Night Owl 9

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DREP CD-ROM/BBS Directory Formatting System Copyright (C) 1993 Express Software TABLE OF CONTENTS Copyright ...............................1 Disclaimer ..............................1 License Agreement .......................1 System Requirements .....................2 Description .............................2 Installation ............................2 Sample file .............................2 Print Manual ............................2 Getting Started .........................3 Conventions .............................3 Using Drep ..............................3 Menu Functions ..........................4 Defaults Menu ...........................4 Run: ....................................5 Edit ....................................5 Batch Mode ..............................5 Example Batch files .....................6 Operating Header_Check...................7 Support-registration ....................7 DREP CD-ROM/BBS Directory formatting system 1 COPYRIGHT NOTICE DREP is Copyright (C)1993, Express Software. All rights reserved. DISCLAIMER Users of DREP must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "This program is supplied as is. Express Software disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. Express Software assumes no liability for damages, direct or conse- quential, which may result from the use of this program." LICENSE AGREEMENT This is a shareware version of DREP and is provided to the user for evaluation. If you find this program useful and find that you are using it and continue to use it after a reasonable trial period you must make a registration payment of $25.00 to Express Software. The $25.00 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 cannot be read by two different persons at the same time. Commercial users of DREP must register and pay for their copies of DREP within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site- License arrangements may be made by contacting Express Software. Anyone distributing DREP for any kind of remuneration must first contact Express Software at the address below for authorization. Express Software must be so advised so that the distributor can be kept up-to-date with the latest version of DREP. You are encouraged to pass a copy of DREP 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 DREP. Express Software 57228 1/2 29 Palms Hwy, Yucca Valley, CA 92284 FAX 619-228-2268 BBS 619-365-4005 -1- 2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS DREP will run on any PC, XT, AT, or PS2 with 512k memory and any of the following monitors: Mono, CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA. DREP will run on DOS 3.1 or higher and in DOS mode on OS/2. A hard drive is required, a mouse is supported but not required. DESCRIPTION DREP (for Directory REPlace) is a complete directory formatting system for BBS operators, SYSOPS, and archival file managers. The system is especially well suited to handle the somewhat arduous task of importing CD-ROM directory information into several BBS software formats. DREP is configureable "on-the-fly", has full mouse support, menus, on-line help, allows for selective removal of headers, and may be fully implemented as a batch procesess if so desired. Full-screen editing is also supported and may be called at any time from the DREP environment. DREP is non-destructive - it will not over-write or attempt to modify any of the original files it processes. DREP will reduce hours of manual formatting to minutes and give you complete control of all processing. DREP is geared to the professional user, the SYSOP that must maintain and manage commercial BBS systems, who must have complete control of every process at all times, no configuration file is required, all settings can be toggled on a "per-session" basis at any time. INSTALL FROM FLOPPY If you received these files on disk, type: INSTALL from the command line and DREP will prompt you for the drive you wish to install to. All files will then be copied to a \DREP directory on that disk - no PATH or CONFIG.SYS modification will take place, INSTALL will create the directory for you. INSTALL FROM HARD DRIVE Un-archive the files you received from the BBS. Type: INSTALL at the command line, INSTALL will detect it's environment, create a \DREP directory, copy all files to it, and delete the un-archived files from the install directory. Your original archive will remain in-tact. * NOTE * INSTALL MUST be used to assure proper file/directory placement! SAMPLE FILE The file "sample.cd" is provided as a "test" file for you to familiarize yourself with the operation of DREP - processing this file will give you a "feel" for the different options available to you in the DREP system. PRINTING MANUAL This documentation may be printed on your printer by typing: "printdoc" [return] from the command line in the \drep\docs directory. -2- 3 GETTING STARTED DREP's primary function is to allow BBS operators to re-format CD-ROM directory listings into a form that is acceptable for their software. The alternative to DREP is to either enter the descriptions by hand or spend a lot of time in a screen-editor/word processor. When importing files from a number of CD-ROMS, the "manual" methods described above are, to say the least, tedious - when compounded with the fact that different manufacturers of CD-ROM based file packages often include elaborate headers that subscribe to no standards whatsoever and the fact that different BBS software require a number of different format structures, the task of