¢¢¢¢¢ ¢ VTEX - The Text Viewing Utility¢ Version 1.3¢ 9/6/93¢ ¢ Program and Documentation by:¢ Larry Richardson¢ 5521 Madrid Ave.¢ Orlando, Fl 32807¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ This program is distributed as SHAREWARE. I have spent a great deal¢ of time designing, coding, debugging, and modifying this program.¢ Any donations I receive for my time and effort will encourage me to¢ continue supporting this program, as well as writing new software for¢ the Atari 8-bit computer. Thank you.¢ ¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ ¢ I. What does it do?¢ ¢ VTEX is a utility that allows you to view any file on the¢ screen. If you have used DOS to view a file (copy from the file to¢ E:), you already know how unfriendly it is. VTEX is an attempt to¢ give the Atari 8-bit users an easier and more powerful method to view¢ a file.¢ ¢ II. Features¢ ¢ VTEX can page through a file, both forward and backward. It has¢ the ability to skip to the last page and back to the first page, or¢ to skip in increments of ten pages. Since VTEX doesn't go through¢ CIO to display on the screen, special characters (such as the clear¢ screen command) will not interfere with the display. VTEX has a¢ pseudo-word wrap (I'll explain later), and can delete the leading¢ spaces from the left margin (good for viewing files that have been¢ PRINTed to disk). VTEX also has string search capabilities, ASCII¢ CR/LF handling, block mark and save, adjustable screen colors, a¢ directory lister, and the ability to save its default configuration.¢ It has been tested under both Atari DOS 2.5 (2.0) and SpartaDOS.¢ ¢ III. Running VTEX¢ ¢ From any Atari type DOS, use the binary load command and load¢ the VTEX executable file (VTEX.COM). The program will clear the¢ screen and the 'No File' indicator on the bottom line indicates that¢ there is no file being viewed currently. Press R and enter the¢ directory mask to view the directory of a disk. Press L and enter a¢ filename to view and press RETURN. After VTEX opens the file, the¢ VTEX view screen will appear. At the bottom of the screen is the¢ VTEX status line. It displays the version number of the program, the¢ current page number of the file being viewed, and has an end-of-file¢ (or No File, as appropriate) indicator. It also indicates if the¢ word-wrap, delete leading spaces, or ASCII/ATASCII options are active¢ or not.¢ From SpartaDOS, you may specify the filename to view on the¢ command line. Simply type - VTEX filename <RETURN>. Under¢ SpartaDOS, VTEX will look for the filename on the command line. If¢ it doesn't find the filename there, it will begin in its 'No File'¢ state (as it always does under Atari DOS). If VTEX encounters an¢ error while trying to open the file specified on the command line, it¢ will simply go to the main screen in its 'No File' state.¢ ¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ IV. Commands¢ ¢ Once VTEX is running, you have a number of commands to choose¢ from. Note that the page movement commands are not enabled until a¢ file is selected for viewing. The commands are explained below.¢ ¢ PAGE FORWARD¢ ¢ Press the down arrow key (without holding down the CONTROL key).¢ VTEX will display the next page in the file. As VTEX moves forward¢ through a file, it notes the position of the beginning of each page¢ so that it can move backward (or jump forward) directly to that page.¢ ¢ PAGE BACKWARD¢ ¢ Press the up arrow key (without holding down the CONTROL key).¢ VTEX will display the previous page in the file.¢ ¢ FORWARD 10 PAGES¢ ¢ Press <SHIFT> down arrow (without the CONTROL key). Note that¢ because of the way Atari 8-bit DOS's handle random access files, VTEX¢ cannot just jump to a page that it has not yet read in a sequential¢ manner (see the explanation in PAGE FORWARD). It doesn't know at¢ what point in the file the 10th page occurs, for example, until it¢ has read pages 1-10. Therefore, when you press <SHIFT> down arrow,¢ VTEX will either:¢ 1) Move forward 10 pages (if it has already read that far in the¢ file)¢ - or -¢ 2) Move to the highest page it has read (if less than 10 pages from¢ the current page)¢ ¢ BACKWARD 10 PAGES¢ ¢ Press <SHIFT> up arrow (without the CONTROL key). VTEX will¢ either:¢ 1) Move backward 10 pages (if the current page being displayed is¢ greater than 10)¢ - or -¢ 2) Go to the beginning of the file¢ ¢ GO TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FILE¢ ¢ Press B to return to the first page of the file.