Info submenu) for real life examples.
Certain options are not handled from the command line though: if you want to specify additional conditions (as explained above) you should rather use the dialog windows.
If a command is not a specific Mac Shell command, MacMenu will try to evaluate it as a Tcl instruction. If no Tcl command is found, then it will try to execute it as a Unix command (only on OSX). This means that you can use Mac Shell as a Tcl shell and that you can execute Unix command directly from Alpha (see more precisions in the Unix commands section below).

Shell prompt

The shell prompt always indicates the name of the current folder. When opening the shell, its value defaults to the Alpha application's main folder or to the currently logged in user's home directory (see the Default Home preference).

'help' command

The help command can be used alone or with one of the following arguments:

help	to have a list of all available commands
help -options	to have a list of all available options and flags
help [cmdname]	to display info about a specific command

'files' command

The files command is used with a subcommand to specify the type of action which is to be executed and flags to specify the conditions and options.

Options for the files command

Here is the signification of the various options. Some of them are required, the others have default values and can be omitted if not necessary.

-f filter	filtering regular expr	default '.*'
-s folder	source folder	default current folder
-l level	nesting level (0, 1,... or all)	default 0
-i flag	case sensitive?	default 0
-n flag	negate?	default 0
-t folder	target folder	no default
-t enc	target encoding in transcode	default iso8859-1
-t kind	target eol in transtype	default mac
-t type	file's type	no default
-c type	file's creator	no default
-o flag	force overwrite?	default: see prefs
-o enc	original encoding in transcode	default macRoman
-o kind	original eol in transtype	default unix
-r replace	regsub expr for renaming	default &
-all	all files (equivalent to '-f .*')	no value
-k flag	casing: u, l, w, f	default: not set
-d flag	numbering: 0/1	default: not set
-b (m\|c\|s\|k\|l)	sort by	no default
-x m[.n]	truncate	default: not set

Note that the -c option is interpreted differently with the files change command than with the other files command: in the first case, it is the required option which tells which new creator should be assigned to the selected files. In the second case, it is an optional argument telling that only the files with the type declared by -c should be selected to perform the action.
Similarly the -t option is interpreted differently with the files change command than with the other files command:

used with files change, it is the required option which tells which new type should be assigned to the selected files.
used with files transtype, the -t flag designates the type of line endings for the file (mac, unix or win).
used with files transcode, the -t flag designates the target encoding of the file.
otherwise, it is the argument to indicate the target folder in a move, copy or alias action.

The -b flag (b stands for by) is used only by files list and allows you to specifiy a sorting option. The option is specified by one of the letters m, c, s, k, l which correspond respectively to sorting by Modification date, Creation date, Size, Kind, Labels.
It is essential that the filtering regular expression be enclosed in brackets if some characters are escaped. The brackets protect the escaped characters from being interpreted by the Tcl interpreter before the regular expressions interpreter. For instance, to designate all files ending with a dot followed by one single number you want to use the following expression:

 .*\.\d

so you should write on the command line

-f {.*\.\d}

If you do not enclose the regular expression in brackets, you must escape the characters twice i-e with a double backslash like this:

-f .*\\.\\d

-f ".*\\.\\d"

This remark concerns exclusively the regular expressions used on the command line: there is no need for brackets when you use the menu items and dialog windows.
If the -d flag is on (-d 1) the numbering will be done. There is no way to set the numbering options from the command line. The last used settings will be applied.

Subcommands of the 'files' command

Here is the list of the various subcommands you can append to the files command together with the options they accept:

cmd	subcmds	options
files	copy	Required -t
Optional -f -s -l -i -n -all
files	move	ditto
files	rename	Optional -f -s -l -i -n -c -r -all
files	transcode	Optional -f -s -l -i -n -o -t -all
files	transtype	Optional -f -s -l -i -n -o -t -all
files	list	Optional -f -s -l -i -n -b -all
files	duplicate	Optional -f -s -l -i -n -all
files	trash	ditto
files	lock	ditto
files	unlock	ditto
files	alias	ditto
files	change	Required -c and/or -t
Optional -f -s -l -i -n -all
files	rmalias	Optional -f -l -all

'infos' command

The infos command is used with a subcommand to specify the item about which information is required. Its syntax is:

infos file path

infos folder path

infos volume path

infos appl path

infos process processname

infos hardware

Commands for browsing

Here are the commands which help you browsing in the files hierarchy, or list and edit files:

pwd: (print working directory) Prints the current directory. The name of the directory is used in the shell's prompt.
cd dir: (change directory) The cd command lets you change the current directory. On OSX, the cd command can resolve tilde and dot symbols at the beginning of a path (to designate the user's home directory or the current folder respectively like in any Unix shell). In can be used in different manners:
cd: change to Alpha's folder or to the user's home directory depending on how the Default Home preference is set (see the Preferences section below)
cd .: change to directory of second to frontmost window (ie the window which is just behind the shell window). If there is no such window or if the window does not correspond to a file on disk, the command is equivalent to cd with no argument.
cd ..: change to parent directory.

