SPACE 1/SPACE - Library 1 - Volume 1.iso/utilitys/184/arc521/arcshell.doc

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                     ARC Shell Documentation
                          Version 1.97

                      By Charles F. Johnson

                  Last revision: August 14, 1988


Part One - Introduction

     ARC Shell is a GEM program which is designed to work with the
popular ST archiving utility ARC.TTP.  Essentially, ARC Shell adds a
GEM interface to the ARC program, letting you point and click to
select the various options instead of typing a command line.  (I
don't know about you, but one of the main reasons I bought an ST was
to get away from all that MS-DOS/Unix command line silliness.)

     ARC Shell also contains a complete GEM-based disk utilities
package, that lets you copy files (with wildcards and with query),
delete and rename files, create and delete folders, show the free
space on any connected drive, and even run other programs...all
without exiting to the desktop.  ARC Shell's current configuration
can be saved at any point, so that the options and settings you use
most often will be selected when you run the program.  In addition,
you can use the ST desktop's "Install Application" feature to set
things up so that ARC Shell will automatically run when you
double-click on a file with an extension of ARC.

     This documentation will focus primarily on the operation of
ARC Shell; it's not intended to teach you how to use ARC.  However,
I've included the manual for version 5.20 of ARC in the archive which
contains this file and the latest version of ARC Shell.  Refer to
this manual if you have any questions about the ARC program itself,
such as "What's the difference between Updating and Freshening?" or
"What does Convert Archive do?"  The original version of ARC for the
ST was version 5.12, ported by Harvey Johnson.  The most recent
version is ARC 5.21, ported to the ST by Howard Chu.  Version 5.21 is
available on Compuserve, Delphi, and GEnie, and on many local ST
BBSes.


Part Two - The usual shareware plea

     Versions 1.95 and above of ARC Shell are "shareware," which
means that if you like and use my program I'd appreciate a
contribution of $15.00 ... or more if you happen to be struck by a
random philanthropic impulse.  I've been continually updating and
improving ARC Shell since it was first written, and I think you'll be
pleased with the result; letters with checks in them would please me
equally!  If you think ARC Shell is worth at least $15.00, send a
check to:

               Charles F. Johnson (ARC Shell)
               P.O. Box 1250
               Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

     And thanks for your support!


Part Three - Using ARC Shell

     When you run ARC Shell, make sure you have the ARC program
(ARC.TTP) in the same directory with ARCSH197.PRG.  The very first
thing ARC Shell does is look in the current directory for ARC.TTP.
If a file with this name cannot be found, ARC Shell will show you a
file selector asking, "Where is ARC.TTP?"  and you will be able to
locate the ARC program with the file selector.  When ARC Shell finds
the ARC program, it will then display a large dialog box, with
buttons representing the available options.

                     What you're looking at.

     In the upper left of the main dialog box is a box containing
buttons labeled "ADD to Archive," "EXTRACT from Arc," etc.  The
buttons in this box are the main ARC commands; you'll notice that the
default ARC command is "EXTRACT from Arc."  Only one of these buttons
can be selected at a time - if you click on a button to select it,
the previously selected button will be turned "off."  (These are
known as "radio buttons.")

     To the right of the ARC command box is a box containing the
ARC "flags."  The button labeled "Hold Screen" is selected by default
when you first run ARC Shell.  The buttons in this box can be turned
off and on individually; unlike radio buttons, more than one can be
selected at a time.  The button labeled "Encrypt/Decrypt" is a
special case; when you turn this button on, the code word entry line
beneath it becomes active and the edit cursor (the thin vertical
line) is placed on the entry line, allowing you to type in an
encryption keyword.  The code word can be up to eight characters
long.