importing CD-ROMs becomes arduous indeed. DREP automates this process, allowing you to bring new listings into your system in minutes, stripping headers, removing un-wanted characters, concatinating lines, justifying size and date stamps, and allowing you to manually "touch up" files if so desired, all from within a fully integrated, mouse driven (if desired), environment. DREP also allows you to accomplish all these things as a batch process - this is convenient when several CD-ROMS from one manufacturer are being imported into the system and no further configuration is required on a CD by CD basis. CONVENTIONS DREP uses the following keyboard/mouse conventions: All cursor movement is accomplished through use of the cursor (arrow) keys, or additionaly, through movement of the mouse. All menu selection is accomplished by pressing [return], or additionaly by clicking on the selection with the left mouse button. Exiting a menu without calling a function or returning to previous menus and screens is accomplished by pressing [Esc], or by clicking the right mouse button. USING DREP To call DREP from the command line, simply type: DREP [return] The opening screen will show a quick-reference guide to command line use, this is a convenience for you to use when preparing to implement DREP as a batch process (described later). The screen also has both a "Help" button and a "Disk" button in the upper left hand corner. The "help" button may be activated at any time to call on-line help for the menu functions. The help window is scrollable with either the cursor keys or mouse, a per-cent bar shows your position in the current help file. Press "H" or click on the button with your mouse. Press [Esc] to exit Help. The "Disk" button is used to cycle the active disk drive, and is active from the main menu screen. The "Disk" button knows your current drive, and knows how many drives you have available, you may log any drive by pressing "D" until the desired drive letter is displayed in the drive window, or by clicking on the button with your mouse. All disk-reads will be to the drive you have selected. -3- 4 MENU FUNCTIONS The function menu is located in the upper right hand corner, this selects the action you wish to perform - all functions are referenced in on - line help for your convenience. EXIT - Exits the program. MENU - Opens the Defaults menu. This sub-menu allows you to configure DREP "on the fly" by toggleing the state of the various menu selections. RUN: - Opens a sub-menu that allows you to change directories and select the file you wish to process. EDIT - Allows you to shell to an external editor - we provide you with TDE, an excellent public-domain editor. DEFAULTS MENU Selecting MENU from the main function menu presents you with a sub-menu that allows you to set a number of configuration options. As the name implies, the status of the items in this menu are set on start-up to default values. Header_Check - When on, will show you a sample of the file you are about to process, allowing you to select the number of header lines to delete (if any). This is convenient when pro- cessing CDs from several different manufacturers, the header is removed and remaining lines are justified to top of file. When off, will process the CD without delay. Delete_Start - For BBS software that provides it's own import-size/date stamp, this deletes the old size/date stamp - Start is the starting character to delete (default is 13). Delete_count - Compliments the Delete_Start function, count of characters to delete. (defualt is 19). Read_Mask - Allows you to set the type of file the directory/file selection menu reads - the default is "*.*" for all types. Write_mask - Allows you to set the extension of the resulting processed file. You may set this to the extension your BBS software requires. (default is *.DRP). No_Delete - The No_delete flag allows you to "keep" the old size/date stamp on the original CD-ROM directory listing as part of your processed file. This is convenient for BBS software that does NOT provide a new import size/date stamp, and requires you to provide one as part of your listing. Write_Path - Your processed file can be written to any directory. This is convenient for delivering the new listing directly to the directory you wish to use it in. Pressing [Esc] exits this menu. -4- 5 RUN: Selecting Run: opens a menu that allows you to change directories and select a file to process. If you set the Read_Mask in the defaults menu to "*.*", all files in a directory will appear in the menu. Sometimes it is more convenient to set the Read_mask to the extension of the file-type you most often format. Selecting a file will begin processing. If the Header_Check option in the Defaults menu has been toggled "on", a sample of the CD-ROM's directory will appear before processing begins, this allows you to check for any header information that may have been included with the CD, and remove it before processing continues. You may use a mouse or the cursor keys to activate any of the functions. Upon completion, the actual number of lines processed is shown, pressing any key will return you to the opening screen so that you may process additional files, or change configuration settings. EDIT Occasionally, you may wish to change certain descriptions or file names in the processed listing, we provide you with the ability to shell to an external editor in order to accomplish this. The editor provided is TDE, a public domain programmer's editor, but you may use any editor you wish. Press [F1] when in the editor to show the editor help