MaxFile/PM - Version 1.10 A FILES.BBS Manager for Presentation Manager Portions of the header files used in compilation are: Copyright (C) 1992 by Scott Dudley Copyright (C) 1993 by Aki Antman Copyright (C) 1994 by Marco Maccaferri MSGAPI portions of the Announce Files option are: Copyright 1991 by Scott J. Dudley. All rights reserved. "Squish" and "Maximus" are trademarks of Scott J. Dudley. From the Development Team of: Craig Morrison - MaxFile/PM Development 1:201/60@fidonet.org Ronald Van Iwaarden - MaxFile/2 Development 1:104/338@fidonet.org Special Thanks go out to: Mark Kimes For putting up with my never ending questions and general bull-headedness when it comes to programming under OS/2 Scott Dudley For making Maximus the great BBS that it is! Marco Maccaferri For providing the Lora structures and Lora itself Rick Fishman His container code was a great source of inspiration Steven Crandall Who thinks I should be barefoot and coding all the time Rick Ford Keeping me up to date with the Lora-BBS information Eric Chew For providing the SuperBBS information and testing Steve Lamb "Generic" code tester J Gitzen Maximus code tester David Campbell Lora-BBS code tester Raymond Deroo Maximus code tester David Roberts Maximus code tester Jerry McBride Maximus code tester If I missed anyone, well...you know who you are! Thanks! *** OS/2 Service Pack Information NOTICE TO OS/2 SERVICE PACK USERS The incompatibility problems experienced with the beta service pack and the recently released service pack have been addressed. MaxFile/PM should now run on stock 2.1 GA code along with the beta and GA service packs. There have been some incompatibility problems reported with the GA service pack, your mileage may vary. *** What's New - Added a case and position insensitive search for finding files. - Added a new option to the context menu of the FILES.BBS windows; Copy Description. The description of the first item selected is copied and used as the description for all the marked files with a 'x of xx' counter appended to it. - You can now use wildcards to specify what file extensions are okay to adopt. - Drag and Drop to folders is now working again. Sorry folks, I *really* didn't break it on purpose. - Fixed up the drop code a little bit to handle file clashes better. If a file that is being dropped on a window exists you will now be asked if you want to over-write the file that exists with the file that is being dropped. - Rewrote the FILES.BBS reader so that it now correctly reads a FILES.BBS file. This corrects the problems that many have reported that were occuring with the last entry in a FILES.BBS. Thanks go out to Carl Neal for helping me think this one through. - New option on the FILES.BBS context menu. 'Announce Files...' you may now announce selected files to any message base that uses either the Squish or *.MSG message formats. - Added a REXX file that will create an object on your desktop for MaxFile/PM with the proper settings. - Orphan files are now added to the end of the file list in each container. Its kind of slow, but there is nothing stopping you from continuing to work with the files in the container since the insertion is performed in a separate thread. - Fixed a minor embarassment on my part, headers are now skipped correctly. - Added an Outdated file tosser. You can scan for files older than days and either move them to a specific area or send them off to the bit bucket. - Added an All Files Generator. At present all it does is create a comprehensive list of files. In the future I plan to have it create a new files list also. - Version 1.08 consists of many, many changes that are too numerous to outline here. Suffice it to say some of the code was completely rewritten and that quite a few bugs were squashed in the process. Overall MaxFile/PM should be MUCH more stable and work on a wider variety of systems. - Fixed traps when saving FILES.BBS entries. - Revamped CloseAllWindows() code, it does what it is supposed to now. - Fixed traps in DupeChecker() code. - Cleaned up error recovery code in a number of places. - Added an automatic window function. You can now have one FILES.BBS window opened automatically for you when the program starts. Just leave the FILES.BBS window that you want opened automatically open when you shut down MaxFile/PM. - Revved up the Adopt Files code, it now works fast enough for AutoAdopt to be usable. - Got the dupe checker working. - Re-enabled the code to open multiple FILES.BBS windows from the File Area window. - Fixed a minor bit of stupidity on my part in the configuration code that wouldn't bring up the Settings dialog the first time MaxFile/PM was run. - Added accelerators (hot-keys) for easier function access. - Added ability to skip over headers in FILES.BBS. - Added extended description support. - Enabled Virus Scanner option. - Added ability to extract an archive to a specified directory. - Added support for fully qualified filenames in FILES.BBS files. - Added a generic file format to support _any_ BBS package that uses the FILES.BBS format for download directories. Steve Lamb gets credit for this one. - Ripped out the old text configuration file code, it was causing way too much confusion with users who weren't running Maximus. - Dropped the _tmalloc() code and went back to the API memory allocation functions. - Added a new option to the Adopt Options dialog, DL Counters. - Changed memory allocation code to use the library _tmalloc() function for compatibility with the PM's 16-bit code. Hopefully this will squash the random SYS3175 access violations that some have been experiencing. - Added first run of the SuperBBS code. I don't know much about SBBS folks, so you are pretty much on your own. For what I do know, please keep reading this document. - Fixed a bug where if more than 4 files were tagged for dragging an error would occur when dropping the files on a window. - Previous code