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============================================================================ Copyright 1994, Abri Technologies, Inc., HC 62 Box 100K, Cacapon, WV 25422 ============================================================================ MEMBER, Association of Shareware Professionals ---------------------------------------------- 1.0 SHAREWARE INFORMATION: This software was written under the shareware concept. Try it free for 30 days. If you find it useful please register. File REGISTER contains registration information. 1.1 REGISTRATION BENEFITS: When you register you will receive all updates, latest corrections and software support for a minimum of three months. And as a bonus you will get one or more surprise utilities FREE. HandyDOS registration is only $25 for the entire collection or $5 per utility (+$1 s/h) - except ABMENU (D.EXE) which is $10. ** Please read the shareware agreement near end of this file and the Registration/Ordering form in file REGISTER which also contains information on other software available from ATI. 2.0 INTRODUCTION: (Version 1.6) HandyDOS is a collection of several handy AND well written utilities for file/disk handling, professional batch utilities, a versatile video utility and a fast program menu system. 3.0 COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS: The software uses little memory and should run on any DOS 2.1 and up. 4.0 FILES INCLUDED: INSTALL.BAT VENDOR.DOC HANDYDOS.DOC REGISTER FILE_ID.DIZ 0.EXE MV.EXE VMODE.EXE INPUT.EXE DELTREE.EXE WINDOW.EXE D.EXE BAK.EXE ATTRB.EXE ECH.EXE PRINTAT.EXE TIMETONE.EXE 5.0 INSTALLATION: All programs will work standalone on floppy or hard drive - except D.EXE which is designed mainly for hard drive use. You can use the INSTALL program to install the software in the C:\HANDYDOS directory of your hard drive. Use your editor or word processor to place the HandyDOS software directory in the DOS path statement of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The line should look something like PATH C:\DOS;C:\HANDYDOS; 6.0 DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAMS: If your package contains only one or a few of the HandyDOS utility set please consult only the relevant portion(s) of the description. NOTE: All programs will give USAGE summary information with the /? switch, as is common for DOS 5.0. LOCATION OF UTILITY DESCRIPTIONS BY SECTION NUMBERS. Section: Describes: 6.1 File utilities - BAK 0 DELTREE MV ATTRB 6.2 Program menu and directory utility D.EXE (ABMENU) 6.3 Video utility VMODE.EXE 6.4 Batch utilities - WINDOW TIMETONE ECH PRINTAT INPUT 6.1 Disk and File Utilities. ATTRB.EXE This program is meant to replace the awkward dos ATTRIB utility. It is an easy-to-use WYSIWYG full-screen utility for changing file attributes - to/from ReadOnly, Hidden, System and Archive modes (RHSA). USAGE: ATTRB [FileSpec] FileSpec can be general like *.* or a specific filename. If not given the default FileSpec is *.*. To change FileSpec on screen press the key when appears beside "Files spec:" and then type in new file spec. The R, H, S or A attributes for a highlighted file are changed simply by pressing one of the RHSA keys. Pressing the Alt key and one of the RHSA at same time changes attributes for all files specified - except directories, which can only be changed individually. BAK.EXE and 0.EXE These programs can delete all .BAK extension and zero length files in a directory and all subdirectories. They are about as fast as the DOS5 "DIR *.BAK /S" is in finding the files. BAK USAGE: bak [directory] [/S] 0 USAGE: 0 [directory] [/S] If /S is used, all subdirectories are searched. [directory] can be omitted for current directory. MV.EXE This versatile utility can rename or move any file or directory to anywhere else on the disc. USAGE: MV OldPath NewPath [/O] OldPath can have wild card '*' chars for file transfer only. Switch /O will overwrite existing NewPath files/directories. APPLICATION NOTE: MV can be very useful in renaming files which can not be accessed with regular dos commands like REN and DEL. For example OS/2 creates a file "EA DATA. SF" in the root directory. There are times when such files are in the way. You can temporarily rename such a file with the MV command by using quotation marks in MV argument. EXAMPLE: MV "EA DATA. SF" EA_DATA._SF OTHER NOTES: (I) A directory cannot be moved into its subdirectory. (II) MV does not transfer directories from one drive to another - for that use XCOPY /S and DELTREE (included here). CAUTION: Be careful when using *.* on a root directory with system files. For example "MV \*.