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Cream of the Crop 20
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Cream of the Crop 20 (Terry Blount) (1996).iso
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TarFront.INF
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OS/2 Help File
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1996-07-04
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46KB
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676 lines
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. Overview ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
TarFront simplifies the process of backing up several files and directories in
several root directories and tar volumes and restoring files from existing
backups. It is a frontend for "tar" and "tape" which must be installed
separately according to their documentation (look for gtar*.zip and gtak*.zip).
A little understanding of "tar" and "tape" on the side of the user would be
helpful, even if not necessarily needed.
Currently, TarFront does not compare or verify files from archives. This is
planned for a later version.
This release of TarFront is public domain. You're free to do anything with it,
as long as no files are modified or left out of the archive. The author does
not guarantee that anything will work as documented here (most things should,
though <g>). You have been warned. For comments write to
ekraemer@pluto.camelot.de.
Later versions (3.x) will become shareware with moderate pricing in the range
of 40-50 US$; versions 2.x (bug fixes, minor improvements) will always remain
free, though.
See also:
Installation
Startup
Usage
Examples
Common Problems
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. Installation ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
To install TarFront, unpack the TarFront archive and either use install.cmd, or
copy all files into a directory of your choice. If using install.cmd, you have
to specify a target directory, which must be different from the temporary
directory you unpacked the archive into. Also, the language has to be
specified.
install c:\tarfront20 e
Copies all files to c:\tarfront20\ and installs the english version
of the program.
install c:\tarfront20 d
Copies all files to c:\tarfront20\ and installs the german version
of the program. All program/dialog texts are german; there's no
german online help, though.
install.cmd will create a folder on your desktop; this folder contains a link
to the executable and documentation and a template for INI files. You can
start TarFront by double-clicking copies of this template.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. Startup ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
TarFront needs one startup parameter, which is a INI file name. This INI file
will take up all options of the current session. It is suggested that there's
one INI file for every tape (in the case of permanent data backups) or one INI
file for every type of regular backup (i.e., monthly, weekly, daily, with
different settings for the "generations", and so on). Tape directory files,
which contain the directories of the archives, should be named like their INI
files plus an additional extension to permit easy retrival of files.
If you used "install" to install TarFront, you can simply drag *.TFN files onto
the executable or double-click on *.TFN files to start TarFront.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. Usage ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Tree
Main Menu
Main Toolbar
Restoring
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.1. The Tree ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
TarFront manages its target files and direcories in a tree. There are three
types of items in this tree:
Files and directories
These are passed directly to tar; directories always contain themselves,
all files contained in them and all subdirectories. These entries can be
modified by a check mark, which is the default and means that this item
will be included, and a cross, which means that this item will be excluded.
To toggle between those, double-click on the item.
Note: If you want to exclude some files from others, put the exclude
entries after the include entries..
Root directories
Root directories can (and should) have child directories and/or files.
Before processing these, the current directory is set to the root directory
and all other files/directories are stripped to relative paths. Example:
suppose you want to backup a directory inside another temporary directory.
Because it would be stupid to have the temporary directory on the tape as
well, you can declare the temporary directory as root directory and put the
"real" backup directory into it.
The combination of a root directory "e:\temp" and a directory
"e:\temp\back" inside it would lead to the tar command "tar [options] -C
e:\temp back", which means that tar changes to the directory/drive
"e:\temp" and backups the file or directory "back".
Volumes
Volume entries start a new tape volume. Each volume is processed as a
single tar process and contains all entries that lie "inside" the volume.
The default volume name, when none is given, is an (almost) unique number.
Specifying the to-be-backed-up files and directories is simple - just drag
them out of any WPS folder into the main window. You may also add them via the
menu, but then you have to enter their names.
To change entries, hold the Alt key and left-click on them (like you're used
to from the WPS). Be aware, though, that TarFront does not check any item for
validity - if you enter any wrong values, you have to live with the result.
To remove entries, drag them onto your Shredder WPS object.
To associate directories/files with root directories, drag them onto the
latter. The same is true for volumes - drag all things that make up a volume
into it.
Defaults
Volume and root entries are not mandatory. There may be only one single entry
(a file or directory), which will be backed up with absolute path into a
unnamed volume. On the other hand it is more convenient to have volume entries
every time and there could a lot of volumes and root directories in one single
tree.
"Rooted" entries can arbitrarily be mixed with "non-rooted" ones.
See also:
Main Menu
Main Toolbar
Restoring
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.2. The Menu ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
The TarFront menu contains the following items:
Options
The following options are available:
Tar settings
You can adjust all settings for "tar" that have an effect on
backups. For more information, refer to the tar documentation, "tar
--help" or this chapter.
Font
The font which is used for trees, containers and the status display
can be set with this option.
Exit
Exits the program.
Items
Every type of tree entry can be added here. To change the names to
meaningful values (i.e., paths/files), hold the Alt key and left-click on
the name. Be sure to use only absolute path names; TarFront does not
validate anything, so take special care that your files or directories are
spelled correctly (there will be no damage resulting from wrong values, but
not everything you wanted to backup will be processed). You may also delete
the selected item through this menu, although you can always drag items
onto the WPS Shredder object.
Tape
This menu contains all "tape" commands that need no further user
interaction. All commands that may damage things are disabled by default;
click on "Enable all" to enable them. This setting is not saved in the INI
file for savety. For more information on "tape", refer to GTAK.INF, shipped
with GTAK.
Help
This menu permits access to the online help facility.
See also:
Tree
Main Toolbar
Restoring
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.3. The Main Toolbar ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
The main toolbar menu contains the following items:
With this button you can start the backup process. Everything in the tree
will be backed up; a separate tar process is started for every volume (one
after the other). Be careful not to terminate TarFront when a backup is
still in progress - the tar process will not be killed, and you may get
very strange results.
TarFront will open a tree-like display containing all files available for
restoring.
See also:
Tree
Main Menu
Restoring
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4.4. Restoring ΓòÉ