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VERSION 4.50
Copyright 1989 - 1991 by Gordon Haff and Bit Masons Consulting.
All rights reserved.
Command: DF
Syntax: DF [d:][source-path][file-mask] [d:][dest-path]]
[/O,N,E,D,T,or O][+/-] [/F] [/V] [/Ccfg_file]
Prereqs: 100% IBM Compatible PC running DOS 3.0 or higher
Purpose: DF provides a fast, compact alternative to both the DOS
'dir' command and large, unwieldy hard disk managers. DF
displays all files in a directory in sorted order (name, date,
size, or extension) and provides an easy way to copy, delete and
rename marked files. The directory structure on the disk can be
quickly traversed by simply selecting a directory name from the
displayed list. A wide range of user-defined functions and
SmartViewers enables DF to work with and augment existing
customer software.
DF is very simple to use. A menu of DF's basic functions is
displayed next to the list of files; no need for the novice or
infrequent user to refer to a manual or a complex set of help
screens. There is on-line help, however, and it can be
customized by the user!
DF is also advanced. A wide range of functions such as
directory creation, file date/time alteration, archive file
creation, and directory printing are available on alternate
menus which are displayed merely by pressing the Alt, Control,
or Shift key. In addition to the many intrinsic functions, the
companion program DFCONFIG allows users to add their favorite
programs to DF's menus or file viewers. DFCONFIG also makes it
easy to change operational features such as the default color.
Archive Name: DF450 ┌─────────┐
┌─────┴───┐ │ (tm)
──│ │o │──────────────────
│ ┌─────┴╨──┐ │ Association of
│ │ │─┘ Shareware
└───│ o │ Professionals
──────│ ║ │────────────────────
└────╨────┘ MEMBER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
-----------------
1.0 History and Program Philosophy .......................... 9
2.0 Installing Directory Freedom .......................... 10
2.1 Quick Installation ................................. 10
2.2 Detailed Installation Instructions ................. 10
2.3 COMSPEC variable ................................... 11
3.0 Using Directory Freedom ................................. 12
3.1 About this Manual .................................. 12
3.2 Manual Conventions ................................. 13
3.3 Program Limitations ................................ 13
3.4 Starting up Directory Freedom ...................... 13
3.5 Key by key Summary of Commands (by category) ....... 15
3.6 File Marking ....................................... 20
3.7 Mouse Support ...................................... 20
4.0 Program Feature Information ............................. 20
4.1 Built-in Viewer .................................... 20
4.2 Shell functions and SmartViewers ................... 21
4.3 Attribute Functions ................................ 23
4.4 Ultravision Compatibility .......................... 23
4.5 DESQview Compatibility ............................. 24
4.6 Hints and Suggestions .............................. 24
5.0 Customization ........................................... 25
5.1 DFCONFIG Command Line .............................. 25
5.2 DFCONFIG Usage Notes ............................... 26
5.3 DFCONFIG Main Menu ................................. 26
5.4 Commands Modification .............................. 27
5.5 Attributes Modification ............................ 30
5.6 Filenames .......................................... 36
6.0 Supplementary Programs .................................. 36
6.1 Included Programs .................................. 36
6.2 Non-Included Programs .............................. 37
7.0 Technical ............................................... 38
8.0 Acknowledgements ........................................ 39
9.0 Recent Revision history ................................. 40
10.0 Appendix A: User-defined Commands ....................... 42
11.0 Appendix B: Patching Instructions ....................... 44
12.0 Appendix C: Site Licenses ............................... 45
13.0 Appendix D: Keystrokes for Data-entry ................... 46
14.0 Appendix E: "Undocumented" Patches ...................... 47
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 3
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY (a.k.a. Legal Stuff)
-------------------------------------------
The Shareware evaluation (trial use) version is provided AS IS.
Bit Masons Consulting MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Bit Masons Consulting warrants the physical diskette(s) and
physical documentation provided with registered versions (only)
to be free of defects in materials and workmanship for a period
of thirty days from the date of registration. If Bit Masons
Consulting receives notification within the warranty period of
defects in materials or workmanship, and such notification is
determined by the publisher to be correct, the defective
diskette(s) or documentation will be replaced.
The entire and exclusive liability and remedy for breach of this
Limited Warranty shall be limited to replacement of defective
diskette(s) or documentation and shall not include or extend to
any claim for or right to recover any other damages, including
but not limited to, loss of profit, data, or use of the
software, or special, incidental, or consequential damages or
other similar claims, even if Bit Masons Consulting has been
specifically advised of the possibility of such damages. In no
event will Bit Masons Consultings' liability for any damages to
you or any other person ever exceed the lower of suggested list
price or actual price paid for the license to use the software,
regardless of any form of the claim.
