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┌───────────────────────────┐
│ FSLABEL │
│ │
│ Version 3.0 │
│ │
│ (C) 1991 │
│ Freestyle Software │
│ ALL Rights Reserved │
└───────────────────────────┘
AW, MAW! NOT ANOTHER DISK LABELER?!
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-
Yes, Virginia, there IS another disk labling utility on the
shareware market. FSLabel is an automatic labeling program that
reads a floppy disk in either A: or B: drive, and prints the file
names on a page label with a title that you assign. What makes it
different from most other labeling programs? FSLabel is designed
to use full page Avery(tm) labels and prints on a Hewlett Packard
Deskjet or LaserJet, or compatible printers. Most disk file read-
ing and labling programs use tractor labels and don't run on full
page printers. Wait, there's more! FSLabel will print labels for
either 5.25" or 3.50" diskettes! You can also choose the label
you want to print right on screen by simply moving the cursor to
the position of the label in a visual array. Printing single la-
bles of disk file names on full sheet lable pages was not a par-
ticularly easy task -- until FSLabel!
USING FSLABEL
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-
First, read the user notice under 'Caveats' located later in
this document! It notifies the user of liabilities and specific-
ally instructs users about correct use and possible damages when
using sheet labels with laser printers using this or any other
sheet label software.
Load FSLABEL from the command line (or an equivalent execu-
tion menuing program) with the command FSLabel. Press F1 to get
a little help if you need it. FSLabel is designed to use Avery
diskette labels for 3.5" drives (Avery 5196), or labels for 5.25"
drives (Avery 5197). The 3.5" labels are 2.25 X 2.25 inches, and
the 5.25" labels are 1.5 X 4.00 inches. Obviously, the limita-
tions of FSLabel are the requirements for legitimate diskette la-
bels, and HP compatible printers with BOTH 6 point and 12 point
fonts available to the printer, either as internal fonts or as
cartridge fonts. If the 6 point 20 pitch fonts used to squeeze
the file names into the smallest possible space is NOT available,
FSLabel will default to the 16.66 by 8.5 point Lineprinter font
internal to most HP II compatibles. In the later case, registra-
tion becomes critical, as the type size is much larger. FSLabel
version 3.0 does NOT currently have user support for other type
styes or font sizes. It's ABSOLUTELY necessary to have the stan-
dard courier type style INTERNALLY available in BOTH 12/10 and
6/20 font sizes. FSLabel version 3.0 does NOT provide support for
soft fonts, but DOES support two cartridge fonts for use in prin-
ting the title of the printed label. Those are TIMES ROMAN 10/10,
and HELVETICA 10/10. To print labels with either Times Roman, or
Helvetica, simply insert the appropriate cartridge in your print-
er. If you have both cartridges, REMOVE the one you DON'T want!
As a final word about type styles and sizes, BEFORE you purchase
expensive labels, PLEASE try out FSLabel with plain paper to make
sure you have compatible fonts available in your printer!
When you have sheet labels, and FSLable loaded, simply select
the label size by pressing the F5 key. Select the drive with the
F8 key and insert a diskette you want to label. Then use any of
the arrow keys to select the appropriate label position to print,
and press the Enter key. This pops up a window to enter a title
for the given diskette. Enter the title, and press the Enter key
to continue. Titles for 3.5" diskette labels are limited to twen-
ty three characters, while titles for 5.25 inch deskettes are
limited to thirty six characters in length. Press F1 while enter-
a label to view editing commands. After entering the title for a
label, just press the ENTER key and FSLabel will read the files
on the disk in the current drive and place them in a data array
for that specific label. Continue until all the positions you
want to print are filled, or until the page is full. Press the F3
key to begin the printing sequence. Make sure the page with the
labels is in your printer, and that the printer is ready. If you
want to start over after filling several labels, press F4
and the entire page will be cleared. The arrays for each label
will be set to null. After filling a label, the number will show
either in white on red (with a color system), or in inverse video
on a monochrome system.
Pressing F6 from the main menu allows setting of Margins, File
Mask, Title\File Line Types, Saving current Settings, Retrieving
Past Settings, or Restoring Default Settings. IF SETTING CHANGES
ARE MADE (including default restorations), they MUST BE SAVED TO
THE DISK using SAVE CURRENT SETTINGS to make them RETRIEVABLE.
