Tech Arsenal 1/Tech Arsenal (Arsenal Computer).ISO/tek-02/resmover.zip/RESMOVER.DOC

Text File | 1992-07-27 | 20KB | 446 lines

July 24, 1992                                  Hamburg, Germany

DEFINITION OF SHAREWARE
-----------------------
Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software
before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue
using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs
differ on details -- some request registration while others
require it, some specify a maximum trial period. With
registration, you get anything from the simple right to continue
using the software to an updated program.

Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software,
and the copyright holder retains all rights, with a few specific
exceptions as stated below. Shareware authors are accomplished
programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are
of comparable quality. (In both cases, there are good programs
and bad ones!) The main difference is in the method of
distribution. The author specifically grants the right to copy
and distribute the software, either to all and sundry or to a
specific group. For example, some authors require written
permission before a commercial disk vendor may copy their
Shareware.

Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You
should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook,
whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes
fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy.
And because the overhead is low, prices are low also.

DISCLAIMER - AGREEMENT
----------------------
Users of RESMOVER must accept this disclaimer of warranty:
"RESMOVER is supplied as is.  The author disclaims all
warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation,
the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose.
The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or conse-
quential, which may result from the use of RESMOVER."

RESMOVER is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge
to the user for evaluation.  Feel free to share it with your
friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of
another system.  The essence of "user-supported" software is to
provide personal computer users with quality software without
high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to
continue to develop new products.  If you find this program
useful and find that you are using RESMOVER and continue to use
RESMOVER after a reasonable trial period, you must make a reg-
istration payment of $15 to me.  The $15 registration fee will
license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time.
You must treat this software just like a book.  An example is
that this software may be used by any number of people and may
be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long
as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while
it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two
different persons at the same time.

Commercial users of RESMOVER must register and pay for their
copies of RESMOVER within 30 days of first use or their license
is withdrawn.  Site-License arrangements may be made by con-
tacting me.

Anyone distributing RESMOVER for any kind of remuneration must
first contact me at the address below for authorization.

You are encouraged to pass a copy of RESMOVER along to your
friends for evaluation.  Please encourage them to register their
copy if they find that they can use it.  All registered users
will receive a copy of the latest version of the RESMOVER system.


OVERVIEW OF RESMOVER
--------------------
If you ever worked with Turbo-Vision resources generated
by Dialog-Designers or other programs and you find it nasty
to handle them in your own programs because you must
extract them from other sources/files/programs and you
thought over a libary manager for it  then this programm is
ideal for you. You can open more than one resource files
from which you can move your resources over an Clipboard to
other files. Deleting and Renaming will also work. Note that
my programm isn't a Dialog Designer !!

WHAT ARE RESOURCEN AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
-----------------------------------------
Turbo-Vision Resources are data extracted from programs to extra
files so that they can be alter without recompile the programm.
For Example: You can distribute your program with resourcefiles
of strings for different languages. Or if some little change must
be do to the menus etc. you make it only onto a resource not in
your program. In the Windows-World the most programs use resources
you can alter without having the source-code of the program.

With the popular TV the Resources came also to the Dos-Environment
and there will also a couble of Dialog-Desinger for it. As I see
by myself not many programers use resource ( to complex to use or
whatever ) so RESMOVER will help those peoble to do more with
resource and easier too ! Note that the developer of Turbo-Pascal
used them very heavy. If you now ask where to find a Resource-File
at the Compiler you must look in the EXE-File that is the place where
Borland stored it. But normal the resources were stored in a file
with a extention like these *.RES, *.BRS .... With RESMOVER you
can handle each file you open, extract them or rename it, etc.
For Example you can open the TURBO.EXE file and still see what
happens.

FUNCTIONS OF RESMOVER
---------------------

The Programm have a some menues for acting with it. Here the
most of them should be declare.

System-Menu:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
  About         : Displays a window that display some info about the program.
                  The name, a copyright and a version number. This window
                  will be moved on the desktop if you use a not registered
                  version.

  Clear-Desktop : Close all opend windows and clears the historylists
                  on the file-dialogs.

  Information   : Display a information screen how you can contact me.
                  And some more info about the programm.

  Registration  : Here you can enter your name and a code that I send you.
                  If the code is correct your programm will be registrate
                  and the flicker About window will closed and a messages
                  appears that this programm is registrated to you. If
                  you have an unregistrated version there will be display
                  in the first line of the screen.

  History/Fixes : Here a list will display with the changes made to the
                  program. It includes a date, a descrition and a
                  versionnumber.

Operations on Resource-Files:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  File-Open : First of all you must open a file. This you make with
  [F3]        the File-Open menu or F3. After you have open one or
              more resource you can do following thinks :

  New       : Create a new resource file. Note that you save is with
              the "Save as" function before leave the programm.

  Save as   : Save the complete resource under an other name

  Pack it   : Compress the resource file, because Turbo Vision
  [Alt-P]     appends each resource-item at the file. So the
              resource file grows with the time and you need it
              to pack.