BIT MASONS CONSULTING SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ALL OTHER
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
LICENSE
-------
Directory Freedom is a Shareware product. As such, it is made
available to the general personal computing public for
evaluation. Users are licensed to operate this program on their
computers for the purpose of test and evaluation on a trial
basis for a limited trial period. It is not possible to
reasonably define the limits of a fair and equitable time period
for evaluation; therefore it is left to the user's judgment and
sense of fair play as to the time required to make a decision as
to its usefulness. (As a guideline, 30 days should generally be
sufficient time to evaluate the utility of a program of this
type.) If the user decides the program is not of sufficient
merit to warrant purchase through registration with the author,
he/she should remove the program from his/her personal computer.
Otherwise, if the program is deemed useful and is in regular
use on the user's computer system, registration with the author
is required.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 4
Registered users are those users who elect to pay for Directory
Freedom and register that payment with the author. By virtue of
registration and payment for the program, registered users are
granted a license to continue to utilize the program on their
personal computer for as long as they choose. This license
authorizes the user to use the program on any personal computer
system he or she may own or use so long as the program is
operated on only one computer system at a time.
GUARANTEE
---------
Directory Freedom is offered with an unconditional 30-day
money-back guarantee. If you become dissatisfied with the
program for any reason within that period, just let me know and
your registration fee will be refunded. If you purchased a
registration package which included a diskette and/or a manual,
please return these when requesting a refund.
This guarantee is unconditional. I would ask, however, if you
are having a problem to let me know before giving up on DF since
your problem may be something I can solve.
Finally, if you order a registration package which includes a
diskette or manual and either of these items are defective --
either through my error or through postal service "processing",
let me know and I will send replacements promptly.
REGISTRATION
------------
The registration fee is $20, payable to:
Bit Masons Consulting
3205 Windsor Ridge Dr.
Westboro, MA 01581
The payment of this registration fee to the author entitles the
user to full use of the product for an unlimited period of time
in addition to product support. The distribution of diskette
copies of Directory Freedom and future upgrades is not included
as part of the basic registration fee. See the REGISTER.DOC
file for the charges associated with these services.
Directory Freedom is a fully functional Shareware product.
Shareware is a computer program distribution and marketing
method that permits potential buyers to thoroughly try the
program prior to purchase. It is NOT free and it is not in the
Public Domain. If, after evaluating the program, you find it
useful enough to use on a regular basis, you are expected to pay
for it by registering with the author.
Please note that the registration fee is specifically limited to
Directory Freedom (DF.COM), the configuration program
(DFCONFIG.EXE), and their associated documentation. Other
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 5
copyrighted "Freeware" (i.e. copyrighted software for which no
fee is asked) and public domain software is distributed with
Directory Freedom only for the convenience of users. The
copyrights for such software remain with the original authors.
In addition, various software is mentioned in this documentation
in conjunction with DF's user-defined functions and
SmartViewers. Much of this software is Shareware for which a
registration fee must be paid to the individual authors to use
their programs past an initial trial period.
SITE LICENSING
--------------
Attractively-priced site licensing is available for commercial
users. Pricing for "typical" site licensing is given in an
appendix to this manual. If you have needs which are not met by
the standard license terms, please call or write for a quote
which addresses any unique support or product update
requirements. Customization is also available on a contract
basis.
UPGRADE AND UPDATE POLICIES
---------------------------
There has been some confusion in Shareware circles recently
about upgrade/update policies for certain pieces of software.
Therefore, I'd like to take this opportunity to spell out my
policies. First, some definitions: I define upgrade as the
RIGHT to use a later revision of a piece of software. I define
update as the physical media on which the upgrade resides. I'll
further define an update as not including hard-copy
documentation unless specifically defined. With that out of the
way, I'd like to spell out my current upgrade/update policies:
There are no upgrade charges associated with DF and I do not
have any plans at present to institute such charges with future
revisions. I do reserve the right to do so, however, if in my
sole opinion the nature and magnitude of DF changes to such a
degree as to constitute a substantially new product. I
currently do charge for updates and plan to continue to so
charge. The content and pricing for specific update packages is
described at the end of this document and in the REGISTER.DOC
file. Pricing is subject to change without notice, however, to
accommodate postage, printing, and other price increases.
ASP OMBUDSMAN STATEMENT
-----------------------
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 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 6
49442 or send a Compuserve message via Easyplex to ASP Ombudsman
70007,3536.
DISTRIBUTING DIRECTORY FREEDOM
------------------------------
DF may be freely distributed subject only to the following
distribution for-charge restrictions:
Directory Freedom is the sole property of Gordon Haff. The
program may be freely copied and transferred to individual
parties for evaluation purposes. It may be posted on Bulletin
Board systems (BBS) for electronic access as long as NO FEE is
charged for its distribution except for private BBS operations
that charge a regular user subscription fee. Computer
information services such as Compuserve (CIS), Genie, and Byte
Information Exchange (BIX) are authorized to post this product
for subscriber access. Directory Freedom may be distributed on
diskette only by 1) disk distributors/vendors who are associate
members of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) or
2) users groups which do not charge more than a nominal fee ($5)
to cover the costs of distribution. Any changes to these
policies must be made in writing by the author.
