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InspectA
File & Archive Manager
Version 1.10
For MSDOS(R) and OS/2(R)
User's Guide
Copyright (C) 1992-93 All Rights Reserved
David L. Nugent & Unique Computing Pty Limited
May, 1993
Disclaimer
You use this software entirely at your own risk. The author
and/or distributors are not responsible for any loss or
damage as a result of using this product and will take no
responsibility, consequential or otherwise for any use,
abuse or misuse.
Versions
InspectA is distributed both commercially and in shareware
form. The commercial (registered) version is identifiable by
the letter 'R' following the version number in the program
identification displayed when executing the main program.
Unregistered shareware versions show no additional letter
after the version number or the letter 'S', no licensee name
or registration serial number, and during operation
occasionally displays a reminder that the program is a
shareware product. While the fully commercial version may
include various enhancements and site specific
modifications, both the registered and unregistered
shareware versions are otherwise functionally identical.
Licence of Use
InspectA is the intellectual property of David L. Nugent and
Unique Computing Pty Limited and as such is protected by
international copyright laws. InspectA is distributed with a
non-transferable licence of use - title and all rights
attached to the software itself is retained by the author(s)
and copyright holder(s). With the non-registered shareware
version ONLY, you are allowed under this licence to copy the
software and give it to others so that they may evaluate it,
provided that it is given in exactly the same form as
distributed - with all files intact and no files added.
Uploading to or posting of the unregistered shareware
version on a BBS or other software archive site for others
for download is expressly allowed, including distribution on
CD-ROM in a form ultimately intended for use by BBS systems.
Renting or sub-licensing of this product is strictly
prohibited.
The maximum period for which you are entitled to use the
unregistered shareware version for the purposes of
determining whether you wish to register may not exceed
thirty (30) days. After this period expires, you are
required by this licence to either register InspectA or
delete your working copy and cease using it. Support the
shareware concept by registering this product - it all
depends on your honesty!
You are restricted under this licence to using InspectA on
single CPU only. Versions other than the unregistered
shareware version are not transferable, nor may they be
copied for any reason other than for legitimate backup
purposes. Operation on a LAN or other network requires a
site licence agreement.
Reverse engineering, patching or other modification of any
of the InspectA components is specifically prohibited and
automatically revokes any licence of use, implied or
otherwise. Reproduction, copying or modification of this
documentation is also specifically protected by this
licence.
Contents
Introduction .............................................1
New Features in Version 1.10 ........................2
Documentation Overview ..............................5
Document Conventions ................................7
Installing InspectA ......................................9
Before you Begin ....................................9
System Requirements ............................9
Package Contents ...............................10
Running INSTALL ................................11
Running INSPECT .....................................12
How To Start ...................................12
Help! ..........................................13
Using the Mouse ................................14
Viewing & Editing ..............................15
Basic Functions ................................15
Selecting Items ................................17
Multiple Windows ...............................17
Configuration ............................................19
Command Line ...................................20
General .............................................22
Options ........................................22
Programs .......................................26
i
Contents
Swapping .......................................27
Video ..........................................28
Mouse ..........................................30
Colours ........................................32
Filelist .......................................33
Lists ..........................................38
Archive .............................................39
Macros .........................................43
Mailer ..............................................45
Mailer Type ....................................45
Address ........................................47
Domain Equivalents .............................48
Products .......................................49
Paths ...............................................50
Keys ................................................52
Key Descriptions ...............................56
Macros .........................................56
File Associations ...................................59
Text ................................................61
Import .........................................62
Export .........................................63
ii
Contents
Quit ................................................63
InspectA Functions .......................................64
File Manager ........................................64
Files display ..................................65
Functions ......................................68
Archive Manager .....................................79
FidoNet Related Functions ...........................82
FTSC Type 2 Packet Manager ..........................85
Message View ........................................91
Common Features ..........................................93
Path Selection ......................................93
Files List Selection ................................94
Directory Tree ......................................95
Drive Selection .....................................97
Networks & CD-ROM ........................................99
User Configuration .............................99
Disk Index Files ...............................100
Description Files ..............................101
External Commands ........................................102
Environment ....................................103
Environment Variables ..........................104
Redirection ....................................105
Stacked Commands ...............................105
Current Directory ..............................105
iii
Contents
Prompts ..................................................107
Import/Export ............................................109
[general] ......................................110
[video] ........................................115
[archive] ......................................118
[mailer] .......................................119
[paths] ........................................121
[externals] ....................................121
Miscellaneous ............................................124
Screenblanker ..................................124
Copyrights & Trademarks ..................................125
iv
Introduction
Introduction
InspectA is a powerful and configurable file
management tool with enhanced capabilities
when dealing with various types of files. It
is also includes extensive program launching
capabilities. Its definable keyboard and file
associations make it a convenient means of
both navigating the file system and running
applications, and is a superior alternative
to the more traditional clumsy and
restrictive menu systems. The amount of
memory used by InspectA when running other
programs is negligible when program image
swapping is enabled.
InspectA also provides a way of viewing
various types of special files, such as
compressed file archives of various formats,
FTSC "type-2" packets, FidoNet *.MSG files
and may be configured to use any number of
other external viewing utilities to view PCX,
GIF, JPG, TIF, dBase, worksheet and other
types of files.
InspectA incorporates many individual
utilities into the one tool, such as a
multiple volume or drive search by file name,
maintenance of file descriptions compatible
with 4DOS, file editing and viewing. Its
built in command line execute function
provides command history of up to the last 64
commands used.
InspectA is easy to use. All commands and
functions are available from an easily
accessible pull-down menu system, as are all
user-defined commands. The configuration
utility provides a straight-forward way of
changing settings to taste.
InspectA 1
Introduction
New Features in Version 1.10
The following list contains most of the
important changes, additions and enhancements
added since version 1.0:
Support for SQZ compressed archive format
has been added.
The Files Manager interface was enhanced;
InspectA now has a "desktop" interface
that provides multiple file manager
windows open on multiple directories at
once, and the ability to iconise windows
for later access.
The ability to save the current windows
setup was added to automatically restore a
particular desktop layout with auto-
rescaling to current screen size.
A pull-down menu system has been added for
easy access of both pre-defined and user-
defined commands.
The format of the list presented in file
windows can now be defined and set for
each window. Multiple (an unlimited number
of) formats may be defined and toggled
using a keyboard mappable function.
The interactive configuration utility -
ICONFIG - was added, making changing
settings much easier and simpler than
maintaining and "compiling" an external
text based configuration file.
File manager windows may now be resized
and moved interactively.
Mouse support was added, greatly enhancing
the ability to use the windowed desktop to
its fullest. Windows may be selected,
closed, iconised, zoomed, moved and
resized using the mouse pointer. Lists may
be scrolled, items selected and menu
selections made - virtually all functions
2 InspectA
Introduction
available from the keyboard may be carried
out using the mouse.
Network/multiuser support has been
enhanced by adding support for a default
configuration directory as determined by
the HOME environment variable. If set,
this directory is used to store user
specific defaults and the windows layout
file.
Various problems in the handling of copy
and move operations of read-only files
were solved.
Handling of the pre-defined "view"
directory has been improved. Also, files
within archives with directories are now
handled seemlessly. If multiple instances
of a file are extracted by selecting one
(this is unavoidable in some formats), all
extracted files are correctly deleted.
Improved default archive handling commands
have been added to the default setup.
When files extracted from archives are
being viewed, the default directory is now
set to the original directory rather than
the one in which the file was extracted.
The following commands were added to the
Files Manager: Configuration (runs
ICONFIG), Open, Close, Zoom, Resize, Move
and Iconise Window, Select Directory by
name, Toggle Format of file list, Command
Menu and User Command selector.
The ability to write marked messages (or
current message) to text format from the
packet viewer was added.
Sorting a list of files lexically (by word
length by ascii order) was added, which
provides the ability to sort a list of
numeric file names in a more intuitive
order.
InspectA 3
Introduction
Sort by file description added.
Fully interactive and straight forward
installation/upgrade procedure added.
Support for FTSCPROC product code listings
instead of using a hard-coded table of
known FTSC products and capabilities.
Path designations in LHA files with
extended headers now works correctly.
All previously "registered-only" features
are now available on the shareware
version. However, as incentive to
register, a shareware "nag" prompt has
been added and will appear at random
intervals.
Support for command input/output
redirection using the '<', '>', '>>'
symbols has been added. This applies to
all instances of where InspectA runs an
external command.
Support for HPACK archives has been
updated to the 0.78 release and that the
earlier format of 0.75 and earlier is
incompatible, is no longer supported.
Support for self-extracting archives has
been integrated into the archive manager;
InspectA will now check .EXE files to see
if they are archive extraction envelopes.
Self-extractors for all compress except
HPACK are supported (HPACK does not have a
self-extractor feature).
Global "hot-keys" for file view and edit
have been added; unlike the standard view
and edit functions, these are available
from anywhere in InspectA (both INSPECT
and ICONFIG via SHIFT-F3 and SHIFT-F4
respectively).
InspectA now provides the ability to re-
pack archives, both standard and self-
extracting types, into a different format
4 InspectA
Introduction
or the same format. Archives containing
sub-directories are fully supported
provided that the compression program to
which archives are converted knows how to
handle them.
A Virus Scan capability has been added,
either stand alone to scan files in the
current directory and below, or used to
scan files contained in one or more
archives. Virus scanning can also be
carried out during archive repacking.
Support for PKZIP 2.0 or compatible method
(ZI2) has been enhanced to provide the
ability to handle, create and extract
version 1.10 and 2.0 files separately.
Support for DWC archive format has been
added.
This release features the debut of the
OS/2 version of InspectA, is compatible
with OS/2 versions 1.2 or greater, fully
supporting HPFS and NetWare filesystems,
and may be run in a Vio window or full-
screen session.
The OS/2 version supports OS/2 specific
filesystem information, including Extended
Attributes, view and sorting files by date
of creation and last access.
Documentation Overview
Information on using InspectA may be found in
two places; the InspectA User's Guide (part
of which you are now reading) and the
InspectA On-line Help facility, accessible at
almost any time when running InspectA using
the F1 key. The User's Guide provides
instructions on installing and using
InspectA, advice on how to take best
advantage of the powerful features offered,
and reference information on specific topics
in the appendixes. The On-line Help function
InspectA 5
Introduction
provides instant access to information about
the current prompt, screen or process while
using InspectA. For most uses, you will only
need to read the printed or on-disk
documentation if you wish to take full
advantage of the more advanced facilities
offered by InspectA. The on-line help
facility will provide all the necessary
information to assist in using all the built-
in facilities of the program itself, and the
program has been constructed with a user
interface intended to be as intuitive as
possible.
The User's Guide itself is divided into
several sections:
Introduction & Installation; the first two
chapters provide an overview of InspectA
and contain instructions on installation.
Using InspectA; this is a "quick start"
guide, and gets the program working for
you quickly, so that you can make use of
it and explore all it has to offer
immediately.
Configuration; this chapter covers all
aspects of configuration according to your
requirements and taste.
Functions; this section provides more
detailed descriptions of the major
functions available in InspectA, including
the File Manager, Archive Viewer, Packet &
Message Viewers and the pull-down menu
system.
Appendices; these provide reference
material for functions and facilities
available throughout various parts of
InspectA and covers some aspects of
operation and configuration not covered
elsewhere.
6 InspectA
Introduction
Document Conventions
This document uses the following typographic
conventions:
Examples Description
README.TXT Uppercase (capital) letters
indicate file names.
ICONFIGP, ICONFIG Bold uppercase letters
indicate MSDOS or OS/2 commands.
text Words in italic indicate place
holders for information that you
must supply, for example, program
arguments or an entry in a field or
at a prompt.
[[ option ]] Items inside double square brackets
are optional.
[ choice1 | choice2 ] Braces and a vertical bar
indicate a choice between two or
more items. You must choose one of
the items unless all the items are
also enclosed in double square
brackets indicating that it is
optional.
Example text This font is used for program
examples, user input, program
output, information in text files
and error messages within the text.
Repeating ... Three ellipses following an item
indicate that more items having the
same form may be entered.
F1, ALT-A Small capital letters indicate the
names of keys and key sequences,
such as ENTER and CTRL-C. A hyphen
between a shift key (SHIFT, CTRL or
ALT) and a letter indicates that
the key must be held down while the
InspectA 7
Introduction
corresponding letter key is
pressed.
The cursor-movement keys on the
numeric keypad are called ARROW
keys. Individual ARROW keys are
referred to by the direction of the
arrow on the top of the key (ie.
LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN) or the name
on top of the key ( PGUP, PGDN, END
and HOME).
8 InspectA
Installing InspectA
Installing InspectA
This chapter explains how to install
InspectA.
InspectA is distributed in a compressed
format, and should be installed using the
supplied installation batch file.
Before running INSTALL, back up the
distribution archive and make sure you have
enough free disk space (roughly 400
kilobytes) to contain the distribution files.
Floppy disk installation is not supported -
you must install InspectA on a hard disk
drive or network volume.
Before you Begin
Before installing InspectA on your hard disk,
take a few minutes to make sure that your
computer meets the minimum requirements and
that the package is complete.
System Requirements
InspectA for MSDOS requires at least the
following configuration:
An IBM Personal Computer or 100%
compatible running MSDOS version 3.3 or
later
At least 384K (kilobytes) of available
memory at the MSDOS prompt.
A hard-disk drive with 400K of free space.
InspectA 9
Installing InspectA
InspectA will give much improved
performance on an 80286 or later processor
and a fast hard disk sub-system. These are
not, however, a prerequisite.
InspectA is capable of using extended text
modes available on many EGA, VGA, SVGA and
XVGA screens. These also are not a pre-
requisite for use, but will enhance use.
For better performance in launching
external applications and utilities,
extended or expanded memory with the
appropriate extended (XMS 2.0+) or
expanded (LIMS 3.2 or 4.0) memory driver
is highly recommended. Most memory
managers for Intel 80386 systems have
these facilities built-in.
InspectA for OS/2 requires at least the
following configuration:
An IBM Personal Computer or 100%
compatible running OS/2 1.2 or later.
INSPECTP.EXE and ICONFIGP.EXE are 16-bit
applications, compatible with the 80286.
Sufficient free memory to run (around 450
kilobytes).
A hard-disk drive with 400K or more of
free space.
InspectA is capable of using extended (132
column) text modes available on SVGA and
XVGA screens. In order to use these modes,
you must have the appropriate display
drivers installed and functioning.
Package Contents
Check your InspectA package to see if
everything is there. If any of the components
are missing, contact the distributor from
whom you purchased the package, or - if it is
the unregistered shareware package - check
with the source from which you obtained it.
10 InspectA
Installing InspectA
The only difference between the commercial
version of InspectA and the registered
shareware version is the packaging. The
commercial version is provided on diskette
(3.5" 720K or 5.25" 360K formats), and is
accompanied by a bound manual with the
following files on the diskette:
ERRATA.TXT (may or may not be present)
contains additions and errata to this
document
INSTALL.BAT is the install batch file
(this is INSTALL.CMD in the OS/2 version).
INSPECT.HLP is the combined help and key
file, registered to you or your company's
name
INSPECTA.110 is a compressed archive
containing the software itself, which
includes INSPECT.EXE (INSPECTP.EXE in the
OS/2 release) the file manager and
ICONFIG.EXE (ICONFIGP.EXE) the interactive
configuration utility. Other files
containing default or suggested InspectA
settings are also included. One or more of
these may be used by the INSTALL script to
set up a default configuration.
The shareware version includes an additional
file, INSPECT.MAN, inside the compressed
archive. This is the on-disk manual. In
addition, these instructions are added to
README.TXT.
Running INSTALL
If you are upgrading from a previous version,
you should first backup and delete your old
INSPECT.INI.
To install, copy the contents of the InspectA
distribution disk or archive into a directory
on your hard disk. If you have the shareware
version, unpack the distribution archive to a
temporary directory of your choice, including
InspectA 11
Installing InspectA
the inner INSPECTA.110 archive which is in
ZIP format, using the command:
PKUNZIP INSPECTA.110. (MS-DOS)
unzip INSPECTA.110 (OS/2)
On MS-DOS, please ensure that you are using a
version of PKZIP greater than 1.10. On OS/2,
you will need zip 1.9 or greater.
Make the temporary directory the default.
Type "INSTALL -H" and press ENTER to display
the options available to you when installing.
After running INSTALL, a default
configuration is created, and InspectA is run
automatically to allow you to copy the files
to a convenient place on your hard drive
using F5 (COPY). All settings may be later
customised using the ICONFIG utility.
Running INSPECT
This section is a "quick start" in getting
INSPECT up and running on your system.