¢ ¢ GO TO THE END OF THE FILE¢ ¢ Press E to ATTEMPT to go to the end of the file. VTEX can only¢ go directly to the end of the file if it has already read the last¢ page. If the last page has not been read, pressing E will take you¢ to the highest page number read at that point. Once the last page¢ has been read (using the down arrow to page forward), VTEX notes the¢ position of this page so it can access it directly.¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ DISPLAY THE CURRENT FILENAME¢ ¢ Press F to display the name of the file that is currently being¢ viewed. Press F again to see the normal VTEX status line.¢ ¢ WORD WRAP THE DISPLAY¢ ¢ Press W to turn on the pseudo-word wrap. A 'W' will appear on¢ the left side of the status line to let you know that word wrap is¢ active. This is not a true word wrap, so long words will hang over¢ onto the next page. VTEX will simply start looking for a space after¢ column 31. If it finds a space, it will break the line here and wrap¢ the text at this point. Pressing W again will turn the word wrap¢ off.¢ Note that because selecting word wrap (or the delete leading¢ spaces option) will change the size of the displayed pages, VTEX¢ resets the file to start back at page 1 when either of these options¢ are selected. This allows the program to re-build its pointers to¢ the beginning of the pages (which will now be in different¢ positions).¢ ¢ DELETE LEADING LEFT SPACES¢ ¢ Press D to turn on the delete leading left spaces option. A 'D'¢ will appear on the left side of the status line to let you know that¢ this option is active. Any spaces that would have appeared on the¢ left edge of the page are now gone. Also, the current page is reset¢ to 1 (see the note under the word wrap option for an explanation).¢ Press D again to turn this option off.¢ ¢ SEARCH FOR A STRING¢ ¢ Press S to perform a case sensitive search for a string. Press¢ I to perform a case insensitive search for a string. The program¢ will prompt you to enter a string. Type the string you wish to¢ search for and press RETURN. The program will start from the current¢ page and look forward for the search string. The search will stop¢ when the program has found your string, the end of the file has been¢ reached, or the ESC key is pressed. Each occurance of the search¢ string is highlighted on screen. The function will not search if the¢ current page is the end of the file.¢ ¢ ASCII option¢ ¢ VTEX can optionally display ASCII carriage return/line feeds or¢ carriage returns alone as it would ATASCII carriage returns. This is¢ useful for viewing text generated on IBM PC's, such as many text¢ files that are on bulletin boards. Pressing A will toggle this¢ option on or off. An 'A' will appear on the left side of the status¢ line to let you know that the ASCII option is active. As with the¢ word-wrap and delete leading spaces option, the file will be reset to¢ the beginning when this option is selected.¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ LOAD A NEW FILE¢ ¢ Pressing L will make VTEX prompt you for a new filename to load and¢ view. Enter the filename and press RETURN. If the program¢ encounters an error while trying to open the file, the buzzer will¢ sound and the prompt will re-appear to allow you to try again.¢ Pressing ESC at this prompt will exit the option and let you continue¢ to view the current file. When a new file is loaded, VTEX operates¢ as if it has just been loaded (i.e. you begin at the first page in¢ the file and all pointer information must be re-created). If no¢ drive specifier is given, the D: prefix is appended to the filename¢ before attempting to load the file.