Please feel free to distribute copies of this program to
friends, co-workers, bulletin boards, and users' groups. I do
ask, however, that you please distribute all of the original
files and not modified copies. The main reason for this is that
modified (e.g. with DFCONFIG) versions may have different
default attributes or other settings from those specified in the
manual and will have different CRC values from those files in
the standard distribution. The former could confuse new users.
The latter may cause someone to conclude that DF is damaged. In
particular, some non-default (but user settable) switch settings
such as "Enable F11/F12 " will not work properly on systems
without the requisite hardware and BIOS support.
If you have come up with command-line settings which you would
like to share with others, please do so by describing them in a
separate file (or by distributing a copy of your own .CFG file)
rather than distributing a modified version of DF.COM. I
strongly encourage such sharing of ideas about using DF most
effectively. Please distribute such information in a separate
archive, however, rather than adding to my archive. Thank you
in advance for your cooperation.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 7
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
-----------------
Registered Users: Full technical support is available to
registered users of Directory Freedom. I have found that the
most effective product support can be delivered through the
electronic services listed below. If this option is not open to
you, however, I also offer full product support through the
mails, or, if the problem absolutely cannot wait, the telephone
(no collect calls please). I will do my best to resolve any
software bugs in a timely manner and I am always open to
incorporating new features or changes which are appropriate to
the nature of the product.
Unregistered Users: I will attempt to respond to software
trouble reports made by non-registered users if the problems
concern the general functionality of the program. Such users
should not, however, expect product support beyond initial aid
to determine if the program is suitable for their needs.
If you have a problem: I ask that, before calling or writing,
you take the following steps:
1) Check the manual. We all sometimes approach a piece of
software with preconceived ideas about how it ought to work
which may not correspond to how it actually does work. (Of
course, I'm interested in your input if you have this sort of
experience.)
2) See if you can duplicate the problem with your original,
unmodified version of DF. (You do still have an original,
unmodified version, don't you?)
3) If you're still stuck, please make a note of a) your hardware
and software environment; b) your attribute and command
settings. DF is a very configurable program and, unfortunately,
one of the downsides of this configurability is that
user-defined settings can sometimes interact in unexpected ways.
(I try to test a broad range of configurations and settings,
but obviously can't try every one.); and c) the sequence of
actions which lead to the error. If I can't reproduce an error,
it will be very difficult to correct, so your help is vital in
isolating the problem.
If you follow these steps, it will help me to solve your problem
in a more efficient and timely manner.
Contact via:
Channel 1 BBS (617) 354-8873
Compuserve User ID# 72561,2637 (See Note 1)
InterNet 72561.2637@compuserve.com
U.S. Mail 3205 Windsor Ridge Dr.
Westboro MA 01581
Telephone (508) 898-3321 (after 6pm Eastern time)
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 8
I usually check Channel 1 daily and Compuserve weekly. In
addition, I monitor the Ilink and RIME Shareware relays through
Channel 1.
Note 1:
When contacting me via Compuserve, please use the Easyplex mail
system since I do not regularly monitor any of the message bases
such as IBM SIG.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 9
1.0 History and Program Philosophy
The Directory Freedom of today originally grew out of a variety
of programs which owe their "look and feel" to Michael Mefford's
DR and CO utilities in PC Magazine Volume 6, #17 and #21. DF
was most directly adapted from Peter Esherick's DC (Directory
Control) version 1.05B. Peter helped get DF started by making
the source code for DC available to me and has also shared some
fixes which he has made in subsequent revisions of his program.
DF came into being because, while DC became a staple in my
utilities subdirectory, it still lacked a few features which I
wanted. Some of these were included in Brad Stephenson's
modifications to DR; others didn't exist at all. At the same
time, more conventional DOS shells usually lacked these features
as well plus they tended to be rather big clunky things by
comparison.
The initial revisions of Directory Freedom represented minor
enhancements to DC. As time went by, users suggested more and
better features, many of which were incorporated into DF. With
Revision 3.0, I made DF shareware. I felt that, at this point,
DF had achieved a unique identity and was substantially
different from the software on which it was originally based.
Furthermore, by making DF shareware, I was able to commit to a
significantly higher level of ongoing development and support
than would have otherwise been possible.
So what uniquely defines DF? Some of the major features are
listed below. These are just a sampling but should help to give
the user of one or more of the earlier programs mentioned a
flavor for how DF has been extended from its original roots.
The usual file copying, moving, deleting, and renaming
Directory creation, deletion, and renaming
Ability to run external programs from a menu (and pass them
file names, etc.)