screen. Frank Davis authored TDE based on an earlier work by Douglas Thompson. The complete TDE archive is available as TDE213.ZIP on many BBSs, the archive was considered too large to bundle with this package, but is available on Express BBS if it's not on your system. BATCH MODE While processing CD directories from the DREP environment is convenient for CDs from several different manufactuers, ( because they all have different headers ), you may find it more convenient to process some CDs from a batch file if all are from the same source. Batch mode can speed processing, and does not require you to be in attendance for every step of the re-formatting. This can free you for other duties that require your more immediate attention. Typing DREP from the command line brings up the opening screen, it also let's you see the command line switches you can use to configure DREP for use in a batch process. Syntax: DREP filename.ext [/s] [/c] [/e] [/h] [/n] [/p] Where: s = Start of column to delete [default is 13 ] c = Count of chars to delete [default is 19 ] e = Output file Extension [default is .DRP ] h = Header lines to Delete [default is 3 ] n = NO column Delete [default is delete ] p = Path for *.DRP files [default is wkg dir] EXAMPLE: DREP yourfile.ext /s13 /c19 /e.drp /h3 -5- 6 Order makes no difference when entering command line arguments, EXCEPT that the filename should be the first argument after a call to DREP. Any or all of these switches may be omitted. As you can see, typing: DREP [Filename.ext] with no switches will process the indicated file with the default settings shown above. If you wish to change any of these defaults, simply type in the switch associated with that setting, and the new setting you require. EXAMPLE: DREP [Filename.ext] /n /pc:\bbs\newdir This example will use all the original defaults EXCEPT, it will not delete the size/date stamp appearing in the CD directory and it will send all processed files to the c:\bbs\newdir directory upon completion of processing. Notice that the argument to a switch appears IMMEDIATELY after the switch itself, NO space is allowed between a switch and it's argument. Switches can be invoked in any order, but they must only appear AFTER the filename argument, the filename will always be the first argument after a call to DREP. EXAMPLE BATCH FILES While there are many ways to implement batch processes, we will present a simple example that allows multiple file processing with minimum effort. EXAMPLE1.BAT EXAMPLE2.BAT @echo off @echo off drep %1 call example1 %1 call example1 %2 call example1 %3 call example1 %4 example1 %5 Call: example2 file1.ext file2.ext file3.ext file4.ext file5.ext In the example, we create two batch files, one actually calls drep with whatever argument is supplied, the other calls the first batch file, again and again until five arguments (files) have been processed. Calling the second batch file with five filenames as arguments, will process all five files while you are free to do other things that might need your more immediate attention. Upon completion of each process, drep will show you a status screen, this assures you that the process was successful, press any key to continue processing the next file. -6- 7 OPERATING HEADER_CHECK The Header_Check toggle, when on, presents you with a screen that allows you to choose the number of header lines to delete. Pressing the up/down arrow keys, or clicking the mouse button on the arrow buttons in the upper right hand corner of the screen will move an indicator up and down alongside the sample output of the file you are about to process. Set this indicator (labled "<START<") to the line you would like the formatting to start on - all lines ABOVE this position will be deleted from the file and the remaining lines justified to the top of file. * NOTE * When operating Header_Check, you should be quite clear on one issue... Header_Check only deletes HEADERS accurately...if you attempt to delete un-formatted CD Directory files, the results will be uncertain. The reason for this is that un-formatted CD Directory files may contain comment/description lines between the filenames that will not be counted as REAL lines in the completed format. If you need to remove actual file lines, remove them AFTER you format the file. ( so there will be no description lines between filenames ). This is best accomplished with any editor, running DREP on a formatted file that is NOT of a CD-ROM directory type may yield unexpected results. You can shell directly to the screen editor to do any touch-up/browsing of the formatted file, should you feel the need. SUPPORT-REGISTRATION If you are using DREP in a commercial environment, you know the value of any software is only as good as it's support, you depend on it to do a job, seemlessly and transperently. Express Software provides complete support to all registered users, from bug fixes, to custom transfigurations, to a complete commercial sofware support package that includes object libraries, source code management, and consultation. But you must be a registered user first. Registration also entitles you to use the support routines you receive in your own programs, at no additional cost, and with no run-time royalties or additional site licenses to buy. Access to our BBS is open to all, however only registered commercial users of our software systems are allowed into consultation areas. Registration also provides you with notification of upgrades and new product releases. Upgrades are provided to registered users only, at no additional cost through our BBS. Enjoy!