WHATIS is a simple program that will identify over 125 different types of
files. It is mouse-driven and easy to use; everything is done from a single
dialog box. Whatis runs in any resolution on any ST or TT, and uses under 17K
of your system's RAM. This version will work as either a standalone program or
as a desk accessory (just rename the program file to .PRG or .ACC as you wish).
When run as a desk accessory, versions 5.2 and up of Whatis can act as a
"Whatis server" - specially-written programs can use Whatis to identify file
types for them! (See the Whatis Server appendix for details.) Starting with
version 5.3, you may also pass a filespec to Whatis on the command line to run
it as a TTP-like program.
Why use Whatis? Let's say you're on your favorite BBS, and download a file
called SUPER.ARC. You fire up your Arc Shell to extract the file, and it says
"I don't know how to handle this file!". Whip out Whatis and take a look, and
you find out the file is really an LHarc archive - the uploader used the wrong
extender! Just rename the file to SUPER.LZH and you're all set.
Another, darker scenario... a virus sneaks into your system and erases your
hard drive's directory. Fortunately, you have a program that can recover your
files - unfortunately, it names all the files FILE0001, FILE0002, and so on!
Spend a little time with Whatis, and you may not figure out each file's
original name, but at least you'll know which are programs, which are .PI1s,
which are Calamus docs... a real help if you need it.
Using Whatis
------------
Either run Whatis as a GEM program or choose Whatis from the Desk menu, and
the Whatis dialog box will appear. Under the title bar you'll see three boxes
for a filename and file type, a file's header bytes, and the header byte
display mode. At the bottom of the dialog are three action buttons, marked
"Choose a file", "Next file", and "Exit".
To use Whatis, either click on "Choose a file" or just press C or Return or
the down arrow. You'll be presented with the GEM file selector; use the file
selector to choose your mystery file. Whatis will read the first few bytes of
the file in question and check if these bytes match a known "signature" of a
specific type of file. (Note: Whatis needs at least eight bytes to make a
reasonable guess of the file type; if your file is too small, you'll see an
error message and you'll get a chance to choose another file.)
Then you'll return to the Whatis box. The small message box in the main
title bar displays the path you selected. The first large box under the title
bar shows the name of the file you chose, its size (in small numbers on the
upper right), and the type of file it is. If Whatis doesn't recognize the file
type, it will show up as "text or data". The next box, labeled "header bytes",
displays the first few bytes of your file. You can view this file header in
either hexadecimal or ASCII form; click the "ASCII" or "HEX" button, as
desired, in the small box under the header byte display, or press the left or
right arrow keys.
If you used any wildcards when you selected your mystery file, the "Next
file" button at the bottom of the screen will be enabled (not grayed out), and
it will be the default button (signified by a thicker border). To check the
next file that matches the filename pattern you chose, simply click this button
or press Return, or the space bar or down arrow. (Note: files matching the
file mask are NOT displayed in alphabetical order; they appear in the same
order as they are on disk.)
From the main dialog you can identify another file, or return to whatever you
were doing by clicking the EXIT button or pressing UNDO or ESCape. Simple!
You can reposition the Whatis dialog anywhere on screen. Click on the title
area in the dialog, hold the mouse button down, and drag the outline wherever
you wish. When you release the button, the Whatis dialog appears in the new
location. If Whatis is running as a resident accessory, the new position is
saved between calls.
A complete list of the file types Whatis can recognize is included at the end
of this document. Unfortunately, many file types do not contain a unique
signature in the first few bytes; Whatis can't identify such files unless a
certain file type is always a specific size (e.g., Degas .PI? pics).
Note that it _is_ possible to fool Whatis. If a data file happens to start
with the same sequence of bytes as some other file type, it will beé ê üé✓é✓ ≡pé î ⇦äê ⇧üé@ננÆ⇧נé⇦OÄ⇧ä Oëé✓êé ⇧üנüÇOëé⇦⇧é ê ⇩⇦⇨נîê⇧Ç✓✓ נî✓⇦üÄ⇩ נüé◆ê⇦OÇ✓≡pêé⇧ê⇦OijOêÇ⇦נê⇨Ä ◆üêAנüâêOä⇩✓ Ä⇧Ç⇦ê⇦OÇ✓נüÇ @⇦ê נüÆ⓪éOçé ⇦Aנäê⇦ ⇦î✓Oêé⇧ê⇦A≡pÉê ⇨äÇ ✓Oçé ⇧Ç⇦ê⇦AנÄ ëנבij é⇧נä ⇦Ç î⇨נêé⇧ê⇦OüÇ OüâêOä ✓Aנä OüâêOÆ⑨נîÇ⇨נüé⇦⇧äppÄ⇧üנÇ✓נüâÇ⇦✓Oüé◆ê⇦@ננæÇ @⇦ê נüÆ⓪é@84õ¨É897Ø:õØØ⓪;œ´4⓪+4Ø4û⌐¬⓪9øÀØ´4ÀبÉ67ÃŒåà4Ø2Ã:4õãÀ⓪:7É)á½"Ø⓪! ⌐ñíÉ④⑥õ4´④É34À2¨û⓪9ÃÉ17´4⓪:<Õ2¨É0¨2É64¨´2Ø⓪4Ã⓪:40´⓪17¶⑦╱à╱à╱à╱à⓪⓪⓪⓪⓪⓪+œ0´4¨É0Ã2⓪:he Command Line
---------------------------
Whatis will accept a file spec on the command line in case you wish to run it
as a TTP-like program. If you pass Whatis a command line, it will displayÄppüé⇦⇧נÇ✓נüâêOêé⇧êOÇÄ ✓OÄ ëנüé◆êOêÇ⇦נÄ⇧üנÇ⇧î⇨é êOêé⇧ê⇦@נé ⇦נî ëנüé êOî ≡pî üÄ⇩ נÄOêÇ⇧üנêé⇧ê⇦◆ê AנÇ⇦נÇÇ⇦⇧נÄOçÄ⇧âנÇ⇦נêé⇧ê Ä ✓OבÇ⇨é ⇨נÇ⇩Oé î⇧Ç êppÇ⇩⇧ëî⇦ëäB@ננÆ✓נé OëÇ ז⇧נé î⇧Ç êOÄOêé⇧ê Ä ✓AנÄ⇧üנêé⇧ê⇦Oé נüâêOçÄ⇧âנé Oä◆ê ⇩3<åà0¨2É1œ2õŒØØÉ4ø⓪<ôÉ62ã†2É7´´⓪:42É80´4⑥⓪+œ0´4¨É;œÀ6⓪1œ2õŒÉ0À6⓪:42É34 , it would be more convenient for the file selector to
start out in that folder. You can do this by setting a default path for Whatis
to check. You may also tell Whatis NOT to pause automatically in TTP mode, in
case you're running from a real CLI.
