Copyright: Copyright (c) 1993 T. Henschell


Contents
CMPView Table of Contents

What is CMPView?

How to install the program

How to operate CMPView

The menus

Limitations

Got a problem?

Copyright information

Thank you, Thank you.

The Credits


Registering
What is CMPView?

CMPView is a powerful little program you can use to view just about any type of file.  It's desired use, of course, is in supporting CMPQwk Reader, but we think it's just like a paring knife: you'll find many uses for it.  If you go into the Options, General Options, ANSI viewer section of CMPQwk's menu, you'll see a button there that says Select CMPQwk's External Viewer.

If you click that, just as you might think would happen, CMPQwk will use that instead of the colorized ANSI viewer, or instead of Notepad, the "default" external viewer.  We'd like you to give that a try.

Odds are, since you're reading this, you either started CMPView up by doing that and picking a QWK packet ANSI screen to view, or you double-clicked on this HLP file because you're curious.  Good, curiosity is the best way to learn things.  So enable the program if you haven't and then continue reading this help file.


install
How to install the program

CMPView is easy to install.  You don't have to do anything other than giving it an icon in Program Manager or whatever other shell you use.

If you don't know how to do that, here's how: from Program Manager's file menu, with the group open that you want to put it into, click on File, New, and make sure Program Item is checked.  Then click on OK.  When the box comes up asking you for the description, type in CMPQwk Viewer, and then click in the box where you specify the program to run.  Type in the drive and path to it if you know it, or click on Browse and navigate your way about until you find it.

If you can find the CMPQwk directory, you can find CMPView.  It's in the same place.

Once you've got an icon, you can use the program outside of the mail reader by firing it up and telling it to open files.  That's the next topic.


operate
How to operate CMPView

CMPView was designed to be simple.  All it does is view files and allow you to copy parts of them to the clipboard (like parts of the new files list in a BBS QWK packet) or view .exe files, or text files, or just about anything you can think of.  It doesn't view bitmaps, GIF files, etc., just text and program code.  There are plenty of programs for viewing bitmaps in Windows, that's not the nature of this beast.

There are only a few limitations covering what it can open.  You must have sufficient free memory to load the entire file into RAM.  So if you want to open your swapfile (I don't suggest you try this, but you can do it) and it's 16 megabytes, make sure you've got 16 megabytes of RAM free before you click on File, Open, 386SPART.PAR, and then OK.

Try some harmless files first, like a simple text file.  You can't edit the file, just view, copy, and print it.  Try viewing your autoexec.bat.  You can copy parts of it to send to a friend who's having problems with his or her configuration, or you can copy parts of several files (one at a time) to paste into a database of configurations if you do such things.

You can load just about anything you want (assuming your system will let you load it) and view it just about any way you'd like.  It can be a very useful tool and Windows ships with nothing like it at all.  So we included it with our product as what we think might be a bonus of sorts.


menu
The menus

This section explains the CMPView menu items and what they do.

File Menu

Open - loads the "open file" dialogue.  From that dialogue select a file from those listed.  You won't see hidden or system files, and that's probably just as well, you most likely won't need to diddle around with those anyway.  If you load the program as a "stand-alone" utility, it will load with this dialogue already open and waiting.

Print - lets you print the contents of the file.  Very handy for huge "new files" listing from a BBS.  This was our primary reason for including CMPView with our product, so you could grab stripped ANSI screens and copy from them, or print them.  It prints the entire file, so make sure you've got enough paper on hand to do that.

Print setup - brings up the Windows printer setup dialogue.  You'll know what to do when it comes up.  If not, read your Windows manual for some tips.

Exit - closes CMPView.

Clipboard Menu

Copy - lets you copy any text you've marked with the mouse or cursor keys into the Windows clipboard.  This way you can get the text into another program or data file if you want.

Select all - Let's say you've got a ten page "new files" listing.  You don't want to manually mark all ten pages of it, do you?  We didn't think so.  Click on this and the entire shebang gets highlighted, ready to copy to the clipboard.

Search Menu

Find - Want to look for a certain type of file or a certain word?  Enter that in the dialogue that will come up when you click on the sub-menu items here.

