How-Tos for MJ's CD Archiver

# How-Tos How do I archive a CD/hard drive/any folder using MJ's CD Archiver? First either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Archive”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “a” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Select a CD/folder to archive”. Then simply browse your computer to choose the drive/folder you want to archive. After archive is finished, you might want to change the name of the newly archived folder to an easy-to-remember name following the instruction here. I already archived my hard drive, how do I update the content of a folder, like c:\windows (or /usr)? First in the left pane tree view find the folder you want to update, select it, then either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Update”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “u” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Update content of a CD/folder” (the icon is a colored version of the archive icon), (d) right click on the selected folder and choose “update” from the popup menu. Then updating will begin. Note that you can set up automatic update of the archive file as described here. Please also note that once you updated a folder, all the search results involving this folder should be updated as well (as described below) because the folder contents might have changed, rendering the previous search results obsolete. I performed a search before, how do I perform the search again (after updating the content of a folder)? Instead of setting all options again and do another search, a quicker way can be taken if the results of previous search still exists in the left pane tree view. If so, just select the previous search result you want to update, then update it as described above. How do I use this as a Windows search replacement? First of all, this software is intended for archiving data CD/DVD and hard drives for searching data, but it is not real-time search. Therefore it cannot be a true replacement for Windows search functionality. However, if you are like me and get really frustrated with Windows search due to its snail-like speed and pathetic search options, then I would suggest to set up MCA to replace Windows search as follows: First, archive the hard drives you have. Then set up automatic update of the archive file as described here. Finally, note that you could also perform a search and update that search with one mouse click later, on updated hard drive info. Also if you need real-time file search and know which folders might be changed since the last time the archive was updated, then you could always just update those folders quickly and perform search. So MCA can reasonably replace Windows search by providing quite up-to-date stats (or real-time stats if you choose to update before search, which could save much time if you need to perform several searches, which is what usually happens when you search files on hard drive). Additionally, MCA's speed, advanced search options, one-click update of previously performed search, and search of archived CD/DVDs (a major MCA function) transcends what Windows file search could ever provide. How do I rename an archived folder or search results? First select the folder in the left pane, then either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Rename”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “r” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Rename selected folder”, (d) right click on the selected folder and choose “Rename” from the popup menu. The selected folder will change color and prompt you to type in new name. Just begin typing new name. After you finished typing, simply click anywhere else to finalize the new name, or press the “Esc” key to cancel change. Please note that you can only change root folder's name because renaming other folders are not needed by most users. How do I change a renamed archived folder back to default name? First select the folder in the left pane, then either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Revert Name”, (b) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Restore the name of the selected CD/folder to original name” (c) right click on the selected folder and choose “Revert Name” from the popup menu. That's it. How do I setup automatic update of my hard drive (or a folder)? On Windows: First step, under the directory where you installed MCA, there is a MS-DOS batch file named “example.bat”. Open with a text editor like Notepad. In the batch file after the comments (marked by “:”), there is a line like: javaw.exe -Djava.library.path="C:\Program Files\MCA" -classpath "C:\Program Files\MCA" -jar "C:\Program Files\MCA"\MCA.jar -d "C:\Program Files\MCA" "C:\WINDOWS" "C:\Program Files\MCA"\myarchive.mca Basically in the line above only the last two strings would concern user: "C:\WINDOWS" is the folder to be automatically updated, while "C:\Program Files\MCA"\myarchive.mca is the archive file the update is stored in. So change these two strings to what you would like using notepad, then save the file to a different name like “myupdate.bat”. Please note that you should ALWAYS save the “example.bat” under a different name after you modified it! Otherwise a future MCA update will overwrite it. Second step, go to “Start”->”Programs”->”Accessories”->”System Tools”->”Scheduled Tasks”->”Add Scheduled Task”, this would launch the windows scheduled task dialog. Following the on screen instructions (when choosing program to run, choose “browse” and find the myupdate.bat, which is likely under “C:\Program Files\MCA” . Then simply set up the frequency you want the myupdate.bat batch file (after your modification of course) to be run. On Unix/Linux: Assuming you installed MCA in “/home/users/myname/mca”, you want to regularly update folder “/home”, and the archive file to contain the folder content is at “/home/users/myname/myhome.mca”, then the command for your crontab facility (man page) would be: java -Djava.library.path="/home/users/myname/mca" -classpath "/home/users/myname/mca" -jar "/home/users/myname/mca/MCA.jar” -d "/home/users/myname/mca" "/home" "/home/users/myname/myhome.mca” Please note that the folder you want to update should exist, otherwise a warning will be given. Ideally the archive file the