* Newpath" will also move the hidden system files IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS to Newpath and you may not be able to boot from that disk. DELTREE.EXE This program deletes any directory with its subdirectories and all files. USAGE: DELTREE directory Any valid directory can be specified. If the current directory is specified it will be deleted and the next upper directory will become the current directory. NOTE: Before deleting directories on floppies, it will save time if the DOS verify is OFF, since each deletion has to be read verified if verify is ON. On hard drives the delay is less noticeable. Some uses of Deltree: * handy for cleaning up the drive of stale software or moving it to another drive in conjunction with the XCOPY /S command. * an alternative to formatting a floppy to erase all the files/directories. * deleting old backup files on floppies. * defragmenting a hard drive without reformatting. After backing up all your disk files use deltree (example: deltree c:\) to delete all files and then RESTORE the files back on the drive. 6.2 D.EXE (ABMENU) - Program Menu and Directory Utility. You will find ABMENU a real time saver. With a simple number reference (0-99) you can find your way around DOS drives/directories and execute programs. USAGE: ACTION: D +[#] [program] [!description] Sets jump point # to current drive/directory with optional [program] execution and [!description]. If # is not given the next higher available is used. D # Jumps to directory # and executes [program] if set with above command. D -# Deletes jump point # from list D Lists jump points, directories, programs and descriptions. Note: # is any number 0 to 99 EXAMPLES: d +9 adds the current directory as #9 on the jump list. D +12 GWBASIC ACCOUNT !Main accounting software Above would adds current directory as #12 to jump list with GWBASIC to execute ACCOUNT.BAS program. The "!Main acc........." description would be stored in the file d.ddd used by D.EXE for listing with the D command. D 12 (will jump to directory associated with #12 on list and execute GWBASIC ACCOUNT combination) d 9 (will jump to directory associated with #9 on list) D -12 (will remove directory/program reference from list) Notes: When including a description for a program or directory, make sure you precede it with the "!" exclamation point. Otherwise the program may try to use it as a command line argument. The first time D is executed it establishes an ASCII jump list file "D.DDD" in the same directory as D.EXE". When the optional program is specified for execution, the D program releases all DOS memory to that program (except about 3k for batch programs). Some menu programs allow subcategories in menus. You can accomplish this here by assigning number ranges to categories - example: numbers 0-9 for accounting, 10-19 for games, 20-29 education etc. Some packed programs (Example: QBASIC) may not execute when called directly by D.EXE. If you find this to be true you can get around this by prefixing the program name with the command.com pathname and the /C switch. Example: "D +23 C:\COMMAND /C QBASIC" instead of "D +23 QBASIC". Some Uses of D: * It can be used by different users to "logon" their directories and/or start programs. * Frequently, PC users will add the command "CD directory" to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to go to a particular directory at boot up. This can be now changed to "D #", the # representing a directory (and optional program execution) on the jump list. Subsequent changes can be simply done using D +# [program] without editing the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. 6.3 VMODE.EXE - Video Display Setting and Testing Utility. This versatile program can set or find the current video mode and graphics capabilities of the video card, change the cursor type or set the forground/background colour or mono screen attributes all in one package. The program is handy for laptop users to get the large █ block cursor, and find the best video text mode for greatest contrast. For example, The Leading Edge DLT/ 386SX default is 3, but the best contrast is with video mode number 7. Thus an AUTOEXEC.BAT command "VMODE -7" will set the block cursor and best contrast at bootup. USAGE: COMMENTS: VMODE Display current video mode VMODE [-]# Sets video mode # [and █ cursor] VMODE /A Display all video mode #'s VMODE /Cbf[mm] Sets video background/foreground colour [or mono screen attributes]. VMODE /C Lists backgr/foregr attributes. VMODE /I Inverts screen attributes. Notes: The backgr./foregr. screen colour setting function will not work if ANSI.SYS device driver is active. The █ is available only for text modes. Some software will change to default "_" DOS cursor when exiting. When FINDING the video mode, VMODE returns the DOS errorlevel # corresponding to the video mode. When SETTING the video mode VMODE returns DOS errorlevel 1 with an error message and 0 otherwise. This feature may be useful to some programmers. If you use this feature for finding the video mode and don't want the screen message "BIOS video mode is: ......" just use the redirection symbol into the NUL file "VMODE > NUL". Examples: VMODE /c1e70 will set the screen to blue background and white foreground ("1e") for a colour screen mode and to inverse video ("70") if a monochrome monitor is present. VMODE /C1e will set the screen attributes to "1e" for both colour and mono monitor modes. 