SmartViewers (external file viewers calls keyed to file
extension)
File and directory attribute manipulation
Send a directory listing to a printer
Change file dates
On-line help
Support for 43/50 line modes with EGA/VGA
High degree of configurability: colors, beep type, verify
flag, exclude attributes and more
Command-line file mask
A wide range of sort methods (including by attribute)
Create file archives (e.g. with PKZIP)
A user-friendly configuration program
Yet, for all the above, the main DF program is still less than
30 KBytes in size! (As you might guess, it's written 100% in
assembly language.)
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 10
Directory Freedom is designed to provide what one user called "a
rational alternative to the DOS 'dir' command." While, at this
stage in its development, DF has grown far past the point where
it merely provides DOS directory services, I have tried to stay
true to one fundamental philosophy of design. This philosophy
is that DF should stay sufficiently small and fast that tyou
does not feel that he is bringing up an applications program
every time he types "DF". Rather, it is the intent that the
user will find it faster and easier to just type "DF" that
typing DIR, or COPY, or whatever other DOS command is required.
Along the way, additional functionality has been added, but with
the intent of never compromising this basic design goal.
2.0 Installing Directory Freedom
Installing Directory Freedom is straightforward. If you
obtained the program from a bulletin board or other source which
stores all distribution files in a compressed "archive", you may
first have to "de-archive" DF using the appropriate software.
If you don't know how to do this, consult with the disk vendor
or the bulletin board from which you obtained this software.
2.1 Quick Installation
1) Make a backup of the distribution disk
2) Copy the files on the distribution disk to a working
diskette or a hard disk. Only DF.COM is required to run
Directory Freedom..
3) Make sure that you have a COMSPEC environment variable
defined per Section 2.3.
(Now that wasn't hard, was it?)
2.2 Detailed Installation Instructions
Copy the files DF.COM and (optionally) DFCONFIG.EXE to a working
floppy diskette or a subdirectory on your hard disk. If you've
got a hard disk, the easiest thing is probably just to copy
these files to whatever subdirectory you normally keep your
utilities in. Since DF is nice and small and simple, there's
really no need to go off creating a separate subdirectory for
it. To be most useful, whatever subdirectory DF ends up in
should be part of the PATH setup in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You
can also go ahead and copy any of the associated utilities
distributed with DF to the same location if you like and do
whatever you normally do with the documentation.
In addition to the main files listed above you have received,
either as part of the DF archive or on diskette, DF is supported
by a variety of other utilities such as the X-Ray archive
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 11
viewers and ND. These utilities can be used to enhance DF but
are in no way required for its operation.
After you've done all this, put your original files in a safe
place! Having the original files will allow you to start over
again if something happens and your modified files are lost or
corrupted. Please also use the original files if you ever have
an urge to distribute copies of this program to a local bulletin
board or user's group.
At this, or any other point, you can also run the DFCONFIG
customization program. Full instructions for doing so are given
in Section 5.0 of this manual. DFCONFIG.EXE allows you to
easily configure DF, so you'll probably want to keep it handy
[unless you are in an environment in which you are setting up DF
in a standard manner for the use of others and don't want that
standard setup to be changed].
Revision 4.50 Note: In the interests of further increasing
user-configurability (more switches, longer and more
user-defined command lines, multiple extensions per SmartViewer)
many changes were made in the user-changable data area of DF in
revision 4.50. As a result, users of earlier revisions will
need to bring their switch settings and command lines over from
previous revs manually. This will hopefully be the last time
this sort of incompatibility between revs comes up.
Finally, you MUST make sure that you have a COMSPEC environment
variable defined. This is explained below.
2.3 COMSPEC variable
When DF shells to (i.e. executes) another program, it uses
something called the COMSPEC variable located in its environment
block. This variable tells DF what command interpreter it
should use when it shells and where that command interpreter is
located.
Now in the good old days, most programs didn't bother to look
for this variable. They just assumed it was COMMAND.COM and
that it was located in the root directory of the current drive.
Nowadays, fortunately or unfortunately depending upon your point
of view, things aren't so simple. Some people use software such
as J.P. Software's excellent 4DOS as a COMMAND.COM replacement
(a version of 4DOS is included with the Norton Utilities as
NDOS). Others don't want to put COMMAND.COM in the root
directory of every drive they use. The result is that good
software doesn't go around making assumptions any longer. It
looks to see what the user actually wants.
How does the user tell the software what she wants? By setting
the COMSPEC variable. How do you set it? In the following
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 12
manner: At the DOS prompt (or more commonly in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file), type or include a line like the following:
SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM
The above example tells your software to look in the root
directory of your C: drive for the COMMAND.COM interpreter.
This is probably the most common setting for users with hard
disks. Other common settings include the following:
SET COMSPEC=\COMMAND.COM (look in root of current drive)
or SET COMSPEC=C:\4DOS.COM (Use 4DOS in root of C:)
You can check your COMSPEC (and other environment settings) at
any time by typing SET at the DOS command line.
