TM-Utilities displays an integrated, intelligent user interface, with a slightly different philosophy. All fields and displays within a window are inter-connected. Actions in one area will alter the display in other areas to reflect the changes. The user is alerted to invalid entries or operations, which are immediately corrected to maintain the integrity and validity of the interface.
All text fields are live. Except for the Snapshot Selection window, the ENTER key will simply select the text within the field. In Snapshot Selection, the ENTER key will start the process of selecting a snapshot.
Some text fields are strictly labels that cannot be edited or selected. Some text fields, that are not editable, allow selection. All editable text fields are selectable and participate in dragging and dropping.
Auto-correction within path text fields prevents the use of double forward slashes ("//") or inappropriate single forward slashes.
Some buttons will change function and/or labels, depending on the state of the application. Most windows have a message center that provides prompts and reports errors.
Time Machine Structure describes in detail how Time Machine is organized. The TM-Utilities Structure consists of 3 phases: Snapshot Selection, Snapshot Exploration, and Snapshot Restoration. Each phase has its own window, and each phase depends on the previous phase. Therefore, these windows are always opened and closed in order, regardless of which "close window" button is pressed.
When TM-Utilities is first started, it queries "tmutil" in the shell for the native Time Machine property list to load destination information. If Time Machine has not been set up, the Preferences Panel will be displayed with a red background. The Preferences Panel can read a foreign Time Machine property list file. It also allows manual entry of the backup destination
The Main Menu is used to access the Preferences Panel, these help files, and other methods such as reading and writing property list files.
See Menu Structure and Preferences Panel for details.
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