Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!ames!claris!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: After the stack: Some questions about Retrospect
Keywords: Retrospect archive queries
Message-ID: <29471@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 24 Apr 89 21:17:15 GMT
References: <7901@fluke.COM>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 38

>1)  CLASSIFICATION.  Is there some way of providing information about what
>the file you're archiving is -- something you can examine at a later time
>when you're scanning through the files on the archive tape/disk/whatever?
>An info box/window, or something?

There is an info box you can fill in for every session you archive. That's
not quite as granular as an info box per file, but probably good enough for
most situations.

>Is there some way to either
>preserve the structure or indicate the pathname the file was in when it was
>archived? 

Directory structure is maintained for nested folders based on the root of
the volume (or subvolume) so if you have a directory foo:bar:baz:file,
the archive will reflect (and optionally regenerate) the directory structure
when you restore.

>2)  DELETION/REPLACEMENT.  Is there some way to delete a single file off the
>archived list?

No. I asked about that, too. It's primarily a limitation of the media --
tapes and WORMS and stuch don't allow that. Dantz has said they'll look into
supporting it for media that does support it sometime in the future (i.e.
not in the initial release, maybe not ever). 

>Certainly looks good; using partitions and tape drives, I'm currently using
>DiskFit for archiving, but it's still tedious.  I just want to make sure
>Retrospect will take a significant amount of that tedium away before
>purchasing it. (And hopefully, I won't have to do too much work to get
>things in order for Retrospect archiving.)

I've been using it heavily since I started testing it. Once you get
everything into a Retrospect archive, updating and finding stuff in them is
a real joy. The hardest part of the whole thing was converting my 70 floppy
PD archive to a 38 floppy Retrospect (compressed) archive. It was amazing
how many duplicates snuck in when I wasn't looking, and now if I need
something, I can find it easily.