If you found this whole section hopelessly confusing, just use
one the COMMAND.COM settings listed above. Use the first if you
have a hard drive and the second if you have only floppies. Ask
a friend to modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file if you don't know how
to do so.
3.0 Using Directory Freedom
I'm tempted at this point to offer a monetary reward to anyone
who has actually read this far into the manual. (But I'm not
going to -- sorry.) If you're still with us and awake --
Congratulations! (but no cash prizes). DF is so easy to use
that people like me probably think they don't need to read the
manual. I suggest reviewing the full manual anyway; DF has many
advanced features and shortcuts which even experienced users can
overlook.
3.1 About this Manual
This documentation was written at a level which, I hope, is
appropriate to the level of computer sophistication of most DF
users. This level assumes a degree of familiarity with keyboard
usage on an IBM-PC/AT compatible and a basic understanding of
how DOS runs programs and executes commands. DF attempts to
make life easier for the person who knows how to use the command
line but, unlike a DOS shell, does not try to insulate the user
from the underlying system.
If the above scares you a bit, don't let it. We have all been
beginners at one time and I'm sure you can borrow a book or
friend who will help you through any rough spots you run into.
(And feedback on any spots of opaqueness in this manual is
always welcome as well.)
This manual does go into some depth explaining the hows and whys
of certain functions. These explanations exist largely to
satisfy the curiosity of the more technical users of this
program and therefore the beginning user should not feel put off
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 13
if he does not understand every concept mentioned in these
supplementary discussions.
3.2 Manual Conventions
The commands on the main alternate menu are designated
throughout this manual as Alt-Fx commands for simplicity and
consistency with previous revisions of this program even though
they can be alternately defined as LeftShift-Fx.
Which, by the way, suggests that I'd better say what I mean by
expressions such as Alt F1. It means that you should press on
the Alt key with one finger and (while continuing to hold down
the Alt key) press the F1 key with some other appendage.
The Source or Working directory refers to the directory which is
being displayed on the screen by DF. The Destination directory
is the default destination for copies and other operations. It
is also the current DOS directory.
3.3 Program Limitations
- Maximum of between 500 and 1000 files in a directory
- Up to 1GB per logical disk
- Operating system revision of at least DOS 3.0
3.4 Starting up Directory Freedom
The basic syntax of the DF command line is:
DF [d:][source-path][file-mask] [d:][dest-path] [/T,N,E,D,S,or
O][+/-] [/F] [/V] [/Ccfg_file]
All parameters are optional. If no pathnames are entered, both
the source and the destination directories default to the
current DOS directory. If only one path is entered, this path
is taken to be that of the source directory and the destination
directory defaults to the current DOS directory. (Pathnames can
be a maximum of 63 characters long, starting at the drive letter
and including the filename.) The file-mask is a wildcard
specification such as *.EXE which allows for the display of a
subset of files in a directory. Options, specified by a "/"
followed by a letter, may appear either before or after the
pathnames and override any settings made with the DFCONFIG
program. The options are as follows:
/N Sort directory by filename
/E Sort directory by extension
/D Sort directory by date and time
/S Sort directory by file size
/T Sort Directory by attribute
/O Use original order, i.e. do not sort directory at all.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 14
+ or - Any of the sort attributes can be appended with a
+ or a - on the command line (though the suffix has no
effect on an Original order "sort"). A + indicates that
the sort is to take place in ascending order, while a -
indicates that it is to be in descending order. If no
suffix is specified, the sort will take place in
whatever has been stored as the default order for that
key.
/V Turn on DOS Verify switch for disk file writes
/F Fast display on IBM Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) --
i.e. no snow check
/Ccfg_file Use specified cfg_file for parameter and command-line
settings
Examples of valid command lines:
DF Use default settings. Source directory =
Destination directory = Current DOS
DF c:\util Use default settings. Source directory = c:\util
Destination = current DOS
DF c:\util\*.com As above, but display only files with a
.COM extension
DF .. Source directory = Parent (directory above current)
Destination = current DOS
DF . c:\util Source directory = current. Destination = c:\ut
DF c:\util d:\foo Source directory = c:\util. Destination =
d:\foo
DF c:\util /N- Source directory = c:\util. Display files in
descending name order
DF c:\util /T /V Force verify ON for all disk file writes.
Sort in default attribute order
DF /Cdft.cfg Use settings stored in the configuration file
DFT.CFG
DF comes up displaying the "source" (also referred to as the
"working") directory. A brief menu of optional commands is
displayed to the right of the directory display. You may move
up and down the directory list with the up and down arrow keys
on the cursor keypad. Files may be individually copied,
deleted, moved or renamed by pressing the function keys F1
through F4, respectively. Alternatively, a number of files may
be selected, or "marked" using the Grey + and Grey - keys on the
right side of the keypad. After marking, pressing the
appropriate function key will apply the chosen operation to the
entire group of files.