Find text entry - looking for a specific bit of text?  Enter it after clicking on this item and tell the program to go find it.  If it's there, it'll take you right to it.

Search options - in this section you set how you want the viewer to look for your text entry item.

Forward - search from the cursor's location toward the end of the file

Backward - yup, it has reverse gear, too.

Match case - allows you to narrow the search even further.  If you select this, all case must match.  Tell it to look for Dog and it'll skip dog because the first letter isn't capitalized.

Go to line # - If you know on which line the item you're looking for resides, tell the program and it'll jump there.  A quick way to skip through unimportant sections of the file.

Options Menu

Hex mode - displays the opened file in HEX format, that strange-looking stuff only programmers seem to know how to read.  Handy if you're one of the folks who can make sense of it.  It's easier, sometimes, to scan through programs (exe and com files) in this mode if you're looking for a particular line of code for some reason.

Tab expansion - shows the tab characters as either the default number of spaces set in Tab size, coming up in a moment, or as the "tab" character and no spaces.  You can collapse a heavily-tabbed file into less screen real estate by turning this off.

WordStar commands - tells the program that you're a real power user and remember (and want to use) the control key commands that WordStar uses.  If you know these and want to use them, they're here for you.

Tab size - you can set the actual amount of spaces into which tab characters are translated.  This is another method of collapsing a tabbed file to take up less screen (or printed page) space.

ANSI fixed font - tell the program to display the file using this font, which has a different character set than the OEM font.  Some files may display better using one of these fonts than the others.  Experiment with a file if you don't think it looks right.

OEM fixed font - forces the viewer to use the OEM font.

System fixed font - tells the program to use whatever font you've got selected as your "system" font, for 8514 users it's one font, for other users it may be something else.  Again, the character sets and font sizes differ with each, so try them and experiment.


newbooks
Limitations

Just about none, really.  If you have the memory to read the file in, you can read it.  I don't suggest you load things like your swapfile (because it's used dynamically and loading it may lock the file handle for it---if it's not already locked) or programs that you are currently running.

Just about anything else, though, will be fair game for you to look at.


problems
 Got a problem?

If you have a problem, you may contact us in several ways.  Be sure to let us know, first off, what version of CMPQwk you're using.  If you're not using CMPQwk then you're using our viewer illegally, so stop that!  Next tell us what type of system you're using.

You can reach Derek Backus (the programmer) by sending mail to CompuServe at 72233,3255 or via the Internet at DBACKUS@PATCHBAY.COM.  Please don't route mail from the Internet to CompuServe, okay?  Send it discreetly on either system.

Support for this program is covered under the support for CMPQwk Reader, and all the limitations applicable there apply here, too.


copyright
Copyright information

CMPView is Copyright © 1993 by Derek Backus.

Although the viewer is distributed free with CMPQwk Reader, it is not in the public domain, and all rights to the use of CMPView remain the property Derek Backus.

No warranty is expressed or implied with regard to this software.  It is not guaranteed to do anything other than fill up space on your hard disk, and we are not liable for any problems use of said software may cause for you.  By trying CMPView you agree to this.

Distribution of this software outside of its inclusion within an evaluation copy of CMPQwk Reader is a violation of copyright law.  If you give your friends a copy of this program may a pox descend on your computer and mangle your hard disk's FAT and may all your backup disks have bad sectors!  We will hunt you down and eat your brains with a dull spoon if we catch you giving out our little utility to folks who don't use our reader!

Besides that, it'll make us very unhappy.

Microsoft Windows™ is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.  All other products that may be mentioned in this documentation are the respective properties of their owners, and as such, have no direct affiliation with us.


thanks
Thank you, thank you...

Thanks to all those who helped us.  They include the CMPQwk Reader beta-test team, and many friends with good ideas.

Biggest thanks of all to Leslie and Colette.


Credits

CMPView was conceived by Derek Backus.  He was bored waiting for me to write the new documentation for CMPQwk 1.4 so he decided to channel his frustration.

This file (the help) and all other written matter accompanying the program was created by Todd Henschell.