home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Current Shareware 1994 January
/
SHAR194.ISO
/
dos_util
/
pck31.zip
/
README.D
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-10-01
|
12KB
|
264 lines
**************************************************************************
* POCKETD PLUS v3.1 Readme File *
**************************************************************************
The older PocketD v1.67 has been in circulation since January '92, and has
registered users in the US, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland,
Sweden, Israel, Dubai & Australia. During the last 12 months it received:
* The "BEST NEW UTILITY 1992" award by the top US Shareware catalog PsL
* 6 Excellent reviews in magazines, totalling over 5000 words of review
text and earning 5 stars out of 5 in most assessment categories.
>>>>>>>> WHAT IS IT ?
PocketD Plus is first and foremost a small command-line file manager,
with a separate and optional menu-driven interface. Its purpose is to
provide the user with a highly productive tool for day-to-day disk
housekeeping. However it can be many things, depending on what you
want. It has been designed to be small enough for anyone to want it
on their PC, even if they only use 2% of its facilities.
>>>>>>>> WHAT FACILITIES DOES IT OFFER ?
PocketD Plus comes as 2 key programs:
D.EXE This is small flexible color directory listing program and an
exceptionally powerful DOS utility. It allows the user to
quickly and easily carry out automated tasks that would be
either too difficult or impossible by other means. D.EXE has a
staggering 220+ options and sub-options, including filename,
string and archive searching (supporting ZIP, ARC, PAK, PKA,
ZOO, ARJ, LZH & even SFX), analyse EXE/COM files, file viewing,
advanced copy (23 options), execution and display template(s)
(50 parameters), sorting, color user menus, support for all
screen sizes, advanced wildcards, user-defined parameters (37),
many display formats, barchart summary, directory and archive
browse, recursive disk analysis, environment variable analysis
& much much more. The executable D.EXE is only 31k in size
(registered version 29.6k), with an optional 107k of indexed
on-line help.
MENUD.EXE This is the new (37k) front-end to D.EXE introduced with v3.0,
allowing users to gain access to D.EXE's extensive command-line
power through the comfort of a menu-driven system. D.EXE was an
innovative DOS tool, MENUD.EXE is an innovative menu-driven
system! MenuD's 60 menus and over 400 options not only allow
the user to build D.EXE command-lines, but also provide a
compound description of the operation in English! MenuD fulfils
the following roles:
(1) Menu-driven File Management
For users who want to gain access to D.EXE facilities
without learning the command-line syntax.
(2) A Tutorial For PocketD
For users who want a fast way to learn D.EXE's command-line
syntax. MenuD demonstrates which options can be used
together.
(3) A Utility Factory
No need to search for that special utility that you want.
MenuD lets you create it! The BAT files created by MenuD
are also automatically commented.
>>>>>>>> WHY MIGHT I NEED POCKETD PLUS?
1. Use it as a color-coded directory listing program.
If you are frustrated by DOS 6.0's failure to allow files to be
differentiated by color, then this is for you. PocketD (D.EXE)
provides more power to control color and far more tailoring and
display format options than any other program. Combine this with the
extensive options for choosing files (such as non-executable, today's
and hidden etc..), and PocketD becomes indispensable.
2. Use it as a tool for managing your hard disk.
PocketD provides exceptional power for performing both simple
operations, such as daily backups, and complex tasks such as disk
cataloguing. PocketD will replace almost any file utility you might
already have and, in most cases, will do a much better job.
3. Use it for managing a network.
PocketD was designed for a network environment! It can perform such a
wide range of useful tasks that you should not be without it, and
provides many facilities for monitoring disk usage, removing
temporary files, managing backups, manipulating accounts etc..
PocketD's generality of design really comes into its own with network
management. (See the file NETWORK.DOC).
4. Use it on your laptop.
At 29k in size (registered version, minimum installation), PocketD is
a laptop user's dream. It is small enough to fit on anyone's machine,
and will allow you to dispose of many other utilities, leaving you
with a single consistent utility for all tasks, rather than a
hotch-potch of cumbersome and incompatible programs.
>>>>>>>> I ALREADY HAVE A BUNCH OF UTILITIES. WHY BOTHER WITH POCKETD?
Are you nervous about your BACKUPs?
Programs such as NORTON, PC-TOOLS and FLEXIBAC will irresponsibly
backup a corrupted 4k file over an uncorrupt 100k previous version
without a squeak. PocketD will let you fine-tune exactly how cautious
your backup should be. It will also tell you exactly what is going
on, and warn you if the system clock is wrong! If you want a secure,
fast and convenient tool for backing up your daily work, then PocketD
is ideal.
Are you sure that your existing utilities can do all that you need?
Have you ever needed to do any of the following?
Copy and optimally pack files to multiple disks?
Look for a file containing a particular piece of text?
Reverse an accidental copy into the wrong subdirectory?
Move a subdirectory tree to another part of the disk?
Search for a file in any disk or archive using multiple criteria?