wasn't setting the changes flag when a FILE_ID.DIZ was imported from an archive. It is now. (Thanks Jim!) - Fixed a bug where if only a filename was present in the FILES.BBS it would move the filename of the next file into its description. - Added external program macros to the FILES.BBS windows. - Added Lora compatibility. - Fixed bug that made it so only D:\MAX\AREA.DAT could be read as a valid area file. *** Forward MaxFile/PM is a FILES.BBS manager that runs under Presentation Manager. While it was written with the Maximus-CBCS in mind, any BBS software package that uses the standard FILES.BBS format is supported. A quick list of the features are: 1. Drag and Drop between file areas 2. Adopting orphan files 3. FILE_ID.DIZ import 4. Rearchiving files 5. Sorting by: Name Date Size Description 6. In-place editing of file descriptions 7. Renaming files As the program grows, support for more convenient features will be added to make MaxFile/PM the perfect tool for managing your downloadable files from your desktop. *** Registration I'm going to keep this short, sweet and to the point. What you are seeing in MaxFile/PM is the result of drinking a lot of coffee and smoking way too many packs of cigarettes since December of '93. Please take the time to print out the REGISTER.FRM file that is in the distribution archive and consider registration. MaxFile/PM is in a class by itself for managing FILES.BBS files on your desktop and $25 is a small fee for something that will make the chore of keeping your file areas neat and tidy a lot easier. The only sort of "crippling" you will find in MaxFile/PM is that you can not run the All Files Generator in batch mode. Registering the program stops the initial Program Information dialog, thus also allowing for unattended operation. Registration also provides me with the incentive to keep working on the program, it's all up to you folks that use the program. 'Nuff said... One last comment here... Please share MaxFile/PM with other sysops in your area who are running OS/2. Your support for the program is needed if you want it to grow and get better than it already is! *** Support If you need to contact me about the program I can be reached in a number of places. NetMail will get you the fastest response, but I read the OS2PRODSUP, OS2BBS and MUFFIN conferences everyday and intend on answering any questions posted there. There is also a local conference on my BBS called MFILEPMSUP that you are more than welcome to poll for. I *will* support MaxFile/PM, all you need to do is ask. I will respond to you in the same manner you contact me, with certain exceptions.. If you are in Zone 1 and you crash netmail to me, I will return netmail to you in the same fashion. Routed netmail will get a routed response. To those of you in other Zones, I am sorry but the cost of international calls is very prohibitive. If one of you would like to volunteer to hub the support echo in your Zone, I would really appreciate it and it will get you a registered copy of MaxFile/PM. If your BBS package is not supported by MaxFile/PM and you would like me to add it, I need a few things from you or the author of your BBS software. First I need the structure definitions or layouts for the file that holds your file area information. Second, I need a copy of the file that holds the file area information so that I can test the code before I ship it out to anyone. *** Before You Start The default installation of OS/2 defines Mouse Button 1 as the left button and Mouse Button 2 as the right button. Please keep this in mind as you read through this document if you have redefined your mouse buttons. A word to the wise here.. BACKUP *BEFORE* USING MAXFILE/PM ! Here comes the standard disclaimer...I don't promise that MaxFile/PM will do anything for you except take up space on your hard drive. While I am fairly certain I have got all the nasties out of it, there is a chance that I may have missed something. So please be safe and backup prior to using the program. Suffice it to say, you have been warned.. :-> *** Configuring MaxFile/PM To configure MaxFile/PM for use, simply start MaxFile/PM by typing MAXFMPM and pressing ENTER at an OS/2 Command Prompt. The MaxFile/PM Settings dialog box will be presented for you, so that you can enter the vital information about your system and BBS setup. There are four dialog boxes in total that you will need to enter information into so that MaxFile/PM will be able to do everything it does. The Main Settings, Adopt Options, External Programs and Macro Setting dialogs. *** The Main Settings Dialog The Main Settings dialog box is the first dialog that gets presented. Here you will need to enter the basics about your BBS setup. These items are; Registration Key, BBS Package, BBS Directory, the path and filename of the file that contains your file area information, Temp Directory, File Database Utility path and filename, when to run your File Database Utility, whether or not to display the date and size of your files, and whether you want to be prompted to save the FILES.BBS window information when you close a window or to save it automatically. Main Settings Controls: o Registration Key o BBS Package o BBS Directory o Temporary Directory o File Area Data o File Database Utility o Run FD Utility o Display o AutoSave o Header Size o ED Marker The Adopt Options and External Programs buttons get you to the Adopt Options and External Programs dialog boxes. *** Registration Key If you don't have a registration key, set this field to 0, otherwise type your key number into the Registration Key Field. *** BBS Package The BBS Package field has four options, Maximus, Lora, SBBS and Generic. Select which ever is appropriate for your system. The default is Maximus. For 'Generic' please see the section entitled Generic File Area Definitions later in this document. *** BBS Directory The BBS Directory field should be filled in