6.4 Batch Utilities These utilities will give you a relief from programming in C or other similar languages to achieve many tasks with simple batch files. INPUT.EXE Even DOS 5 still does not facilitate direct batch menu selection. INPUT.EXE fixes this problem. It is more powerful than other similar utilities, having the capability to select function keys and turn off the cursor in desired situations. USAGE: INPUT [/CFN] string1 string2 string3 ..... The program gets keyboard input and returns to DOS the number (#) of the character string matching the input (i.e. returns 1 if string1 is same as the keyboard input, 2 if string2, etc.). A zero is returned if no match is found. The number returned is called the errorlevel - but is really not an error here. Upper/lower case character differences are ignored. If switch F is used, only one character is accepted from the keyboard which is then compared to only the first character of each string. INPUT /F is a good substitute for the dos PAUSE command since it doesn't interrupt with 'Press any key to continue ...' or add an extra <CR><LF>. If switch C is used INPUT "hides" the cursor until after the character or string is entered. This is handy for display screens where you don't want the cursor to show. /F, /C, /CF or /FCN are all acceptable but not "/F /C" or "/C /FN" in which case the second one will be regarded as one of the strings. Input recognizes function keys with the F switch. This is very useful for making professional batch menu programs. The function key is indicated by preceding it with the \ slash and its keyboard symbol - example: INPUT /F A C \F4 D X Not all variations of function keys are allowed. Acceptable forms are \F1 \F2 \F3 \F4 \F5 \F6 \F7 \F8 \F9 \F10 \Esc \Home \End \PgUp \PgDn \Ins \Del \Left \Right \Dn \Up (for arrow keys) With the N switch, input does not echo the characters being typed on the keyboard. This feature for example may be useful for entering passwords in a computer. ECH.EXE USAGE: ECH string This command is similar to the DOS echo but does not add a <CR><LF> pair - i.e. it does not move the cursor to next line. This is useful in batch menu programs when you want the cursor to stay beside the "question". If the string has spaces ECH will reduce all spaces to a single space. If you wish an exact string echo use quotation marks around the whole string. Example: ECH "Do you wish to make a selection? (y/n) " PRINTAT.EXE If you want more professional results in your batch files than with "echo" or "ech" now you can use the PRINTAT utility. It can position the cursor at any position of the screen and optionally print a message there using different colour or monochrome attributes (different background/foreground colour text, blinking or inverse video text, etc.). USAGE: PRINTAT [/Cbfmm] row col [message] Row (0 to 24) and col (0 to 79) are the row and columns where the cursor will be positioned, [message] is the optional text, and / Cbfmm is optional attribute setting for the text. The attribute switch has two forms. The /Cfb will set the fb attribute regardless of the video mode, whereas the /Cfbmm form will select the fb text attribute for colour video mode and mm text mode for monochrome video modes depending on the video card and mode. The avialable text attributes are: COLOUR CODES bf - substitute for b (background colour): 0 black 4 red 8 black/blink C red/blink 1 blue 5 magenta 9 blue/blink D magenta/blink 2 green 6 brown A green/blink E yellow/blink 3 cyan 7 white B cyan/blink F white/blink for f (foreground colour): 0 black 4 red 8 gray C light red 1 blue 5 magenta 9 light blue D light magenta 2 green 6 brown A light green E yellow 3 cyan 7 white B light cyan F bright white MONOCHROME CODES - for mm substitute: 00 invisible (black/black) 77 invisible (white/white) 01 underline 81 underline/blink 07 normal 87 blink 09 high-intensity/underline 89 high-intensity/underline/blink 0E high-intensity 8F high-intensity/blink 70 reverse-video F0 reverse-video/blink Note: The above codes can be listed with the /c switch by the Abri Technologies VMODE.EXE utility. Examples: "PRINTAT /Cca70 15 43 Enter Selection..." will print the message "Enter selection..." starting at row 15 and column 43 in reverse video for monochrome monitor mode and with red background and blinking white characters for colour monitor mode. "PRINTAT /C70 15 43 Enter Selection..." will have similar position results but will use text attribute 70 whatever the video display happens to be - ok for personal use, but not always portable. "PRINTAT 15 43" simply positions the cursor at 15 43 screen position. TIMETONE On occasions in batch programs it is desirable to have a time delay for the operator to view a screen message. Also, sometimes it is convenient to alert them of a program event with a beep. TIMETONE incorporates both time delay and warning tones in a single package. We have gone a step further and incorporated the ability to play musical notes, with adjustable time delays between notes and duration of notes - why not have some fun too! The default time