You'll need to use an editor that can edit program files. CodeHead's Lookit!
is great for this, and other programs like MemFile or TinyTool will work too.
Load Whatis into the editor and look near offset $25 from the beginning of the
program (or $3A9 if you've run Whatis through DC-Squish). You'll see the
phrase "Defaults: Pause=Y Path=?:" followed by a bunch of zero bytes. To
turn the default pause mode off, change the 'Y' to any other character. To set
up a default search path, change the ? to the drive of your choice and add a
valid path, ending with a \ character, if you wish. Save the file when you're
done, and next time you load Whatis, the file selector will start up in the
desired path. If the path doesn't exist, Whatis will start out in the root
directory of that drive; if the drive itself isn't present in your system,
Whatis will just start out as if you hadn't set up a default path.
You may view your default settings from the Whatis dialog. To do so, press
the HELP key or click the "Go Ataripro on Compuserve..." text field at the very
bottom of the dialog. The display will cycle between the Go Ataripro message,
a display of your default path, and a display of the command line pause mode.
Credits
-------
Whatis was based on Roy Goldman's Compactor Detector, an 8-bit BASIC program
which identifies files and allows renaming them to have a "standard" extender.
Versions 3.2 and up of Whatis were written in 100% assembler code using HiSoft
DevpacST, and the resource was created using WERCS. The 8-bit version of
Whatis was written in Action!, from the folks at ICD.
I'm always looking for more file types to support in Whatis. If you know of
a particular type of file that always start with the same few bytes, or is
always the same size, leave me a message. And, of course, if you have any
problems, questions, comments, or suggestions, PLEASE let me know!
I hope you find this program useful! If you use it, please send a postcard
(or donation! :-) to me at:
Bill Aycock
2310 North Elm Street
Greensboro, NC 27408-5120
August 1, 1992
CompuServe UserID: 76703,4061
Internet: 76703.4061@compuserve.com
Appendix 1: Version History
---------------------------
v6.3: adds 7 kinds of Cubase files (thanks to Frank Zeritsch!), recognizes
'LARC' mode (-lz5-) LZH files and Cal 6.3 data files
v6.2: adds STDCAT (thanks to Walter Cole!), Pack-Ice, and Calligrapher files,
pause mode toggle, displays of defaults/last path used/server actions
v6.1: adds Scanner Manager (thanks to Gordon Meyer!) and LDW Power, Gnu .OLB,
TADS save files, several TeX files (thanks to Christopher Browne!)
v6.0: adds Revolver 'rollout' files (thanks to Tim Patrick!) and WARP9.DAT
v5.9: adds over a dozen new types (thanks mostly to Gordon Meyer!)
v5.8: adds Squeezed and ARJ files, notes GIF version in the ID msg
v5.7: adds Timeworks DTP files (thanks to Ira Brickman!), STalker3 .INF
v5.6: adds Superzap files, notes LZH version in the ID msg
v5.5: adds Joppa Fax files (thanks to Charles Smeton!), larger stack to
correct TTP operation, allows repositioning the dialog
v5.4: adds MWC .RSD files, AS/X files (thanks to Chris Sorensen again!),
allows plus-sign pause character in TTP mode
v5.3: adds command-line TTP-like operation
v5.2: first Whatis Server version; adds Newdesk icons, Software Development
Systems DeskJet and Printer Utility Pak setup files (thanks to Scott
Sanders!), PFX-packed and AFX-compressed files (thanks to Mark Spacek!)
and MSDOS .EXE and .COM files (thanks to Ron Luks!)
v5.1: adds FSM-GDOS OTL, QFM, WID files
v5.0: adds these file types (thanks to Chris Herborth!): Unix compressed,
CG fonts, CPXes, SoftLogik screen bitmaps, several PostScript types
v4.9: adds MIDI (thanks again to Chris Sorensen!) and MasterTracks .MTS
files, size display; logic change for more reliable results w/wildcards
v4.8: adds PGC (thanks to Chris Sorensen!), Cal, Data Diet files
v4.7: adds ZOO and MultiDesk Deluxe files; allows default drive/path
v4.6: adds Opus spreadsheet files, 3 kinds of Wordflair II files;
adds command keys; makes Next button default if valid
v4.5: adds DC Squish files (thanks to Mike Vederman!), Neodesk icon files;
allows wildcards to check a number of files at once
v4.4: adds two Notator file types (thanks to Brian Campbell!)
v4.3: adds DCDesktop icon files (thanks to Jim Ness!); some logic changes