with the root path that your BBS files reside in. For example mine is D:\MAX. An entry in this field is required. *** Temporary Directory The Temporary Directory field is where you want MaxFile/PM to place its work files and any files it needs to create when rearchiving, testing or viewing archives. NOTE: THIS DIRECTORY SHOULD NOT BE ONE THAT IS USED FOR ANYTHING ELSE! MaxFile/PM will delete _EVERYTHING_ in this directory, including any sub-directories during the normal course of its operations. This is a required entry and you will need to create this directory for MaxFile/PM. *** File Area Data The File Area Data field should be filled in with the full path and filename to the file that contains the information relating to your file areas. For Maximus this would be AREA.DAT by default. On my system I have this set to D:\MAX\AREA.DAT. For Lora-BBS users, this is the path and filename to SYSFILE.DAT. For SBBS users, this is the path and filename to your FLSEARCH.BBS file. This field is also a required entry. *** File Database Utility The next field is for the filename of your File Database Utility. For Maximus this will be either FB.EXE or FBP.EXE. On my system I have this set to FBP, since the utility is in my path. For Lora-BBS users, this will be FILEIDX.EXE. Please see the "Known Problems" section at the end of this document for more information about FILEIDX.EXE. For SBBS users, I don't have a clue. If someone would fill me in on this one I'd really appreciate it! This entry is only required if you want MaxFile/PM to run the utility for you. *** Run FD Utility The options for Run FD Utility determine when and if the File Database utility will get run. There are three; Always, Prompt and Never. Always will run your file database utility everytime you exit MaxFile/PM. If no changes have been made, it will prompt you before running it. Prompt will ask you if you wish to run it. Do I need to explain Never? :-} *** Display The Display options control whether or not the file size and date information gets displayed for your files in the FILES.BBS windows. Simply check or uncheck the check boxes to set your preferences. *** AutoSave AutoSave controls whether you are prompted to save FILES.BBS information or if it should be written automatically each time you close a window that has FILES.BBS information in it. When the checkbox for this item has a check in it, MaxFile/PM will automatically save, if not, you will be prompted to save the information. *** Header Size Header Size controls how many lines at the beginning of the FILES.BBS are skipped when the FILES.BBS is read to populate the FILES.BBS window. It also tells MaxFile/PM how many lines to copy from the old FILES.BBS to the new FILES.BBS when it saves changes. This will solve quite a few of the problems with DownSort headers while still preserving the headers in your FILES.BBS files. *** ED Marker For those BBS packages that support extended descriptions this option will come in handy. Here you tell MaxFile/PM what character is associated with extended descriptions for your BBS Package. This character can not be a space or a dash. Defining this character causes a few changes in the way MaxFile/PM handles your file descriptions. When this option is used, file descriptions are allowed to be up to 1024 characters in length and nothing is stripped from FILE_ID.DIZ descriptions read in from archives. MaxFile/PM does not insert this character in multiple line descriptions for you, you need to do this. If this character is not defined, file descriptions are limited to 255 characters, also, any CR/LF pairs and high-bit ASCII characters are stripped from FILE_ID.DIZ descriptions. *** The Adopt Options Dialog Box The Adopt Options dialog box is where you enter the information that tells MaxFile/PM what files are okay to adopt. You do this by entering the extensions of the files that you want to be added to your FILES.BBS when you do an Adopt Files. You also may enter a Default Description here that gets used for adopted files that either aren't archives or are archives that don't have a FILE_ID.DIZ file in them. Adopt Options Controls: o Add/Remove Extensions To Adopt o AutoAdopt o Download Counters o Default Description *** Add/Remove Extensions To Adopt You may enter upto 15 extensions for MaxFile/PM to recognize. Entering them in is accomplished by typing them into the edit field just above the Add button and then clicking on the Add button. You may also remove extensions by hilighting them in the listbox and clicking on the Remove button. NOTE: what you are entering here is JUST the file extension, I.E. ZIP, not a file specification mask. *** AutoAdopt The little checkbox to the right of the adopt list listbox labeled AutoAdopt tells MaxFile/PM whether or not to automatically adopt files each time a file area is opened. Check it if you want this behaviour. I will have to admit that at this time adopting is a rather slow process, so you might not want to have AutoAdopt set to on. *** Download Counters Next comes the DL Counters checkbox, if you have this option checked, when ever an Adopt is performed a download counter will be added to the beginning of the file description. Currently this is hard coded as '[ ]'. *** Default Description The last item in this dialog box is the Default Description. You may enter upto 80 characters for a default description. This text will get used any time you Insert, Adopt or drop files from an outside source into a window in MaxFile/PM and those files meet the following criteria: 1, they are not an archive or 2, they are an archive and the archive does not contain a FILE_ID.DIZ description inside of it. *** The External Programs Dialog Box The External Programs dialog box is where you enter all the information about your archivers and viewers. There are four entries for each archiver type that MaxFile/PM supports (ZIP, ARJ, LZH and ARC.) Which are; Extract, Add, List