To go several levels up, type .. followed by several separators (thus, .. is equivalent to ../). E-g:

 cd ..:::
 cd ..///

The following syntax is also accepted (except for [cd /] which changes directly to the root folder)

cd:::         etc.
cd ///         etc.

cd blah: change to subfolder blah of current folder (if blah exists of course)
cd abs_path: change to directory corresponding to the absolute path abs_path

((lt mkdir dir (make directory) Create a new subfolder in the current folder. If no name is specified, it will be Untitled. lt)) ((lt edit file (edit a file) Specify the name of the file: if it is in the current directory, the proc will complete the path. If the edit command is used with no argument, you are prompted to select a file to edit. lt)) ((lt ls (list) Returns a list of all the files and folders contained in the current folder. On OSX, this command calls the ls Unix command, so you can use all its flags just like in a Terminal window. lt)) ((lt ld (list directory) Returns a list of the subfolders contained in the current folder. lt)) dl))

Other commands

empty	to empty the trash
eject	to eject a mounted removable volume
restart	to restart the computer
sleep	put the computer in sleeping mode
shutdown	to shutdown the computer
tutorial	to open the tutorial
bindings	to display a summary of the MacMenu key bindings
version	to get macMenu's version number

Unix commands

On OSX, if a command hasn't been defined as a specific MacShell command and fails to be executed as a Tcl command, then MacShell attempts to invoke it as a Unix command. It does this using the exec Tcl command: this means that it will work only if it is a non interactive Unix command, i-e if it is a command which returns its result immediately without waiting for input from the user and which does not have to be terminated (by ctrl-D for instance). Otherwise Alpha will enter in an infinite loop.
Typical examples of commands which can be executed from MacShell are cal, date, df, ls, who, ps etc. But don't try to execute commands such as top, stats etc.

Commands history

As with any Alpha shell, you can move through commands history with the up and down arrow keys while holding the control key down.
Clicking on the title bar while pressing the Option (⌥) key will display a popover window containing the shell's history. Select an item by double-clicking or pressing Return to insert it in the command line.

Extending Mac Shell

You can create your own commands to use in Mac Shell. To create a new command called mycmd, you must define a proc called macsh::mycmd and the value returned by this proc should be the text you want to be inserted in Mac Shell as a reply when the command is executed. If you want no reply, just return the empty string "". For instance:

    proc macsh::mycmd {} {
        return "myvalue"
    }

The proc macsh::mycmd can take parameters and arguments depending on what syntax you want for your command (subcommands, additional arguments, options etc.).
You can create as many new commands as you wish. These commands can be stored in a file like this one. The easiest solution is to locate this file in the MacMenu folder and to rebuild the Tcl indices to register your procs in Alpha. You must put the following instruction at the beginning of the file:

    namespace eval macsh {}

You can also provide help info about a command by defining an entry in the macsh_help() array. Its value must be a list of items corresponding to all the subcommands of mycmd. For instance, if you define

    set macsh_help(mycmd) [list "open [myoptions] [myarguments]" "close"]

the following line will be printed in MacShell when typing help mycmd

    mycmd open [myoptions] [myarguments]
    mycmd close

See more examples in the file macMenuShellMore.tcl.

MacMenu programming interface

MacMenu provides procedures which can be used in Tcl scripts directly and make all the MacMenu capacities available programmatically (instead of via the dialogs interface). These procedures have exactly the same syntax as the commands described in the Mac Shell section: the only difference is that they must be executed in the macsh:: namespace. For instance, you can invoke, in a Tcl script, the command macsh::files like this:

	macsh::files copy -f {.*\.tex} -t "/Users/bernardo/thesis"

The macsh::files and macsh::infos procs in particular provide exactly the same functionalities as the dialogs corresponding to the MacMenu menu commands.

