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Universal(tm) Item Selector Application & Design Software P.O. Box 803 Merlin, OR 97532 Technical support: Chris Latham (503) 476-0071 Noon to 5:00 PM Pacific Time Limited Warranty This warranty does not apply to the limited version of the Universal Item Selector which is distributed freely through public domain software channels. Application & Design Software warrants to the original purchaser of this software product that it will be free from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of ninety (90) days from date of purchase. Application & Design Software agrees either to repair or replace, at its options, free of charge, any Application & Design Software product discovered to be defective within the warranty period upon receipt of the Application & Design Software product, postage paid, with proof of date of purchase. This warranty is not valid should Application & Design Software not receive the completed registration card included with the Universal. This warranty is not applicable to normal wear and tear. This warranty shall not be applicable and shall be void if the defect in the Application & Design Software product has arisen through abuse, unreasonable use, mistreatment or neglect. This warranty is in lieu of all other express warranties and no other representative or claims of any nature shall be binding on or obligate Application & Design Software. Any implied warranties to this software product are limited to the ninety (90) day period described or consequential damage resulting from possession, use or malfunction of this Application & Design Software product. Application & Design Software assumes no liability for any problems that may arise from the use of this software. General. The Universal is a replacement for the GEM item selector that is used by the majority of GEM applications currently available. The Universal adds new features and fixes several bugs of the original item selector. New features include COPY, MOVE, RENAME, DELETE, FORMAT, FOLDER, DISK STATUS, DIRECTORY PRINTOUT, LOCK AND UNLOCK FILES, HORIZONTAL SCROLLING, and IMMEDIATE CHOICE OF DRIVE. These features work with either individual files or folders. All functions are usable FROM WITHIN PROGRAMS that give access to the GEM item selector. A unique feature of the Universal is the WILDCARD OPTION. This option allows you to search for files by matching various characters of the filename and performing some of the above functions globally on any files that match. The Wildcard operation is explained further under "Wildcard Options". Some application programmers have designed around the original item selector dialog box. In most cases these programs provide text just above the file selector dialog box. Because of the increased features of Universal, its dialog box is two lines larger. For this reason the dialog box rides lower on the screen providing access to the "File status line" found in some application programs. Installation. From the Desktop. The term "Installed" refers to the fact that the program has been read into the memory of your computer. Universal may be installed at any time from the desktop by clicking on its icon or filename. The copyright notice will be presented and you will then be returned to the desktop. After this, any program that uses the GEM item selector dialog box, will instead use the Universal. The programs you use will not know the difference. As an AUTO program. To have the Universal program install automatically, create an AUTO folder on your boot disk and copy Universal into the folder. If an AUTO folder already exists, simply copy Universal into it. If you need to create an AUTO folder use the desktop to do so. Just click your mouse on "New Folder" under "File" and name it AUTO without an extension. (Note: Universal must be the LAST program copied into an existing AUTO folder when other programs already exist in the AUTO folder). Click, Grab and Drag. Most of the new functions of Universal operate by dragging a file name to a function button within the dialog box. You first highlight a file name by clicking on the file with the left mouse button. While holding down the button, Grab and Drag the file name to the function button within the dialog box and release. When you have done this properly, the function button will highlight itself and become inverted to show that it has been activated. Note that the Cancel button may be clicked on to cancel any operation except delete. The delete operation presents its own special caution before continuation of the delete. Any of the names in the directory window of Universal may be dragged in this manner to perform one of the operations. You may scroll up and down to find the file of your choice, just as in a standard item selector. Your choice can include a folder or a file. A special operation dealing with wildcards is also possibLe. See the "Wildcard Options" later in this manual. SPECIFIC OPERATIONS RENAME or FOLDER When choosing RENAME or FOLDER, the "Selection:" line that normally appears in the dialog box will change to "New Name:" for a rename operation and to "Folder Name:" when you are creating a new folder. When this occurs, you MUST input the name of your choice on the selection line, then click on the OK button, or click on the Cancel button to cancel the operation. Destinations and Pathnames in general (Move and Copy) When performing a COPY operation, the destination drive is selected AFTER you have used CLICK, GRAB & DRAG, and the COPY function button has been activated. Before you