Utilities in the Finder's Scripts menu

Several important commands are in the Utilities sub-menu of the Scripts menu.

Launch Everything. This command launches all files and documents contained within a folder and all nested sub-folders. A confirmation dialog appears before the command launches anything.

For example, if you are a web programmer you might want to have the following applications all running while youÕre working on a project: Adobe PhotoShop, BBEdit, Symantec Cafe (for Java stuff), NetObjects Fusion (for templates and home pages) and UserLand Frontier (tying everything together). You could create a folder containing aliases to all these programs. When itÕs time to start doing web work, put your cursor on the folder and choose Launch Everything from the Utils menu.

Find In File. The System 7 Finder has a Find command, but it only looks at the external characteristics of files ÐÐ when they were created, whether they have a certain character in their name, their version numbers, etc.

The Find In File command looks inside files for text contained within the file.

First select a folder or group of folders you want to search in. Then choose the Find In Filecommand from the Utils menu. A dialog appears.

Click on OK to continue, Cancel to return to the Finder. The command then searches all the files in the folders you selected. If it finds a file containing the search string, it presents another dialog:

If you click on Yes, the file is opened and the search is completed. If you click on No, the search continues. If you click on Cancel, the script completes.

Find Locked Files. Have you ever tried to trash a folder only to have the Finder report that thereÕs a locked file somewhere deep within the folder hierarchy? Use the Find Locked Files command to find and unlock deeply buried locked files.

Select the folder youÕre concerned about, and choose the Find Locked FilesÊcommand. When it finds a locked file, the command displays a dialog asking if you want to unlock a specific file. Click on Yes to unlock it, No to not unlock it, or Cancel to halt the search.

Compare Two Files. Select two files in the Finder then choose this command. A dialog will appear telling you if the two files contain exactly the same data.

Close Parent Folders If you have a lot of nested folders on your hard disk, this command can clean up extra windows after you zoomed thru your hard disk looking for a specific document or application.

Select a folder or file icon and choose the Close Parent Folders command to close the folder and all folders that contain it.

Find File Creator Select a document file then choose the Find File Creator command to open the folder containing the application that created it. The applicationÕs icon is highlighted.

Find Original of Alias The ÒoriginalÓ of an alias is the file it points to. This command opens the folder that contains the alias of each selected alias files, and highlights its original file.

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