     Directly underneath the ARC command box is a box containing
buttons to let you select the device which will be used for LIST and
VERBOSE LIST commands, and the drive for ARC and DATA files. The
drive buttons can be operated in two ways; you can either type in the
drive letter by hand, using the up and down arrows to move from one
button to another, or use the mouse to click on the button.  If you
click the button, a box with 16 buttons representing the 16 possible
logical drives will pop up, allowing you to select the drive with the
mouse.  Only active drives will be selectable in this box, and
hitting Return will exit without changing the current drive.

     Finally, along the bottom of the main box are buttons labeled
"Info," "ARC," "Disk," "Config," and "Exit."  The Info button will
display a copyright message, and a gentle reminder to send in your
shareware contribution.

                     OK, let's do something.

     When you've set all the options in the ARC Shell dialog box
the way you want them, click on the "ARC" button to start things
going.  NOTE: You may also double-click on any of the buttons in the
ARC command box (Extract, Add, List, etc.) to execute that command
immediately without the extra step of clicking the "ARC" button.

     Depending on which ARC command you've selected, what happens
next will vary slightly.  In all cases however, the first thing ARC
Shell will do is display a file selector to allow you to choose an
ARC file.  If you're creating a new archive file with the ADD or MOVE
commands, simply type in a name for the new file on the file
selector's "Selection" line, and hit Return or click on OK.  If
you're using any of the other commands (which all operate on
previously-created archive files), click on the name of the ARC file
you're working with and click OK.  The file selector's "Cancel"
button always returns you to the main ARC Shell dialog box.

     The LIST, VERBOSE LIST, or TEST commands only take one
parameter - the name of an ARC file - so they will be acted upon as
soon as you exit the file selector.  Any of the other commands will
now require a second parameter, the name of the DATA files on which
you're operating.

     If you're ADDing files to an archive and you leave the
"Selection" line in the DATA file selector blank, ARC Shell
interprets this as "all files," and passes a search spec of *.* to
the ARC program.  If you type in a name on the selection line or
click on a filename, only that filename will be passed to ARC.  Also,
when ADDing files, you will always return to the DATA file selector
when ARC is finished adding a file or files, so that you can choose
more files to add without having to select "ADD to Archive" every
time.  You must click on the file selector's "Cancel" button to exit
back to the main dialog box.

     If you leave the "Selection" line blank when you're EXTRACTing
files from an archive, you'll be faced with the following choices
about how to extract the files:

     ALL - Extracts all files from the archive into the
     specified directory.

     To Folder - First creates a folder (a subdirectory)
     with the same name as the archive file (minus the .ARC
     extension) in the specified directory, then extracts all
     files from the archive into the folder.  When the
     operation is complete, you'll be given the chance to
     delete the original ARC file.

     W/ Query - When you select the "Query" option, ARC Shell
     reads through the entire ARC file and gets the name of
     every file it contains, then displays all the names in a
     large dialog box.  There is room in the box for 80
     filenames; if an archive contains more than 80 files a
     page indicator will become visible in the lower left of
     the box and you can page forward and back to see the rest
     of the filenames.  (The maximum is 720.)  The Query box
     lets you mark individual files or groups of files for
     extraction by clicking on them with the mouse.  You can
     click and hold down the button while dragging the mouse to
     select or deselect files, and double-click on any file to
     select it in one step.  (Note: if you double-click on a
     file when other files are selected, it begins the
     extraction process for the entire group of selected
     files.)  If you want to abort a multiple extraction after
     the process has already started, press and hold down the
     Alternate key.  (Another note: the Query box is also
     available for the "Delete from ARC" and "Copy to StdOut"
     commands.  Just choose "w/ Query from the alert box that
     appears afters selecting either of these commands.)

     Cancel - Lets you change your mind and return to the
     main ARC Shell dialog box.

     The "COPY to StdOut" command can be used to view text files
contained within an archive without extracting them first.  When this
command is selected, ARC Shell will display an alert box with the
choices "ALL" and "w/ Query."  The Query option works in the same way
as with the EXTRACT command; the filenames will be read from the
archive, and you can choose which file(s) to view using the Query
dialog box.  When you use "COPY to StdOut" to view text files, you
can pause the scrolling by typing Control-S and resume by typing
Control-Q.  The COPY operation can also be aborted at any time by
typing Control-C.

