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4DOS 4OS2 4DOS for Windows NT Guided Tour Published By JP Software Inc. P.O. Box 1470 East Arlington, MA 02174 U.S.A. (617) 646-3975 fax (617) 646-0904 Copyright 1993 - 1994, JP Software Inc., All Rights Reserved. 4DOS is a registered trademark and 4OS2, JP Software, and the JP Software logo and product logos are trademarks of JP Software Inc. Other product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners. 10-94 Starting The Tour ------------------------------------------------------------------- A GUIDED TOUR OF 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT This booklet will acquaint you with some of the features of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT. It isn't a substitute for the other manuals, but it will help you understand how familiar our products seem if you are used to the traditional command prompt, and it will introduce you to many of our most popular features and enhancements. By the time you finish this guided tour, you will have a feeling for how easy and friendly 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT are compared to the traditional command processor. This tour is interactive. Sit down at your computer with this booklet. Each time an example is shown, try it. The tour will create all of the files it uses; it won't modify or change your existing files and subdirectories at all. Each section of the tour is self-contained so you can skip any sections you wish and return to them later. In this tour we won't attempt to cover all the details of each feature we introduce. If you want complete information about any command or topic discussed in the tour, see the online help or the Reference Manual. If you come across terms or concepts that you are unsure about, refer to the General Concepts chapter, the Glossary, or the Index in the Reference Manual. Starting The Tour Before you can start the tour, you need to install your new command processor. If you haven't done so yet, see the Introduction and Installation Guide for instructions. Select "Tour Installation" from the INSTALL menu to copy the necessary files to your disk without making any modifications to your system configuration files. If you have already done a full installation and 4DOS, 4OS2, or 4DOS/NT is running on your system, just skip the step below where the command "4DOS", "4OS2", or "4NT" is entered. During the course of the tour, we'll ask you to enter several commands. Your entries are shown in lower case, but you can type in either upper or lower case. The display may look slightly different on your system, depending on how your prompt is set up, what disk drive you're using, and what files are in your installation directory. Don't worry about any minor differences. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 1 Starting The Tour ------------------------------------------------------------------- In some cases, the computer's output will be too long to fit on a line of this booklet and remain readable. We've truncated those lines and placed three dots [...] at the end to show you that the actual line displayed on your screen will be longer. Some commands create more lines of output than we need to display here to show how they work. We've put a line of nine dots [... ... ...] in those locations to indicate that additional information will be shown on your screen. We've written the tour as if you were using 4DOS, because it's our most popular product. The few minor differences in 4OS2 and 4DOS/NT are noted in the text. To start the tour, first change to the directory where 4DOS, 4OS2, or 4DOS/NT was installed, using the CD command. For example, if you've used the directory C:\4DOS, enter the following command: C:\> cd 4dos C:\4DOS> Now start 4DOS by typing: C:\4DOS> 4dos This starts 4DOS in "test drive" mode -- it isn't permanently installed, but you can use it for the tour or other testing. If you are using 4OS2, type 4OS2; if you are using 4DOS/NT, type 4NT. If you have already performed a full installation, skip this step. You'll see a sign-on message that looks similar to this, followed by a prompt: 4DOS EMS swapping initialized (128K) 4DOS 5.5 DOS 6.2 Copyright 1988-1994 Rex Conn & JP Software Inc. ... ... ... c:\4dos> Depending on how your prompt was previously defined, you may now see it in lower case, which most people find easier to read. A lower case prompt is the default, and we'll show the prompt that way throughout the tour. Once you have 4DOS, 4OS2, or 4DOS/NT fully installed you can use the PROMPT command to change it to upper case if you prefer. If you started 4DOS, 4OS2, or 4DOS/NT in "test drive" mode and want to exit at any time, just type the command EXIT at the ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 2 Basic Commands ------------------------------------------------------------------- prompt and press Enter. This will return you to the traditional DOS, OS/2, or Windows NT command line: c:\4dos> exit C:\4DOS> Basic Commands We'll begin the tour by demonstrating some of the most common, and most familiar, commands. We'll also show you some of the enhancements that we've added to those commands to make your computing easier. First, enter the single-character command ?. You'll see a display like this: c:\4dos> ? ? ALIAS ATTRIB BEEP ... CD CDD CHCP CHDIR ... CTTY DATE DEL DELAY ... ... ... ... UNSET VER VERIFY VOL ... The ? command displays a list of all the commands built into your new command processor. You certainly don't have to memorize them all -- we'll show you how to get help with any command in a few moments. Nor are we going to demonstrate all of these commands in this tour. If you want complete information about a command, see the online help or the Command Reference chapter in the Reference Manual. Now try a DIR command to see a list of files in the current directory. DIR displays a list of file names, sizes, dates, and times: c:\4dos> dir Volume in drive C is JPS_TEST Serial number ... Directory of c:\4dos\*.