Re: CiderPress v2.0 now available

["John Van Winkle" <appleiieman@charter.net>]

You are THE MAN Andy!  Thanks for a great upgrade!



"Andy McFadden" <fadden@fadden.com> wrote in message
news:1hpbd.17259$54.289285@typhoon.sonic.net...
> faddenSoft is pleased to announce the release of CiderPress v2.0.  This is
> a significant upgrade from v1.2.5, adding many new features.
>
> For anyone not familiar with the product: CiderPress is like a "ShrinkIt
> for Windows" on steroids.  It offers full access to ShrinkIt archives and
> disk images, including adding, extracting, renaming, and deleting files.
> File converters translate programs, documents, and graphics files into
> formats easily accessible under Windows and other systems.  Disk images
> can be converted between several different formats.
>
> The new and updated features are described below.
>
> ** Writable disk images
>
> DOS 3.2/3.3, ProDOS, and Pascal disks can now be written as well as read.
> The new capabilities include:
>
>  - Add files, singly or in batches.  Several text conversion options are
>    available.
>  - Delete files.  Entire subdirectories can be deleted at once.
>  - Rename files.
>  - Create ProDOS subdirectories.
>  - Change file types and access permissions of ProDOS files.
>  - Change the volume name on ProDOS and Pascal disks, or the VTOC disk
>    volume number on DOS disks.
>
> The file attribute preservation system designed for NuFX archives also
> works for disk images.  It preserves file types and resource forks on
> files extracted to the Windows filesystem.  You can, for example, extract
> a collection of files from a GS/OS boot disk to Windows, add them to a
> new disk image, and then boot that image in an emulator.
>
> ** Copy & paste
>
> In addition to menu-driven adding and extracting, CiderPress now supports
> Windows clipboard copy & paste operations.  Select files from a disk image
> or file archive, copy them to the Windows clipboard, then paste them to a
> disk image or file archive.  Filenames and text formats are automatically
> converted when files are copied from one filesystem to another.
>
> If you paste the files into an application other than CiderPress, you will
> get a tab-delimited copy of the file listing.  This provides a quick way
> to get the complete contents of a disk, including filename, file type,
> and length, into a spreadsheet or text document.
>
> ** Support for CFFA and Macintosh partitioning
>
> Compact Flash cards formatted by the Rich Dreher's Apple II CFFA card
> use fixed-size partitions but no partition table.  Macintosh-style
> partitioning, found on CD-ROMs and Apple II SCSI hard drives, uses a
> well-defined partition map.  Both are now fully supported by CiderPress,
> including 4-part and 8-part CFFA configurations.
>
> These are treated as "container" formats, in which multiple disk images
> can be found.
>
> ** Direct access to "logical" and "physical" devices
>
> Having support for CFFA and Macintosh partitioning wouldn't be very useful
> without access to physical disks and drives.  CiderPress can now directly
> access the following devices:
>
>  - Floppy drives.  This allows access to ProDOS volumes on 720KB and 1.4MB
>    3.5" media.  If you have a SuperDrive, floptical drive, or PC
Transporter
>    on your Apple II, you can now transfer files to and from your PC
without
>    having to employ MS-DOS tools on your Apple II.  (Only PC-format disks
>    are supported; Apple-format 800KB and 1.6MB disks are not.)
>  - CD-ROM drives.  Many CD-ROMs with Apple II material were created with
>    with one or more ProDOS partitions.  Using CiderPress, you can access
>    the files in these volumes directly.
>  - CF card readers.  Access every ProDOS partition on your CFFA-formatted
>    CF card directly.
>  - Hard drives.  Unplug your SCSI hard drive from your Apple II, plug it
>    into a SCSI card in your PC, and open the drive.  Copy files on or off
>    of any ProDOS partition.
>
> (Your ability to access a given device depends upon your hardware and the
> version of Windows you're running.  For a description of requirements and
> limitations, see http://www.faddensoft.com/ciderpress/hardware.htm .)
>
> ** Volume Copier tool
>
> Being able to copy files in and out of floppy disks and hard drives is
> useful, but sometimes you want to copy entire partitions on and off.
> The new Volume Copier tool does just that.  Possible uses:
>
>  - Copy partitions off of CFFA card, use them as hard drives in an
>    emulator, then copy them back to the CFFA card for use in a real
>    Apple II.
>  - Copy entire hard drives to Windows.  Back up irreplaceable data
>    quickly and easily.  Restore an entire hard drive or a single
partition.
>    Your backups are just block images, so you can open the backups
>    with CiderPress and cut & paste individual files too.
>  - Copy 1.4MB images to and from floppy disks.
>  - Extract ProDOS volumes from CD-ROMs and write them to a CFFA
>    card or hard drive.  Handy if you don't have an Apple II-compatible
>    CD-ROM drive.
>
> Copying non-ProDOS partitions, such as HFS, is supported.  Open physical
> disks or block images of physical disks.
>
> ** Updated file viewer
>
> Several changes were made to make it easier to use:
>
>  - Buttons now select between the data fork, resource fork, and comment
>    of a particular file.
>  - A drop-down menu provides formatting options.  Switch from full-color
>    double-hi-res to black & white.  Change to a hex dump without
>    leaving the viewer.
>  - A "print" button sends the file being viewed directly to your printer
>    of choice.
>
> In addition, a converter for Paintworks super-hi-res images was added, as
> well as a simple Pascal code analyzer.  Color syntax highlighting was
> added to Applesoft and Integer BASIC listings.
>
> ** Archive Info feature
>
> This brings up a display showing the attributes of the NuFX archive, disk
> image, or Binary II library.
>
> The disk image display includes details for every volume and sub-volume,
> including total size, free space, and a description of any problems
> found on the disk (sectors incorrectly marked used or unused, damaged
> files, peculiar values in disk structures, etc).
>
> ** Disk Image Creator
>
> Need a disk image in a particular size?  The disk image creation tool
> lets you create bootable DOS 3.3, ProDOS, and Pascal disk images.  Handy
> for creating disk images for use with emulators.  ProDOS volumes up to
> 32MB can be created.
>
> Create a 1.4MB ProDOS disk image, add files, then use the volume copier
> tool to write it to a blank 3.5" disk.
>
> ** New tool: EOL Scanner
>
> This tool simply counts up the number of carriage returns, linefeeds,
> and CR+LF combinations found in the file.  This can be used as a way to
> tell if a file has been damaged by an ASCII-mode transfer.
>
> For example, if a disk image contains a number of carriage returns and
> CRLF pairs, but no linefeeds whatsoever, there's a pretty good chance
> that at some point the file underwent an LF-to-CRLF text conversion (e.g.
> UNIX to Windows).  If the disk image doesn't seem to work right, this can
> give a clue as to why, and in some cases can suggest a remedy.
>
> ** New tool: 2MG Properties Editor
>
> The .2mg disk image format has some attributes, notably:
>
>  - Whether or not the file is virtually "locked".
>  - What the disk's low-level disk volume number is.
>  - A comment about the file contents.
>
> This tool allows editing the above, and displays other header fields,
> such as the image creator identification string.
>
> ** Support for disk images in ZIP archives
>
> For better or worse, many Apple II disk images are stored in ZIP archives.
> CiderPress can now open such disk images so long as they're the only file
> in the archive.  (ZIP archives with multiple entries are not opened.)
>
> If the contents of the disk image are updated, the ZIP archive will be
> automatically re-compressed with standard "deflate" compression.
>
> (CiderPress also supports ".gz" gzip compression, which is a better choice
> for disk images than ZIP.)
>
> ** Miscellaneous
>
> Recognition of "tweaked" DOS 3.2/3.3 volumes has been improved slightly.
> Some disks that weren't recognized before are handled now.
>
> CiderPress performs a series of tests on disk images to ensure that the
> files aren't damaged.  The new version includes additional tests, and can
> identify "suspicious" files that aren't completely damaged but aren't
> entirely healthy either.
>
> The Disk Sector Viewer tool can read from physical devices.  Besides
> its use on Apple II formats, it's a handy way to look at your hard drive
> partition map or examine CD-ROMs.  If you have a disk image open, you can
> now open the image in the sector viewer with one click.
>
> The latest versions of zlib (v1.2.1) and NufxLib (v2.0.3) are included.
>
>
> CiderPress is shareware, with a $9.95 registration cost.  After 30 days
> it must be registered.  The v2.0 upgrade is FREE to registered owners.
>
> Visit http://www.faddensoft.com/ for a full feature list and screen shots.
> The download comes with MDC (Multi-Disk Catalog), a free utility (no
> registration required) for generating searchable file listings from a
> large set of disk images.
>
>
> -- 
> Send mail to fadden@fadden.com (Andy McFadden) - http://www.fadden.com/
> CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.cdrfaq.org/
> CiderPress Apple II archive utility for Windows -
http://www.faddensoft.com/
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