     The LIST and VERBOSE LIST commands are used to display the
files contained within an archive.  You can direct the output from
the LIST commands to the screen, to the printer, or to an ASCII disk
file by clicking on the buttons labeled "List Device" in the main ARC
Shell dialog box.

     There are two buttons in the ARC Shell dialog box which are
intended to be used only with ARC version 5.21; "Overwrite Existing
Files" and "Squash."  Earlier versions of ARC will report an error if
either of these two buttons are selected.  The buttons labeled
"Crunch" and "Squash" are used to choose between two different types
of data compression schemes used by ARC 5.21 -- only the "Crunch"
option is supported by earlier versions.  So bear in mind that if you
use the "Squash" method, people who don't have ARC 5.21 will be
unable to extract those files.


Part Four - The ARC Shell Disk Utilities

     To access the ARC Shell Disk Utilities, click on the button
labeled "Disk" at the bottom of the main ARC Shell dialog box.  The
Disk Utilities are a complete GEM-based file maintenance system - you
won't have to exit ARC Shell to copy files, delete files, etc.  You
can even use the ARC Shell Disk Utilities to run other programs.

     When you click on the "Copy File(s)" button, a file selector
appears to let you choose the source file(s) for the copy.  You can
use any combination of wildcards (? and *) on the 'Selection' line of
the file selector to specify groups of files to be copied.  When you
click the file selector's OK button, another file selector will
appear to let you choose the destination directory for the copied
file(s).  If the source filename contains no wildcards (in other
words, you're copying a single file) the file will be copied right
away.  If there are wildcard characters in the source filename,
you'll be given a choice to copy "ALL" files or copy "w/ Query."  The
Query option will prompt you whether or not to copy each file that
matches the wildcard specification.  You can also delete groups of
files by using wildcards in the same way.

     If the destination filename already exists when a copy
operation is being performed, a box will appear with the warning
"Name Conflict During Copy."  You can either click OK to write over
the existing file or type in a new name for the copied file and hit
Return.

     The "Run Program" command lets you execute a program from
within ARC Shell, and return to ARC Shell when the program
terminates.  If the program you choose to run has the extension .TTP
(Tos Takes Parameters), a box will appear to let you enter a command
line to pass to the program.

     The operation of the other disk commands should be fairly
self-explanatory.  You can rename files, show the free space
remaining on a disk, create and delete folders, and format a floppy
disk.  The format command lets you use drive A or B, and formats
either single or double sided.  No fancy format options here - you
get the straight ahead standard format, 80 tracks, 9 sectors per
track.

     At the bottom left of the Disk Utilities dialog is a box
titled "Copy/Delete Prompts" containing buttons labeled "On" and
"Off."  When this option is set to "Off," you'll get no warning when
you delete a file or copy a file to an already existing name.

     The Exit button returns you to the main ARC Shell dialog box.


Part Five - Configuring ARC Shell

     Clicking on the button labeled "Config" at the bottom of the
ARC Shell dialog box will take you to the configuration screen.  This
screen lets you specify a pathname for both a "default" ARC utility
and an "alternate" ARC utility, and also set the directory to which
ARC's numerous temporary files will be written (the latter option is
only valid when ARC Shell is used with ARC 5.21).  You can save these
options, as well as every other ARC Shell setting, with the button
labeled "Save Configuration"; after you do this, ARC Shell will
remember the settings the next time you run it.

     The default ARC utility is the one which will be searched for
when the program first runs.  If you haven't specified a default ARC
utility, ARC Shell looks in the current directory for a file named
ARC.TTP (see above).  However, using the Config option, you can set
it so that ARC.TTP can be located anywhere when you run ARC Shell.
Click on the button labeled "Locate Default ARC Program" and use the
file selector to specify a new file and pathname.