  Close     : You can close a resource-window on different ways.
  [Alt-C]     Click the close-icon on the window, Press the key
              of the Close button or activate the button. All
              changes made to the resource will be saved to the
              file.

Operations on Resource-Items:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 If you have successfully open a resource-file ( you can't open
 files that haven't resource in it ) you see a Dialog-Box with
 an included List-Box with the Resource-Items. You now can
 select a resource with the cursor-keys or a mouse if aviable.
 If you already have selected an item you can do following :

  Cut         : Remove the item which is selected, but still put
  [Shift-Del]   it in the clipboard

  Clear       : Remove the item which is selected, with output
  [Ctrl-Del]    it in the clipboard

  Copy        : Copy the item in the clipboard but let it in the
  [Ctrl-Ins]    Resource.

  Paste       : Inserted the clipboard item in the active
  [Shift-Ins]   Resource windows. If you have already a item
                under the same name you would be asked for a
                new name for the item.

  Rename      : Rename the resource-item. You would be asked
  [Alt-R]       for the new-name. If the name you put it already
                exists in the resource you must call these function
                again with a different name.

  Show        : For some type of resource-item I plan a short
  [Alt-S]       viewer. But the problem is that much resources
                have their own registration-code which I don't
                know in my programm. At this time viewers for
                TDialog,TStringList and TButton in the program.
                TMenuBar,TStatusLine are planed.

 With the version 1.07 I've added functionality to handle
 more than one item at the cut&paste operations. If you want to
 select more than one item then you can do that by use the spacebar.
 Then a markerer at the begin of the item can be toggle.

Options:
~~~~~~~~
  Line        : Here you can toggle the display size on an EGA/VGA card
                between 25 and 43/50 lines.

  Mouse       : A dialog to control the mouse parameters like.
                Click-Speed and left-hand users.

  Colors      : Here you can change the colors for the application

  Store       : The options you have previous made can be save
                hereby to a RESMOVER.DSK file. If that file exists
                on programstart it will be automatically load from
                the current directory.

  Retrieve    : Looks for a RESMOVER.DSK file in the current directory
                and load it if exists. This can be neccessary if you
                changed the current directory while working with the
                program.

Macros:
~~~~~~~
  This menu is at this time only for testing ! I'll see if I enhance it
  in future versions or put it away. At this moment you can only recorder
  one macro (eats a lot of memory with mouse moves !) and then play
  it back. If enough users want a proffesional macro recorder in the
  app, please ask me for it.

  Recording   : Starts the recording process until you select "Stop".
                Note that you ever have a look onto the memory display !

  Stop        : Stops the recording process if one aviable.

  Play        : Play all the events previous recording. Include
                Mouse and Keyboard events.

Windows:
~~~~~~~~
  Exactly the same as within the Turbo IDE, excluding the special
  Windows like Watch, etc. !

Help:
~~~~~
  Only a placeholder at this moment. Please write me if you need a
  context-sensitive helpsystem for this program.

Other file-menu items:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Dos-Shell   : You can think over it by yourself.

  Exit        : If you have enough of the (unregistrated) program
                you can leave it here.

  Change-Dir  : You can changed your working directory with this call.

