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BROWSER NOTES
Created: 11 September 1995
Docs updated on 7th Jan 1996
Browser Update Dated: 7th Jan 1996
The latest update of Browser is dated internally as 7th Jan, 1996
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Here's your opportunity to see a program work in progress!
No warranties, guarantees etc, ... These updates will be
posted periodically (every week or two).
For those who have never used Browser, I highly recommend you download
browser2.sfx and read the documentation for it. This page only deals
with the updates since that release.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
These notes will be appended to with each new update. All CURRENT
changes will be noted at the END of this file.
ALL options subject to change without notice.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Early September Notes
* Hot keys. When the highlight bar is over a file and you know what
it is, pressing the appropriate key will get you started reading
(or running) it. The keys are:
A - Ascii
P - Petscii
B - BASIC
N - ANSI
D - DAT
K - PKT
R - Run (only for C128 Prg files)
* Scratching & Renaming. When the highlight bar is over a file, you
can change the filename or scratch it. Shifted 'r' for renaming,
Shifted 's' for scratching. Scratching gives no warning. (Well you
have to hit the shift key so that should be enough warning).
The index files (described later) are also scratched or renamed,
if they exist.
* Index files. Browser will prompt to save an index file for any of
the file types which it can read. The index saves the file type,
screen size, etc. These index files consist of the filename with
the first character changed to a '%' symbol. These files are USR
files and don't appear in the Browser files window. Since it
relates to the T&S information for the file, if you move a file to
another disk or directory, forget about copying the index file for
it.
* The (W)rite command. This brings up a window with options which
relate to saving a file to disk. Any of the options can be toggled
by using the key relating to each option.
Device: # (2-16) Disk drive or Printer
Write: DAT/ Packet/ Petscii/ Ascii
Disk or Printer Either
Existing files Append/ Ask/ Replace
Remainder or all Either
eCho to screen Yes/No
The Write as Packet option is not currently functional. You can't save
a Pet (or any 'non' .Dat file) as a DAT file. The Write option
appears when viewing an ANSI, but it doesn't work.
NOTE: There is a *minor* bug in saving DAT to DAT files with all
drives other than a RamLink. It saves to other drives ok, but the
private/public flag tends to get mis-set.
* 'Remainder' lets you save from the current page you're viewing. If
you use this and have eCho to screen toggled as Yes, you can use
the stop key to stop the saving of text at any stage. This lets
you save portions of a long file as smaller individual files. (I
use it to grab stuff from the FAQ files).
* DAT/PKT files do not let you save 'Remainder' in this manner - but
you can save the FAQ files (or any message) as a Pet or ASCII file
then use this method to retrieve what you need from it.
* File naming. You can name a .DAT file that you save anything you
like, it doesn't even have to end in '.dat'.
Hint: We often rename the messages.dat file to something else before
reading it with Browser, then save/append messages we want to answer
to 'messages.dat' so we can load QWKRR when finished reading the
mail packet.
* Listing a BASIC file will no longer crash the system. You can also
write a BASIC file to disk as a text file.
* Depending on the size of the .DAT file and what's at the end,
Browser sometimes displays and 'extra' message at the end which
looks nasty on the screen. It's not a bug just the way the DAT
file ends.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Mid September Notes
* This version is 'intelligent' in that it will attempt to determine
what type of file is being read (ascii, pet, .dat, ansi, pkt and
BASIC). For the most part it gets it right, but if not, its
'guess' can be ignored by pressing the appropriate key for the
format required.
* Each time you open a new directory Browser will search for a
control.dat file, and if found it will display the users name at
the top of the screen. This is mainly an indicator that a
control.dat exists. If it does exist, when you read .DAT type
files you will be given the option to use the control.dat or not.
Selecting NO will give the fastest method of reading the file, but
only the area NUMBERS will be used. Selecting YES will show the
area NAMES, plus it will also highlight any messages to or from
the user.
* Each area name is only 'read' once. The speed difference is then
negligable. Ramlink users will never notice the speed difference
anyway.
* C128 BASIC files can still be RUN from Browser (highlight the
file, and press 'r'), but it will no longer even attempt to run
C64 BASIC programs.This is generally a good thing since most C64
programs will crash the computer - However, there are some
programs, such as CMD's Fcopy and Mcopy that will run in both
C64/128 modes. Unfortunately, Browser will often 'see' these as
C64 BASIC files and won't attempt to run them..If this is the
case, the easiest solution is to load the program (in C128 mode)
as you normally would, then resave the file back to disk. This
causes the load address to be reset and Browser will then 'see'
them as C128 runnable programs. (They can still be Loaded/Run from
64 mode as normal).
* Pressing the SHIFT 'i' key will display information found in the
control.dat file, if a control.dat is in the directory.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
September 24th Notes
* Browser has new character sets! After a lot of work... Gaelyne has
put together a collection of over 30 character sets for use with
Browser - all with the correct C= Graphics. And... she's also
updated the same character sets using full ASCII graphics too. The
fullset character sets can be used in Desterm too, instead of the
des.ibmfullset file. For those of you into FTPing, other Desterm
compatible character sets (for each terminal emulation type) can
be found at hal9000.apana.org.au in the /cbm/desterm directory, or
at ccnga.uwaterloo.ca /pub/cbm/INCOMING/telecomm and eventually in
the /pub/cbm/telecomm directory.
* Fidonet users can get these from 221b Baker Street BBS. 1:366/221,
but the filenames begin with a 'des' so users know they are for
use with Desterm.