and Test. You'll need to look up the proper switches in the documentation for each of the archivers you have. If you deal with archivers that can handle directories inside of them, make sure that you specify those switches here. See also: MaxFile/PM and External Programs The final control in this dialog is a button labeled Macros, it will bring up the Macro Settings Dialog. *** The Macro Settings Dialog Box Here you can enter the definitions for 5 macros that will get called when you press one of the keys, Shift-F6 - Shift-F10. They aren't macros persay, but they behave in a very similar manner. See also: MaxFile/PM and External Programs *** MaxFile/PM and External Programs If you have REXX installed you can use REXX command files for any of the external program options. You may also call OS/2 command files. Just remember to save the directory that your command file gets called from and restore it just before your command file gets done. During certain operations MaxFile/PM expects to find a result file in the directory it calls these programs from. The Test and View functions are those times. MaxFile/PM expects to find the file ARC.TXT in the temporary directory these programs are called from, if it doesn't find that file it will not display anything about the files that are being tested or viewed. I had originally stated the MaxFile/PM could directly run DOS applications, well it can but in certain circumstances it takes a little work. For the Archiver Test and Viewer functions, if you use a DOS based archiver you will need to write a small batch file that runs the archiver and directs the output from the archiver to a file called ARC.TXT. As stated above this is the file that MaxFile/PM displays to you for those functions. Please note that what directory the programs start out in WILL vary over the course of a MaxFile/PM session, so don't hard code any references into your command files. *** Generic File Area Definitions To provide support for any BBS system that uses the standard FILES.BBS format for their file listings I have come up with a very simple text file format that will allow you to tell MaxFile/PM how your file areas are defined. The file is made up of a verb that tells MaxFile/PM how many areas it can expect to find in the text file. Each successive line after that verb defines the file areas themselves. A sample file is shown below: ----------------------------- AREAS.CFG sample -------------------------------- AreaCount 5 0 d:\max\file\uncheck d:\max\file\uncheck\files.bbs Unchecked Uploads 1 d:\max\file\max d:\max\file\max\files.bbs BBS Stuff 2 d:\max\file\dos\games d:\max\file\dos\games\files.bbs Dos Games 3 d:\max\file\os2\util d:\max\file\os2\util\files.bbs OS/2 Utilities 4 d:\max\file\os2\apps d:\max\file\os2\apps\files.bbs OS/2 Applications ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 'AreaCount' keyword tells MaxFile/PM how many area definitions it can expect to find in the file. The AreaCount keyword must come BEFORE the area definition lines. The format for each area definition line is: 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Is a short name to identify the file area. Is the path to the files. Is the full drive:\path and filename of the FILES.BBS for the area. Is a short description of the area. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 You can name this file what ever you wish, just make sure you specify the name of this file for the File Area Data option in the Main Settings Dialog and make sure the BBS Package is set to 'Generic'. *** Using MaxFile/PM When MaxFile/PM first comes up a window will be displayed that contains all of your file areas. I will be referring to this window by the term 'File Area Window' throughout the rest of this document. When you open up a file area, a window that is very similar in appearance to the File Area window will appear. This window will contain all the files listed in the FILES.BBS for that area. These windows will be referred to as 'FILES.BBS Windows' from here on out. *** File Area Window The File Area window serves two basic purposes. First, it allows you to open FILES.BBS Windows and second, it also serves as a dropping point for files so that you can quickly move files to another file area without having to open the file area. The File Area Window Context Menu: 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Open Opens the highlighted file area. Check for Duplicates Scan all file areas for duplicate files. Search... Search selected files areas for a given string. View Change the way items are displayed. Area Sort Change sort order of file area display. Settings... Configure MaxFile/PM for use. Product Information... Displays some information about MaxFile/PM. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 To bring up the context menu for the File Area window, press mouse button 2 anywhere inside the confines of the window. *** File Area Menu/Open This menu item allows you to open the highlighted file area. The other ways of opening a file area are: Highlighting the area you want to open and pressing enter or double-clicking mouse button 1 on a file area. If the file area is already open it will be brought into view, even if it is minimized to the Minimized Window Viewer folder. *** File Area Menu/Check for Duplicates To check your file areas for duplicate files choose this menu item after selecting the area(s) you want MaxFile/PM to check against all of your file areas. Please note that the scan performed when checking for duplicates does not involve the FILES.BBS files for the areas scanned, it looks at the contents of the download directory for each area. So all duplicates will be found regardless of whether there is a FILES.BBS entry for them or not. However, the files searched for come directly from the FILES.BBS files of the areas selected in the File Area window. So make sure if you have a FILES.BBS window