New directories can be displayed in one of two ways. You can
press the F9 function key and enter a new drive and path name.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 15
Alternatively, if you want to move to different subdirectories
on the same drive, you simply press the <Enter> key after using
the up or down arrow keys to high-light the desired
subdirectory. Note that as always within DOS, ".." denotes the
parent of a given subdirectory, i.e. the level above the
currently displayed directory, and "." denotes the current
directory.
3.5 Key by key Summary of Commands (by category)
Exiting DF
----------
Esc Exit program and return to original directory.
Alt-Q Exit program leaving the currently displayed dir as the
current default drive and directory for DOS.
Marking files
-------------
Grey + Mark current file entry, if not a subdirectory or hidden
or Ins file, and advance cursor to next line.
Grey - Remove mark on current file, and advance cursor to next
or Del line.
Space Swap marking of highlighted file. Same as Grey + (Mark)
unless currently highlighted file is already marked in
which case it is the same as Grey - (Remove Mark).
F5 Clear all marks.
F6 Mark all remaining files, i.e. those not marked with an * .
F7 Swap marked and unmarked files.
F11 Re-mark files (i.e. mark those files with *'s next to their
names). This function is equivalent to F6 followed by F7.
Most functions operate on the marked files, if any, otherwise
they operate on the currently highlighted file. If the
operation is successful the mark is replaced with an asterisk
(*), if unsuccessful the file is passed over, leaving the mark,
and the program proceeds on to the next marked file.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 16
Copying, Moving, and Deleting files
-----------------------------------
F1 or Alt C Copy file(s) via a read/write sequence to requested
target
Alt F1 Protected Copy -- similar to F1 except that an error is
generated if the target file already exists or cannot be
written to (e.g. is Read-only or Hidden)
F2 Delete file(s) or directory after asking for confirmation
(unless empty directory). Directories containing
subdirectories or Read-Only/Hidden files cannot be
deleted.
F3 or Alt M Move file(s), i.e. Copy to requested target, delete
source. Where possible this function is performed
using an across directory rename instead of a file
read/write sequence.
Alt F3 Forced Move -- Unlike a regular move (F3), this option
will overwrite the target file if it already exists.
(This command has the same relationship to MOVE as COPY
has to PROTECTED COPY.)
F4 Rename file(s) or directory within the currently displayed
directory.
Changing active source and destination directories
--------------------------------------------------
F8 Swap the Working (source) Directory and the Destination
Directory.
F9 Prompt for a new Working (source) Directory. (Also use
this function to change the file mask, e.g. *.COM.)
F10 Prompt for a new Destination Directory.
] Make the Destination Directory equal to the Working
(source) Directory.
[ Make the Working (source) Directory equal to the
Destination Directory.
<Left Arrow> Change to next drive specified in Drive Table.
<Right Arrow> Change to previous drive specified in Drive Table.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 17
Re-sorting the working directory
--------------------------------
Alt N Sort by filename (ascending), Ctrl N (descending)
Alt E Sort by file extension (ascending), Ctrl E (descending)
Alt D Sort by date & time (ascending), Ctrl D (descending)
Alt S Sort by file size (ascending), Ctrl S (descending)
Alt O Re-read and display dir in original DOS order.
(unsorted). Ctrl O (same thing).
DOS Shell functions
-------------------
Alt F2 Invoke DOS Shell.
Alt F5 Run a program. Parameters may be added after the program
name.
Directory functions
-------------------
Alt F6 Create a directory. Creates a new subdirectory under the
working (displayed) directory using a name provided by
the user.
Alt F7 Returns the size of the highlighted directory in terms of
disk space used both on the working drive and on a
typical floppy diskette (assumes 1024 byte clusters).
Miscellaneous additional ALT menu commands
------------------------------------------
Alt F4 Re-read working directory. Required after changing
diskettes in a floppy disk drive. Also useful if a copy
or shell command has changed the current directory.
Alt F8 Swap video mode between 25 lines and 43 lines (EGA) or 50
lines (VGA). Only operational if you have an EGA
or VGA display adapter.
Alt F9 Set file date/time. Prompts for new date and time for
marked files. Uses the system date and time by default.
Alt F10 Creates an archive file (e.g. ZIP file) from marked
files using a command line specified through DFCONFIG.
RShift F10 Secondary 'Create Archive' key
Alt F11, Ctrl L Edit Volume name of Working (source) Volume.
Alt F12, Ctrl P Prints the Working (source) directory listing to
your printer.
Alt Z Show Help screen.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 18
Miscellaneous Commands
----------------------
Ctrl F Toggle display of directories in listing on/off
View Commands
-------------
<Enter> (i.e. the <Enter> key on the central portion of the
keyboard).
or Alt V If file highlighted: SmartView uses the external viewer
specified for the extension of the highlighted file.
If the extension is not defined, default viewer is used.
If directory highlighted: Change to highlighted
directory.
Grey <Enter> (i.e. the <Enter> key on the numeric keypad)
or If file highlighted: Force default viewer.
