Monster Media 1994 #1

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E A S Y S T A R T M E N U! Version 5.0 Copyright (c) 1987-1994 Lewis G. Muller Sage Computer Solution 1120 17th Street West Billings, Montana 59102-4130 406-252-5006 Welcome to EASY START MENU! Version 5.0. UPGRADING: If you are upgrading from EASY START MENU! 3.xx or earlier you will need to do a complete installation. The menu entries that you are currently using will have to be reentered, and probably reorganized into different menus. If you are upgrading from EASY START MENU! 4.04 and earlier to version 5.0 you will only need to copy the files EZSTART5.EXE, EZSTART5.HLP, EZSTART5.DOC, and CONVCNF.EXE into the directory that you are using. Do not copy the files with a .CNF or .OPT file extension or you may overwrite the preferences and menus that your are presently using. Then change to that direc- tory and run EZSTART5.EXE. EASY START MENU! will detect the older EZSTART4.CNF and con- vert it to the present format. That is all there is to it. New in release 4.53 is the ability to use a menu as a telephone directory with dialing capabilities. Look for the section on special features. New in release 5.0 is an improved file entry system that allows the user to browse though drives and directories to locate the desired file. 1 Introduction: EASY START MENU! is effortless to use, yet is a full fea- tured menu program that is as easy to use with the key board as it is with a mouse. It is unencumbered with all the extra utili- ties that some menu systems have, and that you don't really need. Let's face it - you already have your favorite utilities, you just need a way to use them more effectively. Since its inception EASY START MENU! has adhered to a couple of basic ideas. One is the ease of use and the other is to use as little memory as possible leaving more for the application programs. In the earlier versions this was accomplished by using a small assembly language program that would load overlays for the functions as needed. This resulted in a program that re- quired only about 3.5k of memory when the application was loaded. Prior to this release it also had to load a secondary command processor which ate up more memory. Although this worked very well, the size constraints made such pleasantries as multiple menus and mouse support impossible. This version of EASY START MENU! changes all of that. It makes use of memory swapping technique written by Thomas Wagner of Germany. This technique allows EASY START MENU! to remove itself from memory when an application is launched. This leaves only 1.7k remaining to reload EASY START MENU!. When the appli- cation is finished control is returned to EASY START MENU!. If XMS or EMS memory is present it is used, otherwise EASY START MENU! is saved to the hard disk. EASY START MENU! is now made with multiple menus, mouse support and a few other features with out worrying about excessive size. The result is a more useful program that uses less memory. WARRANTY: Great care was exercised in the production of this software, but because I cannot be responsible for how or why it is used, I can make no other warranty either express or implied. If you have any questions or problems I may be reached on COMPUSERVE at 72760,3563 and AMERICA ONLINE as Gforfred. 2 Getting Started: EASY START MENU! is best installed in the root directory of your hard drive or it may be put in its own subdirectory. The installation program will do this for you. Put the program disk in a floppy drive and log to that drive. Type INSTALL {path} where path is the drive and directory of where it is to go. If EASY START MENU! was downloaded from a BBS you may use the copy command to copy all of the files included in the ZIP file to that drive and directory. The install program does nothing except copy all of the files to the hard disk for you, thus you may choose to do this yourself and not use the install program at all. If you have EMS memory available EASY START MENU! will use it to swap out of low memory. If you do not have EMS memory you will need to put the following line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: TEMP=path Where path would be the drive and directory name of the location on your hard drive where you would like to place your temporary files. If this line is not in your AUTOEXEC.BAT then EASY START MENU! will write the swap file in the EASY START MENU! subdirec- tory. Loading and Running EASY START MENU! To start EASY START MENU! you must be logged to the drive and directory where the EASY START MENU! files reside. Once there type EZSTART5 and press ENTER. EASY START MENU! will come up with the utilities menu active. EASY START MENU! comes with two selections on the menu - [A] Read the doc file, and [B] Print the doc file. Either menu item may be executed by pressing the letter in brackets [], or moving the cursor to the desired selection using the cursor keys, of by moving the mouse cursor to the item and clicking the left mouse button. Help is accessed by pressing the l key or by clicking the left mouse button on the F1for Help on the top menu bar. Menu Bar: --------- The Menu bar can be accessed by any one of three methods. 