¢ ¢ EXIT THE PROGRAM¢ ¢ To exit VTEX and return to DOS, press the ESC key. VTEX will ask you¢ if you are sure you want to return to DOS. Press Y to exit to DOS,¢ or any other key to remain in VTEX. Note that if you choose the¢ search option, pressing ESC while the program is prompting for the¢ search string simply takes you out of the search function. This is¢ also the case with the load a new file option. Pressing ESC while¢ the program is prompting you for a filename will simply abort the¢ command.¢ ¢ DIRECTORY¢ ¢ Press R to view a disk directory. VTEX will prompt for a path (the¢ initial default path is D:*.*). This path is the drive specifier,¢ subdirectories, AND file specifier. For example, to view the¢ directory listing all of the .BAS files on drive 2 in the BASIC¢ subdirectory, the path would be:¢ D2:>BASIC>*.BAS¢ To view all of the files on the default drive in the current¢ subdirectory:¢ D:*.*¢ Pressing ESC at the path prompt will abort the directory listing.¢ Also, a new feature allows files to be loaded from the directory¢ listing screen. Just press L at the 'Press any key to continue'¢ prompt and you are taken directly to the Load A New File option.¢ ¢ COLORS¢ ¢ VTEX now allows the user to customize the screen color and text¢ intensity to his or her liking. The < and > keys decrease and¢ increase the screen intensity. The 9 and 0 keys decrease and¢ increase the text intensity.¢ Finally, SHIFT < and SHIFT > decrease and increase the screen color,¢ independent of the intensity level.¢ ¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ SAVE CURRENT CONFIGURATION¢ ¢ Press C to save the current configuration. This command saves the¢ state of some of the VTEX features, allowing you to customize your¢ copy of the program. The following are all saved by this command:¢ - Word Wrap On/Off¢ - ASCII/ATASCII state¢ - Delete Spaces On/Off¢ - Screen color and Text intensity¢ Press C and VTEX will prompt for a VTEXfile name. This is the name¢ of the VTEX executable that you run. After entering the filename,¢ VTEX will update the executable file itself with the new default¢ values for the above features. So, to make a bright red screen and¢ black text your default, simply set the screen colors and then press¢ C.¢ ¢ HELP SCREEN¢ ¢ VTEX has a help screen built in. Just press ? and the help will pop¢ up on the screen. All of the key commands listed in this DOC file¢ are on the help screen, followed by a short explanation. You may¢ execute any key command from help by just pressing the key (you don't¢ have to exit help first). NOTE: To exit help without doing a¢ command, press ?, or any other unused key.¢ ¢ BLOCK MARK AND SAVE¢ ¢ Press CNTL-S to set the start of a block. Use the cursor keys to¢ move the marker around, press RETURN to set the mark, or ESC to¢ cancel. The start mark will appear as an inverse 'S'.¢ ¢ Press CNTL-E to set the end block. The end block will appear as a¢ inverse 'E'.¢ ¢ Press CNTL-F to save the text between the start and end marks to a¢ new file. VTEX will prompt for a save filename. This allows you to¢ copy out part of a very large file that a word processor will not¢ load completely, for example. The end mark must be set after the¢ start mark. While saving the block, the number of characters¢ processed is constantly updated on the screen (well, every 25¢ characters anyway). Note that this function was written mostly to¢ handle smaller blocks of text and will run slowly on a single drive¢ system. If you must mark and save large blocks of text, a RAMdisk or¢ at least a double floppy drive system is recommended.¢ ¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ NOTES ON VERSION 1.1 (3/10/92)¢ ¢ After many suggestions, I had to figure out what to add and what to¢ throw away. I wanted to keep the program still fairly small, but add¢ enough of the good suggestions to make it more usable than before.¢ The commands above were new to 1.1 (Directory, screen colors, save¢ configuration, and help screen). Also, a few things were fixed and¢ improved.¢ ¢ - First, a bug that caused VTEX to sometimes exit to DOS before¢ running was squashed!¢ ¢ - Another 1.0 bug... go to the End-of-file, select A, D, or W, and¢ the program would not advance forward. Squashed!¢ ¢ - The BREAK key is now disabled while in the program.