Information on how to configure it to your
requirements and taste can be found in the
following section entitled Configuration.
How To Start
After INSTALL has been run, you will find the
files INSPECT(P).EXE, INSPECT.HLP,
ICONFIG(P).EXE and INSPECT(P).INI in the
directory used when installing.
Note that the OS/2 executable and
configuration file names have the letter 'P'
(for "Protected Mode") added. This avoids any
confusion as to which version is being run,
and allows the two versions to be present and
run on the same machine without requiring any
special considerations. This manual refers to
the MSDOS names, and if you have installed
the OS/2 version, you should translate the
names as follows:
12 InspectA
Installing InspectA
INSPECT.EXE to inspectP.exe
ICONFIG.EXE to iconfigP.exe
INSPECT.INI to inspectp.ini
Only the window state file, INSPECT.SAV, may
be shared by both versions. The configuration
file used by both versions is compatible
(they may read each other's config file if
renamed) - however, each contains information
specific to the operating system under which
it was created.
The directory in which the executables are
placed must be named in the search path used
by the operating system. You may also find it
helpful to add the HOME environment variable
to your DOS AUTOEXEC.BAT or OS/2 CONFIG.SYS,
because this will force InspectA to use the
directory to which it points for INSPECT.INI
(the configuration file) and INSPECT.SAV (the
window state save file).
At this point, you should be able to type
INSPECT to run INSPECT. If not, check to make
sure that INSPECT.INI exists, either in the
current directory or the directory named by
the HOME environment variable (if set), or
the directory containing INSPECT.EXE. If it
doesn't exist, run ICONFIG to create it. Note
that all three files - ICONFIG.EXE
(iconfigP.exe) INSPECT.EXE (inspectP.exe) and
INSPECT.HLP - must reside in the same
directory.
On startup, the screen first presented is
InspectA's File Manager.
Help!
When using InspectA, the following lists some
important things to remember:
/ If you get "lost" in the File
Manager, the forward slash key
invokes the pull-down menus, where
all InspectA functions are readily
accessible. (Pressing and releasing
InspectA 13
Installing InspectA
the Alt key - unless this is
disabled in ICONFIG - will have a
similar effect. If your mouse is
active, clicking anywhere on the
top line of the screen will also
activate the menus.)
ESC This key always means "exit". In
some cases, this may also abort an
operation. Think of it as "ESCaping
from" what you are currently doing.
F1 If you are unsure of what to do
next, or what information the
program is requesting from you, the
F1 key may provide all the answers
you may seek. Pressing it once
invokes the on-line help system,
which pops up a window with
information relating to what you
are currently doing. If you need to
find more information, you can use
the PGDN and PGUP keys to read
related information, or press F1
again to view the help index.
Using the Mouse
InspectA is able to take advantage of a
MicroSoft compatible mouse, if one is
installed. If you wish to use the mouse, you
must make sure that the mouse driver is
loaded prior to running INSPECT.
With the obvious exception of typing data
into entry fields, almost all functions in
InspectA can be performed using the mouse
either directly using screen controls, or via
the pulldown menu system. In lists, you can
move the highlight bar by either clicking on
the entry you wish to highlight, or using the
SCROLL BAR to randomly access and scan
entries in the list. In forms, you can select
the field to enter by clicking anywhere on
the field, and you can adjust the cursor
position within a field by clicking on the
point to place the cursor. Menus work in a
14 InspectA
Installing InspectA
manner similar to lists; move the selector to
an item on the menu by clicking the left
button once with the mouse cursor on it, and
clicking it again when the selector has moved
to select the item.
Viewing & Editing
This version of InspectA uses external
programs to view and edit files, and neither
is supplied with InspectA itself. You should
either obtain suitable programs for these
purposes, or use the editor and viewing
program that you currently use.
As a text editor, we can highly recommend
SemWare's QEDIT, which can be found on any
quality BBS. For viewing files, we recommend
Vernon D. Buerg's LIST. Both of these
programs are used by default, if available.
OS/2 versions are available for purchase, but
neither supports HPFS, and neither is
available as shareware.
A future version of InspectA will feature its
own internal editor and file viewer.
Basic Functions
INSPECT is a list-based viewer which provides
a "point and shoot" interface to objects
being viewed. The File Manager views the file
system, and allows selection of one or more
files from a list which displays the contents
of the current directory. InspectA recognises
certain types of files; including compressed
archives (ARC, ZIP, LZH, ZOO, ARJ etc.),
FidoNet mail packets and messages, and files
which may be executed. You can navigate
through directories by placing the highlight
bar on a directory name (including ".." which
moves to the parent directory of the current
one) and pressing ENTER, or by placing the
mouse cursor over it and clicking once with
the left mouse button. Alternatively, you can
navigate through many directories very easily
InspectA 15
Installing InspectA
using the directory tree, by pressing F9.
Selecting other types of files will, by
default, view the file, but this behaviour
can be modified by overriding this using
ICONFIG.
The Archive Manager presents a list of its
members, which can also be selected and
actions performed on them in the same way.
All other built-in managers offer the same
types of facility, other options available
dependant on what type of file is being
viewed.
The cursor movement keys can be used to move
around the list of files; UP moves up one
file, DOWN moves down, PGUP moves up one
window (or to the top of the list, if the
first screen of files is currently
displayed), PGDN moves down one window, HOME
moves to the top of the list, and END moves
to the bottom.
If you are using the mouse, you can move the
highlight bar to any item on the screen by
moving the highlight cursor to it and
clicking once with the left mouse button
(clicking an item which is already
highlighted selects it for viewing). To move
beyond the current list of files, you need to
use the SCROLL BAR which is at the right hand
side of the list. At the top and bottom of
the SCROLL BAR are icons which move the
cursor up and down one line at a time, and
will cause the list to scroll when the
beginning or end of the list is reached.
Clicking anywhere on the SCROLL BAR between
these two icons will cause the list to
reposition itself in the list according to
the position of the mouse cursor on the
SCROLL BAR. The position marker on the bar
indicates the currently highlighted item's
position in the list. As a rule, clicking
above the marker moves up, and below moves
down.
16 InspectA
Installing InspectA
Selecting Items
Selection of multiple items in any list
provides the facility to carry out a
particular action on all of them. The current
item is highlighted by pressing the SPACE
key; or - to make marking of many items
easier - you can move and mark at the same
time, by holding down either SHIFT key, and
use any of the cursor movement keys (UP,.
DOWN, PGUP, PGDN, END or HOME). These toggle
the mark on all items starting and including
the current one up to the item to which the
highlight bar is moved. The F2 key may be
used to mark and un-mark all items in the
list (or remark all items which were marked
prior the last operation).
Marking items with the mouse is also done by
holding down the SHIFT key and clicking on
the item to mark with the mouse cursor. The
global mark/remark function is executed by
holding down the ALT key and clicking the
left mouse button anywhere on the list.
Multiple Windows
One of InspectA's most powerful features is
the ability to log more than one directory
and display them at once in multiple
overlapping windows. While the only real
limitation on the number of windows that can
be open at any particular time is available
memory, it may be too confusing and quite
clumsy to have too many windows open at the
same time on the desktop. If you enjoy this
feature, learn to use the Iconise function to
temporarily "put away" windows until you need
them.
To Open a window, press SHIFT-INS. Select the
directory you wish to view in the new window
by typing the name in, or by using any of the
other interactive search facilities provided
by the directory selection prompt.
Switch between windows by using the TAB key.
InspectA 17
Installing InspectA
Close the current window by pressing SHIFT-
DEL. This does not work on the last non-
iconised window (at least one window must be
open at all times).
Iconise the current window by using SHIFT-
NUMPAD-5 (this is the centre key marked "5"
on the numeric keypad). As with Close, you
cannot iconise the only open window.
CTRL-ENTER "zooms" or "un-zooms" a window.
Except with Open Window., these functions
also have mouse control equivalents; click on
the top left corner of a window to close, top
right to maximise (zoom), left of the top
right corner to iconise.
Iconised windows can be restored by using the
SHIFT-TAB key (list windows) and selecting
from the list presented. Using a mouse, you
can also click with the left button on the
icon.
Windows can also be resized using either the
keyboard or mouse. Using the keyboard, press
the GREY-* key and use the ARROW keys to
adjust. If using the mouse, you can move a
window by clicking and holding down the left
mouse button when the cursor is on any point
on the title bar at the top of the window.
Resize by holding down the same button with
the mouse cursor on the bottom right hand
corner of the window.
It is possible to save your window layout
using ALT-F9. This saves both open and
iconised windows, so it may be convenient for
saving a list of directories that you use
often, and selecting the icons needed at the
start of each session. InspectA's -u switch
also allows you to explicitly set the name of
the path and file used to save and recall
window information, so it may be convenient
in some cases to set up windows for various
uses and save them as profiles in separate
files.
18 InspectA
Configuration
Configuration
This section describes the use of InspectA's
configuration utility, ICONFIG. This program
may be executed either directly from the
command prompt, from InspectA itself, by
selection from the File pull-down menu, or
directly by using ALT-C.
NOTE: Because all keys available from the
File Manager may be redefined, any keyboard
bindings given are those which are bound by
default. The user should remember this when
reading this documentation.
When run, ICONFIG displays the full path to
the configuration (.INI) file being editing
on the top line, and below, the configuration
menu horizontally along the upper part of the
screen. Each of the main items links to
either a pull-down menu with sub-options, or
a picklist containing items that may be
added, deleted or modified. For ease of
reference, most of the headings in this
chapter reflect the menu structure used in
the program itself.
The LEFT, RIGHT, UP and DOWN keys may be used
to navigate the menu system, or the mouse can
be used to select an item either from the
main configuration menu or any of the items
on the pull-down menu.
Unless overridden by a command line option
(see below), ICONFIG uses the same method to
search for its configuration file as is used
by InspectA itself. It first looks in the
InspectA 19
Configuration
directory nominated by the HOME environment
variable, and if none is found there, the
current directory and then the directory
where ICONFIG.EXE resides in that order.
However, if the HOME environment variable is
set, and no configuration file is found there
but is obtained elsewhere, ICONFIG will still
write it out to the HOME directory. This
provides the facility to place a default .INI
file in the same directory as ICONFIG.EXE on
a network, and have users run ICONFIG to
create their own, modelled after the network
default.
Command Line
ICONFIG accepts the same set of command
parameters as INSPECT itself. Like InspectA,
it also reads the INSPECT environment
variable before examining the actual command
line.
Command switches used by ICONFIG are:
Switch Description
-c dir Nominate the directory where
INSPECT.INI should be read from and
saved. If this directory does not
contain INSPECT.INI on startup, the
current and executable directory
are searched, and if found, will be
read from there. However, on
saving changes to disk, ICONFIG
will save to the new configuration
file to this directory.
-smethod Selects the method used for program
image swapping. This overrides the
method configured in the .INI file.
Within ICONFIG, this only affects
the Shell function ( ALT-Z from any
menu, list or prompt).
20 InspectA
Configuration
Valid methods are:
X swap to XMS
E for swap to EMS
D for swap to disk
N suppress swapping.
-voptions Sets default video options.
m select monochrome palette
c select colour palette
n suppress 'snow' on CGA (MSDOS only)
d disable CGA 'snow' suppression
(MSDOS only)
b allow blinking background (not
intense)
h allow intense background (not
blinking)
x use current background intense or
blinking state
s do not restore mode (see v, 2, 4 &
5 options)
z forces mode restore (overrides 's')
2 force 25 line mode on EGA &
VGA/SVGA/XVGA
4 or 5 force 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA) line
mode
vmode set a specific mode number (MSDOS)
vRxC set display size, where R=rows,
C=columns. If missing, columns is
assumed to be 80 (OS/2)
InspectA 21
Configuration
All other options available in InspectA are
simply ignored. The following two switches
are specific to ICONFIG.
-i file Import configuration from text file
-x file Export configuration to text file.
These correspond to the Import and Export
items on the Text menu and are provided as
command line options to allow for non-
interactive use. All items which can be
configured in ICONFIG can also be manipulated
by exporting an existing configuration,
editing the resulting text file, and
importing the modified file.
General
This section covers most of the general items
that may be set according to preference.
Options
Selecting this item displays a form on which
general operational options can be set:
Option Description
Kbd Delay If you are using an AT or later
model computer (286, 386, 486 etc),
then the two Kbd fields may be used
to set the keyboard typomatic
response speeds. Earlier models of
computer do not have this
capability and any settings here
will have no effect.
Delay is the amount of time from
when a key is pressed to when it
starts automatically repeating
while held down. A shorter delay
increases the sensitivity of key
22 InspectA
Configuration
repeat. Options range from 250ms
through 1000ms (1/4 second - 1
second).
Kbd Speed Speed is the rate at which keyboard
repeat generates characters.
If either of the Kbd fields is set
to Auto (the default), repeat key
settings will not be changed by
InspectA. Because there is no way
to determine and save the original
typomatic settings are at startup,
InspectA will not attempt to reset
the typomatic rate on exit or
Shell.
View Path This is used as a temporary holding
area for files extracted for
viewing from compressed archives.
Only the drive letter needs to be
valid in the given path, as the
view path itself will be created
and deleted as required. If the
path already exists when needed, it
will not be deleted.
Dir Index If enabled, this switch causes the
disk directory index to be written
to disk and automatically updated
whenever a directory is deleted,
added or renamed within InspectA.
See Directory Index in the
Appendices for details.
Enabling this option is equivalent
to specifying -m on INSPECT's
command line.
Irrespective of this setting, or
the -m command line switch,
InspectA will still use a directory
index if one exists for the drive
being read.
Index File This field specifies the name of
the file used as the directory
index. The default name is
InspectA 23
Configuration
DISKMAP.IND. If you run both the
MSDOS and OS/2 versions on the same
machine, and the filesystem being
used supports long nams (HPFS or
NetWare), it is better to use a
different set of index files for
use in each mode.
Index Path This specifies a subdirectory name
in which the directory files are
stored. If left blank, the root
(top level) directory is used. If
no drive letter is given, then the
subdirectory on the drive being
read is used - it is created if
necessary. If a drive letter is
specified, then all directory index
files are stored in the named
directory on the nominated drive,
with the first letter of the file
being substituted for the drive
letter. This is useful for storing
and updating directory index files
on read-only network drives or CD-
ROM.
Net Path Only If this switch is enabled, InspectA
will only use the given Index Path
for network and CD-ROM drives.
Local logical drive indices are
stored in the index file name
nominated in the root directory of
the drive.
Archiver This selects the archive type used
by default when adding to or
creating archives.
Filedesc These fields determine how file
descriptions are stored on disk in
description files. The Fill entry
determines which column the
description starts in. A value of 0
causes only one space to be
inserted between the filename and
description irrespective of the
filename length. You can force
upper- or lower- case for the
24 InspectA
Configuration
filename by selection in the Case
field. If Default is selected,
InspectA uses uppercase under MSDOS
and under OS/2 uses the filename as
it appears on disk.
Filename These fields determine the
appearance of filenames in the File
Manager display. Cols determines
the maximum width of filenames, and
Case forces upper-, lower- or the
default case (uppercase under
MSDOS, and according to the
filesystem under OS/2).
Desc Cols This determines the length of the
description item in the displayed
files list. If set to zero, the
description is considered to be of
unlimited length.
Dirname Case Allows upper- or lower- case to be
forced for directory names as
displayed in the files list.
Hide Menus By default, InspectA displays a
menu bar on the top line of the
screen. This menu can be selected
using the Alt key (press and
release) or the forward slash key.
This menu can be hidden until
selected by enabling this option.
Title Justify This determines placement of the
directory title on windows.
Title Fill The entry in this field is used as
a fill character on the title bar.
This is an ASCII code, between 0
and 255; the default of 0 causes
spaces to be used. Likely
candidates are 176, 177, 178 and
219.
No 'Hot' Alt This disables the default action of
the ALT key. In windowed
environments (OS/2 PM or WPS,
DESQview, Windows) the default
InspectA 25
Configuration
action on pressing and releasing
the ALT key may cause problems.
Enable Stats InspectA may optionally display
disk statistics on a background
window when the File Manager is
active. There is a performance
penality in doing so, however, and
on slower systems or systems
running multitasking software, the
refresh required to keep this
display up to date may cause
InspectA to appear to run slowly.
This is particularly noticable when
accessing a remote (network) drive.
Even if disabled, disk statistics
can still be toggled on and off by
using ALT-F5, or viewed with CTRL-
BACKSPACE.
Programs
These fields determine the external edit and
view programs used by INSPECT. If the Edit,
View and Scan program fields are left blank,
InspectA uses Q as editor (this is the usual
name used by SemWare's QEDIT program), LIST
(by Vernon D. Buerg) as file viewer and SCAN
/NOMEM /SUB (by McAfees & Assoc) as the virus
scan program.