* . <DIR> 10-14-94 14:21 .. <DIR> 10-14-94 14:21 4dos.com 148264 11-23-94 5:50 4DOS 5.5 ... 4dos.doc 345005 11-23-94 5:50 4DOS 5.5 ... 4dos.ico 766 11-23-94 5:50 Color ... 4dos.pif 545 11-23-94 5:50 PIF file ... ... ... ... tour2.btm 2765 11-23-94 5:50 Guided ... ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 3 Basic Commands ------------------------------------------------------------------- updat55.doc 37946 11-23-94 5:50 Informat ... 833,056 bytes in 19 files and 2 dirs 851,968 ... 18,651,136 bytes free The DIR display should look familiar. But, unlike the traditional DIR display, you'll see the file names in lower case and in alphabetical order. We also give you some totals at the end of the display that help you see how much space your files are using. The text at the right end of each line is a file description -- it will be there if you installed 4DOS from diskette (as opposed to a downloaded copy). We'll discuss descriptions later in the tour. By using some of DIR's options, you can make the display even easier to read. The directory display you just saw probably didn't fit on your screen. You can tell DIR to pause at the end of each page by using the command DIR /P. The /P is an example of a switch or option which modifies the behavior of a command. Enter the DIR /P command now: c:\4dos> dir /p You'll see the same display, but with a pause at the end of each page. You might prefer to display directories in 2 columns. DIR will do that if you include the /2 option. If you add the /V option, it will perform a vertical sort, with file names running alphabetically down the first column and then down the second column. (We've left the display out of this booklet, because the second column doesn't fit on the page. You'll be able to see it on the screen.) c:\4dos> dir /2/v [The 2-column directory display will appear here.] DIR has many other formatting and file selection options; all of them are explained under the DIR command in your Reference Manual. Next, you'll use a simple batch file called TOUR1.BTM to create a dummy file. (A .BTM batch file is similar to a traditional .BAT or .CMD batch file, but faster.) To run TOUR1.BTM, enter the command: c:\4dos> tour1 This batch file creates a small file called FILE1 in your current directory. The contents of the file aren't important; ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 4 Basic Commands ------------------------------------------------------------------- we're simply using it to demonstrate some file-handling capabilities. You can verify that FILE1 has been created by using DIR again. Now use the COPY command to copy the contents of FILE1 to a new file, FILE2: c:\4dos> copy file1 file2 c:\4dos\file1 => c:\4dos\file2 1 file copied The copy was performed just like the traditional COPY command, but the output is friendlier: COPY tells you exactly what file it copied, where it copied the file to, and a count of files at the end. Now try renaming a file. If you've used the traditional RENAME command or its synonym REN, this will look familiar: c:\4dos> ren file1 file3 c:\4dos\file1 -> c:\4dos\file3 1 file renamed Like COPY, the REN command tells you just what it did. You now have two files, FILE2 and FILE3, in the current directory. You can use another enhancement to add the extension .TST to both of them: c:\4dos> ren file2 file3 *.tst c:\4dos\file2 -> c:\4dos\file2.tst c:\4dos\file3 -> c:\4dos\file3.tst 2 files renamed Unlike the traditional REN command, our enhanced version lets you rename multiple files with a single command. All file processing commands like COPY, DEL, MOVE, and RENAME accept multiple file names, so you can combine several file operations instead of using a separate command for each file. Now delete the files you have just created. You could use a simple command like DEL *.TST, but that would delete any other .TST files in the current directory also. To protect against erasing files that you might want to keep, add a /P option to DEL so that it will prompt you before it deletes each file. Answer Y to the prompts shown below to delete your test files: c:\4dos> del *.tst /p Delete c:\4dos\file3.tst (Y/N/R)? y Delete c:\4dos\file2.tst (Y/N/R)? y 2 files deleted 4,096 bytes freed ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 5 Command Line Editing and History ------------------------------------------------------------------- (The R response listed in the prompt means "process the rest of the files." You can use it to skip further prompting during a command.) To verify all