open for one of the areas you will be checking for duplicates from, that you have saved any changes made in that window. The File Area window will be locked open until you close the DupeCheck Results dialog box. This dialog will appear as soon as the file scanning is complete. Inside it you will see two list boxes, the list box on the left contains all the files that MaxFile/PM scanned for, the list box on the right contains a list of area tags for the areas that the selected file on the left resides in. Double-clicking mouse button 1 on an area tag opens the FILES.BBS window that is associated with that file area. *** File Area Menu/Search... This function is very similar to the Dupe Checker option, with the exception that instead of checking for duplicate files you can enter a string of text that MaxFile/PM will search for in each of the FILES.BBS files for each of the selected areas. First select the areas that you want to search, then bring up the context menu and select 'Search...' A dialog box will come up asking you what to search for. You may enter up to 80 characters. Click ok to begin the search. The search is not case nor position sensitive. Both the filename and description are searched for the text, if the text appears in of these two places a 'hit' will occur. The dialog box that comes up after the search is complete works exactly the same as the dialog box showing the results of the Dupe Checker option. *** File Area Menu/All Files List Probably the most requested feature had to be the ability to generate a list of available files from the FILES.BBS listings. MaxFile/PM will now generate an all files list. It's highly customizable and can be run automagically from a batch file once configured correctly (NOTE: you must register MaxFile/PM to stop the Product Information dialog from appearing.) To use the all files generator interactively, simply start MaxFile/PM and then select the areas from the File Area window that you want included in the listing. Then bring up the context menu and select "All Files List". MaxFile/PM will then process each FILES.BBS and produce a listing under the filename ALLFILES.LST in the directory that MaxFile/PM resides in. Each time you run the all files generator from the context menu, a file called ALLFILES.CFG will be written that contains a list of the area tags for each of the areas in the listing. Do NOT modify this file. The purpose behind this file is to tell MaxFile/PM what areas to include when you run the all files generator in batch mode. If you add or delete file areas, you MUST run the all files generator from the context menu in interactive mode at least once to keep the ALLFILES.CFG in sync with your file areas. I'll put it this way... IF YOU WANT TO RUN IN BATCH MODE YOU MUST KEEP allfiles.cfg IN SYNC WITH YOUR FILE AREAS. To customize the all files generator to suit your tastes, you can create three text files which will be written to your file listing at the appropriate times. The names for the files are: ALLFILES.HDR ALLFILES.FTR ALLFILES.CUS ALLFILES.HDR and ALLFILES.FTR are written verbatim to the file listing at the beginning and ending of the listing, respectively. ALLFILES.CUS is a little more complex. It allows you to insert text into the headers that are written to the listing for each file area. The format of the file is:
is the area tag of the file area header the text that follows it should be inserted into. You may place as many lines as you need to for each area as long as they all follow this format. is checked against the area tag for each area in such a manner that if the tag for the area begins with the tag specified in this file the text will get inserted. A sample .CUS and .HDR file are included in the distribution archive. An example might be of some help here.. You have the following areas: CICA001 CICA002 CICB001 001 002 In your ALLFILES.CUS file you have: CICA Files in this area are NOT freq'able. CIC These files are on my CD-ROM. 00 These files are freq'able anytime but ZMH. CICA would match CICA001 and CICA002. CIC would match CICA001, CICA002 and CICB002. 00 would match 001 and 002. Get the idea? Its rather simple once you get used it. To run the all files generator in batch mode from the command line, specify the -A switch on MaxFile/PM's command line. MaxFile/PM will do its thing and then return to the command prompt when it is done. -a, -A, /a and /A are all recognized as valid switches for this mode of operation. If you have not registered MaxFile/PM please note that the Product Information dialog that appears when you first start the program will severely hinder your ability to use batch mode effectively. *** File Area Menu/OutDated Files... This option will allow you to either remove or move to a file area those files that are older than a certain number of days. The process of taking care of your outdated files begins by selecting the areas that you wish to scan from the File Area window. Now, bring up the context menu and select 'OutDated Files...', you will be presented with a dialog box, this is where you tell MaxFile/PM how to manage the old files. To remove files, select the Kill radio button. To move files to a selected file area, select the Move radio button and then enter the Area Tag of the file area you want the files to go into. The Area Tag you type in MUST exactly match one of the area tags listed in the first column of the File Area window, upper and lower case letters are important here. Now you need to tell MaxFile/PM the number of days old a file has to be before it will be moved or deleted. Either type in the number of days or use the spin button to adjust the number of days to your liking. To give you some indication of the date range you will be working with, the date below the spin button will tell you what the date on the oldest file can be. After entering the above, click OK and sit back and let MaxFile/PM do its thing. If a file area you have selected is open, it will be skipped. Also, if you are moving files, the file area that will receive the dated files will be skipped. *** File Area Menu/View Here you can change the way that the window displays your file areas. There are three different options: 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Detail Sets the display to the "detail" view. Icon Sets the display to the "Icon" view. Text Sets the display to the "Text" view. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 *** File Area Menu/Area Sort The default order for your file areas is the order they are defined in. Here you may change the order in which they are displayed. You can sort your file areas in the following ways: 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Tag Sorts file area display by Area Tags. Description Sorts file area display by Area Description. Files Dir Sorts file area display by Area Download Path. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 *** File Area Menu/Settings This option brings up the Main Settings configuration dialog. See Also: Main Settings Dialog *** File Area Menu/Product Information This menu item displays the Product Information dialog box for MaxFile/PM. *** FILES.BBS Window FILES.BBS windows are the heart and soul of MaxFile/PM, these windows are where you will be spending most of your time. A FILES.BBS window is very similar to the File Area window in appearance. What you will see when you open one of these windows is the contents of the FILES.BBS that is associated with the file area this window belongs to. The FILES.BBS Window Context Menu: 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Sort Sort Options View Displays file(s) based on their type. Test Archive Run archive tests on selected arhcives. Virus Scanner Run virus scannner utility on selected files. ReArchive ReArchive Options Extract to Directory Extract files to a specified directory. Adopt Files Adopt orphan files. Announce Files... Annouce selected files. Touch Files Updates Time and Date stamp of selected files. Edit Description Edit description of FIRST selected item. Get FILE_ID.DIZ Extract FILE_ID.DIZ from selected Archives. Insert Insert Files or Comments Remove Items Removes highlighted items (doesn't delete files.) Select All Selects all items in FILES.BBS window. Deselect All Deselects all items. Area Statistics Display number of files, space used, etc... 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 *** Sort With this option you can sort the entries in this FILES.BBS window in one of four ways; Name, Date, Size or Description. Pay attention here, this is the part that confuses some people. If there are any items selected ONLY those items get sorted. To sort the entire window, make sure NONE of the items in that window are selected. We'll talk about this a bit later. *** View The View option works in conjunction with the external program options. For archives it will fire up the proper archiver to create a list of files contained in the archive and display a dialog containing that list. For pictures and text files the appropriate viewer will be started. View is also the action that is associated with double-clicking mouse button 1 on an entry in the window. *** Test Archive This option only works with archives. It simply invokes the appropriate archiver for each selected item in the window. The output from the archiver will be displayed in a dialog box after the testing is completed is completed for each archive. *** Virus Scanner This option runs the virus scanner you have set up on each file selected in the current FILES.BBS window. The window that the virus scanner is run in is not closed when the scan is complete so that you may view the results. *** ReArchive This option allows you to convert archives to your preferred archive format. Should one of your archivers not have an Add option defined for it, its menu option will be grayed out. *** Extract to Directory Here you can extract a selected archive to a directory that you specify. Note that the directory you specify must exist. Once you select this option a dialog box will appear asking you to specify the directory you want to extract the files to, it also displays the current directory. Type in the directory name and select Ok, or select Cancel to abort the operation. *** Adopt Files Adopt Files allows you to add any orphan files in a particular file area to the FILES.BBS for that area. Adopting is performed in a seperate thread so that you may continue to work in the window for the file area while the adopt is going on. The window will be locked open while the Adopt is being performed. *** Announce Files... This option will allow you to write a customized message announcing selected files directly to any Squish, *.MSG or *.MSG ECHO message base. You may also specify a mail processor so that you can scan for the message to send it out of your system. The whole process gets started by selecting the files you wish to annouce from a FILES.BBS window. Next you bring up the context menu and select 'Announce Files...' You will be presented with a configuration dialog you must fill out to tell MaxFile/PM the particulars about the message you want to send. As it stands right now, you have to fill out the dialog for each different window. The configuration for each window will be saved separately and will be used each subsequent time you announce files from each particular window. There are a few things MaxFile/PM needs to know to be able to send the message correctly and they are as follows: Message Base Path -The full path and base filename of the message area put the message in. For *.MSG areas this will be the full path to the directory that contains the *.MSG files. For Squish areas this will be the path and base filename of the Squish files related to the message area. This is a required entry. Mail Processor -This is an optional entry