DOS version only: The Edit mem, View mem and
Scan mem fields determine how memory is
managed when the editor, view and scan
programs are invoked. These are used to
specify the maximum amount of memory - in
kilobytes - used by each program. These
optimise program image swapping, so that
InspectA will only swap when necessary to
make sure sufficient memory will be free. Two
special values may also be used; '0' causes
InspectA to unconditionally swap when program
image swapping has been enabled, and '-1'
will prevent InspectA from swapping
irrespective of that setting.
26 InspectA
Configuration
Note that swapping must be enabled for this
to work correctly (see next section).
Swapping
This item applies only the the MSDOS version.
The items under this heading control
InspectA's program image swapping capability.
Using this technique, InspectA removes itself
almost completely from memory when running
external programs, consuming less than 2K of
memory, and providing as much memory as
possible to the program being run.
The Swap Path field should specify where the
program image file is to be placed when
attempting to swap to disk. This will be used
whenever swap to disk is selected, or as a
fall-back if insufficient XMS or EMS memory
is available to contain the entire program
image. This should be a valid path, and be
guaranteed to have at least 350K free at all
times, otherwise swapping will fail
preventing execution of external programs
with swapping. InspectA will never execute an
external program unless sufficient memory is
available, and if swapping is enabled, that
also means that sufficient space should be
available for program image swapping.
If swap to disk is enabled by default, or if
you have less than one megabyte of EMS or XMS
free, then for performance reasons, the path
specified would be best placed on a fast disk
drive or RAM disk (virtual disk drive created
in memory). If you have a choice of using a
RAM disk or allocating that memory to XMS, it
is usually much better used as XMS.
Swap Type allows you to select where the
program image is to be stored. This is one
of:
XMS Extended memory; requires an XMS
2.0+ driver
InspectA 27
Configuration
EMS Expanded memory; requires a LIMS
3.2 or 4.0 compatible EMS driver
Disk Uses a disk file to store the
program image This is the slowest
of the three swapping methods
None Selecting this (the default)
disables program image swapping
completely
Selecting XMS or EMS will cause disk swapping
to be used as a fall-back. Because of this,
you should ensure that the path nominated in
the Swap Path field is valid.
Video
These options relate to video handling. On
some hardware, these may cause strange side-
effects, so you should be careful in
specifying or overriding any of the
standards. While highly unlikely, it is
remotely possible that you can cause damage
to your video hardware by selecting the wrong
options. Be sure to consult the manuals for
your video card and monitor before
experimenting.
Entry Description
Video Mode Selects the default video mode to
use:
Auto Use the video mode and screen size
current when InspectA is started.
This causes InspectA not to change
screen mode, but to adapt to the
existing one (this is the default).
25 Force 25 line mode. If InspectA is
started when in 43/50 line mode, it
sets 25 line mode before.
43/50 Sets 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA) line mode
if not already in those modes on
startup
28 InspectA
Configuration
Custom This provides the ability to switch
Super-VGA and other video cards
with special mode support into
"extended" mode as InspectA is
invoked, offering the ability to
run the program in 132 column mode
or make use of some other unusual
text mode.
Custom Mode [MSDOS] When Custom is selected in
the video mode field, this is the
mode number (in decimal) used. Be
sure to consult the documentation
for you video card before using
this option.
As an indication, SVGA cards based
on the ET-4000 chip use modes 52,
54 and 56 for various types of 132
column mode, and those based on the
Trident 8900 series chip use modes
82, 84 and 86.
Custom Rows / Cols [OS/2] This option allows you
to select the number of rows and
columns to use on startup. The
entries supplied here must be valid
for your display adaptor - for full
screen use, 80 or 132 columns may
be used with SVGA and XVGA
hardware, and the number of colums
according to what is supported by
the display adaptor (this depends
on the availability of text display
fonts). In PM or WPS windows on the
desktop, only 80 columns may be
used (but rows may be set to any
number 1 to 255.
Note that in order to use 132
columns, you must have installed
the appropriate display drivers and
used the SVGA utility to set up
SVGADATA.PMI in your OS/2
directory.
Set Mode This option is the same as
specifying -vs on the command line.
InspectA 29
Configuration
It causes any mode changes made as
a result of setting the Video and
Custom Mode fields to become
'permanent', so that InspectA will
leave the screen in the selected
mode on exist, and when running
external programs.
Background This field selects background
intensity or blinking.
Dir Window Determines the default size of the
directory window (this can be
changed in InspectA using CTRL-
ENTER.
Screenblank This is the number of minutes of
inactivity before InspectA will
blank the screen. The default entry
of zero disables this feature.
Rescan Time On multituser or multitasking
systems, the disk may be changed by
other tasks. To have InspectA
periodically rescan the current
directory
Frame (A) Sets the frame type for the active
(current) window in the Files
Manager.
Frame (B) Sets the frame type for all
inactive (non-current) window in
the Files Manager.
Mouse
This set of fields controls InspectA's use of
a MicroSoft or compatible mouse. For the
mouse to become active and available for use,
InspectA requires that a mouse driver also be
present; these are typically supplied with
the mouse itself, and you should ensure that
this is loaded in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, or at
some point when you computer starts and
before running InspectA.
30 InspectA
Configuration
Under OS/2, you should have the appropriate
pointer device drivers loaded in CONFIG.SYS.
Fields on the mouse controls window are:
Entry Description
Use Mouse This is an enable/disable switch
for the mouse. To enable, select
Yes, to disable, select No.
Mouse Pointer This field provides the ability to
select the type of mouse pointer
that InspectA uses. The Standard
mouse pointer is a simple block,
with the background and foreground
colours reversed from the
surrounding text. Other pointers
available are Diamond (white
diamond) and Triangle (yellow
triangle). Chose according to
preference.
Mouse Speed This sets the mouse sensitivity;
Auto leaves the current sensitivity
unchanged (this is usually the
mouse driver default), and Slow
through V.Fast set the movement
ratio (the ratio between distance
that the mouse physically moves and
the distance the pointer moves on
the screen). Use the speed that you
feel most comfortable with.
SVGA Mouse Under MSDOS, most versions of the
MicroSoft mouse driver (MOUSE.COM
or MOUSE.SYS) do not correctly
support 132 column mode. Logitech
mouse drivers, which do work with
MicroSoft compatible mouse devices,
do seem to support 132 column mode
correctly.
InspectA 31
Configuration
Colours
This selection provides the facility to re-
define InspectA's colour scheme.
Internally, InspectA contains two attribute
"palettes". The first is used if the monitor
being used supports colour, and the second is
used if it supports only monochrome or black
and white. Since it is possible to use a
graphics adaptor that supports colour to
display on a monochrome or at least two
colour only display, both INSPECT and ICONFIG
support -vm (monochrome) and -vc (colour)
switches to force the program to use either
one of the two palettes.
ICONFIG provides the ability to edit both
attribute palettes, irrespective of the type
of display being used. On selecting the
Colours option from the General menu, you are
requested to select either the Colour or
Black & White palette.
After the palette has been selected, the
colour configuration section is displayed. On
the left-hand side of the screen, a chart
shows a map of all possible attributes. To
its right is a list of all the various
attributes by description, with the colour
corresponding to the currently selected
attribute highlighted on the chart. Beneath
both of these is a figure with a sample
screen, so you can more readily see the
results of your selection.
To change the colour mapped to the
highlighted function, press ENTER. You may
then use the ARROW keys to move around the
chart, and examine the sample at the bottom
of the chart and watch the effect of any
changes on the example screen. Pressing SPACE
causes the background attribute to be
toggled; either non-blinking to blinking and
vice versa, or intense to dull and vice
versa, according to the setting of "Intense
background" in the Video section.
32 InspectA
Configuration
When you are happy with your choice, press
ENTER to keep it, or ESC to abort selection
and restore the previously used colour.
You can use the ARROW keys to move up and
down the list, to select and change any of
the attributes used by INSPECT and ICONFIG.
Once you are happy with your selection, press
ESC or the right mouse button to return to
the previous screen. At this point, you may
either confirm that you wish to keep the
current colour selection, or abandon any
changes you have made. If you elect to keep
your changes, they are not (yet) written to
disk, but ICONFIG itself will be set to use
the new colour selection. These are written
to disk after the prompt on existing
InspectA.
After setting up the colour setup to your
requirements, press ESC to exit, and confirm
that you wish to use the changes made. If you
select Yes and the palette you changed was
the current one in use, ICONFIG will
redisplay in the new palette.
Because it is possible to configure colours
that can result in a completely unreadable
display, ICONFIG provides the facility to
quickly reset all colours back to their
original defaults. After selecting General -
Colours and deciding which palate to modify,
press F9 to reset. After confirmation, the
attribute settings are reset and ICONFIG
redisplayed using the original palette.
Filelist
This section provides the option of
customising the format of directory lists
presented by the File Manager. By default,
InspectA uses three pre-defined formats, but
you can delete these, add your own or modify
them according to your needs. At least one
list format must be defined; if not, InspectA
will automatically use the three pre-defined
formats.
InspectA 33
Configuration
Within INSPECT, the format of the current
list window may be cycled using the ALT-F8
key. The format used in each window is also
saved and restored with the window layout;
you can save the current layout at any time
by pressing ALT-F9.
Selecting FileList from the General menu
displays a list of defined formats. To Add a
new format, press INS. To Delete an existing
format, highlight the entry and press DEL. To
Modify a format, highlight it, moving the
cursor line with the ARROW keys or the mouse
to select the entry, and press F2, ENTER or
left mouse button.
When adding or modifying formats, enter
information into the form as follows:
Field Descriptions
Format Name Select a nominal name to use for
this format. This should be
descriptive of the type of format
being entered.
Col Scale
Row Scale These fields determine the size of
new windows opened in the Files
Manager. Internally, window scaling
is calculated on a 256 row by 256
column plane, but the actual size
used is recalculated according to
the size of the screen. Therefore,
a scale factor of 128 rows by 128
columns will produce a window half
the size of the screen width by
half the size of the screen height.
Vary these according to preference.
Fields You can now select up to 10 fields
to display horizontally across the
list. Once you have selected all
the fields you wish to place on the
34 InspectA
Configuration
list, fill all the remaining
fields with "None".
Available field types are:
Marker This is the highlighting
'mark', used to indicate that
a file has been selected. When
selected, the highlighter will
display from this field to the
right of the list.
File Name The name of the file or
directory.
Size Size of the file.
Wr Date Date that the file was last
written to.
Wr Time HH:MM Time that the file was last
written to.
Wr Time HH:MM:SS Time that the file was
last written to.
Attributes These show the file's
attributes. Where an attribute
is not set, the corresponding
letter (see below) is replaced
by a dot. When set, each
attribute shows a letter to
indicate its meaning:
s System. Files with this
attribute set are normally
'special' in some way and are
regarded as being essential to
operation of the system; ie.
IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS, which
are the MSDOS operating system
files loaded when the system
is started. System files are
automatically hidden from view
and will not normally display
when a DIR command is entered
at the prompt. Unless
overridden using InspectA's -a
InspectA 35
Configuration
command line switch, you will
not see these files from
InspectA either.
h Hidden. Files with the hidden
attribute are not normally
displayed when an DIR command
is executed.
r Read-Only. The read-only
attribute attempts to prevent
(or at least warn against)
modification or deletion of a
file. Attempts to move or copy
a read-only file with InspectA
will product warnings, but
provided that the file can be
accessed by the user (ie.
access is not prevented by
means of a network's
permission scheme), this can
be overridden after
confirmation. Read-only files
are usually visible.
a Archive. This attribute
provides a simple system for
determining when files have
been updated or added since a
previous backup. The archive
attribute is automatically set
by the operating system
whenever a file is copied,
created or written to - it
will normally only be reset by
a backup program.
S Shareable. This attribute is
not supported directly by
MSDOS, but is used on Novell
Networks to indicate that the
file can be accessed from
multiple workstations at once.
The file is therefore
"shareable". Most modern
software written for DOS
versions greater than 3.1
which is network aware does
36 InspectA
Configuration
not require this attribute to
be set in order to allow
multiple workstations to
access files - the attribute
is intended for use only where
it can be determined that a
file or group of files can be
safely accessed by software
which is not network aware.
This attribute is not
supported (nor needed) by the
OS/2 version
Type This is the file type. This is
determined by InspectA by
reading the contents of the
file itself, except in the
case of directories, where it
is already known by virtue of
the directory attribute. In
most cases, InspectA will need
to examine the file before it
can display the correct type -
which is exactly what the Scan
Files function is intended to
do. If a file has not yet been
accessed, or if the type
cannot be determined, InspectA
will display a question mark "
? " in this field.
Description If description files are used
(see the next option, Lists),
and a description is found for
any particular file, InspectA
displays that description in
this field. You can also
update (or create) the
description list by using the
INS key when the cursor is
highlighting the file and
description you wish to
update. If a description is
too long to fit on the screen,
it is truncated at the right
edge of the list.
InspectA 37
Configuration
The remaining fields are available only under
OS/2:
Cr Date Date that the file was
created.
Cr Time HH:MM Time that the file was
created.
Cr Time HH:MM:SS Time that the file was
created.
Acc Date Date that the file was
accessed.
Acc Time HH:MM Time that the file was
accessed.
Acc Time HH:MM:SS Time that the file was
accessed.
ExtAttr Size This is the size of the EA
(extended attributes) for the
file. A value of -1 is
displayed where this cannot be
determined (usually as a
result of the file being open
by another process).
Lists
InspectA can be configured to support
comments for any file or directory, and store
these in a separate file.
This option provides a way of determining how
file descriptions are stored on disk. Leaving
this list of "description files" empty causes
InspectA to not support file descriptions at
all. Entering multiple description file names
provides more flexibility in allowing
InspectA to use any one of a particular set
of files. Each file is tried in turn until a
match is found.
Use of description files supports this same
facility in 4DOS , which stores file comments
38 InspectA
Configuration
in a file by the name of "DESCRIPT.ION". the
4DOS DIR command displays these descriptions.
Similarly, BBS operators use similar files
("FILES.BBS" or "@FILES") to store this
information.
Note that this release of InspectA does not
support comment fields in OS/2 extended
attributes. This is planned for a future
release.
The description file simply contains each
file name described, followed by one or more
spaces or tabs, and a comment. The comment
for any individual file must be on a single
line, and can be up to 1024 bytes long
(InspectA will internally truncate anything
greater than this).
To Add a new description file name, press INS
and enter the name into the form supplied.
Press ENTER or F10 to save. To Modify a name,
press ENTER or F2 after highlighting the
entry you wish to edit in the list. To
Delete, use the DEL key.
Because the order of files in this list
determines the priority in which the names
will be used (for example, when creating a
description file in a directory which did not
previously contain one, InspectA will always
use the first entry in this list), ICONFIG
provides the ability to reorder entries
easily. Simply hold down the SHIFT key and
move in the same direction in which you wish
move the entry. As the cursor moves, so the
currently highlighted entry will move with
it. This works with all the cursor-movement
keys.
Archive
The Archive section provides the interface
between InspectA and the archive
creation/management programs themselves.
While InspectA has some intrinsic knowledge
InspectA 39
Configuration
about the various archive formats in order to
read their "directory", it does not implement
any compression or decompression routines
itself, but instead uses external programs to
carry out these tasks. At least one command
template must be defined for each operation
and archive type in order for that operation
to be available.
The list presented when the Archive option is
selected from the Main Menu shows all the
defined archive operation; each member of the
list represents a "command template", which
consists of a program name and program
command line arguments, including macros
which are used to insert the archive and
member file names when the program is run.
To Add an entry to this table, press INS. To
Delete, press DEL. To Modify or view details,
press ENTER or F2 or by clicking the left
mouse button on a highlighted entry.
This list also provides a Clone function,
where the current entry can be copied and the
new entry edited. This is activated by using
SHIFT-INSERT.
Following is the list of fields presented
during add or modify:
Field Description
Arcv Type Select the archive type from the
list presented.
Operation One of the following operation
types must be selected:
Extract Extract one or more files from
an archive.
Delete Remove files from an archive
40 InspectA
Configuration
Add Add files to an archive
(including creating a new
archive from a list of files)
Test Test archive and member file
integrity
Extract-recursive This option use used
for archive repacking, and
provides teh command to
extract files in their
original directories (this
ability is optional with the
standard Extract operation).
Add-recursive This is for commands
which add files from the
current directory and all
subdirectories (if any). This
is also only used by the
archive re-pack option.
If an archiver does not support
paths (such as ARC v5.0), you must
nevertheless define at least an
extract-recursive command in order
to repack archives of this type.
