File Synchronizer Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, ----------------- September 2007. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Using this Program | * Why I Wrote This Program | * The Future | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- File Synchronizer for Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME, XP, etc. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. File Synchronizer allows you to sychronise some or all of the files in 2 directories, and if you like, all of their sub-directories. File Synchronizer is (hopefully) extremely useful for people who (like me) have their data spread over multiple PCs - such as Work and Home PCs, along with work on floppies, removable harddrives, ZIP / JAZZ / SyQyest / Orb drives, rewritable CDs, or other media. This program enables you to easily and quickly make sure you have the latest versions of files on all machines / media, and that your master directory contains the latest versions of all files. File Synchronizer is a complex program behind the scenes, (and some ambiguous "help" in Delphi's on-line help cost me dozens of hours of wasted work), and has been in development and testing for over 6 months (since June 2001). I use this program at least several times each day, and find it incredibl useful, and hope that you do to. Developed using 32-bit Delphi. Using this Program : -------------------- Use the directory selection buttons to select two directories. You can also Drag and Drop of directories from Windows Explorer. This Drag and Drop works in 2 ways : 1. You can drag and drop a single directory onto the first or second directory editboxes. 2. You can also drag two directories onto the program's main window (not onto one of the edit boxes) and they will be placed into each edit box. (If you drag more than 2 directories or drag and drop files instead, then they will be ignored). This hopefully provides maximum flexibility to users, with a minimum of fuss. Use the Settings tab to change the functionality of the program to suit your needs - normally you will synchronize all files in a directory and its sub-directories (and this is the default setting), but you can select other options. Then, press the "Build File Lists" button and the program will build lists of all files in the selected directories, and also check file dates and times to determine the latest versions of files, find common files, and find unique files. Then, when this has finished, the program will tell you how many files need updating and how many files are unique, and you can also (if you desire) select the various file lists : - Files in First Directory - Files in Second Directory - Common Files - Files Only in the First Directory - Files Only in the Second Directory - Files in both but older in the First Directory - Files in both but older in the Second Directory to see the various file lists. Then you can press the "Synchronise Files" button, and files will be copied according to your selections on the Settings tab. The whole process can take milliseconds or less for dozens of files, or can take 10's of seconds if there are 1,000's of files or if you are running on a low end PC. Finally, you can save the pairs of selected directories and load them back in again at any time in the future using the : - Load Directory Selections menu option - Save Directory Selections menu options under the File menu, or, you can press the Load and Save buttons on the right hand side of the directory selection boxes. If you want to copy any of the lists of files to the Windows Clipboard so that you can paste them somewhere else, press the "Copy to Clipboard" button when the list of files you want is being displayed. If you want this program's window to "Stay on Top" of all other programs, then select the "Stay On Top" option under the File menu. If you want to restore the program back to the state it was in when you first installed it, then select the "Restore Factory Defaults" option under the File menu. If you want this program to run automatically at Windows Startup then select the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option under the File menu. Apart from that, you can : - Enter or View your Registration Codes, - View this Readme Help file, - View the Registration Form, - View my Shareware Catalog, - Or see some information about this program, via menu options under the Help menu. Hopefully the program is as easy and straight forward to use as possible. Why I Wrote This Program : -------------------------- I use PCs all day at work, and most of my time at home as well. And, my work enables me to telework and to do most of my work at home. Which is exactly what I do, because my work office is full of distractions. Because of the volume of data and work involved, I use Removable Harddrives (in removable harddrive racks) to transfer my work between my Home Office and Work Office PCs. Occasionally, I also use floppy disks as well - but this is rare. In addition, I keep backups of all of my data (work and home data) on all of my PCs - at work and home. The "My Documents" directory (and its sub-directories) on my machines have well over 18,000 files - and these are just my new / changed files since 1996 !! (i.e. 6 years of work). Keeping track of changes to these documents, and making sure I am using the latest version of each file has become a critical and difficult to manage task. Microsoft Windows 95, etc include "My Briefcase" which apparently helps you manage your files - but I have never been game to use it. There is no on-line help for this program (that I have found, anyway), and I will not risk my valuable data on a program that cannot tell me how it works or what it does. So, as I tend to do, I decided to write my own File Synchronizer program to help me manage my 1,000's of files. This was a far bigger task that I originally believed, and ended up taking me more than 6 months of "on again off again" part-time development and testing. This program includes the options and settings which I find useful, and hope you do to. (See the Settings Tab on the main screen for further information). The Future : ------------ In the future, many improvements could be made to this program, such as : - Drag and Drop Directories. - Enable you to work with multiple groups of directories. For example, I may want to synchronize : c:\my documents\work\ and d:\work\ c:\my documents\delphi\ and e:\delphi\ c:\my backups\ and d:\backups\ regularly, and it would be easier to do this all with a single mouse click. I am currently looking into this ... - Anything else ? Let me know ! If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to suggest more, please email me and let me know. How much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program, how many people have registered, etc. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : -------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 11-Mar-2002 First Public Release. (21,685 lines of code / comments.) 1.1 18-Mar-2002 Enable Drag and Drop of directories from Windows Explorer. This Drag and Drop works in 2 ways : 1. You can drag and drop a single directory onto the first or second directory editboxes. 2. You can also drag two directories onto the program's main window (not onto one of the edit boxes) and they will be placed into each edit box. (If you drag more than 2 directories or drag and drop files instead, then they will be ignored). This hopefully provides maximum flexibility to users, with a minimum of fuss. Use a better icon for the "Load Directories" button. (21,964 lines of code / comments.) 1.1b 20-Nov-2002 Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. (36,702 lines of code / comments.) 1.2 26-Nov-2002 Display a Step x of y and file a of b figures while synchronizing files - to give you an idea of the progress so far. Add in functionality to allow you to process files modified on or after a certain date / time. This functionality speeds up the processing of recently changed files enormously - especially when you have directory trees (like c:\My Documents) with 20,000+ files !! (Yes, like me ... ;) Add File Menu options to enable the user to create or delete shortcuts to this program on the Desktop, StartMenu, SendTo menu, etc - you can do this *ANY* time - not just when the program is being installed. (All Windows programs should provide this functionality). (49,339 lines of code / comments.) 1.2f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________