to allow you to scan for the message that was just written by a mail tosser/scanner. Please see the documentation for your tosser/scanner for more information. Message Type -This is the message base type, *.MSG and Squish are fairly self-explanatory. *.MSG Echo, refers to a Fidonet style *.MSG echo mail area that stores the high-water mark in 1.MSG. Message Flags -These are the attribute flags for the message you will be creating. They are mutually exclusive. I will be adding Direct to the available flags when I get the time to research the flags more. To: -This is the name of the recipient of the message. If you leave it blank, MaxFile/PM will automatically default to 'All.' To Addr: -This is the address of the recipient of the message. If left blank, the From Address will be used. (Please see the From Address discussion for more information on entering Fidonet addresses.) From: -This is a required entry. This is the name of the sender of the message. From Addr: -This is a required entry. This is the address of the sender of the message. Most likely this will be your fidonet address if you have one. If not it doesn't matter what you enter here, as it won't get used by your message bases. The format for entering Fidonet addresses into MaxFile/PM is: zone:net/node.point All four elements are required. To use my address as an example, the field would have 1:201/60.0 entered into it. Header -This is an optional entry that you can use to place a customer banner at the top of the message just before the files that are being announced in the message. It is pretty much free-form, but you will be much better off if you leave the formatting up to MaxFile/PM. You may enter up to 1024 characters in this field. Footer -This entry is basically the same as the Header field, except it comes after the announced files. You may enter up to 1024 characters in this field. The 'Subject' line of the message is 'File Announcement' it is currently hard coded. If I get enough requests, I will add it as an option but as you can see, the message dialog is quite full as it is. The same holds true with the Tear and Origin lines, they are not configurable. The Tear line will always read '--- MaxFile/PM......' and the Origin line will always just be a standard origin line with your Fidonet address in it. These two I will probably be adding macros for so that you can place them into either the header or footer of the message. It all depends on user feedback. *** Touch Files "Touching" is the process of updating the Time and Date stamps of files to the current time and date. This option allows you to do that for the selected files in the current window. *** Edit Description Many of you asked for this one. Edit Description allows you to edit the description of a selected item by first selecting it, then choosing this option from the context menu. It works the same way as ALT+clicking mouse button 1 on an item's description. *** Get FILE_ID.DIZ This option goes through the selected items in the window and attempts to extract the FILE_ID.DIZ from them. Comments and files that aren't archives are skipped over by this function. If a FILE_ID.DIZ is present in the archives selected, the first 255 characters will be read from it and placed in the description field. CR/LF pairs and high-bit ASCII characters are stripped from the text read in from the FILE_ID.DIZ. *** Insert To Insert a comment into the current FILES.BBS window, first select the item in the window that you want the comment to go in FRONT of. Then bring up the context menu and select Insert->Comment. A blank comment will then be inserted in the FILES.BBS window. To allow you to adopt a single file from either the current directory or another drive/directory, you can use Insert/File. It works much the same way as Insert/Comment, first select the item in the window that you want the file to go in front of, then select Insert->File from the context menu. A file dialog will be displayed so that you can find the file you want to insert. Once you have found the file, select the Insert button in the dialog box. The file will then be inserted into the current window. Selecting the Cancel button inside the file dialog box aborts the insert operation. *** Remove Items This item removes or deletes items from the FILES.BBS window. When you select it from the context menu, a dialog box will appear allowing you two options. 'Entries' just removes the entry from the FILES.BBS window, 'Entries and Files' causes the entries to be removed and the associated with the entries to be deleted. Click Ok to remove the items, or Cancel to abort the operation. *** Select/Deselect All These two options do exactly what they say. Select All, selects every item in the window and Deselect All, deselects all items in the window. *** Area Statistics This option displays an information message box containing how many files are in the current area, how much space they take up and how much free space remains on the volume. *** Selecting Items Perhaps the most confusing part of working in a FILES.BBS window is selecting or deselecting items. I wrote the program and I still have to think about it. Basically it works like this; Clicking mouse button 1 on an item selects it and clears the selection from any other items in the window. To select multiple items in the window, press mouse button 1 on the first item you want selected and hold it down while you drag the mouse cursor. This allows you to select a contiguous range of items. If you want to select multiple items and they aren't adjacent to each other, hold down the CTRL key while you click mouse button 1 on each item. If the item is not selected it will become selected, if the item is already selected the selection is cleared for that item. If you need to select or deselect all the items in a window, your best bet is to use the Select All/Deselect All options from the context menu. *** Drag and