Failing to provide an add-recursive
command in such cases is wise,
since it prevents possible loss of
files when converting from an
archive containing directories to
one which does not.
Extension This is the usual file extension
assumed by the archive program for
its archives. This is used to
determine in an intelligent way the
type of archive to create on entry
of a new archive name, and also
nominates the extension to use when
repacking from one archive type to
another.
Command This is the command template.
Nothing is added to this command
automatically, so if you need
information to be placed onto the
InspectA 41
Configuration
command line, you must use macros,
which are substituted at runtime by
the file names as required. See the
following section for a complete
description of macros available.
Wildcard As an optimisation, InspectA treats
the operations involving all files
in a directory (when adding Add)
and all files in an archive (for
Extract and Delete) as a special
case; instead of listing individual
files, a Wildcard is used,
indicating to the archive command
that all files need to be
processed. Typically, this avoids
the need to run the command
multiple times to process a large
list of files.
Various archive programs handle a
Wildcard operation in different
ways. Many of them assume all files
if this field is empty; others
require "*.*" or simply "*".
Consult the archive program
documentation for details.
Memory [MSDOS] This field specifies the
amount of memory which must be free
in order to run the command. This
is used by INSPECT to determine
whether or not to swap its program
image to XMS, EMS or disk. If
sufficient memory is free to run
the program without swapping, then
swapping is avoided resulting in
faster execution.
If this field is set to 0, swapping
will always be enabled for the
command irrespective of the amount
of free memory unless swapping has
been disabled globally (see
Configuration, General). It is
advisable to use this setting in
most cases unless you are sure of
the correct memory requirements. If
42 InspectA
Configuration
set to -1, swapping is always
prevented.
Macros
Archiving commands are expressed as command
templates. This means that before it is
executed, certain character sequences - known
as macros - are replaced with the archive
name, member names or file names.
All macro sequences commence with the
character '$'. If you wish to insert the
literal character '$' into a command line for
any reason, you must use two of them
consecutively.
The list of macro strings are as follows:
Macro Replaced with
$a Archive name.
$p Current directory.
$f File name (add) or member (delete
or modify). If more than one file
or member is marked, the command
line will be executed multiple
times with each of the marked file
names substituted in turn until the
list of files is exhausted. If
there are no members or files
marked, the current file or member
is used, and the command executed
only once.
$m Multiple file names; if no files or
members are marked, the current is
used, otherwise, the names of
marked files or members are used.
The command is still executed
multiple times if the command line
would otherwise exceed the MSDOS
maximum of 126 characters.
InspectA 43
Configuration
Note that the command line limit
for OS/2 is much larger. InspectA
will internally limit the length
given to programs to 1024
characters, however.
$r A redirect list (also called a
response file), which contains the
names of files or members to
operate on. Many archive programs
accept this format - the file is
simply a list of file names to
process; the file name actually
substituted for '$r' is the
temporary file name containing the
list.
$$ is replaced by $.
The macros '$a', '$f', '$m' and '$r' may
contain fully qualified path names. In the
case of archive member files, the directory
name may or may not be present. It is often
convenient to not use the directory portion
of these names, so the following list of
modifiers may be added to these macros to
either omit or only use parts. The modifier
is a single character and is placed after the
'$' and prior the 'a', 'f', 'm' or 'r' (note
that with the macro '$r', the path name of
the files placed into the redirect list are
affected by the modifier, not the name of the
temporary file used).
Modifier Description
+ (plus) Remove the directory
portion.
- (minus) Remove the extension.
= (equals) Remove both the directory
and extension.
44 InspectA
Configuration
_ (underline) Remove the directory
and file portion (leaving only the
file extension).
. (period) Remove any trailing dots
from filenames
# (hash) Use forward slash as a
directory separator.
As an example, given that the macro $a
equals:
C:\ARCHIVES\MYFILE.ZIP
the following macros evaluate to:
$a C:\ARCHIVES\MYFILE.ZIP
$+a MYFILE.ZIP
$-a C:\ARCHIVES\MYFILE
$=a MYFILE
$_a ZIP
$#a C:/ARCHIVES/MYFILE.ZIP
Note that modifiers can be used in
combination.
Mailer
This section relates to configuration of
items relating to operating InspectA along
side a FidoNet mailer. If you do not operate
such a mailer you do not need to use these
options, and doing so will be of no
advantage.
Mailer Type
Almost all FidoNet mailers fall into two
classes in terms of how they store outgoing
mail, and some mailers implement minor
enhancements to the basic design to implement
explicit addressing to other Zones and
InspectA 45
Configuration
Domains. InspectA may be used with either of
these mailer types by selecting the
appropriate "Outbound" storage method.
Field Description
Outbound This describes the method which the
mailer uses to store outbound mail
and files. Choices are either
Static or Dynamic.
Static mailers use the "outbound
directory" method, which uses
either a single directory or a
series of directories to store
compressed mail archives, packets,
file attach and file request lists.
The remote address of outbound mail
is determined directly from the
file and directory names used.
Dynamic mailers use a netmail file
attach to determine what file and
mail is to be transmitted to a
remote system. Compressed netmail
is generally stored in a single
directory, and the name of the mail
bundle may or may not reflect the
name of the remote system; in any
case, the remote address is
determined only by the destination
system in file attach message.
Zones This enables zone support in
determination of outbound
directories, and is only used when
a static mailer is in use.
Points This enables point support (.PNT
subdirectories) in determination of
outbound directories, and is only
used for static mailers.
Domains This switch should be enabled if
your mailer configuration stores
outbound compressed mail for
46 InspectA
Configuration
addresses in different domains in
separate directories. This applies
to both static and dynamic mailers.
Pointnet This field accepts the entry of a
pointnet number. Older mail
utilities may not have been built
to understand or implement full
point addressing, but instead used
a pseudo network number ("point
network") and had the mailer
software do the address translation
as required. If you have any
software that does this, entering
the pointnet number here will
enable InspectA to do similar
translation of pointnet addresses.
The name of the outbound directory is
determined by entering it in the Paths
section and selecting "Outbound" as the
directory type.
Address
Every FidoNet system identifies itself by at
least one address, and possibly others. The
first address that a system uses is regarded
as special, because it determines the
behaviour of many aspects of system
operation.
Addresses are defined in the Address entry
screen; this presents a list of currently
defined addresses (if any) in the format:
zone:net/node.point@domain
where ".point" is optional. If your network
does not use zones, this also may be omitted
(but must not be if you do use zones). This
also applies to the "@domain" portion.
From the address list, you can Add a new
address by pressing INS, Delete by pressing
InspectA 47
Configuration
DEL, or Modify by pressing either ENTER or
F2.
Because the order of addresses in this list
is significant, you are also able to reorder
the list by holding down either SHIFT key and
using the ARROW KEYS to change the relative
position of the current address.
Domain Equivalents
The lack of specification of domain used in
FidoNet software has unfortunately led to
their misuse. As domain aware software - such
as InspectA - comes into use, there is a high
risk of ambiguity in addresses where an
invalid domain is used in messages. The
unfortunate side-effect of this is to cause
mail not to be routed correctly, or at all.
To compensate, InspectA employs two
strategies. When an address is examined, only
the letters up to the first period ('.') are
regarded as significant, voiding any
additional data as superfluous. This is only
done as a temporary measure until sub-domains
are implemented in FidoNet software. Note
that InspectA will never change an existing
address in a message or packet as a result of
this - it only uses this information as a
means of 'normalising' addresses for the
purposes of comparison.
Secondly, InspectA provides a facility to
'remap' one domain to another to make them
equivalent. Whenever the first nominated
character sequence is encountered as a
domain, it is automatically assumed to be
equivalent to the second. While this scheme
is not perfect, it can be used to effectively
compensate for domain misuse. Note that
because the sub-domain portion of domains are
removed prior scanning for equivalents, the
mapping of domains with multiple parts back
to their root name equivalent is unnecessary.
However, the facility to do this is present
because it is expected that the need to do
48 InspectA
Configuration
sub-domain truncation will eventually expire
and the removal of this feature in InspectA
and other software from Unique Computing will
occur in due course.
To Add a new equivalent, press INS, Delete
with DEL and modify using ENTER or F2.
Technical Note: The equating of domains
supports recursion of up to 16 levels,
although use in this manner is probably not
all that useful. You should avoid using
'circular' definitions, where one string
equates to itself, directly or indirectly.
This not only does it make no sense, but it
can lead to some unexpected results.
Products
InspectA's product table is simple a list of
FTSC (FidoNet Technical Standards Committee)
assigned product codes. These codes are used
in packet headers to determine the software
which was responsible for creating the
packet, and is quite useful diagnostic
information. Using this table, INSPECT is
able to look up the name of the software by
its product code, and display that
information in packet view mode.
You can manually add new products, delete or
modify existing ones, but the most common
form of entry is to simply use the latest
FTSCPROD, a file issued and maintained by the
FTSC. InspectA is supplied with the latest
version available as at the date of release.
To read in an FTSCPROD list, press F3. This
requests the name of the file to read; you
can enter the name directly, change directory
after pressing F9, or by using F6 to list and
select files.
There may also be some cause to edit records
in this list to give some assistance to the
way in which InspectA interprets packet
headers. Older mail processors used a packet
InspectA 49
Configuration
header format which did not offer zone, point
or domain addressing capability; newer
variations have since been introduced which
provide these parts of the source and
destination address, and those packet formats
(type 2+ and type 2.2) are automatically
recognised so that the interpretation of the
address is correct. However, some products in
use have not yet implemented the newer packet
types, yet have implemented zone and point
support in a manner quite similar to those
newer formats. If a product is marked "3D" or
"4D" capable, INSPECT will automatically
assume that packets made by products so
marked contain valid address 3D or 4D
addressing if neither of the newer packet
formats are auto-detected.
To enable these flags, highlight the product
code you wish to update and press ENTER or
click on it once with the left mouse button.
Press END to move to the last field, and use
the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys to highlight
the entry you wish to select. Press SPACE to
toggle on or off, as required, then press
ENTER or F10 once to save, or ESC to abort
changes.
Certain products known to support zone and/or
domain addressing are automatically updated
when the FTSCPROD file is read.
Paths
This section allows you to define a list of
directories on your system. These are used as
a both means of quickly accessing them via
the Select Directory function (ALT-I) and
giving them descriptions, and for marking
particular directories for special use by the
FidoNet Mailer functions.
To Add a new directory to the list, press
INS. To Delete, press DEL. To view or modify,
press ENTER or F2. When adding or modifying
50 InspectA
Configuration
a path, the following fields must be
completed:
Field Description
Type This is the type of directory being
defined. Unless you are using the
FidoNet mailer functions, simply
select Dir, which means that no
special significance is being
attached to the directory. Other
options available are:
Netmail This has meaning when a dynamic
mailer is selected; the netmail
directory contains all outbound
mail and file attaches.
Postmail When a dynamic mailer is in use, a
directory with this attribute will
be the one used to place outgoing
file attach and file request
messages. This would normally be
the same as the Netmail directory,
but need not be (which may be
useful, particular on a LAN based
mail system). If no Postmail
directory is defined, the Netmail
directory is used, so there is no
point in defining this if it is the
same as the Netmail directory.
Inbound This defines a directory as one
which your mailer uses to store
files sent to it from another mail
system. If this attribute is set
for the currently displayed
directory, INSPECT will attempt to
resolve the remote address for
inbound ARCmail files, so
recognised by their extension. If
an address can be resolved from
such a file, and no other
description for the file exists,
the resolved address is displayed
as the description.
InspectA 51
Configuration
Outbound An Outbound directory has a few
special properties; they should be
dedicated to containment of files
used by the mail system and not
used for any other purpose. Similar
to Inbound directories, the remote
address attaching to a particular
file can usually be resolved from
the file name (always in the case
of a static mailer, and only
sometimes when a dynamic mailer is
used).
When used with a static mailer, you
should only define your primary
outbound path in this manner;
InspectA will determine outbound
other zone and other domain
directories automatically by the
fact that they share the same base
directory and presence of the zone
extension.
Path This is the actual path name, and
should always be a fully resolved
path, including disk drive letter.
Title An optional description. If given,
the description will be displayed
with the path name on the title bar
in the File Manager.
Keys
One of InspectA's most powerful features is
that it provides the ability to attach
external programs to any desired key, giving
it the ability to act as an effective front-
end shell. External programs can be
integrated into InspectA to enhance its
functionality because the keyboard macro
facility also allows you to give information
to any external program on its command line;
you can mark files and have them processed
one at a time, multiple files at a time, or
placed into a response file and even prompt
52 InspectA
Configuration
the user for information when required.
InspectA can then become a suitable way to
use all of those powerful command line driven
utilities without having to repeatedly type
in the command itself.
In addition to being available from the
keyboard, these same functions can also be
accessed from the Special pulldown menu
available from the File Manager.
To Add a new key definition, press INS,
Delete using DEL, view or Modify using ENTER
or F2. SHIFT-INSERT may be used to Clone an
existing entry, to use it as a template for a
new definition. CTRL-S sorts the list by key
name.
When adding or modifying, the following
fields are presented for entry:
Field Description
Key The description in this field shows
the key being re-defined. If a new
key is being added, simply press
the key combination you wish to
define. Note that if you wish to
abort entry at this point you must
press the ESC key twice - once to
satisfy this prompt and move on,
and secondly to abort. To avoid
keys being inadvertently being
redefined when editing, you are
required to press F2 to edit the
key.
Some keyboards may generate key
codes about which ICONFIG may have
no knowledge (it is familiar with
only the 86-89 key "PC" and "AT"
style keyboards, and the 101-key
"extended" keyboard). In this case,
instead of a description of the key
being placed in this field, the
InspectA 53
Configuration
characters "0x" followed by a
hexadecimal code are used.
For an explanation of SHIFT, ALT
and CTRL key descriptions, see
below.
Operation The entry selected in this field
determines if the key definition
invokes an external program (the
default) or an internal function.
If the former, then the Command
field may be entered; if not, then
the next field will be skipped.
In addition to external commands,
all internal functions available
from the File Manager may be
reassigned, or the same function
may be set to be invoked from more
than one key definition according
to preference. However, the most
common use of this capability will
be to integrate external commands.
Command If the current key definition is an
External Command, then this field
accepts the command name to run.
This is a template macro, in which
character sequences starting with
'$' will be replaced by file names
- see the following section on
Macros for details.
This field accepts multiple
commands separated by the caret
character '^', and you may use
environment variables by
surrounding the variable name with
percent characters '%', as in batch
files. If you need to include a
literal '%' in your command line,
use '%%'.
For example, if you had an
environment variable HOME set to
D:\USERS\MYDIR, you can enter the
command:
54 InspectA
Configuration
dir %HOME%
and the following command will be
used:
dir D:\USERS\MYDIR
The maximum length of any
individual command issued to MSDOS
after environment variables are
expanded and macros substituted is
126 characters; when the $m macro
is used, the command may be
executed multiple times if
substituting all file names on the
one command line will not fit
within that limitation. The OS/2
version limits command line length
for each command to 1024
characters.
The maximum length of all commands
before both environment variable
and macro substitution is 1024
(2048 in OS/2 mode) bytes, and
after substitution is 2048 (4096)
bytes; exceeding either of these
will result in the command being
silently truncated.
Description The description field is displayed
in the Special pulldown menu
accessed from the File Manager.
Req mem [MSDOS] This specifies the minimum
amount of memory that should be
free for the command to execute. If
this amount of memory is free
without requiring program image
swapping, then swapping is skipped,
usually resulting in faster
execution.
The special value 0 forces swapping
irrespective of free memory, and -1
prevents swapping always.
InspectA 55
Configuration
Rescan If Rescan is enabled for a command,
the current directory will be
reread. Change this to Yes for any
command you define which affects or
changes files other than the
currently highlighted file, or
otherwise changes the contents of
the current directory. If set to
No, InspectA will only rescan if
the file or directory highlighted
in the current File Manager window
has been modified.
Key Descriptions
To identify keys and key combinations,
ICONFIG and INSPECT both refer to keys in a
specific way.
Normal keys use standard identifiers;
alphabetic keys use their corresponding
letter, symbols use the symbols as marked on
the keyboard, function keys use F1 through
F12, and keypad keys use LEFT, RIGHT, UP,
DOWN, HOME, END, PGUP, PGDN, INS, DEL, GREY-,
GREY+, GREY*. Other special keys are TAB,
ENTER, SPACE and BACKSPACE.
Any of these keys may be modified by
indicating their shift-state; that is, when
one or more of SHIFT, ALT or CTRL are held
down while they are pressed. ALT-KEY
combinations are preceded by the '@' symbol;
ALT-C becomes @c. SHIFT-KEY (when either left
or right shift key is held down) combinations
are indicated by a preceding '#' sign.
