Night Owl 6/Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso/007a/ezread17.zip/EZREAD17.DOC

Text File | 1991-11-26 | 8KB | 140 lines

                               EZREAD VERSION 1.7
                      (c) Copyright  David Batchelor  1991
                              All Rights Reserved


System requirements: Any IBM PC compatible running DOS 2.0 or higher.

EZREAD is a replacement for the DOS TYPE command for reading a text file on the
PC screen.  The DOS TYPE command operates too fast for comfortable reading.
EZREAD presents text at a rate slow enough to read -- a rate chosen by the
user.  This is convenient if the user simply wants to read a scrolling file at
a relaxed pace, "no hands," without having to type a carriage return repeatedly
(as the DOS TYPE | MORE command requires).  EZREAD enables the user to change
the scroll speed while reading, to skip ahead or back (impossible for the TYPE
command), and more.  EZREAD prints blank lines without delay to save time.  It
also lets you search for text keywords.  No other PC utility has all of these
features.

                               LICENSE AGREEMENT

This program is SHAREWARE.  You are granted a reasonable try-out period of 30
days in which you may test EZREAD to see if it serves your needs.  By trying
EZREAD, you implicitly agree to these terms.  If you use EZREAD beyond 30 days
after first trying it out, then you are required to send the license fee of
$5.00 US to the author.  (EZREAD is the copyrighted property of the author, and
you are granted the right to use it under the conditions in this paragraph.)
FOR THE LICENSE FEE, YOU WILL ALSO RECEIVE BY MAIL AN UPGRADED VERSION OF
EZREAD, WITH MORE FUNCTIONS.  The upgrade version 2.0 can print out what you
see scrolling, save your place in the file and return to it later, and more.
The license fee also entitles you to unlimited registered use of future
releases of EZREAD.  The source code is in C and is available to registered
users upon request.  You are free to copy and distribute EZREAD under the
following conditions: the executable file EZR.EXE and this file EZREAD17.DOC
are not altered in any way, both files are included together in any distrib-
ution, and no money is received by the distributor (except perhaps media
costs).  This program is offered to you for personal use only, not for use in a
business environment without a business license agreement.  Please contact the
author to arrange a business license agreement with substantial discounts for
multiple copies.  (Exception:  EZREAD is free of charge, however, to any
federal government employees, for personal or professional uses.)

                                 USING EZREAD

The command line format is

        EZR input_file_name -d#

where # represents a character from the following list: 0, q, h, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, or 9, the desired number of seconds between typed lines (q gives you
1/4 second and h gives you 1/2).  The "input_file_name" parameter is optional,
and the program will prompt the user if it is not present.  The "-d#" parameter
is also optional, and if it is absent, the default interline delay of 3 seconds
is assumed.  I have found that this is a good match to users' reading rates.

Several commands are valid during scrolling:
        h or H  for Help (a command list will appear)
        q or Q  to Quit (the Esc key also works)
        f or F  to go Faster (decrease the interline delay in steps)
        s or S  to go Slower (increase the interline delay in steps)
        PgDn    to view the next 23 lines immediately
        PgUp    to view the preceding 23 lines immediately
        w or W  to Wait until you press another key
        l or L  to display the current Line number in the file
        g or G  to Go directly to another line in the file
        b or B  to Begin scrolling again at your chosen starting line number
        ?       to search for a keyword (character string) of your choice

EZREAD versions 1.3 and later provide a filter to screen out control characters
(ASCII characters 0 through 31, except ^I, the tab character).  These charac-
ters are displayed in reverse video, using the corresponding printable charac-
ter, e.g. ^L (form feed) is displayed as a letter L on a bright background.
This is useful for examining files created by some word processors, which use
control characters as code for Italics or other functions.  A ^Z in a text file
will be treated by EZREAD as the End of File.

When the end of the file is reached, EZREAD types a message giving the line
number of the last line, and quits.

EZREAD versions 1.7 and later allow you to search for a character string of as
many as 32 characters.  The search starts on the next line (not typed yet on
the screen).  If the character string is found, EZREAD skips ahead to the
first line containing it and types the line.  If the character string is not
found in the file -- between the bottom line you see and the end -- then your
place in the file does not change.  The search for characters does not dis-
tinguish upper and lower case letters (for example, if you searched for ezread
you would also find EZREAD and vice versa).  If you have already made one
search and you want to repeat it, you don't have to retype the search text.
Just type ? and when EZREAD asks you for the search text, enter a carriage
return.  EZREAD will search for the next occurrance of the text.

I welcome comments from users and suggestions for new features.  I can be
reached by postal mail at

                        David Batchelor
                        11412 Hawk Ridge Court
                        Beltsville, MD  20705

Users are welcome to call me at [phone] with questions or comments.  I
also can be contacted via Email on several Washington, DC, area BBSs, such as
the Capital PC Users' Group Member Information Exchange [phone], TIDMADT
[phone] (FidoNet 109/120) or Interconnect [phone].

I am still developing the program and plan to add a few more features in future
releases.  I would appreciate hearing from you if you encounter any problems or
have comments about EZREAD.

A popular utility for browsing files is LIST.COM by Vernon Buerg, which does
many, many more functions than EZREAD.  LIST.COM has a continuous scrolling
capability, but EZREAD can slow down to a much slower pace and let you read
lots of pages of text without ever touching the keyboard.  LIST also makes you
wait for blank lines to scroll by, unlike EZREAD.  The main advantage of using
EZREAD is the streamlined access it gives you to continuous scrolling of text
with minimum fuss for minimum price.  EZREAD is what the DOS TYPE command might
have been...

EZREAD is also helpful to computer users who are visually impaired and have
other software installed which can read aloud what is printed on the screen.

EZREAD returns an error level of 1 if the input file cannot be openned on the
second attempt; otherwise it terminates setting an error level of 0.

Release history:

SLOWTYPE Version 0.3  Nov. 13, 1990  (prototype with few functions)
SLOWTYPE Version 0.4  Nov. 15, 1990       "      "    "      "
EZREAD Version 1.0    Nov. 20, 1990  (1st full-featured version)
EZREAD Version 1.1    Jan. 17, 1991  (performance tune-up)
EZREAD Version 1.2    Nov.  7, 1991  (ANSI screen control added)
EZREAD Version 1.3    Nov. 14, 1991  (Control character filter added; fixed a
                                      bug: in ver 1.2, line # was 1 too large
                                      on exit at EOF)
EZREAD Version 1.4    Nov. 16, 1991  (Delays of 1/2 and 1/4 second possible)
EZREAD Version 1.5    Nov. 20, 1991  (PgDn and PgUp functions added)
EZREAD Version 1.6    Nov. 21, 1991  (Fixed a bug in runtime command
                                      interpreter)
EZREAD Version 1.7    Nov. 26, 1991  (Added search for character string and
                                      a performance tune-up)

I hope you enjoy the program!           - Dave