Drop A drag operation is started by pressing mouse button 2 down and dragging the mouse cursor. The operation is considered complete when you release mouse button 2. Should you wish to abort the drag, press the ESC key on your keyboard. You can drag files from anywhere on your system and drop them either on a FILES.BBS window or onto the File Area window. When dropping on an open FILES.BBS window, the files are inserted into the FILES.BBS at the point at which they were dropped. When dropping on the File Area window, the files are inserted at the end of the FILES.BBS for the area they are dropped on. You can also rearrange the items in a window by selecting them, then dragging them and dropping them where you want them to be. Many of you have asked about this one...To delete one or more items from a FILES.BBS window; highlight the items you want deleted, then drag them to the shredder object and delete them. *** Renaming Files To rename a file, press and hold the ALT key and click mouse button 1 on the file that you want to rename. Then enter the new filename and click button 1 anywhere outside the edit box or press the ESC key to end the edit. *** Editing File Descriptions Editing descriptions works in the much the same manner as renaming files, ALT+click mouse button 1 on the description you want to edit. To save the description, click outside the edit box or press the ESC key. *** Program Macros FILES.BBS windows are the only place that the Shift-F(x) macros will operate. When pressing one of these key combinations MaxFile/PM will search through the container in the window and pass the fully qualified filename of the FIRST (and ONLY the first) selected item in the container to your macro. If a comment is selected, or no items are selected, your macro will get called with no arguments passed to it. Don't make any assumptions about what directory the macro will start out in, that will be determined by the default OS/2 shell. *** FILE_ID.DIZ Notes MaxFile/PM will attempt to extract FILE_ID.DIZ from archives and use the description inside the file any time you adopt orphans, drop files from an external source on the File Area or FILES.BBS windows or 'Insert' files. *** Known Problems In a system as configurable as OS/2 there are always going to be problems, this section is devoted to those problems and in some cases work-arounds. If you are having trouble with MaxFile/PM this is the first place to look to see if you can find some help. Problem List: o CONFIGURATION o SYS3175 - Access Violations o DOWNSORT o FEELX o FILEIDX.EXE o RENAMING FILES o SPLAT DIRECTORIES *** CONFIGURATION I changed the BBS package I use, why do I have to restart MaxFile/PM? Sometime in the near future this is likely to change, but for now anytime you change the 'BBS Package' and 'File Area Data' options in the Main Settings Dialog you will have to shut MaxFile/PM down and restart it for the changes to take effect. It has to do with the way the configuration is read in, which I am not going to go into here. *** SYS3175 - Access Violations On ocassion when dragging file(s) outside of MaxFile/PM's windows an access violation will occur and shut MaxFile/PM down. I have not been able to reliably duplicate this (its only happened to me once), thus I haven't been able to track down its cause. *** DOWNSORT Single Carriage Returns in Comment Lines DownSort headers have been a major source of anguish.. ;-} Some versions of DownSort will insert ASCII 0x0D carriage returns in comment lines in order to cover up the dash that tells Maximus to use white text instead of the default cyan. In an effort to keep the PM Container control and DownSort users both happy I had to resort to a kludge. When the FILES.BBS is read in, MaxFile/PM will replace any single occurances of CR's with a sentinel (ASCII 0x01). This tells MaxFile/PM when it writes the FILES.BBS back out to insert a single CR at that position. This sentinel character shows up as a little smiley '' in the comment text on the right side of the container control. If you delete this little guy, the CR will NOT get replaced. So make sure you actually do want to get rid of it. Another alternative is to use the Header Size configuration option to force MaxFile/PM to skip the headers in your FILES.BBS files. *** FEELX Video corruption when fast scrolling in the Archive Statistics Dialog. It has been brought to my attention that some video corruption has occured when FEELX is being used. MaxFile/PM is not causing the problems here. I am using standard controls with none of their behaviour modified. I'm sorry if this causes some inconvenience to FEELX users, but I can't fix something in my program that isn't broken. *** FILEIDX.EXE Lora-BBS File index maintenance utility Make sure that you specify the files IDX file that you want rebuilt in the Main Settings dialog box. For example: 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴커 File Database Utility � E:\LORA\FILEIDX E:\LORA\FILES.IDX � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴켸 MaxFile/PM will take care of the rest. (The "AREA .. .. .." part.) *** RENAMING FILES I haven't fully tested all the different ramifications of renaming files now that full path specs are supported, please be careful when renaming files in a FILES.BBS window. And report anything out of the ordinary. *** SPLAT DIRECTORIES Left over directories in the Temp Directory If MaxFile/PM suffers from an Abnormal Termination, it is quite possible that the proper cleanup of the Temporary Directory did not get performed. It is safe to remove the files from these temporary directories and remove the extra directories. Please do this when MaxFile/PM is NOT running. *** CONTAINER DISPLAY CORRUPTION Moving vertical separator bar messes up highlighting The Service Pack for OS/2 2.1 screwed up the way the highlighting is handled when the vertical separator bar is moved. I didn't it break folks, IBM did.