Finally, CTRL-KEYs are preceded by a
circumflex '^'.
Macros
Macros are used as a way of substituting the
current file name or a marked file into the
command line, or inserting other information
as entered by the user. This allows you to
use the marking facility in the File Manager
56 InspectA
Configuration
to integrate functions not available
internally.
There is a great deal of similarity between
the command macros and macros available in
archiving commands.
Macro Replaced with
$a Current file or directory
$p The current directory name.
$f Marked (or current, if none are
marked) file name. If more than one
file is marked, the command line
will be executed multiple times
until the list of files is
exhausted. with each of the marked
file names substituted in turn. If
there are no files marked, the
currently highlighted file is used,
and the command executed only once.
$m Multiple file names; if no files
are marked, the current file name
is used, otherwise the names of
marked files are used. The command
may be executed multiple times if
the command line would otherwise
exceed the MSDOS maximum of 126
characters, or the OS/2 limit of
1024 characters.
$r A redirect list (also called a
response file), which contains the
names of files or members to
operate on.
$? Prompt for input. This macro allows
one or more parts of the command
line to be given by the user. If a
'{' follows $?, the text following
and all characters up to and
including the next '}' are
displayed as a prompt. For example,
InspectA 57
Configuration
$?{What is your name?} prompts for
input and displays "What is your
name?" above the input field. The
results are placed in the command
line and substituted for the $?,
with the optional prompt and
brackets deleted. A default
response may also be given by
following the prompt text by a
vertical bar.
An example:
echo Hello, $?{Your name?|Me!}
This defines the command; InspectA
first prompts with "Your name?",
offering a default response of
"Me!". After accepting input, the
command
echo Hello <response>
(where "<response>" is whatever was
typed) is then run.
It is quite valid to use any of the
other template macros or
environment variables in response
to the prompt.
$$ Replaced with a single '$'.
The macros '$a', '$f', '$m' and '$r' contain
fully qualified path names. It is often
convenient to not use the directory portion
of these names, so the following list of
modifiers may be added to these macros to
either omit or only use parts. The modifier
is a single character and is placed after the
'$' and prior the 'a', 'f', 'm' or 'r' (note
that with the macro '$r', the path name of
the files placed into the redirect list are
58 InspectA
Configuration
affected by the modifier, not the name of the
temporary file used).
Modifier Description
+ (plus) Remove the directory portion
.
- (minus) Remove the extension
= (equals) Remove both the directory
and extension.
_ (underline) Remove the directory
and file portion (leaving only the
file extension).
. (period) Remove any trailing dots
from the file name.
# (hash) Use forward slash as the
directory separator.
ICONFIG will allow you to define the same key
twice. However, only the first defined in the
list will be used. To assist in locating
duplicates, the facility to sort the list has
been added, by pressing CTRL-S.
File Associations
This section provides the ability to
associate a nominated external command with a
file in the File Manager. By default, file
selection simply views a file using either
the standard viewer, or the internal archive
lister or packet/message viewer, but this may
be varied by defining a file specification
and an external command.
A file specification is a file name that can
include wildcards. These are identical to the
wildcards the operating system accepts on the
command line, including the characters '*'
InspectA 59
Configuration
(replaces many characters) and '?' (replaces
a single character. When a file is selected
in the File Manager, INSPECT scans this list
for a match, and if found will execute the
appropriate command. If not found, it will
fall through to the appropriate viewing
function.
To Add a new file specification to the list,
press INS; to Delete, press DEL; to Modify,
press ENTER or F2. On adding or modifying an
entry, the following fields are presented:
Field Description
Filespec This is the file specification to
associate with the command. This
may be as simple as matching on
extension only (eg. *.BAT), or more
complex use of wildcards, such as
"STR*.C" (which matches all files
with names starting with "STR" with
the extensions ".C").
Command This field contains the command(s)
to run. You can also make use of
the template macros available in
key definitions as explained in the
previous section, including the $?
macro to prompt the user for
information.
Description Enter an optional description; this
is only displayed in the File
Specification list as presented
here.
Req mem [MSDOS] This field contains the
minimum amount of memory that must
be free for the command to execute.
If this amount of memory is already
free without requiring program
image swapping, then swapping is
skipped, usually resulting in
faster execution.
60 InspectA
Configuration
The special value 0 forces swapping
irrespective of free memory, and -1
prevents swapping.
Rescan If Rescan is enabled for a command,
the current directory will be
reread. Change this to Yes for any
command you define which affects or
changes files or the contents of
the current directory. If set to
No, InspectA will only rescan if
the file or directory highlighted
in the current File Manager window
has been modified.
NOTE: This option does not yet fully
support long filenames under OS/2. This
issue will be addressed in a future
version of InspectA.
Text
The Text option provides the facility to
export or import configuration data between
text and InspectA's condensed binary format.
This makes it easier to make bulk changes to
an existing configuration using a plain text
editor's search & replace functions, and re-
reading those modifications back into
InspectA's internal format.
A text file exported by ICONFIG consists of
sections, each containing Variable=Value
pairs. The general format of one section is:
[section-heading]
variable1=value1
variable2=value2
.
.
When Importing a file, ICONFIG automatically
initialises all data covered by any section
before reading in any new values. If a
section is not included in the text file
InspectA 61
Configuration
being imported, then data in that section
remains untouched. This means that you can
extract a full configuration, but you only
need to import the complete section to which
you make changes.
Specific details about the variable names
used can be found in an appendix to this
manual. The main text configuration file
sections are:
Section Description
[general] This section contains general
configuration items, such as
EMS/XMS/Disk swapping setup for
DOS, temporary path for archived
file viewing, and the default
editor/viewer programs.
[video] Contains all video and mouse
related options.
[archive] Contains the archive command
definitions and templates.
[mailer] All mailer configuration items.
[paths] Contains details for system paths
and their descriptions.
[externals] Defines all keyboard overrides,
external keyboard command
definitions and file specifications
used to run external programs.
Import
The Import option requests a file name. You
can use the standard File Selection Prompt
(see Appendix) to navigate your disk and
locate the file you wish to import.
62 InspectA
Configuration
Export
The Export option asks for a path/file name
to export to. If the file you give already
exists, confirmation to overwrite it will be
requested.
Quit
This option requests that ICONFIG terminates
and returns you to the previously running
process (command prompt or INSPECT). If
changes to the configuration were made,
ICONFIG first asks whether you wish to retain
them by saving to disk. The save file name is
shown on the top line of the screen and
cannot be changed.
InspectA 63
InspectA Functions
InspectA Functions
This section provides an in-depth look at
each of the major functions.
File Manager
When first invoked without specifying an
archive to examine, InspectA is in "file
management" mode. It displays at least one
window showing the contents of the current
directory, with subdirectories shown in
uppercase, and files in lower case. To
display more entries, use the PGUP and PGDN
keys to move up and down keys. You may also
move around the list with the mouse (if
active) and using the SCROLLBAR on the right
of the list. Click the left mouse button on
the top or bottom dark area on the SCROLLBAR
to move the file selector up or down by
entry. To move in larger increments, click on
the SCROLLBAR above or below the current
position marker. To move directly to a new
position in the list, click with the left
mouse button on the current position marker
and drag it to a new position on the
SCROLLBAR.
There are some additional controls in each
window which provide the ability to
manipulate, move and resize.
To move, click on the title bar with the
left mouse button and while holding down
the button, drag the window to a new
position. The keyboard equivalent is the
GREY-* key, using the ARROW KEYS to move.
Release the mouse button (press ENTER)
when moved to the desired position.
64 InspectA
InspectA Functions
To resize, click on the bottom right hand
corner of the window and drag the corner
to adjust the size. If you are using the
keyboard, press GREY-* and hold down the
SHIFT key to adjust the size. Release the
mouse button or press ENTER to confirm.
To zoom or un-zoom the window, click the
left mouse button on the up-arrow icon on
the upper right corner of the window. This
may also be done by using CTRL-ENTER from
the keyboard.
Windows may be iconised when not in use.
This means that the window is temporarily
collapsed, taking up less room on the
desktop and appearing only as a directory
name in background. To iconise, click with
the mouse on the down-arrow symbol to the
left of the upper right corner of the
window or press SHIFT-NUMPAD-5. To restore
an iconised window, click the left mouse
button on the symbol on the desktop to the
left of the directory name. At least one
window must be open at all times, so if
only one window is displayed, it cannot be
iconised or closed.
To close a window, click on the top left
corner on the window. SHIFT-DEL performs
this same function from the keyboard.
To open a new window, press SHIFT-INS or
use the mouse to pull down the Window sub-
menu and select Open.
Files display
The contents of any file lists is determined
by a configurable list format defined in
ICONFIG. By default, InspectA automatically
installs three formats:
Default contains a useful amount of
information for most common uses,
and is similar to that used by an
DOS DIR command in the MSDOS
InspectA 65
InspectA Functions
version, or OS/2 DIR in the OS/2
version.
Brief contains just the bare essentials -
the file name, type and
description.
Full displays most information available
about a file.
You can modify these formats,. delete
unnecessary ones and add more. The format
used for the current window can be changed by
using ALT-F8, or by selecting the List Format
option from the Utils pulldown menu.
The meaning of file information displayed is
usually obvious. The only field which may
require further explanation is the Attributes
field. This is a series of single characters,
each position represents a single attribute
for a file - a dot is displayed if the
attribute is not set, but a letter is
displayed if it is. The following list
explains the precise meaning of each
attribute.
System s System file attribute. This is a
special attribute used to identify
special operating system files. You
should avoid deleting or modifying
any file with this attribute set
because it will almost always be
required.
Hidden h This attribute indicates that a
file is hidden from view in the DIR
command. It will also be invisible
to many programs which list the
contents of the directory (the same
is also true of System files).
These are rarely as important as
files marked with the System
attribute, but are usually hidden
to prevent accidental deletion.
Read-only r Read-only files are visible using
DIR, but cannot be modified. Files
66 InspectA
InspectA Functions
are marked with this attribute to
prevent casual or accidental
modification.
Archive a Whenever a file is written to or
created, this attribute is
automatically set. It is usually
only reset by programs which a
responsible for backing up files.
Using this built-in facility, it is
possible to do incremental backup
of only changed files, avoiding
having to back up a large amount of
data each time.
Shareable S This attribute will only ever be
seen on files which exist on a
Novell Network network volume
(MSDOS only). It is a special
attribute used for backwards
compatibility with older non-
network aware applications which do
not use file sharing modes to
access files, but are nevertheless
able to share files without
conflict.
File descriptions are read from one of the
configured 'description list' files. If any
are specified (see ICONFIG, General, Lists),
INSPECT will look for each name in turn after
reading all files, then match any
descriptions contained in the first file
successfully opened against files in the
current directory.
In the case of paths configured with the
Outbound or Inbound attributes (see ICONFIG,
Paths), when in either type of directory is
current, InspectA will attempt to resolve
FidoNet addressing in any recognised mail-
related file types. The resolved address is
displayed as a file description.
InspectA 67
InspectA Functions
Functions
Following is a list of File Manager
functions. The key assignments given are the
default ones, and all functions, except where
marked, are also available from the pulldown
menu.
F1 Help
Accesses the help system.
F2 Global Mark
Toggles the global file marker; if all
files are currently marked (marked files
are highlighted and a square block appears
to the left of the file name), they are
all unmarked, else all files are marked.
This is useful when performing global
operations on all files in the current
directory.
F3 View
Views the current file in list text/binary
mode.
F4 Edit
Invokes the editor with the currently
selected file as the file to edit.
F5 Copy
Copy the current file, or all marked
files. (see also F6, MOVE).
F6 Move
Moves or renames the current file, or all
marked files. Depending on the destination
68 InspectA
InspectA Functions
path or file specified, this will either
move the files with the same names to a
different place on the same or another
disk, or rename the files. Note that wild
card renames are also supported (ie.
marked files can be renamed to *.cxx, if
that is specified). Individual directories
may also be renamed using this option,
although this may not work on some
networks (in which case, InspectA will
simply report an error).
F7 Mkdir
Creates a new directory.
F8 Sort
Provides the ability to change the default
sorting order of files. Note that
subdirectories are ALWAYS at the top of
the list, irrespective of the current
sorting method.
F9 Tree
Logs the entire drive's directory tree,
and presents a graphical view of its
directory structure, and allows you to
"walk" through directories and get
directly where you wish to go. If you have
given the -m command line switch, logging
and selecting drives will automatically
read and update the DISKMAP.IND in the
root directory of each drive visited. This
speeds up operating significantly.
F10 Exec
Execute. The function of this key depends
on the currently highlighted file. If it
is an executable file (has a .EXE, .COM or
.BAT extension) it will prompt for
additional command line arguments and
InspectA 69
InspectA Functions
execute that program (this can be
overridden, if necessary). Otherwise,
InspectA simply prompts for a program to
run and a command line to use, with the
currently highlighted file name the
default.
The "exec" prompt has a command line
history which maintains the last 64
command entered. press UP for previous,
DOWN for next, PGUP for first and END for
the last command entered.
ALT-F9 Save Windows
Saves the current desktop arrangement to
disk (in INSPECT.SAV).
ALT-F8 Next Format
Switches to the next file list format
type.
ALT-F7 Video Mode
This option switches video modes if the
display adaptor supports it. If the
configuration file defines a "custom" mode
(or, in OS/2, custom rows and colums),
then this may also be switched to, whether
it is active or not.
ALT-F6 Set Video Mode
This has the same effect as ALT-F7, but
also enables the "set mode" switch, so
that the previously active mode is not
restored when exiting or when running
external programs.
70 InspectA
InspectA Functions
ALT-F5 Toggle File Statistics
Toggles the file statistics window on or
off. Whether this window is displayed or
not initially depends on an option in
ICONFIG.
ALT-Q Quit
ALT-Q is an alias of ESC, which will exit
InspectA. The difference between the two
is that Alt-Q leaves the current screen
displayed and (under MSDOS only) the
current directory as shown in the file
manager, which is convenient if you wish
to carry out some operation from the
command line using information displayed
by the file manager.
ESC Exit
Exits InspectA, returns to the original
drive and directory from which InspectA
was invoked (if it still exists) and
restores the screen).
SPACE Mark
Toggles the file marker for the current
file.
CTRL-PGUP Updir
Change to parent directory.
CTRL-PGDN DnDir
Change to the currently highlighted sub-
directory. This key is ignored unless the
currently highlighted file is a directory.
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InspectA Functions
CTRL-R Rescan
Rereads the current directory; useful in
networking and multi-tasking environments
to reread the disk when it has changed.
CTRL-S Scan
Examines all files in the current
directory to determine the file type. The
type description replaces the " ? " in the
file display, or remains that if the file
type cannot be determined.
CTRL-E Previous Command
Brings up the "Exec" (F10) prompt with the
previously executed command.
CTRL-F Locate
Scans a directory and all subdirectories
for files matching a given file
specification. The specification given may
include any valid file spec, including
wildcard characters. On completing the
scan - which can be interrupted at any
time by using the ESC key - a list of
matching files will be presented.
Selecting any matching file moves into its
directory and highlights it.
CTRL-D Drive
Select a different drive to examine.
Displays a list of available drives and
the current directory on each drive;
select the new drive with arrow keys and
ENTER or simply type the letter as
required.
72 InspectA
InspectA Functions
ALT-A Add/Create Archive
Allows selected files to be added to an
existing archive (see below for available
types), or a new archive created
containing those files.
If adding to an existing archive, be sure
to give the extension. InspectA will then
be able to read it and automatically
determine which archiver to use to add
files to it and will not need to prompt
you to select the archiver type.
ALT-C Configure InspectA
This option loads ICONFIG for interactive
configuration. On exiting ICONFIG, INSPECT
will reload the new configuration from
INSPECT.INI if it has been modified..
ALT-T Test Archives
Allows selected files to be tested for
archive integrity. If none are
highlighted, the current file is tested.
Files being tested must be compressed file
archives, and are simply skipped if not.
If a corrupted archive is located
(indicated by a non-zero error code
returned by the archive program), the file
is marked as "corrupt", and an asterisk
will be displayed next to its file type in
the files list.
ALT-S Sort
Alias for F8; select file sort order.
ALT-I Directory Index
If a directory index has been defined, it
is displayed to allow fast change of
directory by selection from the list.
InspectA 73
InspectA Functions
ALT-L List
Alias for F3, View.
ALT-E Edit
Alias for F4, Edit.
ALT-V Virus Scan
The action of this key depends on whether
any files are marked. If none are marked,
the Virus Scan program is invoked to scan
all files in the current directory and
below.