Getting info

The Get Info submenu allows you to get (and set) information about various kinds of elements: file, folder, volume, application, running process and the computer itself. The results are displayed in a dialog window.
All these information windows have a button called As Text to display the results in a separate text window. This is useful for example if you want to copy this information in another document.
When appropriate, if a specific piece of information has a value which can be set or modified, it is edited in an editable field or with a checkbox so that you can change its value. Use the Apply button to validate the changes.
The search of information can be slow on… slow machines. Note that the information about hardware will be sought by the package only the first time and recorded since it is not likely to change during a session.
Here is a list of the properties you can find in the info windows (not all properties apply to all items of course):

Owner	Logical size	Modification date
Locked	Version info	Logical page size
Shared	Creation date	Process partition
Comment	Launched from	Largest free block
Creator	Physical size	Minimum memory size
Version	Remote events	Owner's privileges
Capacity	User RAM size	Protected from move
ROM size	Stationery pad	System architecture
RAM size	Is share point	Low memory area size
Ejectable	System version	Allocated memory size
Boot disk	Virtual memory	Everyone's privilege
CPU family	Bus clock speed	Scripting terminology
Free bytes	Hardware vendor	Open Firmware present
Scriptable	Software vendor	Processor clock speed
Access path	Group privileges	Suggested memory size

Key Bindings

There are a few easy to remember key bindings a la emacs. Press ctrl-z, release, then hit a letter as indicated in the following table:

ctrl-Z A	make aliases
ctrl-Z B	show bindings info
ctrl-Z C	copy files
ctrl-Z D	duplicate files
ctrl-Z E	empty the trash
ctrl-Z F	delete resource forks
ctrl-Z J	eject a disk
ctrl-Z K	lock files
ctrl-Z L	list files
ctrl-Z M	move files
ctrl-Z R	rename files
ctrl-Z T	send files to the trash
ctrl-Z U	unlock files

You can also use ctrl-cmd-Y (⌃⌘Y) to open the Mac Shell.

Preferences

The menu item Alpha ↣ Preferences ↣ Package Preferences displays the preferences dialog which contains a Mac Menu panel (when this package is active) with the options describe below. Click here to display the Mac Menu Preferences panel.

Overwrite If Exists: this flag concerns already existing files in the target folder during a move or a copy action. If this flag is set, you will not be warned about it. If not, you will have an error message indicating the name of the already existing file and the copy or move will attempt to proceed on the next subfolder: in this case no file will be overwritten. It is safer not to set this flag: there is a force overwrite checkbox in the copy and move dialogs to temporarily modify this behaviour when necessary.
Chunks Size: this variable is the number of files which may be processed simultaneously during a duplication. Due to Apple Events memory limitations, files have to be processed by chunks. I'm not sure what the optimal value should be. A default of 200 has proven absolutely safe with very long access paths.
Additional Types: this variable lets you specify additional application signatures for the Creator popup in the Change Creator dialog window.
Predef Extensions: this variable lets you specify the extensions which will have a check box of their own in the Predef Exts dialog window.
Default Home: this preference specifies, in Mac Shell, where [pwd] should start from and where [cd] without argument should lead to. The possible choices are Alpha's folder or User's Home.

Known problems

Please report any problem or bug you encounter in Alpha's Bug Tracker.

License and Disclaimer

Copyright (c) 2001-2020, Bernard Desgraupes.
All rights reserved.
The Mac Menu package is free software and distributed under the terms of the new BSD license:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of Bernard Desgraupes nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL BERNARD DESGRAUPES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Index

Activation 1
Alias Files 1
Application!Info 1
Bindings 1
bindings (shell command) 1
cd (shell command) 1
Change Creator 1
Change Encoding 1
Change Eols 1
Change Type 1
Copy Files 1
Dialogs 1
Dialogs!Change Creator 1
Dialogs!Extensions 1
Dialogs!Information 1
Dialogs!Main 1
Dialogs!Renaming 1
Dialogs!Trash Files 1
Duplicate Files 1
Eject 1
eject (shell command) 1
empty (shell command) 1
Empty Trash 1
File!Info 1
files (shell command) 1
Folder!Info 1
Hardware!Info 1
help (shell command) 1
History 1
infos (shell command) 1
List Files 1
Lock Files 1
Mac Shell 1, 2
Mac Shell!Extending 1
Move Files 1
Preferences 1
Process!Info 1
pwd (shell command) 1
Remove Alias Files 1
Rename Files 1
Restart 1
restart (shell command) 1
Shut Down 1
shutdown (shell command) 1
Sleep 1
sleep (shell command) 1
Trash Files 1
tutorial (shell command) 1
Unix commands 1
Unlock Files 1
version (shell command) 1
Volume!Info 1