choose OK, the "Directory:" line of the dialog box will change to "Destination:" to show that Universal is waiting for you to choose the destination drive. You choose the drive by clicking on the Vertical Drive Bar and activating the drive letter you want the file to copy to. You then click on the OK button to complete the copy of the file or folder. To select the destination, all of the normal path selection methods are available. You may click on a new drive, and open or close any folder necessary. When the destination drive or folder's contents are showing in the file window, then OK may be pressed. At this point, the operation will be performed. The operation may be cancelled using the cancel button anytime before the last OK. ALLOWABLE DESTINATIONS Files may be copied or moved anywhere, even to the same folder they originated from. In this case, however, a dialog showing the name conflict will be presented, allowing the new filename to be changed. The name conflict dialog contains three buttons, Stop, OK and Cancel. Clicking on stop will stop the entire copy operation, if more than one file was to be copied. Click on OK to continue the copy after the name has been changed. Cancel will cancel ONLY this one copy. If more than one file was to be copied, additional name conflicts will be separately presented. SPECIAL NOTE: Copying a file to the same folder that it comes from without changing the name CAN CAUSE THE FILE TO BE LOST. Copying a folder to its current path can be disastrous, and should not be attempted. Copying a folder to a subfolder of itself is also not allowed, and Universal tries to stop such attempts. The reason that folders may not be copied or moved to within themselves is because a folder, in its entirety, cannot exist within itself; this would be like trying to put the apple pie back into the apple skin it came from. RENAME (File). The RENAME function of Universal allows a new name to be given to a file. For instance, a file named "ABC.DOC" can be RENAMEd "XYZ.DOC". You use the same method of CLICK, GRAB and DRAG of the present file name to the RENAME button. When that button inverts you may then go to the "Selection" line and rename your file. Then click on OK and your file will be renamed and returned to the disk with the new name. RENAME (Folders) During the RENAME operation of Universal as it relates to folders, a renaming function is really not occurring. What is occurring is the creation of a new folder with the new name, and the move of all the files from the old folder name into the new one. This movement of contents includes subfolders as well. Universal then automatically deletes the old empty folder and sub folders. Be patient during a RENAME (Folder) function, as it does take some time. The time taken is far less than doing it manually. CLICK, GRAB and DRAG the folder name from the window of the Universal and pull it over the RENAME button and release the mouse button. The RENAME button should now invert. Type in the new name of the folder and then click on OK. The new folder name will appear in the window of the Universal when the operation is completed. MOVE in General One of the most handy functions of TOS, but one which is unavailable from the GEM Desktop, is the ability to move a file anywhere on the disk it resides on. This means a file may be moved from one folder to another without performing a copy. The actual file contents are not changed, just the file or folder location where it can be found. Associated with every file on the disk is a "descriptor" which contains the file's name, length, date and time of creation, file type, and the location of the start of the file on the disk. It is this entry which may be moved from any folder on the drive to any other folder. This function is much faster to perform than to copy a file to a new folder on the drive, then delete the original. MOVE (Files) You may move a file from its current drive or folder to any other drive or folder. CLICK, GRAB and DRAG the filename over the MOVE button, then release. The MOVE button will become inverted. Now select the destination for the MOVE operation. This may be into a different folder on the same drive or another drive altogether. (Note: if you MOVE a file into a different folder on the SAME drive, the operation will take place very quickly.) For instance, a file may be MOVEd thus: old name..."A:\FOLDER1\FOLDER2\ABC.DOC" new name..."A:\FOLDER3\ABC.DOC" In the example above, the file name is unchanged, but we have given it a new path, so the file has been `moved' to a new folder, without an intervening copy/delete required. MOVE (Folders) Moving a folder from one disk to another is similar to the above function. You CLICK, GRAB and DRAG the folder name from the Universal window to the MOVE button. When it inverts, you select a destination as either another folder from the same drive or another drive, and then click on OK. The folder will be moved to either location you have requested. The old name will be used for the new name in the new location. In a MOVE (Folders) operation, all files and subfolders are moved. After the movement of all files is complete, the original, now empty folder on the source disk is deleted. COPY (Files) The COPY function of Universal is quite similar to the copy function of the desktop. You use the CLICK, GRAB & DRAG method to bring the file name to the COPY button within the dialog box and then release the mouse button. The COPY button will then invert to let you know the information has been captured. Next select the drive destination using the Vertical Drive