If specific files have been marked, these
are examined and if InspectA determines
that they are a valid archive, all member
files are extracted into a temporary
directory (see View Dir in ICONFIG) and
scanned for viri.
ALT-R Repack Archive
Repack archives. This command may be used
to convert archives to a new type, or
update member files to a newer compression
type. During the repacking process, you
may also invoke the virus scan program to
check member files for viri.
This function is executed on the current
file is none are marked, or all marked
files.
ALT-Z Shell
Shells to the operating system's command
interpreter. Use 'EXIT' to return to
InspectA.
74 InspectA
InspectA Functions
DEL Delete
Erase current or marked files.
ENTER Action
Pressing ENTER selects the current file,
with the action dependant on the file's
type. Note that the type of file is
determined from its contents, and not from
its name.
DIR Directory.
Selecting a directory will
change to that directory and
display files in that directory.
MSG "FTSC-1 *.MSG" message format.
Invokes "message view" mode to
examine the message.
PKT FTSC format packet.
Invokes "packet view" mode,
calling up a list of messages
that it contains.
EXE Executable
Note that some .EXE files are
actually archives with a self-
extracting envelope; when
InspectA detects these, it
assumes the archive type rather
than .EXE.
TXT Text files.
?LO Outbound 'static mailer' file
attach list
BDL Outbound mail file, archiver not
yet determined
BSY Mailer/packer address 'busy' flag
REQ Inbound or outbound file request
list
PRO Mailer call in progress list
Invokes the standard list
program to view the file.
BWZ Incomplete file transfer marker
(FidoNet mailer).
InspectA 75
InspectA Functions
The view mode is dependant on
the type of file detected. If
this cannot be determined, then
the standard list program is
used.
AR5 SEA ARC v5.X
AR6 SEA ARC v6.X
AR7 SEA ARC v7.X
PKA PKWare's PKPAK/PKARC series (v3.5+)
PAK NoGate Consulting's PAK (v2.51)
ZIP PKWare's ZIP (v1.10 or below)
LZH Yoshi's LHARC (v1.13d or below)
LHA Yoshi's LHA (v2.x)
ZOO Dhesi's ZOO (v2.01 or below)
ZOH Dhesi's ZOO with high compression
(v2.10)
ARJ Jung's ARJ (v2.22)
HPK Gutmann's HPACK
ZI2 PKWare's ZIP (2.0 or above)
DWC Cooper's DWC compressor (5.01)
Invokes "archive view" mode,
listing the contents of the
archive for further action.
Note that the above are the default
actions taken as a result of selecting the
corresponding file types. This can be
overridden by defining a file
specification in ICONFIG which specifies
that another external program should be
run instead.
CTRL-ENTER Zoom Window
This toggles the list size between normal
windowed mode and zoomed (full screen).
SHIFT-ENTER View screen
This function provides the ability to view
the DOS or OS/2 screen. InspectA preserves
and uses the initial screen on startup,
and uses this to display output of
external commands. This is useful when
InspectA is used as a front-end to other
76 InspectA
InspectA Functions
applications, so that program output can
be reviewed at any time.
Unless set mode (see ICONFIG, General,
Video) is enabled, InspectA will also
switch back to the original video mode at
startup when running external programs or
viewing the DOS or OS/2 screen. If set
mode is enabled, and a video mode is
selected which results in the screen
dimensions changing, the original screen
cannot be preserved. In that case,
however, InspectA will not need to switch
video mode before running programs or
viewing this screen.
TAB Select next window
If multiple windows are open on the
screen, this key moves to the next window.
If you have a mouse, merely placing the
mouse cursor on the window you wish to
select and clicking once with the left
mouse button will select that window and
make it current. Iconised windows are
skipped.
SHIFT-TAB Window list
SHIFT-TAB provides a full list of
available File Manager windows, including
iconised ones, which are marked with a
symbol on the left of the list entry.
From the Window List, you can Add a window
by pressing INS, Delete a window (except
the last) by using DEL, or selecting any
particular one by highlighting it and
pressing ENTER.
SHIFT-NUM5 Iconise Window
For any window except the last, pressing
this key combination iconises the current
window and moves to the next. This is the
InspectA 77
InspectA Functions
same as clicking on the Minimise control
on the window using the mouse.
SHIFT-INS Open a new window
To add a new window, press shift-ins.
InspectA them prompts for a directory to
start from using the standard file and
directory selection prompt. On accepting
the directory name, a new window is
created with the standard dimensions
defined for the default list format.
SHIFT-DEL Close current window
SHIFT-DEL closes the current window
(unless it is the only open window).
GREY-* Resize or move window
This key is the grey asterisk key on the
numeric keypad. Some earlier XT style
keyboards have this key marked "PrtSc",
"Prt Sc" or "Print Screen". After pressing
this, a double frame is drawn around the
current window; you can use the ARROW KEYS
to move the frame and SHIFT-ARROW KEYS to
resize. Press ENTER to keep the changes or
ESC to restore the original window state.
CTRL-BSPACE View disk statistics
Beneath the File Manager windows, InspectA
maintains another window containing the
current disk, directory and file
statistics. If this is obscured completely
or partially by other windows it can be
temporarily shifted to the top by pressing
CTRL-BACKSPACE.
From the file manager, mark & un-mark
functions are provided by holding down
either SHIFT key and using UP, DOWN, PGUP,
PGDN, HOME and END cursor movement keys.
78 InspectA
InspectA Functions
Some of the functions above require a
"destination" path or file; this involves
the File Selection Prompt, discussed in
length in a later chapter.
/ (fwd-slash) Pulldown menus
The pulldown menu may be accessed by
pressing the forward slash key. You may
then navigate the menus in a "point and
shoot" manner using the ARROW KEYS and
select the function you wish to execute
using ENTER. Press ESC at any time to
return to the File Manager.
\ (back-slash) Change directory
To quickly and directly change the current
window's directory to another, press the
back-slash key. This invokes the standard
file and directory selection prompt where
the directory name to change to may be
typed in directly.
? (questionmark) Toggle Menu
This toggles the pulldown menu titles
on/off.
Archive Manager
InspectA provides the ability to view multi-
file archives of the types described above.
To further manipulate those archives (add to,
delete, extract and view), you will need the
appropriate piece of software as indicated
below. Note that you only need one of the
programs mentioned to support any type, and
that some programs support more than one
format.
InspectA 79
InspectA Functions
FormatOS Description (Author)
AR5 OS2/DOS ARC.EXE, 5.12 or higher (SEA)
DOS PKARC.COM, PKPAK.EXE 3.x (PKWare)
AR6 OS2/DOS ARC.EXE, version 6.02 or higher
(SEA)
AR7 OS2/DOS ARC.EXE, version 7.12 or higher
(SEA)
OS2/DOS ARCPLUS.EXE, version 7.12 (SEA)
OS2/DOS XARC.EXE - extract only (SEA)
PKA DOS PKARC.COM/EXE 3.x, PKPAK.EXE 3.61
(PKWare)
DOS PAK.EXE v2.51 or higher (NoGate)
OS2/DOS ARCPLUS.EXE - extract only (SEA)
PAK DOS PAK.EXE v2.51 or higher (NoGate)
ZIP DOS PKZIP.EXE,PKUNZIP.EXE v1.1 (PKWare)
OS2 PKZIP2.EXE,PKUNZIP2.EXE v1.1
(PKWare)
OS2/DOS ZIP.EXE 1.0, UNZIP.EXE 4.2 (Info-
Zip)
ZI2 DOS PKZIP.EXE,PKUNZIP.EXE v2.04g
(PKWare)
OS2 ZIP.EXE 1.9, UNZIP.EXE 5.0 (Info-
Zip)
LZH DOS LHARC.EXE v1.13 or higher (Yoshi)
DOS LHA.EXE v2.0 or higher (Yoshi)
OS2 LH.EXE v1.x or higher (A:WARE)
LHA DOS LHA.EXE v2.X (Yoshi)
80 InspectA
InspectA Functions
OS2 LH.EXE v2.x or higher (A:WARE)
ZOO OS2/DOS ZOO.EXE v2.01 or higher (Dhesi)
ZOH OS2/DOS ZOO.EXE v2.10 (Dhesi)
ARJ DOS ARJ.EXE v2.x (Jung)
OS2/DOS UNARJ.EXE v2.x (Jung)
HPK OS2/DOS HPACK.EXE 0.78 or higher (Gutman)
NOTE: InspectA no longer supports
HPACK v0.75
DWC DOS DWC.EXE vA5.01
Without these programs, InspectA will still
be able to list the internal directories of
these archive formats, but cannot provide any
further management functions because it
relies upon the programs above to perform the
actual Add, Delete, Extract and Test
operations.
Similar to the files list, the archive viewer
provides the ability to examine the internal
directory of the compressed library. The list
may be scrolled using the ARROW KEYS, and
archive members marked and unmarked by
holding down SHIFT and using UP, DOWN, PGUP,
PGDN, HOME and END keys.
The following functions are available in
Archive View mode:
DEL Delete
Delete current or marked files.
ALT-E Extract
Extract current file or all marked files
to a nominated directory.
InspectA 81
InspectA Functions
ENTER Select
Extract current file, then execute
whatever action would be if the file was
selected from the File Manager list (ie.
view archive, view packet, message or
file).
ALT-Z Shell
Shell to the command interpreter, type
'EXIT' to return to InspectA.
ESC Exit Archive Manager
Quits the Archive Manager and returns to
the File Manager.
FidoNet Related Functions
Skip this section unless you operate a
FidoNet mail system, and wish to make use of
the mail-file handling features of InspectA.
In the Paths section of ICONFIG, you can
nominate that specific directories are
treated as though they are "Inbound" or
"Outbound" file holding areas used by a
FidoNet mailer. These directories have
special properties in that they may contain
files which are named according to their type
and a remote system address, usually in
hexadecimal. To assist in management of mail
and to assist in identifying where mail
packets are destined for or originated from,
InspectA provides the ability to calculate
the remote system address as indicated by the
file name. This appears as a comment to the
right of the file name in the list of files
presented by the File Manager; in all cases,
an explicit entry in the description file
will override any calculated address and will
be displayed in preference.
82 InspectA
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The resolution of remote addresses works most
reliably with Opus/BinkleyTerm outbound
holding areas, since InspectA uses the same
algorithm to determine the address. Make sure
that the FidoNet addresses are configured in
InspectA in the same order as the mailer
users! Also, be sure to suppress those parts
of the addressing which your mailer cannot or
is configured not to use: ie. if you run
Opus, be sure to suppress zone, domain and
point resolution in your "Mailer"
configuration, and configure according to
your BinkleyTerm domain setup and the
"NoZones" setting in BINKLEY.CFG.
Note that when you use a static outbound
mailer such as Opus or BinkleyTerm, you
should specify only the "primary" outbound
area which applies to your first aka's zone
and domain. All of the other outbound areas
will be recognised automatically for
directories which are subdirectories of the
same 'root' directory as the primary one, and
the directory name's extension is a
hexadecimal number.
Use of this facility with dynamic mailers and
various mail packing and processing software
will have varying results since many of them
have different ways of calculating the file
name from the remote address. You will
probably find that the "ARCmail 0.60"
standard naming convention will be used for
other systems in your default address zone
only. In almost all other cases, it is
impossible to work back from the file name to
the destination address by any calculation.
Whenever a calculated address appears to be
suspect, InspectA precedes the address with a
question mark.
You can circumvent this problem by using the
wildcard description feature: once you find
out which system a bundle of a particular
name is destined for, place that name with a
".*" extension into the description file,
followed by the destination address. Since
the description file overrides the calculated
InspectA 83
InspectA Functions
address, the "correct" address is displayed
instead of that which InspectA calculates.
For example:
00000FBC.* 3:632/348.44@fidonet
Even on BinkleyTerm/Opus systems, this can
also be handy to identify bundles in your
inbound directory, where bundle names sent
from remote systems are less predictable and
likely to not conform to the ARCmail 0.60
naming.
Since 4DOS or NDOS may remove descriptions of
this type which do not match with a specific
file, you may find it more convenient to not
use a "DESCRIPT.ION" file for your outbound
files, but instead define a secondary
description list name and use this instead.
When logged into one of these special
directories, InspectA will enable use of
additional file types, which represent what
the files mean to the mailer software. These
are:
?LO Outbound 'static mailer' file
attach list
BDL Outbound mail file, archiver not
yet determined
BSY Mailer 'address busy' flag
REQ Inbound or outbound file request
list
PRO Call in progress list
BWZ Bad 'Wazoo' (file transfer) marker
"BDL" (outbound compressed mail files) are
necessarily archived files, and once a bundle
is accessed or its type determined by
InspectA, this type will be replaced by the
archiving method. However, when initially
84 InspectA
InspectA Functions
logging an inbound or outbound directory,
placing these files into a broad class helps
when sorting all files by type by file name
(and therefore address).
FTSC Type 2 Packet Manager
On selecting a FidoNet type 2.x packet,
InspectA will use its "packet view" mode. The
initial screen displays the packet contents,
one message per line, with packet header
details on the bottom line, including:
Field Description
Type The packet type, which will be one
of:
Stoneage "Old" style type 2 packets. This
type of packet is assumed to
contain no valid zone and point
information.
4D Pkt Several products in FidoNet include
4D (zone and point) information in
packet headers. Other than by
looking at the product code, there
is no certain way of determining
which are 4D packets or not.
InspectA uses the product codes
list defined and maintained in
ICONFIG to determine which product
types have extended addressing
capability, but which may not use
either type-2+ or type2.2 extended
addressing.
Type 2+ This packet type is described in
the FTSC document FSC-0039. Packets
of this type always contain valid
zone and point addressing
information and also contain a
"signature" which readily
InspectA 85
InspectA Functions
identifies them from other packet
types.
Type 2.2 This packet type is used by some
mailers and mail handling software,
and - like type 2+ - is readily
identifiable by its signature.
Since these package can be readily
identified, the zone, point and
domain information is assumed to be
correct.
O= Displays the origin address. This
will be net/node only in the case
of a "stoneage" packet, and will be
4D (zone:net/node.point) for 4D and
2+ types, and 4D
(zone:net/node.point@domain) for
type 2.2 packets. Note that for
type 2.2 packets, domains are
truncated to 8 characters.
D= Displays the destination address
for the packet. The same rules
regarding address resolution apply.
Product The FTSC product code in the packet
header, together with the product
description (if known) is
displayed.
You should refer to the FidoNet Standards
Committee documents FTS-0001 "A basic
FidoNet(r) technical standard", FTS-0039 "A
type-2 packet extension protocol", and FTS-
0045 "A new packet header format", for
additional information contained in and used
by "type 2" mail packets.
Each line in the list represents a packet
message, showing:
Field Description
Inf An entry in the first three places
indicates that data in the packed
86 InspectA
InspectA Functions
message header is in some way
corrupt or malformed. This usually
indicates that one or more messages
may be corrupt, or that the
software used to generate the
original message was in some way
deficient. Entries here will
indicate one of:
D A malformed date. The most common
of these is a missing space in a
"Fido" format date, which should be
of the form:
"DD Mon YY HH:MM:SS".
Although these malformed dates are
reasonably common, they
nevertheless remain a problem
because only dates of exactly 20
characters in length can be
considered valid for type 2 packet
format. Most software does work
around this however.
L One or more fields in the header
are too long. This usually does
mean that a packet is partially or
completely corrupt. The maximum
lengths of header fields are 35
characters for 'to' and 'from'
names, 20 characters for the
message date, and 71 characters for
the message subject.
I Indicates invalid (non-7bit ascii)
data in one or more header fields.
Depending on where you live, this
may or may not indicate that there
is a problem. Some parts of Europe,
in the absence of any standards for
use of character sets, have opted
to use IBM-PC specific characters
as part of their alphabet, and so
this would be considered 'normal'
in that case. However, this
indicator can usually show that the
InspectA 87
InspectA Functions
field's data may be corrupted and
should be examined further.
G Indicate that the message is
"grunged" in some way. This comes
about if any embedded NUL (ASCII
0)'s are discovered at any position
in between the message header
information and the following
message or end of packet. A NUL is
used to indicate the end of a
message, so if a NUL is discovered
at a position which is not the end
of the message as expected, then
the message is considered garbled
and invalid.
Date Date of the message, or *Invalid*
if it cannot be read at all.
InspectA reads and interprets a
number of technically non-standard
dates in addition to those formats
specifically allowed by FTS-0001.
It will, however flag an error on
the date, even if it can be
interpreted if the date format is
non-compliant.
From Author of the message.
To Name to which the message is
addressed.
Subject Message subject (or if "area" mode
is enabled, it shows the echomail
tag for the message, or "NETMAIL"
if it doesn't have one).
