The author, Miguel Saro, has put a lot of effort into the conception of Incremental, but cannot guarantee it to be free of errors. If you chose to use it, do so at your own risk. In addition, Norbert M. Doerner assumes no responsibility for this programme.
Any comments or observations (in English or French) will be welcomed at: Miguel.Saro@free.fr
Please understand that I cannot promise to reply to every message.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks go to Paul Dagleish for his testing and translations into English. Thanks also to Norbert M. Doerner for the sections of source code he gave to me. Finally, thanks to the users of http://www.objective-cocoa.org/ for their replies to my questions.

Purpose of this software:

If you use CDFinder to keep track of your archives made to CDs or DVDs, Incremental enables you to easily make Incremental updates of those archives by saving a predetermined number of copies of only those items that have changed or are new. The software lets you find or select files in a given folder that are not already listed in the CDFinder catalogues.

Download: Incremental 1.7 (260 KB)

Operation:

The application has two windows. The main window contains the different rules for comparing files and the options used to record the results. The second window is used for delayed copies.

•  Main window: In this window you chose the comparison criteria and different output parameters for "Backup Method". There are five operating modes. All modes create an HTML (or plain text) format file that lists the differences between the chosen folder and the CDFinder catalogues. The methods are as follows:
  • None: No data are saved.
  • Delayed Copy: A file is produced (in the same folder as the HTML file) that contains a list of the files to be copied. See the paragraph "Delayed Copy window" below.
  • Immediate copy: In the third mode the programme immediately copies the files to be saved into the chosen destination folder. This folder can then be saved by the user.
  • Toast: "Toast Titanium" is called and set up with the required files ready to burn a CD or a DVD. The default name of the disc is the current date in the form "YYMMDD"
  • Burn folder: Creates a folder that can be burnt directly by the Finder (only available with OS X 10.4.x and above).
    
    Note: Only files having an existing number of copies less than the number (1-4) chosen by the user are considered as candidates for backup.
    
    
• Delayed Copy window: allows the copying to take place into a designated folder at some later time. It also allows the copy to take place into an already existing destination. In this case, if a file of the same name already exists the user has the choice of retaining either the file to be copied or the file having the latest modification date.
  Note: Copying errors are logged by the Console utility.

Incremental has to be used with CDFinder version 4.3.1 or later. It was programmed using Xcode 1.5 and later using version 2.2 It has been tested under Mac OSX 10.3.x and OSX 10.4.x on an aluminium 15" PowerBook and a 17" 1GHz iMac. If you have any problems please let me know. Compatibility: Mac OSX 10.3 and later.

Comparison rules:

Incremental interrogates the Finder to get the characteristics of the files found on the hard disk and does the same with CDFinder for the entries in its catalogue. It then compares the results. Experimentation has shown that the information provided by these two programmes is often very different for a given file. Therefore, the following rules are used when comparing files:

• Folders are not compared.
• Aliases and symbolic links are not compared, nor are they copied into the folder to be archived.
• Compressed files and packages are not opened.
• Only the properties chosen in Incremental's startup window are used.
• The name and the size or the modification date (to the nearest second) are always compared.
• If a property returns "missing value", then this property is ignored (only for the current file).
• Sometimes, properties have values that can be neither compared nor printed. Such values are replaced by a substitute that can be handled by Incremental.
• There is a problem with compressed files because CDFinder treats them like folders. The solution is to create the catalogues without opening these files (see CDFinder preferences).
• Comparisons for package folders (whether applications or not) are limited to their names, creation and modification dates and long and short version strings.

 Monitoring Incremental operation and using the console:

If you are curious about how Incremental works, it can be easily monitored in the following way:

1. Create a virtual disk using Disk Utility.
2. Copy the test files to the virtual disk.
3. Catalogue this disk with CDFinder.
4. Start Incremental and perform a comparison between the virtual disk and its catalogue entry, selecting any properties of interest.
5. Examine the information file produced.

*** To see the properties returned by the Finder and CDFinder for each file examined, check the "Console" button in Incremental's window. Start Console (in Applications/Utilities/Console), then make a search as described above. The properties of the original files and those of the same name found by CDFinder are listed in the following format:

---- FINDER: "file name"
F/P/A......................... properties (4 lines)...........................
---- CDFinder: Found number: x catalogue: catalogue name
C ............................ properties (4 lines).............................
    "            "            "
    "            "            "
---- CDFinder: Found number: x catalog: catalog name
C............................ properties (4 lines).............................

Key:
1) F/P/A:  F(older)  P(ackage folder)  A(pplication)
2) C = Y files are identical. C = N files are different.
3) Mdate: modification date, Cdate: creation date, Size: size, Type: file type,
    Creator: file creator, Kind: kind, Svers: short version, Lvers: long version

Final tips:

Gain experience with Incremental by firstly trying small folders. Check the information produced in the output file (and possibly the console). If you create a folder to be archived, make sure the available disk space is greater than the size of the folder being examined. Lastly, remember that the time taken depends on the number of files to be checked and the number of CDFinder catalogues selected.

Incremental (V 1.70)__ December 2006 __ M. Saro

Version 1.70(002)

Display problem with Safari corrected.
"Burn folder" disabled under Mac OS X 10.3.x

Version 1.70(001)

The application no longer refuses to start if Toast is missing.
If Toast is missing, it cannot be chosen as a destination.

Version 1.60(002)

Compiled for MacIntel machines.
"About..." window updated.

Version 1.50(002)

1. Added two direct backup modes:
   1. Using Toast
   2. Creation of a "Burnable Folder"
2. Suppression of background textures because of a bug when redrawing fixed texts.
3. Error handling redone.

1. Put "Read_me"file in Inline Help.
2. Now use standard "Help viewer".
3. Working indicators added.

1. Now handles symbolic links.
2. Menu item to connect to CDFinder web page.
3. Localised file names in the results output.
4. Re-correction of the date comparison bug.

Version 1.16(005)
    Corrected a bug in date comparisons

Version 1.16(002)

1. Setup preferences automatically saved. Default path is the user's Home directory.
2. Delayed copy in one of three possible modes chosen in a new window.
3. Opening of dialogues from the main menu
4. Internationalisation of the folder names in the output files (e.g. in french, users --> utilisateurs) and in the alert windows whenever possible.
5. Addition of the "ŠT 1-2h" option which allows differences of exactly ± 1h or ± 2h to be ignored when comparing dates.
6. The biggest file size that Incremental can handle is now about 2.5GB.

Version 1.09

• Comparison with "Name & modification date" compares only the name
• Size comparisons with file sizes greater than 536870909 bytes does not work (Applescript Limitation)

Translated from the original French by Paul A. Dagleish

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Last updated: March 20, 2007   Email: Doerner@kagi.com