AutoDisc  -  Automatic disc mounter

by Paul Ashmore
based on an idea by Jonathan Hunt

This program allows you to mount a floppy disc and open its root directory just by placing it into the disc drive, without having to click on the drive icon. It also automatically dismounts a floppy when it is removed from the drive. The program works in the background so other operations can be performed while it is running.

The application can be run from the RISC User menu system, or by double-clicking on its icon in a directory viewer. Once installed, it immediately goes to work, polling the disc drive in order to detect whether a disc is inserted. If a disc is in the drive when AutoDisc is run, or if one is inserted later, AutoDisc will detect this and open a Filer window onto the root directory of the disc. If a disc is removed from the floppy drive, AutoDisc will dismount the disc and close any Filer windows that are open for that disc.

Clicking Menu over the icon bar icon opens a menu with four options: Info, Timing, Hide icon and Quit. The Info and Quit options perform their usual functions.

The Timing option leads to a submenu which allows you to choose the time intervals at which AutoDisc actually looks at the drive, in centiseconds. There are four options: 100, 200, 300 and 400.

Hide Icon allows you to remove the icon from the icon bar while leaving the program running. This is useful if your icon bar tends to get cluttered with icons. If you want to quit AutoDisc after you have removed the icon bar icon, you can either quit from the Task Manager window, or you can hold down the left Alt key and press the Adjust button on your mouse for two seconds.

On machines which do not have an auto detect facility on the floppy drive (e.g. A540, A400/1 series), AutoDisc must poll the disc drive regularly to see if it can read a disc. This takes a little time, and you may find that the desktop freezes momentarily every few seconds. If you find this annoying you should quit AutoDisc and only install it when you need to read floppies. 

Copyright  RISC user 1994