Others:
~~~~~~~
 If you know of the Turbo 6.0 IDE you will easy get in my programm
 because it looks like it ( I hope ). I think eachone who will use
 it, is a Developer for TV programms and exactly know how to use
 this program.

 I have included a screen-saver module with the 1.03 version. It
 will be activate after ca. 5 minutes or if you move the mouse
 cursor to the upper-right corner of the desktop. It looks and
 acts like the one of the Norton-Commander.

 Note that the Help menu doesn't work at this moment, but I'll work
 on that. Only put this first version out of my computer
 to see how you find it. Suggestions ever welcome by me !



REGISTRATION:
-------------
If you want to registrate this program ( why not if you like it ? )
send me the fee via mail and give me some info how I can reach you so
that I can send you a invoice over the money, a disk ( only 3.5" ) and
the registration code ( I need only your First, Last name for it ). If
you will get updates via E-Mail let me know because it's easier to me.

IF you'll send the fee with a bank-transfer here's my bank account
in Germany ( but don't know how to transfer money on it from foreign
countrys, let me know if you know how ! ) :

                                        Stefan Boether
                                        Postgiroamt Hamburg
                                        BLZ 200 100 20
                                        Ktnr.# 2784 47-205

You see that this is a short documentation and my English is bad
I know that ( hope that you understand me <g> ) but each mail
with a problem that reached me will be included in this docu.
So that the docu will grow with the users of the programm.
If some sentences not so good to read please correct them and
send it to me, only so I learn to write good English documentations.

If you have some additional questions or suggestions about the program
you can reach me under following addresses ( I prefer E-Mail ). Also
I ever search for new ideas for tools I can be develop. If you need
any tool which can be useable for more that one users send me that
idea and I'll see if I realize it.

 Stefan Boether          E-Mail:  CompuServe   100023,275
 Methfesselstr. 38                FidoNet      2:242/200
 W-2000 Hamburg 20                Internet     [e-mail]
 = West-Germany =

And last not but least my sign. If you see it anywhere you know that
I was there.

 - Mfg Stefc -

P.S.  Many thanks to the people at the CompuServe BPROGA Forum. Without
      their help this programm doesn't exists at this time !

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some additions to the program itself such as technical info, bug-fixes,
wishes from users, etc.

I begin develop the program early '92 but make use of much units I develop
in '91 so the date came together. For the development I use the Turbo Pascal
6.0 Compiler with the TurboVision libary and the Blaise TV-Resource Toolkit.
As machine I have a 386SX 20Mhz with 8Mb RAM and MS-DOS 5.0 installed on
it.

The program is able to use EMS or XMS installed on your computer. If you
have neither of them on your machine the disk is used as virtual memory,
but this decrease the performance of the program. I hope that this
limitation isn't so bad for the most developers !

The most work on it I made within one week. The most work was to
explode the resource formats of the TURBO.EXE program. Have found
some nice thinks in the format ! (Try out Alt+I in any About-Window
of Borland products, or yet also programs of mine ) After the first
useness of the program I find it very useable for development and
decided to give it away as ShareWare. I started it with give it
away to CompuServe BPROGA libs, Fido-Network, Borland Germany and
some other peoble. I do that at end of march. Then I start with
waiting for some response from users of the software. After time
of using the program often by myself I found some extra features
that would be added to the program from me. Also I program some
other tools for Resource-Files command-line based. At this time
three tools would be added RESPACK, RESINFO and RESSTR ! Then
the time came where John Miler from the Turbo User Group Pro asked
me for a newer version can be put to their bimonthly produced
membership disk. I'll wait for what the future brings to my
Resource-Mover. My first program I give away as ShareWare.

Here are some enhancements and bug fixes made to the program.

Date      Version  Comments
~~~~      ~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~~~
27.03.92  1.00     Put the Version 1.00 away to different networks
                   and peoble.

27.03.92  1.01     Added a TStringList-Viewer to it.

27.03.92  1.02     Titlesize of the Dialog will be decrease/increase
                   on resizing it.

29.03.92  1.03     Added my ScreenSaver object (ask me for the source
                   if you like it ! )

30.03.92  1.04     Store and Load-Desktop functions

31.03.92  1.05     Added a Window where bug fixes can be review

02.04.92  1.06     Added Mouse-Option Dialog and VGA/EGA Line-Switching

14.04.92  1.07     The clipboard can now handle more than one item at
                   a time.

21.04.92  1.08     First test of my macro recording/playing operations.
                   ( Mouse-Moving will be also handle )

21.04.92  1.09     You can give the files to open as parameters to the
                   program from DOS
   .
   .    Development on other program like the Resource Tools
   .
24.07.92  1.10     Removes the nervous window at non-registrate programs

24.07.92  1.10     Looks for hanging without HIMEM.SYS in memory
                   ( but not found anything, can be a problem
                     solved by using a newer method of XMS-access ! )

24.07.92  1.10     Instead of Ctrl-Tab and Alt-Tab for window change
                   I use now Turbo-Like F6, Shift-F6.

27.07.92  1.11     Remove the twice opening of the resource-file.
                   Don't know if it causes some bugs before, but cut
                   the source and exe-size.

And here came is a wishlist for future versions of the program.

A formated documentaion can be printed out,
A helpfile for the program,

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Special thanks to:

 Blake Watson        for his TRAMStream and give me the idea to
                     develop a similar TXMSStream

 DJ Murdoch          for his Stream-Collection and his engagement on
                     streams and his collection of known bugs to
                     the compiler

 Neil J. Rubenking   for his excellent book wich covers TP 6.0 and his
                     help on TV-problems

 Steve B. Schafer    for the many answers to my many questions
                     to inside TV problems I have

 Hans B. Schleichert for the exploaration into the deep of
                     Runtime errors and catching them, still
                     in Overlays

 Richard R. Sands    for his delay and beep routine without the use
                     of CRT

 Other TeamB members for the support in the BPROGA forum

 Blaise              for their Resource-Editor which spare me
                     a lot of time on design at the needed dialogs

 Borland             for their excellent TV class libary and the
                     Pascal Compiler wich is so fast and popular

 CompuServe          to give me the link from my desk to pascal
                     developers on the whole world

 Resmover Users      How enjoy also the use of TV and Resources
                     and need such programs as Resmover

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Some advertising for myself:

If you need a Pascal programer for projects that can be give away to
third-party developers. And you need also a programer how know much
about OOP-Programing in Pascal and the libarys behinds them like OWL
and Turbo-Vision ask me for a offer. If you want programs how should
have similar user interfaces as Resource-Mover or only need a little
object for example a screen-blanker, a windows list, etc. ask me
also. The question don't cost anything !