guido

`guido`
Media Utilization Visualizer

What is it?

guido shows a graphical representation of how the space on your volumes is utilized. It uses concentric circles to represent different levels in the file system hierarchy. It is useful for answering the question, "Where has all my disk space gone?" And sometimes it's fun just to look at the pictures.

Here is a picture of guido in action, so to speak.

The circle in the middle represents my /boot/home directory. Each segment of the ring immediately outside that circle represents a file or directory within /boot/home. And so on.

Usage

Startup. You can launch guido from the Tracker, either directly or by dropping a volume or folder on its icon; or from the Terminal, optionally passing the names of one or more files or folders as arguments. If you launch guido without specifying a volume, it will wait until you drop one or more volumes or folders on its window or select a volume from the menu.

While guido is scanning a volume, it displays a status bar showing its progress. Multiple volumes are scanned in parallel (each in its own thread). You can view the progress on a volume by selecting that volume from the menu.

The main display. When guido finishes scanning a volume, it displays a graphical representation of the volume's files and directories. As you move the mouse over each part of the picture, information about each file or directory appears in the area at the bottom of the window. You can resize the window to increase or decrease the number of levels that guido displays.

Zooming. You can "zoom" in on a directory by clicking the primary mouse button on it. The picture is redrawn with that directory in the center circle. You can zoom out one level by clicking the center circle. At the outermost level, the center circle represents the volume itself, showing free and used space as pie slices.

Pop-up menu. Clicking the secondary mouse button on a part of the picture pops up a menu with Tracker-like options applicable to that file or directory. For directories, the menu includes an option to rescan that directory and its subdirectories (not the entire volume). This is useful since guido does not monitor changes to the file system.

Drag-and-drop. You can drag files and directories from guido to other applications (or to the desktop, the trash, etc.) with the primary mouse button. You can drop volumes and folders on guido's window to zoom directly to them.

Other controls. The buttons in the top right corner of the guido window rescan the selected volume and display the documentation (this file).

Notes:

If the graphical representation of a file or directory comprises less than about two degrees of a circle, it is excluded from the display.
The number of files that guido reports for a directory includes files in subdirectories too. A directory counts as a file.
guido ignores symbolic links.
If you don't like the colors guido uses, you can change them with your favorite resource editor.

Credits, etc.

Thanks to Steffen Gerlach for creating the Windows Scanner utility, from which I took the idea for using concentric circles to represent disk usage.

Thanks to the Vim development team for creating the best programmer's editor on the planet, with which guido's code and documentation were lovingly hand-crafted.

Thanks to the folks at Be for creating such a kick-butt OS. It has made programming fun again.

Thanks to me for doing the programming. All the code is original.

The name guido originated from GUI + du -- the command-line disk usage utility. Plus, one of my favorite languages, Python, was created by a fine programmer named Guido (I hope he and other Guidos don't mind.) Although guido is kind of a silly name for a program, I don't feel bad since product naming is primarily a marketing function, and a marketer I am not.

Known problems

You can drop multiple volumes or folders on the icon, but guido sees only one of them. Why?
Dropping a floppy disk volume on guido's window works, but dropping it on the icon does not work (unless you force it by holding the Ctrl key while you drag). Why?!

License

guido is Copyright (c) 1999 Mike Steed. You are free to use and distribute this software as long as it is accompanied by this documentation and copyright notice. The software comes with no warranty, etc.

If you decide to make a home for guido on your computer, please send me a note to let me know.

Download

Here is a zip archive containing the documentation and an x86 binary: guido_100_x86.zip

(18 Dec 2001) It's sad, but BeOS is a dead platform, and as such it no longer holds any interest for me. For anyone who is interested, here is the source code to guido, to use as you see fit: guido_100_src.zip

msteed@fiber.net
18 Dec 2001 17:27:13

guido Media Utilization Visualizer