HFS Transfer DA
Volume Number: 4
Issue Number: 10
Column Tag: Programmer's Workshop
By Clifford Story, Jacksonville, FL
Transfer DA
The Transfer DA is a small desk accessory that adds a Transfer menu to any
application that supports desk accessories.
When Apple killed the Mini finder, my work habits were shattered. I tried Oasis,
a Finder substitute, for a while but I didn’t like the way the working directory was
changed by launching a program; that is, if I launched, say, Macwrite, and opened a
file, the sfget dialog came up showing the directory that contained Macwrite, rather
than the one I had been working in. I had to navigate through folders to return to my
work files.
Transfer solves that problem. Now, I work on the desktop but when I want to
switch from one application to another, I use Transfer. The working directory is
unaffected, and I skip the Finder.
This DA illustrates some interesting programming techniques: it is a segmented
DA; it does an HFS search of an entire hard disk; it uses the iaznotify hook; and it
creates resources with TML Pascal (a subject which came up in the May Mac Tutor