Selector (VDS), and click on OK. The "Destination" of your copy will be shown above the file window. If you are copying this file to a folder at the new destination, you must first open up the folder you desire in the window of your destination and then click on OK. NOTE: With ST Desktop copying, the copied file redates itself to the time it was copied, replacing the files original time and date of creation. In Universal, the original time and date of file creation is carried fully through to the new copy thereby eliminating new dating of the file. COPY (Folders) The COPY (Folders) function of Universal is similar to the copy function described above. You use the CLICK, GRAB & DRAG method to bring the folder name to the COPY button within the dialog box, then release. Next select the drive destination using the Vertical Drive Selector (VDS), and click on OK. The "Destination" of your copy will be shown above the file window. Horizontal Scrolling. The Universal has another nice feature for determining file size. The bottom of the file window has a slider similar to that used on most GEM top operations. Using this slider, you can check on the status of a file by scrolling to the right in the window. (VDS) Vertical Drive Selector Universal provides an easy method of changing the drive from which a directory will be displayed. Simply click on the desired drive button in the VERTICAL DRIVE BAR on the right side of the Universal. The line under "Directory" will then change to show the new drive as the source for the directory. Drives A through G are shown in the drive bar. Active drives are show in dark letters, inactive drives are shown in light printing. If you have more drives, you can scroll through all 26 drive letters, A through Z (although only A through P are fully supported by most applications). FOLDER. Creating a new folder To create a new folder, click on the drive where the folder is to reside. Click on the FOLDER button at the top of the screen. The "Selection" line will change to "Folder Name". Enter the name of the new folder, then click on OK or press return (or you may cancel by clicking on Cancel). The new folder will be created in the currently shown directory. FORMAT. Formatting disks To format a disk, you must be currently on drive A or B. If this is the case, the FORMAT button will become enabled and you may click on it. When you do, a new dialog box appears. You may choose single or double sided formatting, choose the number of sectors per track (9 is normal) and choose the number of tracks (80 is normal) and you may choose the new TWISTER format (just click YES or NO) that provides speedier disk drive access (note: the TWISTER option is ONLY available if you have the new BLITTER roms installed in your system). You may also enter a disk label if you desire. After these options are all set, click on FORMAT to start the formatting process or EXIT if you wish to cancel. The status bar at the bottom will show you formatting progress. Upon completion, a dialog will appear showing the number of bytes available for use. (?) DISK STATUS The question mark in the upper right corner of the file window is used to find out information about the current drive. When you click on this question mark (?) a dialog will appear showing you information on number of files, bytes used, and number of folders. When doing a status of a folder, note that all subfolders of that folder are included in the count. (P) Printing a directory on the printer A printout of the folder that is currently displayed in the directory window is possible with the "P" command. The "P" in the lower left corner of the file window may be clicked to get a printed listing of the current directory. The printer must be on line and not busy for the function to work. All folders will be shown in the printout but only the files that are currently in the directory window will be printed. (Note: if the printer is on line and ready to print, the directory printing will immediately start, with no chance to cancel). LOCK and UNLOCK. A safeguard for your important files is also included with the Universal. The LOCK and UNLOCK features work the same as the others. You CLICK, GRAB and DRAG a file name over the top of the "Check Mark" on the lower right corner of the dialog box. A new dialog box will appear where you may select to have the file "Read/Write" or "Read-Only". Make your selection and click on OK. If the file was made "Read-Only", the file will then appear in the directory window with a check mark to the left of the file name. That file can not be written to or deleted, nor may it be moved, else an error will result (note: trying to move or delete a folder that contains a locked file will also result in an error). To UNLOCK the file repeat the procedure by CLICK, GRAB and DRAGing the locked file over the "Check Mark" and selecting "Read/Write" in the dialog box when it appears. SPECIAL SEARCH FEATURES Using Wildcards Wildcard filenames are fully supported by Universal. Any of the four file functions (MOVE, COPY, DELETE and LOCK/UNLOCK) can be made to work on a group of files by setting up a wildcard search criteria. The wildcard characters * and ? are used to make such matches. Types of Wildcards ASTERISK(*), for those not familiar with Wildcards, substitutes for all possible letters of an unknown word. A document file name example would be "*.DOC" (don't enter the quotes). You could use this Wildcard ASTERISK to designate all your document files on your current disk to be implemented in a MOVE, COPY, DELETE or LOCK/UNLOCK. You can see how useful