these actions, you can do a DIR or DIR /P to look at what files are left in the directory. All the files you've just created (FILE1, FILE2, FILE3, FILE2.TST, and FILE3.TST) should be gone. The features we've demonstrated here -- traditional commands with enhancements that make your work easier -- are present throughout 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT. If you want more details, pick a traditional command that you're familiar with and look up the corresponding command in the Reference Manual or online help to get an idea of what's new and improved. (Remember that 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT only replace internal commands like COPY and DIR, not external commands like DISKCOPY and FORMAT.) Command Line Editing and History This section demonstrates features which make it easy to correct typing mistakes at the system prompt, to repeat previous commands, and to get help with any command. We can't show you exact examples here as easily as we can in the other sections of the tour, since the display depends on the exact keystrokes you type and we want you to experiment a little. So we'll guide you through what you can do, and you'll see the results on your screen. First, create a typing error, with an incorrect DIR command: c:\4dos> dur /2 Traditionally, you would have had to use the Backspace key to erase most of the line in order to correct this error, or press Esc and start over. Command line editing makes corrections much easier. Press the Home key followed by the right arrow. The cursor will move to the start of the line and then right one space to the "u" in "dur". Type an "i" and the command should be correct. To execute it, press Enter; if you'd rather not, press Esc. That's a simple example of command line editing. You can use the left and right arrow keys, Home and End, and Backspace and Del to move around and modify your command line at any time, just like you do in your word processor or editor. Other keys let you move the cursor a word at a time, delete words, change ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 6 Command Line Editing and History ------------------------------------------------------------------- between overstrike and insert modes, and perform many other operations. Esc always clears the line and lets you start over. 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT remember the commands you type in a command history. We'll use the HISTORY command to display the commands that you have used so far during this tour: c:\4dos> history ? dir ... ... ... dir /2 You normally have room for about 1000 characters of history, but you can reduce or enlarge this amount to suit your own needs. Now press the up-arrow key once. The last command in the HISTORY display (DIR /2 in the example above) will appear at the prompt. You can use the editing keys to modify this command, which is usually much easier than retyping it. To execute the command again, whether or not you've modified it, press Enter. To clear the line, press Esc. If you'd like to see more commands, first press Esc to clear the command line. (To see all commands in the history, you should always start with an empty command line.) Now press up-arrow several times. Each time you press it, you will back up one more line in the command history. Once you find the line you're looking for, you can modify it if you like and then press Enter to execute it. Now imagine that you have been working for a while. An hour ago you did a complex DIR command and you need to do it again. You could scroll through an hour's worth of command history. But another feature called command completion will save you time. First, type the beginning of the command -- DI, or DIR. Now press the up-arrow. This will recall the newest command in the history that starts with the characters you typed (if there are no matches, you'll hear a beep). Press up-arrow again to retrieve the command before that, still matching to the characters you originally typed. You can try this feature now using DI or DIR, because you've put several DIR commands into the command history during this tour. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 7 Command Line Help ------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps you would prefer to look at a list of commands that you have entered and choose from the list. First press the Esc key to clear the command prompt. Then press the PgUp key. You will see a history window in the upper right corner of your screen showing the commands you've recently typed. You can move around in this window with the up-arrow and down- arrow keys. PgUp and PgDn scroll the display a page at a time. When you find the command you want, press Enter to re- execute it as is, or press Ctrl-Enter to move the line to the prompt where you can edit it as usual. Command Line Help You can get help for 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT any time you need it from the command prompt -- just press the F1 key. If you're using 4DOS, you'll see a display of all the HELP topics when you press F1. If you would like some help with COPY, move the cursor bar to COPY, or just type COPY and 4DOS will move the bar for you. Press Enter to see help on the topic; once you're there, scroll through