Saving the settings creates or modifies a data file called
FSLabel.Dta. If FSRead detects the file at program startup, it
retrieves the settings contained in the file, and become active
for the program session.
Popular demand has encouraged some control of label registra-
tion. Version 1.2 added the ability to adjust the position of
printing. The defaults for 5.25" labels and 3.5" labels are the
most common. If necessary, change starting row from the top of
the page, and the starting column from the left side. BE AWARE
THAT YOUR PRINTER MAY HAVE LIMITS TO BOTH TOP AND LEFT MARGINS.
Perforation skip (top margin), and page offset (left margin) are
often hard set, with some overide possible with dip switch set-
tings. Refer to the manual for your printer to see if these are
manually modifyable with dip switches. IF YOUR TOP AND LEFT
MARGIN ARE MECHANICALLY SET THROUGH YOUR PRINTER HARDWARE, THEN
THE STARTING ROW AND COLUMN SET WITH FSLABEL WILL BEGIN AT THE
MECHANICAL SETTINGS. This means that if your printer has been
mechanically set to include a 1/2 inch top margin (four rows
down), for example, then setting the top row to one with FS-
Label will cause printing to begin on the FIFTH row. In the same
way, if your printer is mechanically set to include a 1/2 inch
left margin, setting the starting column with FSLabel to 1 will
cause the printing to begin on the SIXTH column. If possible, set
both page offset, and perforation skip settings on your printer
to ZERO. In addition, Avery labels for 3.5" diskettes include TWO
rows of smaller tab labels at the top of the page. FSLabel de-
fault top margins have been set to skip down over these labels.
Place the sheet of labels in your printer with these smaller
labels entering the printer FIRST. Otherwise, printing will be
forced down the page and registration will NOT be correct. Final-
ly, make sure your printer is on and ready to print before pres-
sing the Enter key from the title input window to begin.
You also may specify a DOS file mask to screen files for view-
ing or printing. Press F6 from the main menu and select Set DOS
File Mask. Simply enter the mask as you would from the command
line. For example, entering *.EXE would cause FSLabel to read
only executable files into the viewable/printable array. Simarly,
entering Letters.* would read files with any extention, but only
with the name 'Letters.' View files on a disk with any file mask
by pressing the F2 key from the main menu.
If you want to change the line type separating the label title
from the subsequent filenames, press F6 from the main menu and
select Set Title/File Separator. Some printers have failed to
recognize the IBM extended characters of the solid single or so-
lid double line types. If your printer prints a row of undesire-
able characters instead of a line, select either one of the dash-
ed lines or no line separator at all.
Optionally, you may add a line of comment to each label title.
Simply press F6 from the main menu to the set/modify parameters
menu, and toggle the Add Comment Line option to 'YES'. You may
change back to 'NO' if you like. The current setting (yes,
or no) is saved to the parameters file on the disk, and retrieved
at program startup. Default setting is 'NO'. There are restric-
tions to this option. First it takes up a line of space, and
therefore reduces the maximum number of files that will fit onto
a label. Second, you MUST toggle to 'YES' or 'NO' BEFORE begin-
ning to fill out a screen page of labels. In addition, you may
ONLY run a page print as the toggle is set. That means you must
either select either 'YES' or 'NO' to add comments to a given
page print run. Each print run for a page must be set one way or
the other. You cannot mix filled labels on a page with and with-
out comments. To print one or more labels on a single page both
with AND without comments, do the following: Select and fill la-
bels for those WITHOUT comments and print the page. Replace the
page with all labels intact in the printer. Then select and fill
the remaining positions WITH comments, and print the page again
for the remaining labels. If you begin to fill a page with the
toggle set either to 'YES' or 'NO', and then decide to switch the
option toggle, you MUST first clear the page with the F4 key and
start filling label positions again. Use the comment line option
to add a date, make an additonal note, or give instructions such
as "Type RunMe to run program," etc.