1. Place the mouse cursor on the menu item of choice and click the left button. 2. Press ALT + the highlighted letter of the menu selection. 3. Press the F10 key and cursor to the menu item and press ENTER to open the window. Pressing the F10 will always start the menu selection at the MENU item. Let's add a command to see just how easy it is. Let's assume that you would like to set EASY START MENU! to load Bor- land's Quattro Pro spreadsheet program. Let's also suppose that Quattro Pro resides in a subdirectory on the C: drive named QPRO. We would also like to have Quattro Pro automatically come up with a spreadsheet with a file name of BUDGET.WQ1 that is in a subdi- rectory named DATA under QPRO. 3 If the current menu is not Applications PRESS ALT-M. Select Applications by moving the cursor bar to that line and press ENTER, or you may click the left mouse button on Applications, or simply press 'A'. If there are not any entries in this menu a message window will ask if you would like to enter the first item. Press 'Y', or click the left mouse button on the YES button. This will take you directly to the dialog box that asks for the program description (step 3.). If there is an entry present in this menu, then you will need to do step one and two. 1. PRESS ALT-E. The Edit window will open and show a number of commands that can be invoked. 2. PRESS 'A' to Add an item to the menu. A dialog box will appear and ask for a name. This is the description that will appear on the menu screen. 3. TYPE Quattro Pro - Budget Next you will be asked for the full path name of the pro- gram. This includes the path and the file name that is used to start the program. If the programs path is in the PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file you need only enter the program name. If EASY START MENU! could not find the program you entered the file browser will be activated. 4. TYPE C:\QPRO\Q.EXE The next line asks for parameters. These are the same as command line parameters. 5. TYPE C:\QPRO\DATA\BUDGET The next line asks for a password. You can put one in at this time if you are so inclined, or one could be added later. Leave this line blank if none is desired. 6. PRESS ENTER Assuming this is the first item in this menu, item [A] will now read Quattro Pro - Budget. Now when ever you would like to work on the budget just press A and everything will be loaded for you. Adding more menu items are just as quick and easy. 4 MENU ALT-M --------------- This item is used to select a menu from the list of avail- able menus. There are facilities for up to sixteen different menus available for use. This allows 416 different programs or commands. They are set up to allow for grouping your programs by type. Cursor down to the desired selection and press ENTER, or move the mouse cursor to the desired selection and click the left button. The desired menu screen will replace the previous screen and become active. This screen will remain active throughout the session of EASY START MENU! or until it is changed by selecting another menu screen. This will not affect the default menu screen when EASY START MENU! is started in a new session. En- tries are made in each of the different menus in the same manner. 5 EDITOR ALT-E --------------- ADD: With the desired program menu on screen select EDITOR then ADD. You may now enter a description of the item using up to twenty-two characters. This is the line that appears on the program menu. All of the standard edit keys (arrow keys, home, end, and insert will change from insert to overwrite) may be used to make the entry. Press ENTER when this is complete. Enter the complete path for the program to be executed on the next line. This should include the drive, directory, file name, and exten- sion. If the extension is left off the program will first search for a .COM file and then an .EXE. Batch files may also be exe- cuted, or if they are compiled into a .COM file they will not require a secondary command processor to be loaded. Batch files may not include any line that would load a TSR or driver that would stay in memory. This will cause the system to return to DOS on exit from the application instead of the EASY START MENU!. See the note at the end of this file for further information. Internal DOS commands may also be entered here. Enter only the DOS command here - not the arguments. When this entry is com- plete press ENTER. You will now enter the arguments that are needed if any. Refer to your software manuals for this informa- tion. If this is a DOS command enter arguments here. Say you wanted to copy files from A: disk B: disk including subdirecto- ries using XCOPY. The arguments would be: A:*.