Ctrl <Enter> If directory highlighted: As above.
Note: The function of the <Enter> and grey<Enter> keys can be
exchanged through the SmartViewers switch in DFCONFIG.
F12 Use Secondary Viewer.
Attribute Commands
------------------
Alt A Add Archive bit Ctrl A Remove Archive bit
Alt R Add Read-Only bit Ctrl R Remove Read-Only
Alt H Add Hidden bit Ctrl H Remove Hidden bit
Alt Y Add System bit Ctrl Y Remove System bit
User-defined Commands
---------------------
Ctrl-F1 through Ctrl-F12, RShift-F1 through RShift-F6,
RShift-F11, RShift-F12 plus external file viewers. The two
Create Archive functions can also be customized.
View Mode commands
------------------
These commands are ONLY applicable when using internal viewer
W Toggle word wrap/horizontal scroll.
A Toggle ASCII string display.
B Toggle blanking of non-ASCII characters.
Grey * Toggle Wordstar bit mask (shift non-ASCII high-order
characters (from 128 to 255) down into the displayable
ASCII range of 1 to 127.
In addition, the cursor control keys act as you would expect.
The <Enter> key duplicates the <PgDn> key.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 19
Dir of D:\TD\PROGS\DF
Default dest D:\TD\PROGS\DF
.. <DIR> 9-20-91 9:41p ╔════════════════════════╗
AAAAAAAA <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ Directory Freedom ║
BBBBBBBB A <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ Version 4.50 ║
DC <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ Copr.Gordon Haff,1991 ║
DF350A <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ╟────────────────────────╢
DF350B <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ F1 Copy ║
DF400 <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ F2 Delete ║
DF450 <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ F3 Move ║
INVOICE <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ F4 Rename ║
LETTERS <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ F5 Clear marks ║
PICS <DIR> 11-03-91 8:39p ║ F6 Mark remainder ║
SA <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ F7 Swap Mark/Unmark ║
TEST2 <DIR> 9-20-91 9:42p ║ F8 Swap Dir/Dest. ║
TEST3 <DIR> 10-31-91 6:16p ║ F9 Change Dir ║
MEERR TMP 0 3-10-91 1:13a ║ F10 Change Dest. ║
DFMAKE BAT 17 8-21-90 8:41p ║ F11 Re-Mark files ║
TMP 18 8-25-91 8:35p ║ F12 Secondary Viewer ║
MAKETEMP BAT 25 11-18-90 1:36a ║ Alt-Z Help ║
MKSOUND BAT 41 4-09-89 1:10a ║ Esc or Alt-Q to Exit ║
MAKEB BAT 54 1-14-90 9:31p ╚════════════════════════╝
Volume: 1234567890A 74,774,528 bytes free
Destination disk has 74,774,528 bytes free
Row 1 of 123. 2,791,424 bytes/109 files
----------------------------------------
Figure 1. Example of opening DF screen.
----------------------------------------
This screen displays a typical Directory Freedom file listing.
The displayed directory is referred to throughout this manual as
the Source or Working directory. The Destination directory is
shown on the second line of the display. This directory is the
default destination for copies and moves; it is also the current
DOS directory -- and hence the default directory for many
user-defined commands.
The main menu is shown on the right. Other menus are brought up
my pressing the Alt (or Left-Shift), Control, or Right-Shift
keys.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 20
3.6 File Marking
Entries may be marked, as explained above, with the following
exceptions. The marking keys will NOT operate on the following:
- Subdirectories
- Hidden files
3.7 Mouse Support
As of Revision 4.0, DF directly incorporated mouse cursor
emulation -- functionality which was previously provided by the
companion memory-resident program, DFM. This mouse cursor
emulation provides for the following:
Mouse up/down movements emulate <up arrow> and <down arrow>
Mouse left button emulates <Enter>
Mouse right button emulates <esc>
Mouse middle button (if present) emulates <space>
In addition to using the mouse in the main directory listing,
the Mouse button emulation is also active in the internal viewer.
I realize that the above mouse support is relatively limited. I
do not, however, have plans to significantly increase the level
of this support since I believe that doing so would tend to
decrease the ease-of-use of DF from the keyboard.
In DF 4.50, the mouse initialization code was changed to do a
mouse software reset rather than a hardware reset. This lets DF
start up quite a bit faster. If this change causes you any
problems, see Appendix E for "undocumented" patch location
information.
4.0 Program Feature Information
4.1 Built-in Viewer
(Note that this section applies ONLY if an external file viewer
is NOT configured. The internal viewer obviously has a speed and
size advantage over external viewers -- especially on a floppy
disk system. On the other hand, an external viewer such as Vern
Buerg's LIST can have a much wider array of features (e.g. text
searching). DF is shipped with the internal viewer
preconfigured although the user can, of course, change this
easily by adding a command line such as LIST ~ from within the
DFCONFIG program.)