Look at the contents of an SFX archive before running it?
Have your machine remind you when your next backup is due?
Have a program that could tell you how big your subdirectories are?
Test whether the correct disk is in a drive?
Automate commonly carried out operations?
Add questions to your AUTOEXEC.BAT or batch files?
Create a formatted audit file for all your machines?
Scan your hard disk to check that every byte is readable?
PocketD's flexible design will do these things and countless other tasks.
>>>>>>>> WHAT MAKES POCKETD SPECIAL?
The key feature that makes PocketD exceptional is its power to mix
and match its enormous range of features to perform almost any task.
Many utility packages provide "set-piece" facilities to perform
particular tasks. PocketD will often be able to provide the same
functionality by combining options in appropriate combinations, but
with the added advantage that PocketD can go further and provide a
much larger superset of facilities, which can be exactly tailored to
the user's needs.
For example: PocketD provides ARCHIVE support
Since PocketD can see a file inside an archive, the rest of its
general purpose facilities can be brought to bear.
How many other archive handlers could do the following?
(a) Take all ZIP archives on drive A: and uncompress each into its
own subdirectory on the current drive. (e.g. DIET14.ZIP becomes
DIET14\*.*)
D A:.ZIP [md $n//PKUNZIP $w $n\]R
(b) Delete all the files in the current subdirectory that are also
present within an archive in the current directory (including
ZIP, ARJ, LZH, ARJ, ZOO, ARC, PAK, PKA and Self-extracting
archives created by PKZIP, ARJ, LHA or LHARC).
D [D $f/hzz]ZRAZ reporting each deletion, or...
D [D $f/hzz:=$d=$s]ZRAZ checking first that date & size of
file is the same before deletion.
(c) Search the current drive looking inside all .ZIP archives for
files with the extension .DOC or with a name containing the
string "READ", that were modified during the last 5 days and
uncompress them into the current directory.
D /WZ[zp]:-5 *READ* .DOC [PKUNZIP $p$B $f]R
(d) Show how much space would be needed to uncompress the archive in
the current directory which uncompresses to the largest size
(not necessarily the biggest archive, after taking into account
the cluster size of the current drive!), also reporting how much
space is actually available.
D /ZDUKss [$s bytes needed ($Rk available)]
(option "Z" scans archives, "D" shows only archives/dirs, "U"
actual space used, "ss" sort by size, "K" shows only first
sorted item.)
From this it can be seen that almost anything might be possible, e.g.
automatic VIRUS checking of files in SFX and other archives, on-line
viewing or running of files in archives, checking whether files in
one archive are present in another, etc... See ARCVIEW.BAT and
UNARC.BAT on the release disk for further good archive examples.
>>>>>>>> WHAT ABOUT THE SIMPLER DAY-TO-DAY UTILITIES?
PocketD can also enrich even simple utilities, providing that extra
functionality to make them that much more useful. For example:
Take the simple utility WHEREIS. The PocketD release disk has a
pre-prepared batch file to do this.
WHEREIS filename is available in most users' utility
repertoires, but PocketD will let you expand
this, for example:
WHEREIS *A*=D* /c A: "Search for filenames with an 'A' followed
later by a digit and copy them to drive A:
(giving the user the chance to view each
file, and warning if the file already exists
on A:, whether it is bigger, smaller, older,
newer, MUCH older etc..)"
WHEREIS /TQ "Search for all the files I created today
and provide a scrolling list from which I
can choose files to view"
>>>>>>>> JACK OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF NONE?
NO!... PocketD, almost without exception, provides facilities that
are individually superior to those provided by other dedicated
programs. For example, only 10% of PocketD's options are devoted to
file copy/move, but there is no program (at the time of writing) that
comes close to PocketD's copy power. Even heavyweight copy
specialists, with over three times the code size, do not come near.
Finally, PocketD gains substantially from its use of templates, which
allows the user to construct exotic combinations of nested calls that
make almost any operation possible.
This flexibility makes PocketD one of the few programs that can
provide a viable substitute for a command line programming language.
>>>>>>>> WHAT IS THE EASIEST WAY TO LEARN HOW TO USE POCKETD?
PocketD is primarily a command-line tool, but the menu-driven
MENUD.EXE provides the easiest way to explore its facilities.
MENUD.EXE allows the user to pick options from menus and see the
equivalent command line constructed, with a full description of the
command in English. The user can then run it using the F3 key, or
save it as a fully commented BAT file using F2.
The user can also run "DEMO" for a quick demonstration of D.EXE.
Having grasped the basic rules for constructing D.EXE command-lines,
the next step is to use the on-line guide for examples of using D.EXE
to perform particular tasks. This is accessed by typing:
D /??
from the DOS prompt. The user can also examine the pre-prepared BAT
utilities provided on the release disk for extra inspiration.
Finally the user can always register PocketD or PocketD Plus(!), and
receive the 100-page mini-manual, jam packed with many detailed and
instructive worked examples not provided in the on-disk
documentation.