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CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso
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1995-01-06
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Honto v2.11 01/08/95
(c) 1993,95 Sam Leventer
Description
~~~~~~~~~~~
Honto is a program that helps you identify an unknown filetype. Its name
comes from the Japanese word meaning really, or truely. This is because
Honto is not mislead by an incorrect extension; It tells you what a file
really is. Honto colors a file's listing, depending on its type, tells you
what type of file it is, and optionally displays extra information. Honto can
also sort the list of files in several different ways. The included
configuration program allows you to customize Honto. It also performs a CRC
check on Honto, to detect virus infection.
One situation where you might need a program like this is if you have a
large number of backup files, all with the extension .BAK, some created with
PKLite, some with GIFLite, others backups from your paint program, other
backups from your word processor, etc... and you need to restore these
backups. Rather than going through a trial and error process in each program,
you can simply type HONTO *.BAK, and find out what each file is. Or, if a
file comes with several WHATEVER.000, WHATEVER.001, etc. files, and you are
curious as to what type of files those are, simply type HONTO *.0*.
Honto is also usefull in identifying self-extracting archives, created by
all of the major archive software. When you recieve a (supposed) self-
extracting file, use Honto to be sure that it is not a "trojan horse" type
program.
Another usage of Honto would be as replacement for the DIR command. Honto
is designed to work identical to the DIR command, except for including extra
information on the right side of the screen, and coloring files depending on
their filetype. With version 2.0, Honto now can sort in a manner almost
identical to the way DIR does. Also, you may specify more than one wildcard
on the command line. DIR is restricted to displaying one filespec at a
time. Honto can show all of your .GIF and .EXE files in one listing.
Combining those two features is one of Honto's most powerful features.
There is no way at all, using plain DOS, to produce a sorted list of
different file-types. For example, say that you want a list of all your
graphic images, sorted by size. With Honto, you simply type the following:
HONTO C:\GRAPHICS\*.GIF *.PCX *.BMP /OS
Adding /M would add information on the image sizes and colors.
Honto can be used to compare the efficiency of different graphics formats.
For each graphics file, Honto displays a "compression ratio." The higher
this number is, the more the image has been compressed. GIF images typically
have compression ratios of 50% to 60%, while JPEG images have ratios of
80%-90%.
If a file has an extension that Honto recognizes as not matching the
standard extension for that filetype, such as if a ZIP file has been renamed
to .QWK, then the file's current extension will be displayed in lower case.
This will draw your attention to files with incorrect extensions. The correct
file description will still appear beside the directory listing.
Honto displays files in different colors depending on the type of file that
it is. The following chart shows the default colors:
Archives....... Bright Blue
Programming.... Dark Blue
Pictures....... Red
Sound.......... Magenta
Executables.... White
Text........... Gray
Directories.... Dark Gray
Unknown files.. Gray
This grouping was done so that you could easily pick out related files.
Using the included HONTOCFG.EXE utility, you may easily change the default
coloring to any colors that you wish. However, the grouping may not be
changed (ie GIF and PCX images must be the same color).
Command line switches
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you specify /E, for extra, then (with certain types of files), Honto will
give you extra information. The chart below shows which filetypes contain
extra information. I tried to come to a reasonable trade-off between amount
of information and time to retrieve it.
Based on a user suggestion, I have implemented a switch /M, that displays
a medium amount of information. The extra information switch will display
a large amount of facts about your files, but you may not want that. /M will
just display whatever information will fit in the right side of the screen.
This switch will probably prove to be the most used switch for most users.
Normally, direct screen writes are used, for color support. However, if you
need to re-direct the output, direct screen writes will not work. To solve
this problem, use /B, for Black and white output. If you have speech software,
or other specialty software that needs to trap information being written to
the screen, it will be able to trap output when /B is used.
Specifying /P will pause the screen every time it fills up. This way you
can easily view large directories, without keeping your finger on the pause
key.
The sort switch, /O is different in that it must be followed by another
letter (N,S,D,E or G) depending on what type of sort you want. Those
letters will, respectively, give a listing sorted by filename (A to Z), size
(ascending), date (ascending), extension (A-Z) or with directories clumped
in front.
Command line switches must be preceded by a '/' or '-', without the quotes.
One slash (or dash) will cover all command line options until a space. Also,
options and filenames may be interleaved in any order.
The following are all CORRECT uses of Honto:
HONTO C:\SCANS\*.PCX /EB > PICTURES.TXT ; Will make a file containing a list
of all PCX files in the C:\SCANS
directory, with extra info.
HONTO D:\DOWNLOAD\*.* -E -B ; Lists all files in the download
directory, with extra info, in B&W.
HONTO ; Shows a colored list of current dir.
HONTO ..\*.0* -p /E
HONTO *.PCX *.GIF *.BMP /M /OS ; Shows all pictures, with dimensions,
sorted by size.
HONTO *.txt /pod ; Shows a colored list, sorted by date,
pausing every screenfull,
Notes
~~~~~
Note: For some file types, there is no reliable way to identify files. This
shows nothing but a lack of foresight by the designer of the file format. For
example, Amiga modules (music files) have no ID information whatsoever. There
is no quick way to identify the file as a .MOD, and I felt that speed was more
important than searching the file for correct sample information. For some
other file types, notably .COM files, the detection is not too reliable. In
general, if Honto says "probably", it means just that.
When specifying several wildcards, only the first one may conatain path
information. This means that Honto cannot combine listings from several
directories into one.
For image files, in the extra information, Honto displays a "compression
ratio." This is a measure of how much the file compressed by the format.
A higher compression ratio means that the file was more compressible
(smaller).
When sorting files, Honto does not (right now, at least) support
reversing the search with a hyphen.
Registration
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a release version of Honto, and registration is REQUIRED! That
means that you MUST pay for Honto. The fee for using Honto is a mere $20.
For that price, you recieve the legal right to use Honto beyond a 10 day
evaluation period, and notification of new versions. For $25, you will be
mailed the next new version of Honto, when released. Please register, as many
hours of hard work have gone into this program. Also, I am very willing to
implement suggestions, if you let me know of them.
Copyrights
~~~~~~~~~~
All program code and data, including this Documentation file, are
copyrighted 1995 by Sam Leventer.
ARJ is copyright R.K. Jung.
Doom is (c) ID software.
GIF is a trademark of Compu$erve, an H&R Block company.
PC Paintbrush is a trademark of Z-Soft, Inc.
PKZip is a trademark of PKWare.
Turbo Pascal is a trademark of Borland International.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corp.
Word Perfect is a trademark of the Word Perfect Corp.
All other trademarks and copyrights are property of their owners.
Contacting Me
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Snail mail:
Sam Leventer
106 West Ave
Ithaca, NY 14850
E-Mail:
Internet- sl63@cornell.edu
Current list of file types Honto can Identify
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Extra Versions that
info ext Honto knows
---- --- -------------
ARC : All versions
X ARJ : All versions
LZH : All known versions
UC2 : R1, R2
X ZIP : All versions
OBJ : Microsoft/Intel format
OVR : All versions I could find
X TPU : Turbo Pascal v4.0-7.0 (all)
C : N/A
PAS : Programs & units
TXT : N/A
WPD : Word Perfect 5.x only
WRD : Word v5.5
ANS : N/A
X BMP : All versions
X GIF : All versions
X JPG : JFIF and others
LBM : N/A
X PCX : All versions
X TD : All versions
WAD : All versions
X VOC : 1.10,1.20
X WAV : N/A
BAT : N/A
COM : Most .COM files I could find
X EXE : DOS,OS/2,Windows
SYS : Most .SYS files I could find