the help using the vertical arrows or PgUp and PgDn keys. The highlighted items within a topic are cross-references to other topics; select one with the horizontal arrow keys and press Enter to view it. Press Esc to back up, or F1 to return to the topic list. For more help using the 4DOS help system, see the Help topic at the beginning of the topic list. If you have a mouse, see the Mouse topic. Under 4OS2, F1 will start VIEW.EXE, OS/2's standard help file viewer. If you aren't familiar with VIEW, click on the Help button on the menu bar for additional information. You can navigate through the help system with the mouse or keyboard, using standard OS/2 conventions. Under 4DOS/NT, F1 will start the standard Windows NT help program. Use the Help button on the menu bar for additional information. You can navigate through the help system with the mouse or keyboard, using standard Windows conventions. Now exit the help system (double click on the "close" box in the upper left corner of the window, or use the Esc key in 4DOS). Then start entering a command: c:\4dos> copy *.doc a: / After that "/" you want to use the option that tells COPY to prompt you before replacing an existing file, but you can't ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 8 More About Files ------------------------------------------------------------------- remember what it is. Just leave the command as it is and press F1. The help system will display help on COPY, and you'll see that the option you want is /R. Exit the help system and you'll be right back on the command line. You can type the R and press Enter to execute the command -- or press Esc to clear the line without executing it. There are many more features that can help you at the command line. Most of them are described in Chapter 3 / Using 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT, in your Reference Manual. More About Files This section of the tour explores some additional features that will help you manage files and directories. You're about to use another batch file, TOUR2.BTM, to create some files with which you can experiment. First, take a look at the batch file with the LIST command: c:\4dos> list tour2.btm As you can see on your screen, LIST is a full screen file viewer. You can scroll and page through the text. You may notice that some lines near the end of the file extend beyond the edge of your screen. To make the off-screen text visible use the left and right arrows to scroll the display horizontally, or press W to turn line wrapping on and off. LIST also lets you search for text, print the file you're viewing, and display the file in "hexadecimal" mode, capabilities that we won't demonstrate on this tour. The file TOUR2.BTM is simply a batch file that creates other files, using the ECHO command. You don't have to worry about how it works; we just used it to show you LIST. Press Esc to exit List and return to the command line. Now run TOUR2.BTM: c:\4dos> tour2 Please wait ... File creation completed TOUR2 creates three files called FILE1, FILE2, and FILE3. The contents of the files aren't important since we're just using them for demonstration purposes. You'll be deleting and recreating them several times during the rest of the tour. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 9 More About Files ------------------------------------------------------------------- Now try the SELECT feature. SELECT lets you choose files for any command from a full-screen list. We'll use it here to delete one of the files that TOUR2 created. Enter the command: c:\4dos> select del (file*) This lets you select from files that begin with the characters "file", and pass the name of each selected file to the DEL command for action. The display on your screen includes a two-line header and then the list of files, just as they'd look in a directory display. Press the spacebar to "mark" the first file -- a triangular mark will appear to the left of the file name. You can scroll around in the display and mark and unmark files with the spacebar as you like. When you hit Enter, the command will be executed, deleting the files you've marked. For now, mark FILE1 and leave the other files unmarked, so that FILE2 and FILE3 are not deleted. You'll use them in the next step. SELECT is also handy if you want to copy a group of files to a floppy disk, perhaps to take your work home for the night or to make a quick backup. If you'd like to try it, put a floppy disk in drive A (it should be formatted, with at least 4K bytes free). Then enter this command: c:\4dos> select copy (file*) a: Mark one or both of the files in the SELECT display, and the marked file(s) will be copied to the floppy disk when you hit Enter. SELECT is a "prefix" command: it goes before another command and modifies what that second command does. Another useful prefix command is EXCEPT, which lets you do something except to one or more files. Before you try EXCEPT, create new copies of FILE1, FILE2, and FILE3 (TOUR2 will overwrite any old copies of these files remaining from the last time it was run): c:\4dos> tour2 ... ... ... Now use EXCEPT to delete all but one of the files that TOUR2 created: c:\4dos> except (file1) del file* Deleting c:\4dos\file2 ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 10 More About Files ------------------------------------------------------------------- Deleting c:\4dos\file3 2 files deleted 4,096 bytes freed The EXCEPT command protected FILE1 from being deleted. To verify that, use the DIR command. When you're done, run TOUR2 one more time so the files are there for the next step. Next, create two subdirectories within the current directory: c:\4dos> md dira dirb Notice that you can create both subdirectories with a single command. Traditionally, you would have needed two MD commands to do the same thing. To verify that the directories are there, use DIR but ask it to display only subdirectories (/A:D stands for "Attributes: Directory"): c:\4dos> dir /a:d Volume in drive C is JPS_TEST Serial number is ... Directory of c:\4dos\*.