As each message is highlighted with the
cursor bar, additional information regarding
each message is shown above the packet header
information at the foot of the display,
consisting of:
88 InspectA
InspectA Functions
Field Description
[#/#] Message number of a total number of
messages.
Origin Shows the origin address of the
currently highlighted message. Note
that packed message headers do not
contain zone, point or domain
information, so this will show only
net/node.
Dest Destination address of the
currently highlighted message.
Offset Shows the offset (distance in bytes
from the start of file) of the
current message in hexadecimal
notation. This is useful when a
mail processor records offsets at
which it considers a message
grunged or corrupted. The problem
can be quickly located and
eliminated
Area If the message is an echomail
message (ie. the message text
starts with AREA:<tag> or the
message body contains a
^aAREA:<tag> control line), the
area tag is shown. Anything else is
assumed to be netmail.
Functions available from the packed message
list are:
ENTER View message
View highlighted message, enter message
view mode.
InspectA 89
InspectA Functions
ALT-H Packet header
Displays packet header information. The
first displayed window shows the complete
message header, interpreted according to
its type, together with other relevant
information. Pressing Alt-H again cycles
through two other screens, which include a
hex and ascii dump of the message header
and packet diagnostic information.
SPACE Mark
Mark a message (usually for deletion).
F2 Global Mark
Mark/un-mark all messages.
CTRL-A Area
Toggles the display of AREA: tags for each
message instead of subject.
DEL Delete
Deletes a message (or all marked messages)
from a packet. BE CAREFUL IF YOU USE THIS
OPTION. When deleting the first message
from a packet, InspectA will warn you that
you are about to delete mail. Note that
the message is not immediately deleted,
and this is delayed until you allow the
packet to be rebuilt.
ALT-S Sort
Selects the sorting criteria for messages
within the packet. When used with Alt-C
(set changed flag), this can be used to
physically reorder messages within a
packet.
90 InspectA
InspectA Functions
ALT-C Toggle "changed"
Toggles the "packet changed" flag. When
set, InspectA will ask whether you wish to
rebuild the packet when ESC is pressed.
ALT-M Export to message
Exports one or all marked messages to
*.MSG format to a directory nominated.
CTRL-S Split packet
This function provides the ability to
split the current packet into one or more
packets - it is especially handy for
splitting very large packets for more
convenient handling.
Note that use of this function does not
require that the entire packet can be read
into memory and will work regardless of
whether the packet scan has been completed
or not. You can use ESC to abort the scan
and then CTRL-S to split the packet.
ALT-Z Shell
Shell to DOS.
Messages may also be marked/un-marked by
holding down the SHIFT key and using the UP,
DOWN, PGUP, PGDN, HOME and END keys to mark
in the direction moved.
Message View
When viewing messages within packets, the
following keys may be used:
InspectA 91
InspectA Functions
Key Description
LEFT Previous message
RIGHT Next message
HOME First message in packet
END Last message in packet
UP Scroll message up
DOWN Scroll message down
PGDN Scroll message down 1 screen
PGUP Scroll message up 1 screen
CTRL-S Toggle seen-by viewing
CTRL-C Toggle hard CR viewing
CTRL-K Toggle control line viewing
CTRL-M Export individual messages to .MSG
format
SPACE Toggle mark
When viewing .MSG files from the files list
directly, the above keys also apply, except
that only one message may be viewed at a
time, and exporting to .MSG format is not
available.
92 InspectA
Common Features
Common Features
Various other parts of the user interface are
common throughout the program and do not vary
irrespective of their context.
Path Selection
The first of these is the entry window used
to enter directory file or path names. In
addition to simple field entry in which the
directory or path to use may be entered from
the keyboard, the window also offers the
following additional functions:
F6 Files List
Enters files list selection mode (see
below, Files List Selection).
F9 Directory Tree
Press F9 to invoke the directory view mode
(see below, Directory Tree).
F8 Paths Index
Allows a directory to be selected from the
"Path Index", which is defined in the
Paths list in ICONFIG.
ENTER Select File/Directory
Pressing enter (F10 is also an alias)
confirms entry. If the field is empty,
Files List mode will be invoked, showing
InspectA 93
Common Features
all files in the current directory. If the
file or directory is not acceptable for
some reason, an error message will be
displayed and you will be returned to the
path selection prompt.
ESC Abort
Aborts/cancels entry and returns to the
original context.
Files List Selection
File selection offers the ability to browse
the directory structure to select the file or
directory you wish to action. By supplying a
wildcard specification at the Path Selection
prompt, you can also limit what you see to
only those files which match the wildcard, or
directories.
For example, if you enter:
D:\FILES\*.BAT
then the only files that will be displayed
are those with the extension "BAT" and all
directories, starting in the directory
D:\FILES.
Pressing ENTER on any directory entry changes
to that directory. ENTER while on any non-
directory entry selects the highlighted file
as the target. If you wish to select a
directory name, press F10 instead.
Use CTRL-D to change drives (see below, Drive
Selection).
F9 invokes the graphical directory tree (see
below, Directory Tree)
ESC aborts file selection and returns to the
Path Selection prompt.
94 InspectA
Common Features
You can also type in letters to locate the
file name with the closest match. TAB clears
all letters previously entered.
Directory Tree
This may be used to easily find a particular
directory by moving around a "tree" diagram
instead of having to move through multiple
directories to select the one you want.
The Directory Tree is either derived by
scanning all directories on a drive when it
is invoked, or it may be optionally read from
disk if the option to use a Directory Index
is enabled in ICONFIG (General, Options). If
the current directory on a drive is not
present in the directory index read from
disk, InspectA will ask if you wish to rescan
the drive to update the index file.
When the tree is displayed, the following
keys may be used:
Key Description
UP/DOWN Navigate the tree, up and down,
from one branch to the next.
RIGHT Parent to child or next sibling if
not child exists.
LEFT Child to parent.
HOME Top of list (root directory)
END Bottom of the list.
PGUP/PGDN Up or down by screen.
ENTER Select a directory, return to
caller.
InspectA 95
Common Features
CTRL-R Rescan current drive; this forces
InspectA to physically scan the
drive and re-generate its view of
the drive. Since disk index files
can get out of date due to
directories being created or
deleted outside of InspectA, you
should do this periodically
whenever you find an inconsistency
between what is presented on the
directory tree and the disk itself.
Note that INSPECT's -m command line
switch provides a way of updating
these automatically on all non-
removable drives.
CTRL-D/F9 Select drive. This provides a means
of switching the viewed drive from
the directory tree display. See
Drive Selection below for more
information.
<text> To locate a directory without
having to scroll up and down the
tree, you can simply type its name
and have InspectA home in on it to
locate a close or exact match.
TAB/SHIFT-TAB Search for next directory matching
the search text. For example, if
you have two directories named
"SECRET", then typing in the
letters S-E-C-R-E-T will locate the
first one below the current
starting position with that name.
Move to the next directory of the
same name by using this key.
INS Make a new directory below the one
currently highlighted.
DEL Delete the highlighted directory.
The directory being deleted must
contain no files or subdirectories
whatsoever for the deletion to be
successful. Also, you should ensure
that the directory being deleted is
96 InspectA
Common Features
not your current directory (you can
change if necessary by using the
SPACE key).
F2 Renames the highlighted directory.
You may be prevented from doing
this on some networks which require
special network-specific ways to
change directory names.
The following keys are also active if the
directory tree is invoked from the files
list:
SPACE Change to the highlighted directory
and refresh the files list
displayed beneath the directory
tree window.
F10 Enables "follow-me" mode, which
forces InspectA to refresh the
files list displayed as you move
from one directory to the next.
This is similar to pressing SPACE
each time a new directory is
selected. This may slow things down
considerably on some systems.
If the directory tree is invoked from the
files pick list, the following keys may be
used:
F10 Switch to the files picklist.
Drive Selection
The Drive Selection list is a pop-up
available directly from the File Manager
(CTRL-D), from the Directory Tree, or from
the Path Selection prompt from the directory
or file selector windows.
This presents a list of available drives; the
current directory is shown next to each drive
letter, as well as available disk space. If
the drive is a non-removable type (ie. a
InspectA 97
Common Features
floppy disk), InspectA does not attempt to
read the disk to determine the current
directory and free space, but instead
displays the word "<floppy>". If the drive is
on a network or CD-ROM, an asterisk is
displayed between the drive letter and
directory name.
To select a drive letter, move the cursor
using the ARROW KEYS or mouse, or press the
key corresponding to the drive letter. Press
ENTER to select. ESC cancels drive selection.
98 InspectA
Networks & CD-ROM
Networks & CD-ROM
InspectA is fully network compatible; it is
both aware of and explicitly supports use on
a network, including all NETBIOS and SHARE
based networks and Novell Netware. This
section lists some of the considerations you
may wish to take into account when setting up
InspectA for use by multiple users.
NOTE: Use of InspectA on a network by
multiple users simultaneously requires a
multiple-user site licence.
User Configuration
Users on a network should share a single copy
of INSPECT.EXE and ICONFIG.EXE, but may elect
to share a common configuration file, or
maintain a separate one with personal
preferences. In the first case (a shared
configuration), place INSPECT.INI into the
same directory as the executable file. For
personal setup, you must also set the HOME
environment variable on each workstation (or
for each user) to point to a unique location
on the network drive or to a local
workstation drive and have each user run
ICONFIG. This will force the public version
of INSPECT.INI to be read as a template, but
the output will be placed into the personal
directory and read from there whenever
INSPECT or ICONFIG is run. Any changes
subsequently made to the configuration will
be stored in the user's personal INSPECT.INI.
You need not have separate configurations
simply to account for hardware differences;
ie. colour vs. monochrome monitor, 25 line
vs. 43/50 line. InspectA automatically takes
hardware capability into account on startup.
InspectA 99
Networks & CD-ROM
If you need to override this (for example, if
you run a colour capable video card with a
monochrome monitor in a colour video mode)
then you can change InspectA's behaviour by
using command line switches.
Disk Index Files
Because network volumes and CD-ROM drives may
not be writable, you may need to take this
into account for items which are normally
written to and maintained on the drive
itself; namely the disk directory index file
used by the Directory Tree selector.
ICONFIG provides a way to get around the
problem by providing an option to use a
particular path for storage of the directory
index. These are found in General, Options:
Index Path If a drive and directory is given
here, all directory index files are
placed in the nominated directory,
with the first letter of the index
file name is substituted for the
drive letter.
Note that if no drive letter is
given, disk index files on all
drives are stored in a subdirectory
of the given drive.
Net Path Only If this switch is enabled, InspectA
will only use the Index Path for
network and CD-ROM drives. Local
logical drive indices are stored in
the index file name nominated in
the root directory of the drive.
You may need to take the following into
consideration:
If all workstations share the same drive
mappings, you would benefit by placing
directory index files on a network volume,
readable and writeable by all users on the
network. Whenever any user makes, deletes
100 InspectA
Networks & CD-ROM
or renames a directory, the shared index
file for the drive is updated for all
users.
If workstations use different mappings,
then maintaining shared index files on the
network would cause some collisions in
what each workstation considers is on any
particular drive. In this case, you could
set the Index Path to a local drive, so
that each workstation maintains their own
image according to their logical drive
mappings on the network, or have each
workstation/user which uses a particular
set of mappings also use a different name
for the directory index file.
A better scheme, where InspectA maintains a
single directory index for each network
volume (not related to logical drive
assignment), is being considered.
Description Files
InspectA does not yet support placement of a
description file on any other drive or
directory other than the one being read. This
facility applies more to CD-ROM media than to
networks, but in any case, most CD-ROM drives
are supplied with a description file in the
directory and are in a format which may be
used directly by InspectA. The only
disadvantage is that because this file is
read-only, it cannot be updated or changed.
This will be addressed in a future version of
InspectA.
InspectA 101
External Commands
External Commands
InspectA executes external commands, either
directly from user input or from commands
configured for the manipulation of archive
libraries, action on selecting a file from
the files list or external commands mapped to
the keyboard or selected from the Special
pulldown menu.
Some special rules are used in external
programs and are an extension to the command
line. InspectA does not use the system's
currently installed command interpreter, but
instead will search the PATH directly for the
programs to run in much the same way as
COMMAND.COM (MSDOS) and CMD.EXE (OS/2) do. It
checks the current directory, then all
directories in the path for a named program,
or uses an explicit path when one is
specified. After completing execution of an
external program., InspectA may optionally
report the "errorlevel", or exit code, with
which the program terminates. Many programs
will report a non-zero exit status to
indicate abnormal termination, or an error of
some type. Programs intended for use in batch
files will often set the errorlevel to convey
information to the controlling batch file.
It may be desirable to run a program via the
command interpreter. To force this and
override InspectA's internal search facility,
precede the command with an exclamation mark
'!'. An exit code of zero is always reported
by COMMAND.COM (this may not be true of
alternative command shells, such as 4DOS, MKS
or CMD.EXE). In all cases, the shell run is
determined from the value of the COMSPEC
environment variable. Running a DOS batch
file (.BAT) or 4DOS batch file (.BTM) from
102 InspectA
External Commands
InspectA will always involve running the
command interpreter first.
Similarly, InspectA also knows about MS-DOS
and OS/2 internal commands, for DOS versions
up to DOS 5.0, and OS/2 2.1. When given
without a preceding path or drive, these
commands will always be invoked via the
command interpreter.
Environment
[MSDOS] When an external program is run, it
inherits a copy of InspectA's environment
variables (those displayed when using the SET
command by itself). Irrespective of what size
environment is set in CONFIG.SYS in a SHELL=
statement for the first copy of the command
interpreter, DOS will only allocate only the
size required to contain the current
environment in sub-shells. Since batch files
often use environment variables it is often
convenient to allocate a larger environment
for the sub-shell as well to avoid the "Out
of environment space" error. To support this,
InspectA allows you to specify additional
switches to pass to the command interpreter
if specified prior the program name. For
example:
!/E:1280 callit xyz
invokes the command line interpreter in the
following manner (assuming that
COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM):
C:\COMMAND.COM /E:1280 /Ccallit xyz
This has the effect of running "callit" with
an environment expanded to 1280 bytes.
NOTE: In versions of DOS 3.1 and prior, the
/E switch specifies the number of 16-byte
paragraphs, not the number of bytes. You
should consult your DOS manual to determine
InspectA 103
External Commands
the exact behaviour of the version that you
run.
Environment Variables
InspectA allows use environment variables
directly in any command line. You can specify
an environment variable in the same way as in
a batch file, ie. preceded and followed by a
percent '%' symbol. This allows you to 'soft
code' some commands and have the command line
change automatically according to your
current environmental settings. This applies
both to the program name itself and its
arguments.
Batch file command line variables (ie. %1
through %9) are not used nor supported.
However, because of the special treatment of
the '%' in environment variables, you will
need to use two %'s in the place of one if
you desire to include a literal '%' on a
command line.
As an example, let's say that you wish to
execute the following command (this works on
the command line):
for %f in (*.txt) do list %f
The effect would be to execute "LIST <name>"
on all files in the current directory with
the extension of .TXT.
From within InspectA, this may be entered as:
for %%f in (*.txt) do %PAGER% %%f
assuming that the environment variable PAGER
(which InspectA also uses internally as the
program to invoke to view files unless one is
configured) is set to "list". Note the double
%'s. This is identical to what DOS and OS/2
expect in batch (command) files when using
the "FOR" command.
104 InspectA
External Commands
Redirection
InspectA fully supports input output
redirection via the use of '<', '>' and '>>'
symbols.
Stacked Commands
InspectA supports multiple commands on the
same line. This means that you can run
consecutive commands from the entry of a
single line. Simply separate each command to
run with a circumflex character '^'.
Since this character is treated specially in
this manner and you may rarely need to use
this in a command line, the ability is
provided to quote this by preceding it with a
backslash ("\^") to insert a literal '^'.
If you have errorlevel reporting enabled (the
-ea or -ee command line switch), only the
errorlevel of the last command executed will
be reported. If for some reason InspectA is
unable to execute a given command, execution
of the stacked commands will stop at the
point execution failed and the error
reported.
Current Directory
[MSDOS only] The current directory is always
maintained across calls to external programs
by InspectA. The initial starting directory
is always restored. However, this is not the
case between multiple commands separated by
'`' - the starting directory is restored only
after all commands in a set have been
executed. It is therefore quite valid to use
a "CHDIR" or "CD" command and expect that the
next command after a '`' will be executed in
the directory changed to (if it succeeds).
Because the current directory under OS/2 is
processed based, this does not work in a
similar manner under OS/2. If you need to
InspectA 105
External Commands
change directory before running a command
under OS/2, you will have to create a command
file containing the CD command and then run
the command.