¢ ¢ - ESC will stop a string search before getting to the end of the file¢ (I did a search on a 70+ page document one evening... I put the ESC¢ feature in shortly after that!)¢ ¢ - When loading a file with L, the default drive is now D: instead of¢ D1:. Now SpartaDos users can specify a filename without a drive, and¢ the default SD drive will be used instead of D1:¢ ¢ NOTES ON VERSION 1.2¢ ¢ After recieving a few letters from users who registered the program¢ (you know who you are... Thank You All!) and talking to some local¢ users, one gripe was pretty consistent. In fact, this was the only¢ suggestion that I really heard people want, so it is the main¢ addition to VTEX 1.2.¢ ¢ Basically, everyone wanted to be able to start the program without¢ having to remember a file name to give VTEX. Once the program was¢ running, you could look at the directory, but not until it had a file¢ to process. So, VTEX can now start up in a No File state where the¢ page movement commands are disabled until a file is specified to view¢ (with L).¢ ¢ Also, you can now load a file from the directory viewing option by¢ pressing L. This is great for people like myself who had trouble¢ remembering the file name long enough to type it in!¢ ¢ NOTES ON VERSION 1.3¢ ¢ There were many little changes made to VTEX, and a few large ones.¢ Here are some of the more important ones:¢ - User can now choose either case sensitive or insensitive search¢ - Search text is highlighted when found¢ - Path from directory is used in loadfile¢ - Block mark and save added¢ - Prompt user before exiting to DOS¢ - Position cursor at the end of default strings¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ - Inverse entire status line¢ - Scroller at top of screen added¢ The scroller was added after I got a letter from a user that¢ basically said "some people run the program and just don't know what¢ it does". I guess I can just forget updating the DOC file if no one¢ reads it anyway! At least the scroller will point users in the¢ direction of the help screen.¢ ¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢ V. SpartaDOS X Notes¢ ¢ If you are lucky enough to own a SpartaDOS X cartridge, then¢ this section will give you a few common sense ideas on how to best¢ use VTEX.¢ First, it is very easy to make VTEX behave as though it is¢ simply another command by placing it on one of the active drives and¢ setting the PATH to look on that drive. I use a 256K 800XL, so I¢ have an AUTOEXEC.BAT file that does the following:¢ ¢ 1) Set up a ramdisk as D8:¢ 2) Copy VTEX up to the ramdisk and call it V.COM.¢ 3) SET PATH=CAR:;D8:¢ ¢ With the path set up to look on the ramdisk for .COM files, I can now¢ execute VTEX from the command line without having to tell SpartaDOS¢ what drive it is on. Since it is on the ramdisk, it loads and begins¢ executing in a second. Also, by calling the program V.COM, all I¢ have to type to view a file is:¢ ¢ V filename <RETURN>¢ ¢ Second (and last), SpartaDOS X now handles the NOTE and POINT¢ calls in the same manner for both SpartaDOS and Atari DOS disks (it¢ uses a byte offset from the beginning of the file). What does this¢ mean to the end user??? It means if you use VTEX under the SpartaDOS¢ X environment to view an Atari DOS formatted disk, you will notice¢ BIG delays when paging backwards or forward. This is because¢ SpartaDOS X must re-read your Atari DOS file from the beginning each¢ time a POINT command is given. The solution is to copy the file to a¢ SpartaDOS formatted disk before using VTEX to view it.¢ ¢ I hope this is as useful to someone else as it has been for myself.¢ Drop me a line at the address given, or leave a message on Moonbase¢ Alpha BBS at (407) 578-2811. I would like to thank all of the people¢ participating in the Atari 8-bit base on Moonbase Alpha who gave me¢ feedback on VTEX version 1.0. Also, thanks to those who registered¢ version 1.0 and 1.1 and who wrote nice notes with good suggestions.¢ Lastly, thanks to John Dickerson of DACE for a very encouraging¢ letter and a couple of good suggestions. I hope version 1.3¢ addresses those suggestions.¢ ¢ Suggestions and donations are both welcome!¢ ¢ ¢ Larry Richardson¢ ¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢¢
