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Text File | 1991-05-05 | 35KB | 783 lines

Led's Change Directory v3.1 Released May 5, 1991 A PC-DOS / MS-DOS Intelligent Directory Changer _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Written by Keith Ledbetter 4240 Ketcham Drive Chesterfield, VA 23832 (804) 674-0780 (6:00pm - 10:00pm Eastern Time) Tech Support BBS: Blue Ridge Express 804-790-1675 30 Phone Lines (2400 bd) Sub-board KEITHL ("J KEITHL") Electronic mail on GEnie : ORION.MICRO CompuServe: 72240,1221 Program and Documentation are Copyright (c) 1991 by Keith Ledbetter. All rights reserved. Portions Copyright Borland, International. LCD was written with Borland C++. This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue, WA 98006 or send a Compuserve message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. LCD Registration Form Keith Ledbetter 4240 Ketcham Drive Chesterfield, VA 23832 LCD Version 3.1x Quantity Price Disk with branding utility ($15/copy): _______ __________ Total enclosed __________ Please make payment by check or money order (in US funds) payable to "Keith Ledbetter". Please specify the diskette size(s) that are acceptable for you: ___ 5.25" 1.2MB ___ 3.5" 1.44MB ___ 5.25" 360KB ___ 3.50" 720KB Name ________________________________________________________ Company ________________________________________________________ Address ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Phone ________________________________________________________ Where did you get LCD? _________________________________________ Multi-System and Reseller Licenses: Site, corporate, network, and reseller licenses are available for LCD. Check the line on the order form or contact me for more information. The following schedule provides some examples of multi-system license fees. The fee includes one master diskette which you may then copy and use on the number of machines listed below: # Users Price ------- ------- 5 $ 70.00 ($14 / copy) 10 130.00 ($13 / copy) 25 300.00 ($12 / copy) 50 550.00 ($11 / copy) 100 1,000.00 ($10 / copy) Unlimited 1,500.00 Led's Change Directory Page 1 Definition of ShareWare Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs differ on details -- some request registration while others require it, some specify a maximum trial period. With registration, you get anything from the simple right to continue using the software to an updated program with printed manual. Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights, with a few specific exceptions as stated below. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality. (In both cases, there are good programs and bad ones!) The main difference is in the method of distribution. The author specifically grants the right to copy and distribute the software, either to all and sundry or to a specific group. For example, some authors require written permission before a commercial disk vendor may copy their Shareware. Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are low also. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it. Led's Change Directory Page 2 Disclaimer - Agreement Users of LCD must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "LCD is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or conse- quential, which may result from the use of LCD." LCD is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find this program useful and find that you are using LCD and continue to use LCD after a reasonable trial period, you must make a reg- istration payment of $15 to Keith Ledbetter. The $15 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 LCD must register and pay for their copies of LCD within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by con- tacting Keith Ledbetter. You are encouraged to pass a copy of LCD 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 the LCD system. Led's Change Directory Page 3 About the Program LCD is a program designed to make changing directories much easier, especially when you have a large hard drive with lots of different partitions. LCD is a work-alike to Peter Norton's NCD command, but with one significant difference. LCD works "across all drives" by maintaining the directory database of ALL drives on drive C:, instead of one database on each individual drive like NCD does. This means that you don't have to specify a drive letter when changing to a directory on a different drive. About the Syntax: LCD partial_directory_name : change to a directory LCD md directory_name : create directory; update database now LCD rd directory_name : delete directory; update database now LCD /scan [drivelist] : scan drives and build directory database LCD /qscan [drivelist] : scan drives (ignore dirs with extensions) Changing directories: LCD is used to quickly switch between directories across any of your hard drives. You simply invoke LCD and give it the full or partial name of the directory you wish to change to. For example, if you have a directory named C:\PROCOMM\DOWNLOADS, you could switch to this directory with the command: C:> LCD down LCD will first try to do an immediate change to the directory name that you specify. If that change works, LCD simply exits immediately. If it fails, then LCD looks into your directory database and tries to figure out the directory name that you wanted by doing fuzzy comparisons. If more than one directory existed with the same partial name that you gave to LCD, it will display a scrollable dialog box on the screen containing all of the matches found. Simply use the arrow keys to highlight the path that you want to change to, then hit <Enter>. Scanning directories: The first time you execute LCD, you must specify the /SCAN parameter ("LCD /scan") which instructs LCD to scan all of your hard drives and build a file called LCD.IDX in the root directory of drive C. You will need to periodically rescan all of your drives to add to the table any new directories that you have created. Led's Change Directory Page 4 About the Program If you only want LCD to know about certain specific drives (ie: only non-network drives), you can specify a drive list after the /SCAN keyword. To have LCD only scan drives C, E, F, and G, you'd do this: C:> LCD /SCAN CEFG If you are sure that you don't have subdirectories which have an extension in their name (for example, C:\PROGRAMS.OLD\) then you can specify /QSCAN instead of /SCAN. This causes LCD to scan almost 50% quicker than normal. Direct database updating: You can also use LCD to create and remove directories with immediate database updating. This means that you don't have to continually scan your drives to update the directory database. LCD will create or delete the directory specified, and then update the LCD.IDX database at the same time. For example, to create a directory on drive F: and put that directory in the database, you'd do: C:> LCD md f:\test This ability comes in especially handy for users of command shells that allow aliasing, such as CED and 4DOS. With these utilities, you can change the standard MD and RD commands to invoke LCD instead. With 4DOS, you'd set up the aliases like this: C:> alias md `lcd md %1` C:> alias rd `lcd rd %1` C:> alias cd `lcd %1` The LCD environment variable: If you'd rather have LCD keep its LCD.IDX database somewhere other than the root directory of drive C:, you can specify the filename you want used in the LCD environment variable. For example, if you'd like to keep the LCD.IDX file on drive D: in your UTILS directory, you would put "SET LCD=D:\UTILS\LCD.IDX" in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Led's Change Directory Page 5 Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog ---------------------------------- Listed below is a chart of my other shareware and freeware utilities, along with the current version number of each. Also listed is the filename that you will find them under on BBS systems (please note that they may be different on your favorite BBS's, but it should help you at least get close to locating them). When you register one of my Shareware programs, you will receive a disk with all of these utilities on it. Filename Version Description ----------- ------- ------------------------------- SST_52a.ZIP 5.2a The ultimate file-finder program. Until recently this was simply called "WhereIs". It's now been renamed to "Supersonic Search Tool" to avoid confusion with other programs. Shareware: $15 LCD_30a.ZIP 2.1a "Led's Change Directory" is an intelligent directory changing program. This program was voted one of "the 10 best utilities of 1990" by the "Public (software) Library" magazine. Shareware: $15 AV_12.ZIP 1.2 "Archive Viewer" is used to display the names of members of all of the popular archiving programs (ZIP, ARC, LHARC, PKARC, ZOO, PAK). No longer do you have to struggle remembering the syntax to 6 different archiving programs. Freeware: $0 X_30.ZIP 3.0 "X: The Executioner" can save you a lot of disk space. X allows you to ZIP down those seldom-used-but-hard-to-delete .COM, .EXE, and .BAT files into one system "Command Library". You can then execute them easily by simply typing an "x" in front of the command line (eg: "x chkdsk c:"). Freeware: $0 ADMENU30.ZIP 3.0 If you own an Adlib Music card, you need this program. It allows you to ZIP down all of those .ROL song files you've accumulated, yet still play them with no extra effort! Uses a mouse-able, easy-on-the-eyes window system. Freeware: $0 DELDIR12.ZIP 1.2 "Delete Directory" allows you to delete an entire directory (and all directories under it) with one quick command. You will be Led's Change Directory Page 6 Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog shown totals of what you are about to delete and then be asked to confirm (the confirm process can be over-ridden from the command line). Freeware: $0 DIRSIZ11.ZIP 1.1 "Directory Size Information" allows you to easily determine the total size (in both files and bytes) of any directory. Freeware: $0 DUPICO10.ZIP 1.0 "Duplicate Icon Deleter" is for any Windows 3.0 user who has accumulated tons of icons. It will go through a directory and delete all duplicate icon images, regardless of what they are named. Freeware: $0 TIMER10.ZIP 1.0 This program allows you to easily time the execution of any program. Simply use TIMER to invoke the command (eg: "timer chkdsk C:") and you will be shown, at the completion of the command, the elapsed time. Freeware: $0 UNTAB10.ZIP 1.0 One of the fastest "un-tab" programs you will find. It takes the specified input file and copies it to the specified output file, replacing all tab characters with hard blanks (you specify the "tab size"). Freeware: $0 You can download all of these files from the Blue Ridge Express in Richmond, VA. This is the official tech support board for all of my software, and there's a special "Keith Ledbetter" message section where you can quickly get your questions answered. Once you log on, just do a "J KEITHL" to join my sub-board. First-time callers have access to both my message base and all of my download files. The Blue Ridge Express is a first-class BBS, with 30 phone lines; no need to worry about getting a busy signal! The number is: The Blue Ridge Express BBS 804-790-1675 Led's Change Directory Page 7 Keith Ledbetter's Software Catalog All of my software can also be obtained from the following places: Alternative Personal Software 269 Springside Drive Suite C Hamilton, Ontario Canada L9B 1P8 Tel: (416) 577-4068 PC Assist Limited 4 Carruber's Close 135 High Street Edinburgh, EH1 1SJ Scotland Tel: 031-557-6432 BroCo Software P. O. Box 446 3760 AK SOEST Holland Tel: 31-2155-26650 EURO BOARD John Warren Postfach 3920 ZERMATT, VS Switzerland BBS: (0228) / 476-111-06 (Swiss Telepac) Led's Change Directory Page 8 Revision History v3.1a 5/05/91 o Sorry for the back-to-back releases, but 43 and 50 line modes on EGA/VGA monitors was something that I'd promised for release in v3.0a. Unfortunately, it completely slipped my mind. Of course, only a few hours after 3.0's release, quite a few people reminded me of my intentions. This version will actually support any number of lines as long as the BIOS reports it correctly. v3.0a 5/03/91 o From an operational point of view, it will look to you like LCD has changed very little. In fact, the entire program has been totally rewritten from the ground up. This was facilitated by one problem -- people with large drives (normally on Networks) couldn't scan all of their drives because earlier versions of LCD would allow only a 22K database size. In normal use, this would usually average out to around a maximum of 1,100 directory entries that could be stored in the database. I say "usually" because the way the old (v2.x) LCD stored its database was variable-length. Version 3.x of LCD now uses a totally different, fixed-entry-size file format that can store up to 4,000 directory entries in the database. o Because of the new database format, you must re-scan after installing v3.0a. o Since LCD is being used by many people as a total replacement for DOS's CD, RD, and MD commands (through aliasing), I changed the program to simply return the current path name if you invoke LCD with no command line parameters (just like DOS's CD command does). If you want to see the help screen, you must explicitly do an "LCD /?" (or "LCD /HELP") command. o Because of the new database format, LCD can no longer store a child directory in the database if its parent isn't there. In other words, if you do this (with no 'aliases' on MD): MD C:\Junk LCD md C:\Junk\Junk2 LCD will create the directory "Junk2", but it will tell you that it couldn't store the name in the database because its parent wasn't found. o If you have more than 4,000 directories, LCD will still abort as always, but it WILL save the directory Led's Change Directory Page 9 Revision History database up to that point (ie: your first 4000 dirs). o The LCD environment variable now specifies the entire filename of where you want the index to be. If you don't have an LCD environment variable, the default is "C:\LCD.IDX" as always. But, if you want to move it, you can do: SET LCD=D:\Utils\SubDirs.Idx (or whatever) o I have "reversed" the /SCAN logic so that there are now two switches: /SCAN - does a normal scan, INCLUDING directories with extensions /QSCAN - does a v2.x-type scan, which ignores directories with extensions I made this change because about 95% of my tech support calls on LCD are this: "it's not finding my directories with extensions on them!" (about 95% of my SST calls are for the same reason). o You can now change the colors of the pop-up display box. You do this by setting an environment variable named "LCD_COLORS". Its format: Set LCD_Colors = background foreground highlight Selection_Bar_Background Selection_Bar_Foreground Thumbtack_color (all on one line, of course). The colors are specified by number, where the colors are: 0 BLACK 8 DARKGRAY 1 BLUE 9 LIGHTBLUE 2 GREEN 10 LIGHTGREEN 3 CYAN 11 LIGHTCYAN 4 RED 12 LIGHTRED 5 MAGENTA 13 LIGHTMAGENTA 6 BROWN 14 YELLOW 7 LIGHTGRAY 15 WHITE As an example: Set LCD_Colors = 7 0 14 1 15 3 would give you a LIGHTGRAY box, with BLACK text, YELLOW highlighting, BLUE selection bar with WHITE text, and a Led's Change Directory Page 10 Revision History CYAN thumbtack (on the scroll bar). o If you use LCD on a monochrome system, just do this: Set LCD_Colors = Mono and LCD will select a predefined monochrome color set. o You can now abort the /SCAN process with the ESCape key. o Two new "errorlevel" conditions: 8 : there wasn't enough memory to allocate for the directory database. 9 : either the "LCD" or "LCD_COLORS" environment variable is incorrectly formatted. v2.1 3/07/91 o LCD now returns more detailed ERRORLEVEL conditions, which had been asked for by quite a few users who invoke LCD from batch files. The errorlevels are as follows: 0 : LCD was successful 1 : LCD was successful; ignoring floppy drive 2 : unable to change to the drive or directory 3 : drive scan failed 4 : database error (can't read/write/create) 5 : can't create/remove specified directory 6 : no command line parameters were specified 7 : user aborted LCD with the ESC key There is a batch file included (LCDTEST.BAT) that shows how you can use these values in your batch files. v2.0 12/01/90 o Simply an oversight: v1.4 would update the directory database if you used LCD to create a directory on drive A: or B:. LCD no longer updates the directory database if you use it to make or remove a directory on these drives (this was probably only apparent to those of us who "alias" MD and RD to use LCD.EXE). v1.5 - v1.9 o These version numbers were skipped. v1.4 11/24/90 o LCD can now be used as a TOTAL replacement for DOS's "cd", "rd", and "md" commands. LCD will now try to immediately change to the directory name that you specify; if that fails, only then will it go to the directory database to search for fuzzy matches. In other words, if you have the following two directories somewhere: Led's Change Directory Page 11 Revision History C:\TELIX\DOWNLOAD C:\PROCOMM\DOWNLOAD and you are currently in the C:\PROCOMM directory, then "LCD download" will change you to the \PROCOMM\DOWNLOAD directory without invoking the dialog box. o LCD can now create and delete directories itself, with immediate updating of the directory database at the same time. The syntax is: LCD md directory_name LCD rd directory_name These commands are most useful when used with an aliasing shell like CED or 4DOS. Since I use 4DOS, I have aliases set up as follows: alias cd `lcd %1` alias md `lcd md %1` alias rd `lcd rd %1` o You can now set an environment variable named LCD to the drive that you'd like your LCD.IDX file stored on (for example, SET LCD=D tells LCD to maintain your database in the file D:\LCD.IDX). If there is no LCD environment variable, the file will be kept on drive C: just like before. o When in the scrollable dialog box, you now have use of the full movement keys (PgUp, PgDn, Home, End, arrow keys). You can also press C through Z to immediately go to that drive's directories. This is most useful when doing "LCD *" to see all names in the database. v1.3 10/15/90 o Fixed a bug where LCD would get confused if you had a one-letter directory name, and that letter also occurred in its parent directory (ie: "c:\aRc\R"). o Of course, the above change can be a problem if (a) you have a one-character directory name, as in R, and you also have a lot of other directories that begin with R. So, I have changed LCD so that it understands an asterisk ('*') as a wildcard character. Some examples are the easiest way to explain: LCD r* : find all paths that BEGIN with the letter 'r'. LCD *on : find all paths that have the word "on" in them. LCD * : show me all paths in the database. Led's Change Directory Page 12 Revision History o A few people wanted to be able to change to either (a) the parent directory, or (b) the root directory while still using LCD. LCD will now allow this, so you can do: LCD .. ;go up one level LCD \ ;go to the root. v1.2 10/11/90 o A lot of people (in fact, everyone who has contacted me) have suggested that LCD should give the highest priority to the first positions of the pathname specified. In other words, if you have the following two paths on your hard drive: c:\testing\programs c:\atest\data then "LCD TEST" should change to the \testing\ directory immediately. v1.2 now does this. o Overall, the matching logic in v1.2 has been greatly improved. It now does a much better job of figuring out what you really wanted it to do. But, it will probably help if you know exactly how LCD does it's searching. In a nutshell, here is what LCD does: 1. Look for an EXACT match on the directory name specified. If more than one found, display the dialog box. If none found, go to step 2. 2. Look for a "fuzzy" match on the name. By LCD's standards, a fuzzy match is the name you specified followed by any extra data. For example, if you specify "LCD data", then all of the following would match: c:\data1 c:\database f:\dataset If more than one match found, display the dialog box. If none found, go to step 3. 3. At this point, LCD just looks for the partial string anywhere in a path name, preceeded or followed by any characters. o Since so very few people use extensions on their directory names, I changed the logic to once again use "*." for directory searches instead of "*.*". This speeds the /SCAN function up by about 50%. If you have directory names with extensions on them, Led's Change Directory Page 13 Revision History then you must use the /ESCAN switch instead of /SCAN. Operation is the same, except that LCD will then use the slower scanning method. v1.1 10/04/90 o Since the .IDX file is stored a little differently, you MUST do a /SCAN before using LCD v1.1 (this is for those of you currently using v1.0). o LCD is now much smarter on "fuzzy" directory names. For example, "lcd pcp" will now change you to your "d:\pcplus" directory always, even if you have "pcplus\downloads" and "pcplus\uploads", etc. o When LCD can't figure out which directory you really want, it will now pop up a scrollable dialog box with all of the matches found in it. You simply move the highlight bar to the directory that you want, and then press <Enter>. A lot of people requested something like this, and I wasn't sure how I was going to like it at first. But, after playing with it for a couple of days, I think it was a good idea. It's much more logical than LCD trying to "cycle" through all of the matches one invocation at a time. o A few people also complained about LCD not seeing directories that have an extension on them (ie: MYDATA.DIR). I still can't sneak by anybody on this issue! So, LCD v1.1 now sees directories with extensions; you will notice that the /SCAN function takes around twice as long to run now. End of document.