106 InspectA
Prompts
Prompts
Almost all single line prompts used for file
specifications, paths or commands to execute
have the facility known as "command history"
where the previous (up to) 64 commands are
stored and may be easily recalled using the
cursor keys.
Special keys used to scroll through previous
entries in the command line history are:
Key Description
UP Scroll back to previous command.
DOWN Scroll forward to next command.
PGUP Go to first command in history.
PGDN Go to last command in history.
F2 View command stack in popup list.
Line entry prompts assume the previous
entered text as the default. Simply type to
destroy this (clear the field) and enter
something completely new. If you wish to
modify the existing text, then use any of the
horizontal cursor movement keys (LEFT, RIGHT,
HOME or END) to indicate that you wish to
edit the entry rather than replace it.
Other special key functions in line editing
throughout InspectA are:
InspectA 107
Prompts
Key Description
HOME Go to start of field
END Go to end of field
LEFT Left one character
RIGHT Right one character
CTRL-LEFT Left one word
CTRL-RIGHT Right one word
CTRL-Y Erase entire field
Some fields (for example, the "Execute"
function, usually assigned to F10 in the main
files list) are actually longer than they
appear. Long entries will scroll horizontally
within the field displayed on the screen so
that only a portion of the entry is visible
at once.
108 InspectA
Import/Export
Import/Export
ICONFIG provides a text import/export
facility for configuration information. This
section provides descriptions for the verbs
used in the exported configuration file.
The configuration file itself is in text
(human readable) format, with information
grouped into sections. Each section is marked
by a section heading - typically a single
word surrounded by square bracket symbols
"[]" and optionally followed by a blank line.
Each configuration line within a section
consist of a Verb=Variable pair. Verbs assume
meaning within the context of the current
section - verbs from one section may or may
not be valid when used in another section,
but if they are, they almost always mean
something different. Variables may be of
various types, and which type is dependant on
the verb; typically it is numeric, a 'string'
(series of characters), or a 'complex'
variable with multiple fields or entries
separated by commas or spaces.
Some verbs may be specified only once within
the section; two or more statements using the
same verb may either be invalid or result in
the second value overriding the first. Other
verbs may appear multiple times, and may
allow multiple values to be given. Where
allowed, multiple values accumulate into a
set.
If a value includes embedded space or commas,
the value itself must be quoted in double
quotation marks.
InspectA 109
Import/Export
[general]
General items, not falling into any other
category.
rescan=<numeric>
Specifies the number of minutes which the
keyboard should be idle after which the
current directory will be ""rescanned"
(reread and displayed). A zero value
disables this feature. Useful for multi-
tasking systems and networks.
editor=<string>
Names the editor program. If blank,
InspectA uses the EDITOR environment
variable, or if that is not set, attempts
to invoke "Q" (SemWare's QEDIT) as editor.
editmem=<value>
[MSDOS] Amount of memory required by the
editing program. As with all "memory"
fields, a value of 0 causes unconditional
program image swapping, and -1 causes the
program to be run without swapping. Any
other value makes program image swapping
conditional on there not being sufficient
memory to run the program.
viewer=<string>
Names the file viewer program. If blank,
InspectA uses the PAGER environment
variable, or if that is not set, attempts
to invoke "LIST" (Vernon D. Buerg's LIST
program) as viewer.
110 InspectA
Import/Export
viewmem=<value>
[MSDOS] Amount of memory required by the
viewing program. See "editmem=" for more
information
virusscan=<string>
Specifies the name of the file to use for
virus scanning. The default command is
scan /NOMEM /SUB, which is compatible with
McAfee & Assocs SCAN program.
scanmem=<value>
[MSDOS] Determines the amount of memory
required by the virus scan program.
viewdir=<path>
Directory used to store archive members
while viewing.
swapdir=<path>
[MSDOS] Directory used to store the
program image file when swap to disk is
activated.
swaptype=<type>
[MSDOS] Valid values of <type> are XMS,
EMS, Disk and None.
kbddelay=<numeric>
Keyboard repeat delay. -1 is Auto (don't
adjust), 0=250 milliseconds (1/4 second),
1=500ms, 2=750ms, 3=1000ms.
InspectA 111
Import/Export
kbdspeed=<numeric>
Keyboard repeat rate. -1 is Auto (don't
adjust), Values range from 0=30 characters
per second (fastest) to 31=2 cps
(slowest).
dirmaps=<boolean>
Enables creation of directory index files;
if "No" (or "False" or "Disabled"),
directory index files are only used if
present, but drives without must be
scanned completely each time they are
logged.
diskmapfile=<filename>
Specifies a file name to use for directory
indices. The default is "diskmap.ind".
diskmappath=<path>
Specifies the directory where directory
index files are stored. If blank, the
default is in the root directory of the
indexed drive. If no drive letter is
specified, then the directory is created
on the drive being indexed; otherwise the
directory given is used to store index
files for all drives.
netpathonly=<boolean>
If "Yes" (or "True", or "Enabled"), the
value for "diskmappath=" is used only for
logging network and CD-ROM drives,
otherwise the root directory is used to
store index files for local drives.
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prefermethod=<numeric>
This field determines the default archiver
to use when interactively adding files to
an archive. The value -1 indicates no
preference.
listformat=<complex>
<desc>,<rowscale>,<colscal>,<"fieldlist">
This entry defines a files list format.
<desc> A brief description of the format.
<rowscale>,
<colscale> A number between 1 and 255
indicating the number of rows and
columns that a new window of this
type should use by default. A value
of 255 indicates the full screen
length of width.
<fieldlist> This is a series of 10 numbers
indicating a field type. Refer to
the section on Configuration for a
discussion of these fields. A value
of 0 indicates that the entry is
unused.
descfile=<filename>
Describes the name(s) used for storage of
file name descriptions.
prefermethod=<number>
Nominates the default archive type as an
index.
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listpad=<number>
Number of columns to pad filenames
inserted into file description lists.
listcase=<number>
Determines the case of filenames inserted
into file description lists. 0 indicates
default, 1 is lowercase, 2 i s uppercase.
displaypad=<number>
Number of columsn allocated for file names
in the files list display.
displaycase=<number>
Case of filenames displayed in the File
Manager; 0 is default, 1 is lowercase, 2
is uppercase.
dircase=<number>
Case of directory names displayed in the
File Manager.
hidemenu=<boolean>
Determines the initial state of the pull-
down menu title bar.
titlejustify=<number>
Indicates the style of justification of
the file window title; 0 is centered, 1
indicates left justification, 2 right
justification.
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titlefillchar=<numeric>
This is the ascii value of the title fill
character (must be between 0 and 255).
disablehotalt=<boolean>
Indicates the status of the 'hot' ALT key
action.
statswindow=<boolean>
Indicates the default (startup) state of
the directory statistics window.
[video]
Video related items.
intense=<numeric>
0=Auto (don't change), 1=Blinking
background colours, 2=Intense non-
blinking.
hires=<numeric>
InspectA's default video mode; 0=Auto
(don't change), 1=Force 25 line mode,
2=Force 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA) lines,
3=Custom (use mode specified by
"videomode=").
videomode=<numeric>
[MSDOS] If "hires=" value is 3, this is
the video mode number to set. Usually
useful only on SuperVGA systems - consult
your VGA adaptor documentation for
information.
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customrows=<numeric>
[OS/2] Nominates the number of rows to set
when "custom mode" is selected.
customcols=<numeric>
[OS/2] Nominates the number of columns to
set when "custom mode" is selected.
setmode=<boolean>
If "Yes", the video mode set by the value
of the "hires=" verb (if not "Auto") is
assumed permanently and is not restored
before running external programs or
invoking a shell to the command
interpreter.
dirwin=<size>
Determines the default size of the
Directory Tree window accessible from the
File Manager (via F9). This is one of
Small, Medium or Large.
blanktime=<numeric>
Screen blank time - this is the number of
minutes that the keyboard must be idle
before the screen blanker is activated.
frametype=<numeric>
This determines the type of frame used for
the active window in the Files Manager. -1
means no frame, and values 1-6 specify
different frame types.
116 InspectA
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inactiveframetype=<numeric>
This determines the type of frame used for
all inactive window in the Files Manager.
mouse=<boolean>
Determines whether the mouse is to be made
active or not. If "Yes", then mouse
functions are activated if there is a
mouse driver available.
SVGAmouse=<boolean>
Determines whether the mouse is to be made
active or not in any extended SVGA text
mode.
mousecursor=<type>
Specifies the type of mouse cursor to use;
valid types are "Standard", "Diamond" and
"Triangle".
mousespeed=<numeric>
Changes the mouse speed and sensitivity
according to preference; 0=use default,
1=slow, 2=medium, 3=fast, 4=very fast.
attr-colour=<numeric list>
attr-mono=<numeric list>
These set the screen attributes for colour
and monochrome video monitors. Up to 64
individual settings for the various
attribute types, in the same order as they
appear in ICONFIG's attribute list
(General, Colours). Because the list
contains embedded spaces, it must be
surrounded by double quotes.
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[archive]
Defines archiving commands; the means by
which the Archive Manager is able to
manipulate compressed archives. There is only
one valid verb in this section, but it may be
specified multiple times. For simplicity,
each individual archive command should be
defined on a separate line.
cmd=<complex>
where the <complex> field is in the
format:
<type>,<op>,<abbrev>,<wildcard>,<reqmem>,<cmd
template>
The meaning of these sub-fields are:
<type> Type archiver type. Valid types are
AR5, AR6, AR7, ARJ, HPK, LHA, LZH,
PAK, PKA, SQZ, ZIP, ZOH and ZOO.
<op> Must be one of Add, Delete, Extract
or Test. This determines what the
command being defined does.
<abbrev> This is the usual file
extension used by archives of the
type being described. This is only
used to "guess" the intended
archive type when creating a new
archive.
<wildcard> Specifies what to use as a
wildcard when the entire contents
of a directory are being added, or
the all member files are being
tested or extracted. This is an
optimisation to prevent having to
call the archiver multiple times.
<reqmem> This determines the amount of
free memory which must be available
to the archiving command. It is
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used to determine whether or not
the program image should be swapped
out to XMS/EMS/Disk. This is unused
by the OS/2 version.
<cmdtemplate> Specifies the template
for the command which is being
defined; this always contains
special '$' tokens which represent
macros to be replaced by archive
and file names when used.
[mailer]
This section defines mailer characteristics.
mailertype=<type>
Type is one of "None", "Static" or
"Dynamic".
outbound=<attributes>
Attributes determine the type of
addressing supported by files in the
mailer's outbound queue. Any of the
following may be specified; multiple are
allowed: "Domains", "Zones", "Points".
pointnet=<number>
Specifies the 'fake' network number used
if you need to support 3D style point
addressing.
address=<ftnaddr>
<ftnaddr> is a FidoNet style address, in
zone:net/node[.point][@domain]
format. You can specify multiple address,
either on the same line separated by
InspectA 119
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spaces, or on separate lines following
multiple occurrences of the verb
"address=".
equate=<string>,<string>
Equates one domain string to another. The
first string is the one to equate -
whenever it is found to be used as a
domain designation, InspectA internally
replaces it with the second string.
product=<complex>
Describes a product code. Each definition
consists of the following fields:
<code>,<name>,<os>,<type>,<author>,<addres
s>,<flags>
<code> This is the product identification
code which is placed in FTSC-1
packet headers.
<name> The product name.
<os> The operating system(s) under which
the product runs.
<type> The type of product; usually
"packer", "mailer" or both.
<author> The name of the product's
author.
<address> The FidoNet address at which
the product's author may be
contacted (via FidoNet).
<flags>Special flags used to determine
whether or not extended zone and
point information in packet headers
made by this particular product can
be 'trusted' should the packet
header type not be of a recognised
'enhanced' type.
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[paths]
This section defines a list of directories.
These may be used by the mailer functions for
special operations, but may also be defined
to place them on the list of paths which may
be selected from the Paths Index feature.
dir=<complex>
Fields in the variable is defined as
follows:
<type>,<path>,<description>
<type> This is one of <blank> (no entry),
"Netmail", "Postmail", "Inbound",
"Outbound" or "Nodelist". A blank
field means no special attributes.
See the documentation on ICONFIG
for a more detailed list of
meanings attached to the other
types.
<path> Is the name of the directory being
defined.
<description> An optional description
used for the directory.
[externals]
This section defines the interface between
InspectA and external programs.
key=<complex>
where <complex is>
<key>,<op>,<flags>,<reqmem>,<cmd>,<descriptio
n>
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<key> This is a pneumonic which describes
the key being mapped. It may also
specify the scan + ASCII codes for
the key in hexadecimal and preceded
by "0x". Shifted keys are preceded
by '#', control keys by '^' and alt
keys by '@'.
<op> Defines what the key does; this is
an internal code that designates
function. A '0' or blank in this
field defines an external command.
<flags>If set to 1 in an external command
definition, the logged directory
will be rescanned.
<reqmem> The amount of memory that the
external command requires. If 0,
program image swapping will be used
unconditionally, if -1 never,
otherwise image swapping is not
used unless needed to free
sufficient memory to run the
program. This entry is ignored in
the OS/2 version.
<cmd> This is the command template for
external commands. '$' macros can
be used in much the same way as in
archiving commands except that the
macros themselves have different
meanings; $f refers to each marked
file individually, $m all marked
files, $a as the currently
highlighted file.
<description> Describes what the
command does.
file=<complex>
Defines a program to run when a file
matching the specification given is
selected.
<complex> consists of:
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<spec>,<flags>,<reqmem>,<cmd>,<description>
where
<filespec> This is the file specification
used to match to a selected file.
It may contain wildcard characters,
'?' and '*'.
For the remaining fields, see above, under
key=.
InspectA 123
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
Screenblanker
InspectA includes a built-in screen blanker,
which is intended to prevent monitor burn-in
caused by constantly displaying the same
screen; the lighter areas tend to erode the
surface in the video tube in some types of
monitors. Over a long period, the effect
becomes quite noticeable, and can cause
severe problems with the displayed image.
While this is most pronounced on older
monochrome monitors, it has been known to
occur in even some of the newer SuperVGA
compatible display units.
You can also switch the screen blanker on by
depressing both SHIFT keys at the same time.
You may need to wait a short while (usually
between 2-5 seconds) after sitting at a
prompt for this to work due to the "timeout"
strategy used internally which is used to
avoid doing too much "work" between
keystrokes or time slicing too viciously
under a multi-tasking system.
124 InspectA
Copyrights & Trademarks
Copyrights & Trademarks
InspectA and its associated documentation and
same configuration files are Copyright 1992-
1993 by David L. Nugent and Unique Computing
Pty Limited. No warrantee is made as to the
fitness of this product for any intended
purpose, nor will any responsibility be taken
for any damage, consequential or otherwise
arising out of use or abuse of this product.
It is provided purely on an "as is" basis,
with no promises or agreements regarding any
future versions or releases should they ever
be published.
This work is protected by Australian
copyright law and by the Burne International
Treaty on Copyrights. The commercial version
of this program may not be re-distributed
under any conditions and in any form. The
"shareware" release may be re-distributed
under the terms and conditions of the
accompanying "LICENCE.TXT".
Various copyrighted works of software and
registered trademarks are referred to in the
documentation, and where applicable these are
held and owned by their respective copyright
holders, including the following list of
products:
ARC is a registered trademark of System
Enhancement Associates Inc.
ARC+PLUS is copyright System Enhancement
Associates, Inc.
ARCA & ARCE are copyright by Wayne Chin
and Vernon D. Buerg.
PKARC, PKPAK, PKXARC, PKUNPAK, PKZIP,
PKUNZIP are copyright PKWARE, Inc.
InspectA 125
Copyrights & Trademarks
PKZIP & PKUNZIP are trademarks of PKWARE,
Inc.
PAK is copyright by NoGate Consulting.
ZOO was written by Rahul Dhesi.
ARJ is copyright by Robert Jung.
HPACK is copyright by Peter Gutmann.
DWC is copyright by Dean W. Cooper.
LH is copyright by A:WARE and Peter
Fitzsimmons.
LIST is copyright Vernon D. Buerg.
QEdit is copyright SemWare.
MSDOS is copyright Microsoft Corporation.
FidoNet is a trademark of Tom Jennings.
BinkleyTerm is copyright Bit Bucket
Software, Co.
Opus is copyright Wynn Wagner III.
SEAdog is copyright System Enhancement
Associates.
FrontDoor is copyright by Joaquim H.
Homrighausen and Advanced Engineering
Sarl.
InterMail is copyright by Peter Stewart
and InterZone Software
OS/2 is a trademark of International
Business Machines.
126 InspectA