If you have tested or set margins, or ANY of the other parame-
ters with FSLabel, you may save your current settings to a disk
file by pressing F6 from the main menu and selecting Save Current
Settings. This creates and/or overwrites a file on the disk in
the same directory as FSLabel called FSLabel.Dta. The selected
drive, label size, margins for 5.25" AND 3.5" disks, the DOS file
mask, and the current Title/File line separator type are all in-
cluded and preserved. Remember, these settings are ONLY saved if
you choose to save them with the option described above. Once
saved, the settings are automatically retrieved each time you run
FSLabel. You may restore defaults with the Restore Default Set-
tings selection, or retrieve previous settings again with the Re-
trieve Past Settings selection. If you have tediously tested mar-
gins and saved the settings, and then choose to restore defaults,
YOU MUST RETRIEVE THE PAST SETTINGS BEFORE SAVING SETTINGS AGIAN.
Otherwise, the restored defaults will be those saved to the disk.
Label titles and directory path strings are NOT saved.
Because each label has a limited size, the maximum number of
files that FSLabel can print on a single label is 45. Even using
type reduced to 6 point size, any more names simply won't fit on
a label. The F2 key will display the FIRST 45 files encountered
on a disk in the current drive that matches the current DOS mask.
Printing a label prints the FIRST 45 file names matching the cur-
rent DOS mask onto a label. If there are additional files on the
disk, they will be ignored. Remember, files are read, displayed,
and printed according to the current DOS file mask setting. Addi-
tionally, the maximum number of files that will fit on a label is
reduced when the optional comment line is added to titles. Maxi-
mum numbers are reduced to 40 file names for 5.25" labels and 42
for 3.5" labels. This is because an additional line of space is
added to below the title and above the separator line for the
comment.
Here's a tip about printing single labels. Since page labels
feed from the top forward, pages feed more reliably when top la-
bels are left unpeeled. This is because the labels give the thin
label page backing support for a firmer, stiffer page. So it is
a good idea to begin printing single labels at the BOTTOM of the
page, instead of the top. It's therefor better to start printing
the LAST label on a page and work backward to label number one.
In this way you can print labels for one or two disks, and pre-
serve the rest of the page for later use, with top labels left in
place.
FSLabel is well bullet proofed for errors and is resistent to
system crashing. The most probable source of errors is from the
printer, or from the disk drives or one of the diskettes. If you
receive an error report, it will be specific and tell you exactly
what the problem is (printer not ready, drive not ready, bad sec-
tor on disk, etc.). Just attempt to correct it. The printer rou-
tine times each print communication between the computer and the
printer. If the printer does NOT send back a signal for more
than 10 seconds, then an error is presumed (if the printer runs
out of paper, etc.), and you will be notified. Otherwise, that's
about it. FSLabel is simple, useful, and practical.
HISTORY OF VERSION CHANGES
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-
Version 1.0 contained a memory allocation bug. It was fixed
in Version 1.1. Version 1.2 added modest registration capabili-
ties, AND was modified to find ALL DOS files and directories, ex-
cept hidden files. Previous versions found files set to read only
or archive. Version 1.3 added file masking, and the ability to
save/retrieve setups. Version 1.4 fixed a display bug and ad-
ded the capability to print DIRECTORIES IN BOLD ITALICS to dis-
tinguish them from other files. In addition, 1.4 also allows
separate margin settings for both 3.5" and 5.25" diskettes, and
saves both settings to disk. Version 1.5 fixed another display
bug and added a setup option to select the type of line to sepa-
a label title and the subsequent filenames. Version 1.6 improved
several display and message procedures, as well as documentation.
Version 1.7 again slightly improved label/printer registration,
and forced the most recent label title to remain in memory for
those making several backups or copies. (Ctrl-End clears a label
title.) Version 1.7 also added the option to view/print files
in a directory on the disk in the current drive, and now high-
lights directories onscreen when files are viewed with the F2
key from the main menu. Version 1.8 removed slight bugs from the
directory selection procedures, and upgraded help and screen dis-
play to reflect all previous changes. Version 1.9 fixed a bug in
the line editing procedure. Version 2.0 added the much requested
ability to select each label one by one, place a corresponding
disk in the current drive, and subsequently fill a data array for
each label on a page. Pressing the F3 key then begins the print-
ing sequence. You can now print from one to all labels on a page
at once, corresponding to any filled positions on the screen.
