Korseby Online - Cleanup Plugin

About Cleanup Finder Plugin

This Plugin for the Mac OS X Finder removes unwanted .DS_Store & ._* files in directories.

Installation

After downloading the binary package, you should copy the file "CleanupPlugin.plugin" either to ~/Library/Contextual Menu Items/ or (if you want all users on your Mac accessing the plugin) copy it to /Library/Contextual Menu Items. If that directory does not exist, you can simply create it.

Please note that if you're using a different locale than English those directories will have similar names in your local language.

Usage

After restarting the Finder (or logoff and immediately login afterwards does the same) you can see a new entry called "CLEANUP <filename>" in the context-menu of the Finder. (That menu will pop-up if you right-click on an object in Finder.)
If you have selected more than one object, the entry will be called "CLEANUP THESE <n> OBJECTS".

If you click on that entry the invisible files ".DS_Store" and "._*" will be moved to Trash without warning ! So please do not blame me, if the Plugin removes files you do not want to be removed.

Those invisible files are saving special information for the Finder. But sometimes they are pretty annoying -- especially on SAMBA-Shares, DOS-formatted Volumes or on burned CD-ROMs. Removing them only removes some special properties for that directory that are only visible in Mac OS X Finder. If you want to recover them, look in "~/.Trash/" with your favourite Terminal.

How it works

Cleanup a single object

Cleanup several objects

Currently the Plugin makes usage of system-functions to remove these unwanted files. In the future it will use the Finder to put those files in Trash. In future also a conformation-dialog will appear that shows what files actually were removed.

The Plugin originally was inspired by Apple's free SampleCMPlugin code. They provided some sample-code how to implement a submenu into Finder.

As you can see on the low version the Plugin isn't fully functional yet. It may have some errors too. If you find a fault or some unpredictable behaviour, do not hassle to contact me.

The source isn't fully documented yet, it also has some additional functions in it that aren't of any use. It will be cleaned up in future versions of the Plugin.

Download the Plugin

The Plugin is available in two formats. The binary is pre-compiled for Mac OS X 10.3 (alias Panther) where the source contains the source-code only of use for programmers.

Download Binary (21 KB) Download Source (20 KB)

Changelog

Version 0.2: (2004-12-30)
- menu now only offers 1 entry in list and no submenu anymore
- if more objects are selected, all of these will be cleanup'ed

Version 0.1: (2004-12-29)
- removed some sample code, only 1 submenu with selected entries has left
- added function cleanup_files() that moves .DS_Store & ._* to ~/.Trash/
- initial release inspired by Apple's free SampleCMPlugin sample-code

License

The Korseby Cleanup Finder Plugin is published under the terms of GNU General Public License (GPL). Visit GNU for more details.