     Next, you can select an alternate ARC utility which can be
enabled by clicking on the button labeled "Use Alternate."  To
specify the pathname for the alternate ARC utility, click on the
button labeled "Locate Alternate ARC Program" and use the file
selector.  The purpose of the "Alternate" option is to allow you to
switch easily between two different ARC programs; for example, some
people prefer to use a shareware program called DCOPY (by Ralph
Walden) to do their ARC operations because it's quite a bit faster
than ARC.TTP.

     When ARC is adding files to an archive, it creates quite a few
temporary work files on the disk.  With ARC Shell, you can choose to
have these files written to either the ARC drive or the DATA drive,
or to another directory altogether.  (Hint:  directing the temporary
files to a RAMdisk can really speed up ARC, especially if you have a
floppy-based system.)  When you click on the button labeled "Set
Directory" a file selector lets you choose the directory for the
temporary files.  (NOTE: this option is only valid when used with ARC
5.21.)

     There is one small difference in the way the two versions of
ST ARC handle redirection to the printer.  ARC 5.12 uses the device
name "PRT:" while ARC 5.21 uses "PRN:."  If you're going to be
redirecting the output from the LIST commands to a printer, you
should choose the appropriate "Printer Device Name" at the lower left
of the Configuration box.

     When you have ARC Shell set up the way you want it (including
all of the options in the main dialog box), you can click on the
"Save Configuration" button to make this arrangement your new
default....in other words, after saving your configuration, ARC Shell
will always start out with your settings when you run it.

     Versions of ARC Shell prior to 1.96 saved their configuration
data in a separate file called ARCSHELL.CNF.  This was changed in
version 1.96; the configuration is now saved directly into the ARC
Shell program file, which makes a separate data file unnecessary.
When you choose to "Save Configuration," ARC Shell will first look in
the directory from which it ran for a file called ARCSH197.PRG.  If a
file by this name is found, ARC Shell will attempt to write the new
configuration data to this file.  If for some reason, a file by this
name exists and is NOT the ARC Shell program, you will be warned and
the configuration save can be retried or aborted.  If ARC Shell
cannot find a file named ARCSH197.PRG (perhaps you changed the
name?), you'll be given a chance to use a file selector to locate the
program file no matter which name you've given it.


Part Six - Installing ARC Shell as an Application

     Using the desktop's "Install Application" feature, you can set
things up so that whenever you double-click on a file with the
extension .ARC, ARC Shell will automatically load and run.  To do
this from the desktop, click once on ARCSH197.PRG to select it, then
move to the "Options" menu and select "Install Application."  In the
box that appears, enter a document type of "ARC," and then click on
the button labeled "Install."  (DON'T hit Return after entering the
document type....Return will exit without installing!)  Now save your
desktop, so this setting will be remembered the next time you boot
up.

     If you double-click on an ARC file after ARC Shell has been
"installed" in this way, a dialog box will appear showing the name of
the ARC file you selected.  You can extract files from this archive,
do a verbose list of its contents, or cancel the operation by
clicking on one of the three buttons in the box.  If you choose to
extract, you'll be given the same extract options as explained above
in the section titled "Using ARC Shell."  When the extract or list
operation is complete, you can either enter ARC Shell (to do some
more archive maintenance) or quit back to the desktop.



*****************************************************
*                                                   *
*  This document and all versions of ARC Shell are  *
*  Copyright 1987, 1988 Charles F. Johnson          *
*  and Little Green Footballs Software.             *
*  All Rights Reserved.                             *
*                                                   *
*  ARC Shell may NOT be sold.  It may, however, be  *
*  freely distributed as long as this document is   *
*  included and neither program nor document are    *
*  altered in any way.  This document may not be    *
*  reprinted without permission.                    *
*                                                   *
*  While every effort has been made to ensure that  *
*  this program is free of bugs, I cannot be        *
*  responsible for any damages or loss of data      *
*  resulting from the use or misuse of ARC Shell.   *
*                                                   *
*****************************************************