* . <DIR> 10-14-94 14:21 .. <DIR> 10-14-94 14:21 DIRA <DIR> 12-13-94 10:23 DIRB <DIR> 12-13-94 10:23 0 bytes in 0 files and 4 dirs 0 bytes ... 18,608,128 bytes free OK, things look right. Now move the demonstration files to those directories, using the built-in MOVE command. This is what you should type to move FILE1 to DIRA, and FILE2 and FILE3 to DIRB: c:\4dos> move file1 dira c:\4dos\file1 -> c:\4dos\dira\file1 1 file moved c:\4dos> move file2 file3 dirb c:\4dos\file2 -> c:\4dos\dirb\file2 c:\4dos\file3 -> c:\4dos\dirb\file3 2 files moved As usual, you can see exactly what has happened. Now that you've created a subdirectory structure, it's time to get a look at it. Use DIR's /S option to look for all the files whose names begin with "file" in the current directory and all of its subdirectories: ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 11 More About Files ------------------------------------------------------------------- c:\4dos> dir /s file* Volume in drive C is JPS_TEST Serial number ... Directory of c:\4dos\dira\file*.* file1 22 12-13-94 10:37 22 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs 2,048 ... 18,587,648 bytes free Total for: c:\4dos\dira\file*.* 22 bytes in 1 file and 0 dirs 2,048 ... Directory of c:\4dos\dirb\file*.* file2 22 12-13-94 10:37 file3 1938 12-13-94 10:37 1,960 bytes in 2 files and 0 dirs 4,096 ... 18,587,648 bytes free Total for: c:\4dos\dirb\file*.* 1,960 bytes in 2 files and 0 dirs 4,096 ... Total for: c:\4dos\file*.* 1,982 bytes in 3 files and 0 dirs 6,144 ... DIR has displayed the directory header, filenames, and totals for each of the two subdirectories that contain files matching the name you entered, FILE*. It also has displayed a grand total. You've seen that DIR can look at several subdirectories at once. Now do the same thing with DEL, and delete the files you put in your demonstration subdirectories, along with the subdirectories themselves, with a single command. To do so, you need to use two options: /S and /X. The /S option tells DEL to delete files in the current directory and all of its subdirectories. The /X option makes DEL remove each subdirectory if all the files within it are deleted: c:\4dos> del /s/x dira dirb c:\4dos\dira\*.* : Are you sure (Y/N/R)? Y Deleting c:\4dos\dira\file1 c:\4dos\dirb\*.* : Are you sure (Y/N/R)? Y Deleting c:\4dos\dirb\file2 Deleting c:\4dos\dirb\file3 3 files deleted 6,144 bytes freed Note the safety feature here. When you tell DEL to delete DIRA and DIRB, they are recognized as directory names. DEL assumes you mean "delete all files in this directory." Since ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 12 More About Files ------------------------------------------------------------------- you're deleting all the files, DEL displays a prompt that tells you what's about to be deleted and asks you whether you really want to do the deletion. Once you answer Y the files are deleted, and the subdirectory is automatically removed (because you used the /X switch). 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT also let you use file descriptions, so you can describe a file's contents more clearly than with an 8-character file name. If you installed 4DOS from diskette, you've seen some descriptions in your directory displays already. The descriptions can be up to 40 characters long by default, and may be extended up to 200 characters if you wish. Run TOUR2 again to regenerate the three demonstration files. Then use the DESCRIBE command to create a description for each file (you can enter any description you like; you don't have to use the text shown): c:\4dos> tour2 c:\4dos> describe file* Describe "c:\4dos\file1" : Tour file 1 Describe "c:\4dos\file2" : Tour file 2 Describe "c:\4dos\file3" : Tour file 3 Now look at the descriptions with a DIR command: c:\4dos> dir file* ... ... ... The descriptions will appear any time you ask for a standard, single-column directory display. They will also appear when you use the SELECT command. They can be a lifesaver when you have files whose contents you can't remember, or when you have large groups of files with similar names. 