delay and note duration is .25 sec. USAGE: TIMETONE [-DELAY].. [TONE(S)].. [duration].. [\] [/] where a negative number denotes the time delay, any other number the tone duration, the \ indicates lowering by one octave and / one octave higher, and the tones (notes) are denoted by letters C D E F G A B. A "#" after a tone letter denotes a sharp and "-" denotes a flat. Examples: "TIMETONE -4.5" will generate a time delay of 4.5 seconds before handing control to next batch program step (it will just sit there for 4.5 sec). "TIMETONE C" will sound a .25 sec tone (middle C). "TIMETONE -.5 .5 C D E F G / -.1 .2 C D E- F# G" will set the time delay between tones and the tone duration to .5 seconds and play notes C D E F G. It will then raise by one octave, set the delay and duration to .1 sec and .2 sec and play notes C D Eflat Fsharp G. As shown above all the parts should be separated by spaces except the notes which can be lumped together. The last example is equivalent to "TIMETONE -.5 .5 CDEFG / -.1 .2 CDE-F#G". WINDOW.EXE This utility will give your batch programs a professional look. It can draw any window size with or w/o borders at any position on the screen. It is excellent for batch menuing and creating pull-down menus in batch programs. Some text mode "animation" is also possible. USAGE 1: WINDOW char attrib top bot left right Example: WINDOW * -1 5 20 10 69 This example will draw a window on the screen with the "*" at the borders, using current screen attribute for "attrib", with window extending from screen line 5 down to 20 and from column 10 on the left to 69 on the right. (Screen lines number from 0 to 24 and columns from 0 to 79.) Any character can be used for "char", even a space (use " "). If you cannot type some characters like ║, just use its decimal code (186 in this case) and precede it with a backslash - i.e. WINDOW \186 -1 5 20 10 69. Check the ASCII "code-page tables" in your DOS manual for character listings. Or you can experiment with different \number values (max 255). The "attrib" determines the attribute (colour, blinking, etc.) of the window. You can view the attributes with the "PRINTAT /C" command. To to use the current attributes of the screen use -1. When attrib is in double form "bfmm", the automatic selection of attributes applies here just as in PRINTAT. For example "WINDOW * 1f70 5 20 10 69" will select reverse video for monochrome video modes and a blue screen with white characters for colour video text modes - very useful if your batch files may be used on different computers. USAGE 2: WINDOW /SFileName top bot left right Example: WINDOW /SC:\TEMP\WINDOW1.IMG 5 20 10 69 This will save the window you generated previously to the file C:\TEMP\XXXYYY.BAK for later use. USAGE 3: WINDOW /RFileName Example: WINDOW /RWINDOW1.IMG This will restore the window image saved in the file WINDOW1.IMG. Hints: It may be a good idea to use .BAK extensions for temporary window save files. That way, if they pile up on your disc, you can easily clean them up with BAK.EXE utility. You can generate desired menu screens of your choice with a good editor (or word processor in ascii mode) and save the images with the WINDOW utility. A batch file "SAVE.BAT" to save such a text file for later screen display use, would be --------------------- @echo off TYPE %1 WINDOW /S%2 0 24 0 79 INPUT /F --------------------- If you edited your desired screen display in file DISPL.TXT you can save it into (for example) WINDOW10.IMG with the command SAVE DISPL.TXT WINDOW10.IMG 6.4.1 General Sample Batch file A good example of batch file programming is the TOUR.BAT file included with the shareware version complete set of HandyDOS utilities. 7.0 Custom Programming Info. If you or your business have specific custom or contract programming needs contact Abri Technologies. Abri Technologies, Inc. HC 62, Box 100K Great Cacapon, WV 25422 Phone: 304-947-7129 E-Mail: 72345.1623@compuserve.com * FoxPro/C(Dos-Win)/VisualBasic/Pascal/Assembler/Fortran * Hardware/software integration. * $25-$35/hr DISCLAIMER AND SHAREWARE - AGREEMENT: Users of HandyDOS must accept this warranty disclaimer: HandyDOS 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 consequential, which may result from the use of HandyDOS. HandyDOS is "shareware software" 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 HandyDOS and continue to use HandyDOS after a reasonable trial period, you must make the registration payment to Abri Technologies. The 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 is not read by two different persons at the same time. Commercial users of HandyDOS must register and pay for their copies of HandyDOS within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting Abri Technologies. You are encouraged to pass a copy of HandyDOS 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 HandyDOS and software support for a minimum of three months after registration. For registration and software ordering view the 'REGISTER' file. "This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536."