this would be. If you wanted to DELETE all your backup files on a document disk to make room for more files, all you would do is type "*.BAK" (don't enter the quotes) on the "Selection" line of the Universal and then CLICK, GRAB and DRAG that entry to the DELETE button, and all you backup files on that disk would be DELETEd. The same procedure would be possible with MOVE, COPY or LOCK/UNLOCK. QUESTION MARK(?) substitutes for single letters that are unknown. For instance, if you had a series of files titled by a date prefix you could use the "?" to substitute for unknown dates. As in a file like "87_Mar.DOC", where the 87 refers to the year and the Mar refers to the month, a wildcard like "87_???.DOC would call up all the files for 87 with a 3 letter month designation and you could then DELETE, MOVE, COPY or LOCK/UNLOCK them. Yes you are right, you could also again use the Asterisk(*) in place of the three question marks and obtain the same results except that using the Asterisk(*) you would also get files such as "87_FOUR.DOC" because the Asterisk assumes the full 8 character file name.. Note that wildcards do not apply to subfolders, but only to files within the folder currently shown in the directory window of Universal. RENAME files with Wildcard This is a special function of Universal and will not normally be found in any operating system. This RENAME function allows you to change the extension of files to a new one. For instance, the .ACC extension of accessories may be changed to .ACX if you don't want them to be loaded on powerup. To use this function, enter an asterisk (*) for the 8 character filename. For the extension, enter the extension of the files you wish to change. Drag the entered Wildcard name to the RENAME button. The "Selection" line will change to "New Name". Enter the new extension, leaving the asterisk in the 8 character part of the filename. Click on OK or press return and the files will be renamed. Error messages Depending on the type of error that occurs in the Universal, you may get one of several different alert boxes. Some of these are automatically generated by the operating system (like the familiar "Drive A: is not responding..." alert that is received when trying to read an unformatted disk), and three are generated by the Universal itself. These three error boxes report the following errors: PATHNAME NOT FOUND. Somehow you have a pathname you are trying to copy to that doesn't exist. ILLEGAL ACCESS. This is a TOS catchall for several different error types. You will generally get this error when trying to delete or move a file that is locked, or delete or move a folder containing a locked file. DISK FULL ERROR. You tried to copy a file (or move a file) to a disk that is out of room. Using the ACCESSORY to call Universal Included on the disk is an accessory called "CALLFSEL.ACC". This accessory is included to give easy access to the Universal and its many functions. There are many GEM applications available that do not use the GEM item selector and therefore you would not have access to the added functions of the Universal. If you have CALLFSEL.ACC installed, and the application gives access to the accessories, you could still then access Universal to perform its functions. To use CALLFSEL.ACC, just install it on your boot disk along with your other accessories. It will appear in the "Desk" menu under the title "File Selector". When called, the file selector will appear and you may perform any needed function. When you are done, you may click on either the OK or Cancel button in Universal to return to your application. The BUG report As of this writing, the Universal has been tested with a great many different programs. Every care was taken in creating the Universal to make sure that it conformed with standard GEM procedures and did not violate the operating system. It doesn't do any trickery to perform its operations. Unfortunately, other programs are on the market that do perform trickery, and sometimes violate the operating system. Following is a list of known programs that do use trickery to operate. In these cases, caution should be exercised when using Universal. If you find additional circumstances where Universal is in conflict with other programs, please write to us and when we have initiated a fix, a FREE replacement copy will be sent to you. This list reflects our testing of popular programs for the ST. We are currently initiating fixes on those programs mentioned. Program name Company Problem ALT MichTron The Universal will work with this program BUT (Emphasize BUT) when you go to DRAG a file or folder while in ALT, the system will lock up. ALT does something funny to the operating system that we have yet to discover, before we can initiate a fix. It is best to CLICK only on file or folder names while in ALT. A slow click turns into a DRAG rather quickly so be careful. WordPerfect WP Corp This program in its current version (as of 11-25-87) has a problem with ALL accessories. Currently any dialog box used with WordPerfect from an ACCessory has some a conflict with the program. Universal is a product of Applications and Design Software, Merlin, Oregon and may be copied for owners personal use. Use by other than purchaser constitutes fraud and a violation of copyright laws. Additional copies of Universal may be purchased by original purchasers at $10 per copy and these may be given to friends and other computer users. The imbedded program serial number will attest to the validity of the gift. When ordering additional copies, please supply your programs serial number.