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT can also help you find files or text quickly and easily, anywhere on your disk. To search for files or text, you use the FFIND command. In its simplest form, FFIND searches for files. For example, try this command to find all the .DOC files in the current directory: c:\4dos> ffind *.doc c:\4dos\4dos.doc c:\4dos\appnotes.doc c:\4dos\license.doc c:\4dos\orderinf.doc ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 13 Directory Navigation ------------------------------------------------------------------- c:\4dos\readme.doc c:\4dos\updat55.doc 6 files You can also use FFIND to search for text: c:\4dos> ffind /lt"echo" *.doc ---- c:\4dos\4dos.doc [1179] echo %comspec ---- c:\4dos\appnotes.doc [1293] echo This is junk ... ---- c:\4dos\updat55.doc [279] immediately, without echoing the ... 3 lines in 3 files FFIND has listed the first line in each file which contains the text you specified. You can use the /V switch to show every line which contains your search string (not just the first line). The /L switch used above includes line numbers in the output, and the /T switch specifies the search string. Other FFIND switches let you control the order in which files are listed, search subdirectories (like DIR /S), search the entire hard disk, and even search all the hard disks in your system. Directory Navigation 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT make it easier to access files; they also make it much more convenient to navigate through the hard disk directory structure. You're probably already familiar with the traditional CD command, which you use to change directories. We've added a "go back" option to CD, which is invoked by using the minus sign [-] instead of a directory name. Try this: c:\4dos> cd \ c:\> cd - c:\4dos> The CD - changes back to the directory you were in before the most recent CD command. It's a convenient way to switch back and forth between two directories. (Make sure you type at least one space between CD and the minus sign.) ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 14 Aliases ------------------------------------------------------------------- You can also change the drive and directory at the same time with the CDD command, so you don't have to switch drives first and then change directories. Here's an example using CDD. Before you try it, put a floppy disk in drive A: c:\4dos> cdd a:\ a:\> cdd - c:\4dos> As you can see, the minus works with CDD as well. For more complex sequences of directory navigation, you can use PUSHD and POPD. These commands maintain a directory "stack" and let you make several changes, then move back through the directories you've been to. They can change both drive and directory, like CDD. For example: c:\4dos> pushd a:\ a:\> pushd c:\ c:\> popd a:\> popd c:\4dos> Now press Ctrl-PgUp (hold down the Ctrl key and then press the PgUp key). You'll see a directory history window in the upper right corner of your screen showing the directories you have visited recently. You can move around this window with the same keys you used earlier in the command history window. When you find a directory that you want to move to, press Enter to change to it. You can also press Ctrl-Enter to move the directory name to the command line for editing. We also offer a special environment variable, CDPATH, to help you find the right directory without a lot of typing. CD, CDD, and PUSHD use CDPATH to find the subdirectory you want to change to if they can't find it in the current directory. This can help a lot when you have long but commonly used directory names. See the Reference Manual or online help for complete details on CDPATH, and information on another directory navigation feature, Automatic Directory Changes. Aliases Aliases are one of the most powerful features in 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT. Simple aliases are very easy to set up and use (that's what we'll discuss here). Complex aliases allow you to configure your system just about any way you want, and can often take the place of small batch files. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 15 Aliases ------------------------------------------------------------------- The purpose of an alias is to rename or reconfigure a command. Aliases are defined and viewed with the ALIAS command. In this tour, we'll show you how to set up aliases for the DIR command. Of course, you can use aliases to enhance any command; for more examples see the ALIAS command in the Reference Manual, and the sample file ALIASES that comes with your command processor. Here's a popular favorite for anyone who uses DIR and wants to be able to use a simple D instead: c:\4dos> alias d = dir To see what aliases you've defined, enter ALIAS with no parameters: c:\4dos> alias d=dir To use the alias, just enter its name at the prompt, like any command. In this case, you'll see a standard directory display: c:\4dos> d Once you've defined an alias, you can use it anywhere a command can be used: at the prompt, in a batch file, or inside another alias. As an example, build on the D alias you have already defined. Suppose you regularly use 2-column directory listings, discussed near the start of the tour. You can define an alias, D2, to execute the DIR /2 command with the touch of a couple of keys. Since you have already defined D, you can define D2 separately, or so it uses the D alias (choose one method to try): c:\4dos> alias d2 = dir /2 c:\4dos> alias d2 = d /2 To use this alias, just type the command D2 and press Enter. You can pass file names to these aliases just like you would to the original