* B: /s You may now enter a password if desired. When an entry is password protected that item may not be executed, edited, or deleted without the password. A password may be added, edited or deleted at a latter date. This would complete the entry for this item. To make this permanent the menu must be saved. A menu is saved by pressing the F2 key or selecting SAVE from the EDITOR drop menu. If you would like to put certain menu items at particular letters in the menu blank lines may be entered. This is done by pressing Alt O or F10 on an empty menu item entry window. Blank lines will not execute. If a description is entered but the command is left empty it will produce a shell to DOS on execu- tion. EDIT: An item may be edited by selecting the EDIT option from the EDITOR drop menu. Select the letter of the item to be edited. This may be done by typing the letter or by clicking the left mouse button on that entry. You will go through the same steps as the ADD function except the entry is already entered ready for editing. 6 DELETE: An item may be deleted with this function. Select the item in the same manner as above. You will then be asked to confirm your decision. This will remove the item from memory, but the change will not be permanent unless the menu is saved. INSERT: You may insert a new item any where in the existing menu from 'A' to the last letter that has an entry. Select the letter of the desired location for the new item. The new item is then entered in the same manner as in ADD. MOVE: Any item on the menu may be moved to another location. First the item to be moved is selected as in INSERT, and then the now location is selected in the same manner. The rest of the entries will be moved to accommodate the new arrangement. ALPHABETIZE: Selecting this option will alphabetize the menu. PASSWORD: Password protection may be added to any item on the menu. The password may be entered when the item is initially entered, or with this function. Once a password is added to an item this is the only place that it may be changed or deleted. Of course, if an item is already protected you must know the password in order to change or delete it. SAVE: The menu may be saved using this option. The menu may also be saved by pressing the F2 key while the cursor is active on the menu screen. Any time that a menu has been altered and an option is selected that would remove that menu from memory you will be asked if you would like to save the menu changes. This may be done be responding by typing 'Y' or pressing the left mouse button. You may go on without saving the changes by typing 'N' or pressing the right mouse button. 7 SETTINGS ALT-S --------------- Various default settings may be changed to personal tastes. Any changes made in these areas are made permanent only when the SAVE option on this drop menu is selected. COLORS: All of the colors used by EASY START MENU! may be set to any of the colors that are available. Selecting this option will open a window on the right side the menu screen. This will show all of the different areas that may be changed. Select the area to change by moving the cursor bar to that location and pressing ENTER. You may alternately press the highlighted key, or by moving the mouse cursor to the desired item and clicking the left mouse button. This will either open another menu showing differ- ent areas of your first selection or the color options. When the color option screen is shown select the color by moving the white box with the arrow keys or mouse movements. The results will be shown on the screen. When the desired color is selected press ENTER or the left mouse button. When all of the color changes have been made press Alt-O to exit this area. Leaving the color change area in any other manner will cause the loss of your changes. EDIT MENUS: This area is used to add, edit, delete menus. You may also do the same functions on the menu passwords here. ADD MENU: EASY START MENU! may have up to sixteen different menus with each menu holding a maximum of twenty-six entries. This gives a total of 416 possible menu items. Upon selecting this option you will be asked to enter the menu name. This is the entry that will appear in the list of menus that are accessed with the ALT-M keystrokes. You must define a 'hot key' when entering the menu name. This is the letter within the name that is highlighted on the screen. This is done by preceding the hot key with a '~'. Each hot key should be unique. If there are duplicates in the list the first occurrence will always be executed. Once the name is entered you will be asked for a file name. This is the file that will hold the information for this menu. Enter only the file name. Do not include the '.' or file extension. This name must also be unique. If the name already exists a warning will appear. Lastly, you will be asked to enter a password. This may be done or you may leave this blank by just pressing ENTER. If a menu is password protected the menu may not be loaded, edited, or deleted without the password. 