update is to be stored also should exist, otherwise a new archive file will be created at the given location. Ideally the folder to be updated should exist in the archive file too, otherwise a new root folder will be created in the archive file for the folder to be updated. While automatic archiving is undergoing, it can be cancelled by user too. How do I search for a file in my archive? If you want to search the whole archive (except for the previous search results), make sure you uncheck the “search selected folder only” option (note that this option is overridden by method (d) below). If you want to search previous search results to filter them further, you need to check the “search selected folder only” option and select the search results or archived root folders that you want to search (Note that you can select multiple folders to search by pressing “shift” or “ctrl” key while you click with mouse). Search options can be set in the search form at the bottom of left pane, and advanced search options can be set by pressing the “Advanced Options” button - set the filters and options in the popup menu, then press the “Set Options” button to save these options. To start search, either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Search”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “f” (for “find”, as CTRL-S is reserved for saving archive file) simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Search the current archive”, (d) right click on the selected folder and choose “Search” from the popup menu. The search results will be instantly displayed in the left panel tree view as a new root folder. This root folder can be browsed as normal folders, but deletion is disabled. All the statistics are also summarized for search results on the status bar. At the same time, the tree view will be highlighted with the results from the currently selected search result folder to enable user get a feeling of how search results are distributed and quickly find the found file/folders. Note about the coloring of the highlight: a dark blue folder icon means there is a file/folder directly under the highlighted folder that is a search hit meeting your search criteria; a light blue folder icon means there is a file/folder somewhere down the directory tree (but not directly under the highlighted folder) that is a search hit; a yellow background on the file/folder name indicates that this file/folder name matches the keyword given. Please note that the method (d) above (using the context-sensitive popup menu) would by default search only the folders selected, even if you did not choose “search selected folder only” in the search form. This gives a quick shortcut for searching only a few folders you are interested in. However, by design methods (a) to (c) do not override the “search selected folder only” setting, meaning that they search in only the selected folders whenever “search selected folder only” was checked, but search in all folders when “search selected folder only” was unchecked. My search yielded a result I like, how do I find this file/folder quickly? If you want to launch the search result file/folder in its associated application or file manager (like Windows Explorer) check here and here. If instead you only plan to find this file/folder in MCA, then you could either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Expand Tree for File/Folder”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “e”, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Expand file tree to show the ...”, (d) right click on the selected file/folder and choose “Expand Tree for File/Folder” from the popup menu. The file tree in the left pane will be expanded to the correct location to display the search result. My search yieled hundreds of results, I want to further filter it with another keyword, how to do it? Check the “search selected folder only” option in the search form at the bottom of left pane, then select the search result folder in the tree view in left pane (Note that you can select multiple folders to search by pressing “shift” or “ctrl” key while you click with mouse), set the options/keywords that you want to further filter with, then start search as described above. How do I view the search options used in a previous search? First choose the search result root you want to view options for, then either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “View search options”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “v”, (c) just double click on the search result root, (d) right click on the selected file/folder and choose “View search options” from the popup menu. Simply in the treeview in left pane, double click on the search name. This will bring up a popup dialog displaying all options used to generate the search results, including which folders were searched. How do I read the statistics on the status bar at the bottom of MCA? The left part of the status bar summarizes the stats for the currently selected folder. The summary is in the form of “2 files, 5 folders, this 4-level tree contains 15 subfolders and 148 files”, which means that the currently selected folder contains 2 files and 5 subfolders, which in term contains other files and subfolders. When all the files/subfolders under the currently selected folder or any of its subfolders (or subfolders of subfolders, and so on...) are added together, there are 148 files and 15 subfolders (If you right click the folder in Windows explorer and choose “properties”, you'll see the same statistics). The right part of the status bar summarizes the total size of selected files and folders. When there is only one file/folder selected, the file size displayed would be the same as displayed by Windows explorer -> “properties”. How do I delete a file/folder? Files and folders can be deleted in both left pane (tree view) and right pane (folder contents view). Simply choose the files/folders that you want to delete and either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Delete”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “d” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Delete the selected directory” (d) press the “Delete” key on keyboard, to delete the files/folders, (e) right click on the selected folder and choose “Delete” from the popup menu. Please note that once a file/folder is deleted, it cannot be recovered. However, you can update the parent folder again to get the deleted information back, if the deleted file/folder still exist on your drive. Please also note that you cannot delete any file/folder under search results. Instead, if you need to delete those file/folders, please browse the non-search-result root folders in archive to find those file/folders and delete there. How do I sort the folders displayed in the tree view in left pane? Right click in a blank area in the tree view and choose “Sort By” from the popup menu. Then just click on the sort option that you want. One note is that due to the relatively large number of sort options (4 right now, and could grow in the future) I decided to only add this sort option to a submenu of the context-sensitive menu and not to main menu, keyboard shortcuts and toolbar, to save space. How do I delete search result(s)? Search results can be deleted the same way any folder is deleted. Additionally, one could go to either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Clear search results”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “c” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Remove the search results (keep only the real folder/files)”, (d) right click on a blank area and choose “Clear search results” from the popup menu. Note that this option would delete ALL of the previous search results! How to open a file in MCA to view them in their associated applications? To open a text file displayed in MCA to view the text content (or any file with an associated application such as image files, pdf, word document etc.), one could (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Launch file/folder”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “l” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Launch selected file or expand selected folder”, (d) right click on the selected file/folder and choose “Launch file/folder” from the popup menu. Note that this option would open folder for viewing in your file manager (Explorer on Windows) if the selected is a folder not a file! How to open a folder in MCA to view them in my file manager (Explorer on Windows)? To open a folder for viewing in Windows Explorer etc., one could (a) go to menu “Action” -> “Launch file/folder”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “l” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Launch selected file or expand selected folder”, (d) right click on the selected file/folder and choose “Launch file/folder” from the popup menu. Note that this option would open file for viewing in its associated application if the selected is a file not a folder! How do I use regular expressio to search? Please read the Regular Expression section. How do I clear all the search result highlights? Go to either (a) go to menu “Action” -> “No highlights”, (b) press keys “CTRL” “h” simultaneously in either left pane or right pane, (c) on toolbar, press the button whose tooltip is “Clear the highlight of the folders and files found by search”, (d) right click on a blank area and choose “No highlights” from the popup menu. Note that this option only temporarily disable the highlighting of current search result display. After clearning the highlight, if you go to another search results or select current search results again, the search result hits for each search will be correctly highlighted again to enable quick finding of search hits. How to do full text search, mp3 file information or CDDB information for my CDs? Currently they are not supported. We have different plans for each feature regarding to potential support in the future. See Question & Answers section for details. How do I contact support if I have a question/bug report? Support for MCA is provided through email. We do ask that if you have a question, please first try to read the documentation thoroughly (Don't forget you can also search MCA documentation). If your question is still not answered, please email to mingyiliu@yahoo.com Please write as precisely as possible what is your question and if it is a bug, what is the error message and how did you get the bug, so that I can fully understand and/or reproduce bugs/problems. How do I register? Please read the Registration section on how to obtain a registration key. Then go to menu “Help” -> “Registration” and enter your username and registration key. How can I read .chm files on Linux or other Operating Systems? For reading .chm files on Linux, Unix variants including Solaris, *BSD, even Mac OS X, use xChm, the best one I found on Linux. For Mac OS X, you can also consider using chmox. With MCA, how do I find out what Operation System I am using? Assuming that one luckily installed MCA successfully without knowing the OS used, one could also find it out by going to MCA's menu “Help”->”about” which displays both the operating system and java installation version and path. With MCA, how do I find out the Java version I am using? Assuming that your Java version supports MCA, pleases go to MCA's menu “Help”->”about” which displays both the operating system and java installation version and path. How do I launch MCA from command line? First, for Windows users, it is recommended that you enable “shell integration” during MCA installation process, which allows you access to all command line options MCA supports through Windows Explorer context sensitive menu. Second, for other operating systems, the command line syntax for MCA is (let's assume java path is {java}, the folder containing MCA.jar is {app}): To archive a folder with path denoted by {folder}: {java} -Djava.library.path="{app}" -classpath "{app}" -jar "{app}\MCA.jar" -a "{app}" "{folder}" To open an MCA archive file denoted by {file}: {java} -Djava.library.path="{app}" -classpath "{app}" -jar "{app}\MCA.jar" -f "{app}" "{file}" To archive a folder with path denoted by {folder} into the last used MCA file: {java} -Djava.library.path="{app}" -classpath "{app}" -jar "{app}\MCA.jar" -b "{app}" "{folder}" To update a folder already archived in the last used MCA file (assuming folder path is denoted by {folder}): {java} -Djava.library.path="{app}" -classpath "{app}" -jar "{app}\MCA.jar" -c "{app}" "{folder}"