command. For example, D2 *.DOC will display the .DOC files. You can create aliases that are even easier to use with keystroke aliases, which let you assign an Alt, Ctrl, or Function key to an alias so you can invoke it by pressing a single key. Say you'd like to assign the 2-column directory ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 16 Aliases ------------------------------------------------------------------- display to F5. Just define an alias like D2, and make the alias name the key name, with two at-signs [@@] before it: c:\4dos> alias @@f5 = dir /2 Now press F5 and the DIR /2 command will be executed. You can also create key aliases that don't execute when you press the key, so you can type additional information on the line -- just use a single [@] sign at the start of the alias, instead of two. You can use an alias to redefine how a standard command works, without changing its name. Suppose you always want DIR to display its output in 2 columns, with a vertical sort and a pause at the end of each page. You might think of using something like this: c:\4dos> alias dir = dir /2/p/v Go ahead and try that, then do a DIR. You'll get an error: c:\4dos> dir Alias loop c:\4dos> The "alias loop" error is caused because the DIR command inside your alias is interpreted as another attempt to run the same alias. It's easy to change the alias so this doesn't happen: c:\4dos> alias dir = *dir /2/p/v The [*] indicates that what follows should not be interpreted as an alias. Try the definition above (you can scroll back to the incorrect definition with up-arrow and modify it). Then do a DIR and you'll see the results. Using this method, you can redefine the default options for any internal command. Aliases can contain multiple commands and can do much fancier things than what you've seen here. They're great for creating shorthand names for commonly used programs like your word processor or database manager, and they will often load programs faster as well -- if you put the full name of the program in an alias, 4DOS doesn't need to search your PATH for it (see the ALIAS command in the Reference manual or online help for full details on this technique). ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 17 Other Commands ------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Commands There are a few other commands that we'll just touch on, so that you can see some of the other capabilities of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT. First, turn on the LOG facility, which records all the commands you enter. Enter the command: c:\4dos> log /w mylog You won't see anything else happen, but you've turned logging on. We'll return to the log later. A couple of commands let you control screen color. The examples here will work on any system with a color video board (the commands work on monochrome systems, too, but you're restricted to the colors white and black). Try clearing the screen to a specific color: c:\4dos> cls bright white on magenta Now let's set a different color: c:\4dos> color bright yellow on blue The behavior of the COLOR command varies depending on which product you are using, and (under DOS) whether you have an ANSI driver loaded. In some cases COLOR will change the color of the entire screen immediately; in others, it only affects the color of text displayed after it's executed, and not the color of text already on the screen. You can experiment with COLOR to see how it works on your system. The FREE and MEMORY commands help you keep track of system resources. FREE tells you about free space on your disk drives (and is much faster than CHKDSK). MEMORY tells you about memory resources, including available RAM, and internal alias and history storage areas. Here are examples of the output from our test system; try the commands on your system and see what you get: c:\4dos> free Volume in drive C is JPS_TEST Serial number ... 41,826,304 bytes total disk space 23,232,512 bytes used 18,593,792 bytes free ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 18 Other Commands ------------------------------------------------------------------- c:\4dos> memory 655,360 bytes total DOS RAM 612,256 bytes free 7,815,168 bytes total EMS memory 688,128 bytes free 12,288 bytes free XMS memory (HMA in use) 1,792 bytes total environment 233 bytes free 6,144 bytes total alias 1,045 bytes free 1,024 bytes total history The TIMER command lets you time events. The following line also shows that 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT can accept multiple commands on one line. (The character used to separate commands is a caret [^] in 4DOS, as shown below. Use an ampersand [&] in place of the caret if you are working with 4OS2 or 4DOS/NT.) This command starts the timer, runs the TOUR2.BTM file to create the three demonstration files, deletes the three files, and then stops the timer and displays the how long the whole operation took. Enter this command to time the entire sequence on your computer: c:\4dos> timer ^ tour2 ^ del file* ^ timer Timer 1 on: 11:10:01 Please wait ... File creation completed Deleting c:\4dos\file1 Deleting c:\4dos\file2 Deleting c:\4dos\file3 3 files deleted Timer 1 off: 11:10:06 elapsed: 0:00:05.11 Now return to the log that you started a few minutes