Version 2. 1 corrected a bug in the file display feature, where
file names failed to become visible after a failed printer at-
tempt. Version 2.1 also added a verification query to the print
option, to prevent accidental or premature printing. Version 2.2
polished screen display and inface procedures, as well as adding
the ability to add an optional line of comments to label titles.
Version 2.2 and finally, 3.0, corrected many registration prob-
lems reported by users.
VERSION CHANGES WERE IN RESPONSE TO SUGGESTIONS BY FSLABEL USERS.
FOR ETHICAL USERS
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-
Try FSLabel. Distribute it freely. If you're amused by
it, but find no use for it, don't worry about it. If it's cute,
but beneath your dignity, give it away. Still, if you find
yourself USING it, if it WORKS for you, the shareware license
fee is $15.00.
It's the nature and spirit of things that really make
them valuable to us. FSLabel CAN make organizing personal disk-
ette maintanence a great deal faster and easier. While there
are plenty of others on the market, FSLabel has several very rea-
sonable features you may not find at ANY price. It is a great aid
to owners or users of laser printers. These features can save you
personal time.
If FSLabel saves time, it saves money. At $15.00, the FS-
Label License is nominal. If it only saved a few accumulated
hours in the course of a season, it would still be significant.
Your own time is unquestionably worth more than a few dollars an
hour, isn't it?
FSLabel is copyrighted. If you use FSLabel, Send your check
or money order to Freestyle Software, 24307 Magic Mountain Park-
way, Suite 255, Valencia, CA 91355. The FSLabel license is only
$15.00. So if you use it, be dignified enough to register it.
It's the right thing to do. (Yeah, yeah...He's Naive!)
DISCLOSURES
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-
FSLabel contains assembly units licensed from Eagle
Performance Software. It was written in Turbo Pascal 5.5. Turbo
Pascal is a trademark of Borland International. Deskjet and
Laserjet are registered trademarks of the Hewlett Packard cor-
poration, and naturally, IBM is a trademark of International
Business Machines. The Freestyle Company belongs to my wife and
me.
CAVEATS!
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
NOTICE!
Please read this notice!!! Take special care when running la-
ble sheets through with lables removed! The heated drum on laser
printers can melt the waxed paper exposed from removed labels and
cause serious damage to the drum or drum cartridge. This is NOT
a problem with Deskjet inkjet printers as they have no heated
drum. Most users of laserjet printers have not reported problems,
but as a few users have, it's therefore best to be very careful
with label sheets that contain missing labels.
FURTHERMORE!
This program is provided on an as is basis! The user assumes
ALL risk as to the performance, quality, or reliability of the
product. No warranties, implied or otherwise, are made, includ-
ing, but not limited to, any 'implied' warranties of merchant-
ability, fitness, or suitability for any particular purpose or
design. A user waives ALL other claims, and the Freestyle Com-
pany, or any other purveyor or dealer of this product, becomes
free from responsibility of ALL liabilities or damages, includ-
ing, but not limited to, lost revenues or profits, unsuitability
of performance for a user's particular needs, damage to a user's
computer hardware or software, any other incidental or consequen-
tial damages arising out of the use of or inability to use this
program, even if the Freestyle Company has been advised of possi-
ble damages, or aware of software shortcomings.
OTHER FREESTYLE PRODUCTS
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-
If you like FSLabel, you might also find use for FSRead, a
very fast text file browser that allows loading files up to 425K
into memory. Change drives from an automacally built menu of
drives, or directories from a full graphic tree. Choose up to 36
color attribute combinations for file viewing. Mark text blocks,
or enter text strings for searches, and set place markers for ex-
tremely quick searching. Print out all, or just portions of any
text file. FSRead was written as a shareware documentation file
reader, and is entirely light bar menu driven, with pop-up inter-
active help. Then there's FSCalc, a pop up calculator with its
own printable tape. It can be run either from the command line or
as a TSR. FSCalc is a convenient personal calculator with calcu-
lator display features that make it as familiar as any palm tape
calculator. You may also be interested in FSText, a quick style
analyzer for readability, personal interest, and negativity of
writing for journalism, public relations, or advertising copy.
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-
END FSLABEL DOCUMENTATION