8 EDIT MENU: This is where you may edit existing menu names and menu file names. The operation is the same as the ADD portion above except the information will already be entered, and you only need to edit what is needed. The passwords may not be added or edited here. DELETE MENU: You may delete a menu with this option. Not only will the name be removed from the list of menus, but the accompanying file will also be erased from the disk. PASSWORDS: The passwords for the menus may be added, edited, or deleted in this area. If the menu is presently password protected the password must be known before any editing or deleting may take place. DEFAULT MENU: Use this option to select the active menu on initial loading of EASY START MENU!. BLANKING: If the keyboard or mouse are inactive for a period of time the screen will blank. Use this option to set the parameters for this function. As this option is activated you will be asked to enter the number of minutes of inactivity are required before the blanking takes place. If zero minutes are entered the screen will never blank. Any other number up to ten may be entered. Now a window will open and ask if you want a special program to execute that time. Normally, this is blank and the screen will clear to black on black. There is a program included with EASY START MENU! that came from a bulletin board. The author is not known to me as there was no other file with it to tell who wrote it, but it puts a little action on the screen to indicate that the computer is on. Any program of this type would be appro- priate. PERSONALIZE: This option is only available in the registered version. You may personalize your copy of EASY START MENU! by editing the top line on the screen. Any text may be entered up to sixty characters long. What ever text you enter will be centered on the screen. To make your entry permanent you must save the changes by using the ALT-S | S keystrokes from the menu screen. 9 AUTO SAVE: This is a toggle. When Auto Save is YES any time that you would normally be asked if you would like to save the active menu, it is saved for you. When it is set to NO any time that the active menu is about to be replaced and changes have been made you will be prompted to save. SAVE: Any of the items on this drop menu are not permanent unless they are saved using this option. This save does not save the menu, only the settings that are listed on this drop menu. 10 EXIT ALT-X --------------- Exits EASY START MENU!. SAVE MENU - EXIT: Using this option to exit EASY START MENU! will save the menu file and the settings first. EXIT - NO SAVE: Using this option will prompt you to save the menu file if any changes have been made. Otherwise, the exit will be imme- diate. DOS Prompt: This option will allow you to exit to the DOS prompt. You will have all of your memory available to you except for the 1.7K that EASY START MENU! retains for reloading. You may not load a TSR or any other program or driver that would remain in memory. While they would work fine you would not be able to return to the menu program. Type EXIT and press return to return to the menu. ABOUT: Opens a window telling about EASY START MENU!. It will also tell the date the program was compiled. This information would be helpful to me if you called or wrote to me with a problem. 11 ERROR MESSAGES: Most of the error messages will deal with a file name, directory, or a command that can not be found or executed. There are a few error messages that report problems while swapping EASY START MENU! out of memory. If the terminated program leaves a value other than zero in the AX register when it exits this number will be reported just before you are returned to the menu screen. If a problem was encountered in the program that was executing this number may be an error code and should be reported to the program technical support. However, most of the time it is just a value that was left when the program terminated. NOTES ABOUT MEMORY SWAPPING: EASY START MENU! utilizes code that was originally written by Thomas Wagner of Germany to effectuate the memory swapping. The routines first ascertain the presence of XMS or EMS. EASY START MENU! will be swapped to XMS first if it is available. EMS is used if XMS is not available. If no EMS is present in the system EASY START MENU! will check the environment variables to see if there is a TMP= or a TEMP= present. If so EASY START MENU! will use that path to create a temporary file into which it will swap. Otherwise EASY START MENU! will be swapped into the present directory. The reason that TSR's and drivers may not be loaded from within EASY START MENU!, either directly or indirectly as in a batch file, is that they would be loaded into memory that was made available when EASY START MENU! was swapped out. So when whatever process was executed from the menu was finished the menu would be loaded back into its original location overwriting the TSR or driver. What ever interrupts those programs had hooked into would now be pointing someplace into the menu program that would cause bizarre results the least of which would be certain system lockup. EASY START MENU! prevents this from occurring by returning directly to DOS if a TSR or driver is using memory that would be overwritten. There are some drivers that are able to restore the vectors and release their memory just as if they had never been loaded. These may be included in a batch file if a line is added to the batch file that would affect the removal of the driver after the program that they support is finished. A set that comes to mind are MARK.COM and RELEASE.EXE. They are available on most BBSs. SPECIAL CREDITS: Thomas Wagner for the swapping routines. Dan Kavanaugh for his critiquing the user interface, debugging, and help with the documentation. 12