ago. Turn logging off, then take a look at what was recorded, using these commands: c:\4dos> log off c:\4dos> list mylog You'll see a full-screen display of the log file. It should look something like this: ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 19 Batch Files ------------------------------------------------------------------- [12-13-94 11:05:02] cls bright white on magenta [12-13-94 11:06:45] color bright yellow on blue ... ... ... ... (commands from TOUR2.BTM displayed here) ... ... ... [12-13-94 11:12:35] log off You can scroll through the log with the arrow keys and PgUp / PgDn. Press Esc to exit when you've finished viewing the log. As you can see, the log contains every command you entered plus a date and time stamp. It's a complete record of system activity, including commands you type and those entered from batch files and aliases. You can use it as a record of your work, for security purposes, or for anything else you desire. You may want to clean up the directory now by deleting this demonstration log with a DEL MYLOG command. Batch Files This final section demonstrates a few of the enhancements we offer for your batch files. If you've never worked with batch files, you may want to skip this section. If you aren't sure, give it a try and stop if things seem too complex. You don't have to be a batch file expert to use 4DOS, 4OS2, or 4DOS/NT. Rather than having you write actual batch files, we'll demonstrate some of the batch file features that work just as well at the prompt. Some batch file improvements aid in communicating with the user. You can make sounds: c:\4dos> beep 440 2 880 8 660 4 You can draw boxes and lines. Enter each of these commands on one line; use the second set if you have a monochrome monitor: c:\4dos> cls bright white on blue c:\4dos> drawbox 10 10 20 70 4 bright cyan on black fill black c:\4dos> drawhline 15 10 61 1 bright cyan on black c:\4dos> cls bright white on black c:\4dos> drawbox 10 10 20 70 4 black on white fill white c:\4dos> drawhline 15 10 61 1 black on white ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 20 Batch Files ------------------------------------------------------------------- Notice that these commands correctly connect the lines on the screen where they intersect. Additional commands like SCREEN and SCRPUT, which we won't demonstrate here, display text anywhere on the screen and in any color. You can also ask the user for input. Try this (be sure to use two percent signs before the second "letter"): c:\4dos> inkey Enter a letter: %%letter Enter a letter: A The letter you typed was stored in your environment in the variable named LETTER. Use the SET command to view it: c:\4dos> set COMSPEC=C:\4DOS\4DOS.COM ... ... ... LETTER=A The user can also type full strings if you use the INPUT command: c:\4dos> input Enter a string: %%string Enter a string: Type anything you like here ... Again, SET will let you view the string, stored in the environment variable STRING. INKEY and INPUT have many additional options, including the ability to check for valid keystrokes, and "time out" if you don't press a key within a specified length of time. Once you've collected some input, you can test it with the IF and IFF commands. Here's one example. Enter this on one line (there's plenty of room; command lines can be up to 255 characters long in 4DOS, and up to 1023 characters in 4OS2 and 4DOS/NT). Type ampersands [&] in place of the carets [^] if you are using 4OS2 or 4DOS/NT. c:\4dos> inkey Enter a letter: %%letter ^ iff "%letter" == "A" then ^ echo hello ^ else ^ echo goodbye ^ endiff Try using the up-arrow to repeat the command several times, giving different responses to the "Enter a letter" prompt. 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT offer dozens of additional batch file improvements. For more information see the Reference Manual or online help. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 21 Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion This has been a very fast tour of some of the most popular features of our enhanced command processors. There are many more features, commands, and options to explore, as well as ways to customize your system so that it suits your computing habits and needs. One of the best features of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT is their ability to adapt to your way of working instead of requiring you to adapt to them. If you selected "Tour Installation" when you ran the INSTALL program, you will probably want to perform a full installation now. You can put the distribution disk in your floppy drive, run INSTALL, and follow the instructions on the screen. If you need help, refer to the installation instructions in your Introduction and Installation Guide. To learn more about specific commands, look through the Command Reference section of the Reference Manual, or the individual commands in the online help. To learn more about the dozens of features that aren't related to specific commands, read through Chapter 3 / Using 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT in the Reference Manual, or browse through the online help. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A Guided Tour of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4DOS/NT 22