The files and their descriptions:
* browchrs.sfx on 221B Baker Street BBS = cbmchrs.sfx - Browser cbm
graphic character sets
* desful.sfx = fullset.sfx - Desterm ibmfullset character sets. Can
also be used with Browser.
* desibm.sfx = ibmset.sfx - Desterm ibmset character sets
* desami.sfx = amiset.sfx - Desterm amigaset character sets
* descbm.sfx = cbmset.sfx - Desterm cbmset character sets
* descg.sfx = cbmcgset.sfx - Desterm cbmcgset character sets
* desvt52.sfx = vt52set.sfx - Desterm vt52set character sets
* desvt102.sfx = vt102set.sfx - Desterm vt102set character sets
September 25th Notes
-----------------------------------------------------------------
DELETE any old indexes!! (those made with a version of browser dated
24rd Sept, or before). They are not compatible with later updates
and WILL cause problems!
(Sorry - but you'll appreciate the new indexes).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Browser has a new look. It uses an internal Pet ASCII set allowing
you to see disk directories and BASIC file listings with the
correct CBM graphic characters. The internal pet character set has
a few graphic characters altered to get the windows right - if
these are 'noticeable' (displaying where you wouldn't expect
them), please let us know.
* The internal IBM-ASCII set has been maintained from the previous
versions for reading .DAT and ANSI files.
* CTRL-0 (zero) and CTRL-1 toggles between the two internal
character sets. You can use this while viewing files.
* If you have 64K VDC, you can load up to 8 additional character
sets which are accessible to you with the CTRL and number keys
2-9.
* If you only have 16K VDC, other sets can be loaded and used, but
they will be lost if one of the internal ones are accessed through
the CTRL 0 and 1 keys.
* Avoid the actual loading of character sets while reading text,
do this beforehand.
* Under the 'Display defaults' window, there is a new option for
charset usage. The choices are 'PET, ASCII, AUTO and User'. AUTO
will automatically choose between the internal character sets when
you view files (ie, the ASCII set is used for ASCII type files,
and the PET set is used for PETscii text files or when listing a
BASIC file). Pet always uses the pet set, ASCII always uses the
ASCII set, and the User set will use what you load, if none are
loaded it defaults to the internal ASCII set.
* The Options menu can now be accessed from within files, and it
allows you to change colours and how the text is viewed (CR,LF,
LF+CR, TAB, etc).
* It bears repeating... Delete any old indexes! - They are not
compatible with this update and WILL cause problems.
* When you save an INDEX for a file the colour, screen size, LFs,
CR, TAB, etc information is saved in the index. This makes it
possible to have several different 'default' settings for Browser,
depending on your needs/desires. If there is no index file, the
last used colours and other settings are used.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
October 2nd Notes
* Screen sizing can now be changed while reading files.
* Border colours are now correctly updated when changed while
reading a file.
* The colour selection menu is now in colour :-)
* Character sets can now be loaded while reading files, but to
prevent crashing you must ensure that you are back on the same
drive and directory when you exit the character set menu that you
were when you entered it.
* To/From/Subj lines are now displayed with the user selected
character set, rather than the internal ASCII set.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
October 13th Notes
* Browser will now load and run C64 programs. This doesn't work with
some versions of RAMLink (even if trying to load a program from
another disk device). Both Rod and I have Ramlinks, and this works
just great on his system, but not on mine. Feedback on this would
be welcome. Don't forget to switch your monitor to 40 col mode.
* If a ':' appears in the first 11 characters of a .DAT file,
anything after the colon is colourised. Currently, it's the same
colour as quoted text, but this may change in the future. This
serves a couple different purposes: first, it makes it easier to
read Internet style replies where a colon has been used as a quote
symbol. Second, it helps to make the Internet style headers on
messages look a little better.
October 22nd Notes
* The problem with Browser not loading and running 64 mode programs
from certain Ramlink's has been solved. It's new drawback is that
it resets the Ramlink to it's default partition/directory, so if
what you want to load is on the Ramlink in a different partition
from your default, it doesn't work. It works fine for loading C64
files from any other device, however.
October 26th Notes
* Fixed file identifier problem. It now recognises CAM-MAIL QWK
packets as a .DAT file.
* Fixed control.dat problem. It now displays the conference mames
when reading QWK packets from Cam-mail.
November 27th Notes
* Fixed bug with printing via parallel cable
* Fixed bug with writing files to disk
December 11th Notes
Browser is still unreliable when used with non-jiffyDos'd 1581's.
* Browser now auto-detects the type of file (Pet, ASCII, DAT, PKT,
etc) and displays it as detected instead of showing the additional
menu. If the file does not display correctly, exit the file, then
when the cursor is over the filename, press the key corresponding
to the way you wish to view the file. IE, if it's an ASCII text
file, press the letter 'a'.
Jan 7th Notes
* Fixed a bug that caused crashing with .DAT files padded with
nulls (ASCII#0).
* Minor changes to user interface and updated menu bar options.
* To see the auto-detected filetype hold your keypress and the
filetype will be displayed on the menu bar.
-------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE!
If you do have any problems or run into anything interesting, please
let us know about it. When you do, for our information and
reference, please note the date shown when you quit the program.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Email Gaelyne Moranec with questions, comments, bug reports, etc.
(Preferred)
* Email Rod Gasson with questions, comments, bug reports, etc. (May
take a few days for a reply).
Gaelyne Moranec / moranec@hal9000.apana.org.au