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| \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ EXiS DISK HOG ////////////////////////////// |
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Disk Hog allows you to monitor how your disk space is being allocated. It
displays the space used by the files in each directory (including its
subdirectories) as a pie chart. It can help you to find "lost" space - that
is, things that you never realised you had, like clip art for example, which
are taking up a lot of space (following Sod's Law as usual) and which you
have never used.

Best of all, it costs you absolutely nothing. Am I really that generous?
Well, yes, but ... it's NOT fast, I warn you (4000 files per minute on a
486 DX2 50 with 8 megs and SmartDrive). The program is written in Visual
Basic (the shame...) and takes about 1 meg uncompressed. Needless to say,
it runs under Windoze. Windoze isn't the only thing which dozes whn it runs!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- MANUAL -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1. INSTALLATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unzip the program into a temporary directory. Run SETUP.EXE from that
directory. Answer the prompt for the target directory and the program
will be installed.

An icon in Program Manager should be created for it (Disk Hog in the
Accessories Group) but this might not work if you use an alternative Windoze
shell. You can easily create one by drag-and-drop from File Manager.

Don't tell me you didn't know about that? Put Program Manager and File
Manager next to each other, select the file in File Manager, drag it, and
drop it into the required group.

2. RUNNING IT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, when you've got a lot of spare time, double-click on Disk Hog to
run it. It will come up on its installed directory. The directory is
shown on the left, together with the drive and a button marked Update.

Click the Update button to draw the graph for the current directory.
Updating is done automatically when you change directory if you enable
the Auto checkbox.

The graph is drawn in the large area on the right of the window. You
will probably not be able to read the text - this is the fault of the
stupid Visual Basic Graph control which has very poor defaults and screen
formatting. Maximize the Disk Hog window to be able to see it all.

3. INTERPRETING THE GRAPH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more detail, click the right arrow button below the Update button.
This will pop out the directory list which shows you the size of each
directory displayed on the graph.

Notice that, again due to a bug with the Graph control, I have been forced
to relegate all the small directories to the Other section (otherwise
the names overwrite each other). You can, however, see all the directory
sizes from the sub-directory size list. Click the right arrow button (which
has hopefully now changed to a left arrow button!) to put the directory
list away.

Notice that on both the graph and the directory list, directories are sorted
by size, and the size includes the size of ALL sub-directories below the
named directory.

As you may have found out, the window can be resized and even maximised,
which is pretty essential.

4. TECHNICAL DETAILS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During the scan, directories are cached by the program. If it needs to
know their sizes again, it can find them very quickly. To try this out,
change to your C: root directory (double-click on a directory in the
directory tree - NOT the graph - to change to it) and run an Update. This
will take a few minutes at 4000 files per minute. Now click Update again -
it should take less that five seconds. Some improvement huh?

Not only that, but it has now stored the sizes of all the subdirectories
as well! How about that! Turn on the Auto checkbox (next to Update) which
causes an automatic Update when you change directories. Now just try moving
around directories by double-clicking on the in the directory tree (NOT by
clicking on the on the graph).

5. TIPS & TRICKS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's basically it. There are a few tricks in the Sub-Directory Size List -
try double-clicking on an entry. This will open that directory and draw
its graph (this will definitely be cached). Single Right-clicking moves up
one directory to the parent of the current directory.

Oh yes, and it runs in the background. You can minimize or resize it
and do something else while it's scanning. If you minimize it, it will
pop up automatically when it's finished. Unfortunately, I haven't worked
out how to halt a recursive algorithm (easily) yet, so you can't cancel
an actual search without quitting the program. Such is life.

On the subject of performance, I don't think there's really much I can
do about it. Do feel free to write to me complaining about it - any news
is better than no news! - but just don't expect me to do anything except
write back saying "sorry mate, but..."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- THE END =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This program is public domain, but donations are welcome! (I'm a student).
The source code is available on request from the address below. If you want
to contact me for any reason, to inform me of bugs, give me suggestions or
just to chat generally, please contact me at this address:

Chris Wilson                        Primal Disorder ++44 (1628) 74179
6A Bridge Square                    Quantum Leap ++44 something?
Farnham, Surrey                     or any BBS with my handle (ALIEN).
GU9 7QR England

For the latest version of this and my other programs, send disk and SAE
to the above address.

Oh yeah, legalese ...

No warranties of fitness for any purpose is provided. If it screws up
your hard disk it's your own fault, etc, etc, you can probably guess.

Goodbye and good luck.

Chris Wilson <<Alien>> 29.6.95