Just as pressing <Enter> lets you view a new directory, pressing
<Enter> when a filename is highlighted lets you view the
contents of the file. In the default mode the display is wrapped
at the edge of the screen if a line is more than 80 characters
wide. This option can be toggled by pressing W. Display of
non-ASCII characters can be toggled with the ASCII and Blank
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 21
options by pressing A or B. In ASCII mode only strings of 5 or
more normal ASCII characters (including tab or space) are
displayed. This is useful for viewing the messages contained in
an .EXE or .COM file. With the Blank option, non-ASCII
characters are replaced with a blank or space. A final option,
Grey *, masks the high-order bit of non-ASCII characters to make
Wordstar files readable.
4.2 Shell functions and SmartViewers
DF allows the user to significantly build on the internal
program functions by accessing external programs in a variety of
useful ways. While this functionality has existed in DF from
the start (in fact, it was the major new feature of DF 1.0),
with version 4.0 I added a wide new array of methods to access
external programs.
User-defined functions
----------------------
Up to 16 (or 20 if the F11/F12 keys are enabled) external shell
functions can be assigned to the CONTROL-F1 through CONTROL-F10
and RShift-F1 through RShift-F6 keys. (Why not all the RShift
keys, you ask? Answer: I'm reserving the rest of the RShift
keys for DF's own use in future versions.)
Functions such EDIT and UNARCHIVE can be added to the
user-defined menus to correspond with the programs which you
use, not to some arbitrary set of functions which I've set up.
To illustrate the use of these functions, DF comes configured
with a few typical external programs predefined, but these can
be easily added to or changed through the use of the DFCONFIG
program. (Those of you wondering how someone could ever have a
need for this many user-defined functions might want to take a
look at Appendix A which contains some of the clever things
which users have done with these functions.)
An important note: The user-defined functions (and SmartViewers)
depend on external DOS programs. If a defined program cannot be
found (either by specifying its full path in the command line or
by having it in a directory contained in your DOS PATH), the
corresponding user-defined function will not work.
Viewers
-------
DF has both default viewers and SmartViewers.
If you wish, the main default viewer can be left in its shipped
configuration of using DF's internal viewer. Alternatively, a
program such as Vern Buerg's LIST or PC Magazine's SMOOTH can be
substituted by entering the appropriate command line for the
default viewer in DFCONFIG. (For example, to use LIST, enter
LIST ~ as the default viewer command line.) The default viewer
will be used to examine the contents of the highlighted file if
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 22
1) the file's extension has not been configured for a
SmartViewer or 2) one of the default viewer override keys (e.g.
Ctrl <Enter>) have been pressed.
In addition to the main default viewer, a secondary viewer
(accessible through the F12 key) was added in version 4.50. The
purpose of this viewer is to permit easy access to a viewer
which is used frequently but which does not correspond to
specific file extensions. For example, you might want to leave
the internal viewer configured as the main viewer because of its
speed, but assign a more fully-featured program to the secondary
viewer.
SmartViewers allow you to automatically use the external viewer
most appropriate to a given file's type (as reflected in its
extension). For example, you can configure ZR (the author's ZIP
file viewer) for files with a .ZIP extension and a program such
as VGIF or VPIC for a file with a .GIF extension. As with all
the other user-defined functions, customizing the settings for
your personal preferences is easy with DFCONFIG. Each
SmartViewer command line can have up to three corresponding
extensions defined. Single character wildcards (i.e. ?) are
allowed. (Multiple character wildcards, i.e. *, are not
supported.)
For example, a multi-purpose graphics viewer such as VPIC might
have a command line and extensions line which looks like the
following:
Command Line: VPIC ~ Extensions: GIF PCX RLE
(Hint: If you require more than the allowed three extensions,
just replicate the command line and define additional extensions
which correspond to the replicated command line.)
Run a Program
-------------
The Run-a-Program function (Alt-F5) allows you to run an
executable program from within DF. The program under the
highlight bar will be executed when you press this key
combination. You will then be prompted for the command-line
parameters to pass to the executing program. Press <Esc> to
abort the operation or <Enter> to continue without parameters.
Use this option with caution on programs you haven't tried out
before. For one thing, DF has no way of testing a program's
memory requirements. If a program doesn't do its own testing it
may hang your system. Also, some programs seem to be allergic
to being run in shells.
NEVER execute a Terminate-And-Stay-Resident (TSR) program from a
shell. You'll end up creating a hole in memory which will, at
the least, cause you to lose memory and, at worst, will cause a
system crash.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 23
DOS Shell
---------
The DOS Shell (Alt-F2) allows you to temporarily exit to DOS.
You should be able to do anything in this shell which you would
normally do from the DOS command line subject to the constraint
that the DF parent is using approximately 64KB of memory. Type
EXIT at the DOS prompt to return to DF.
4.3 Attribute Functions
DF incorporates functions which allow you to add or remove file
attributes. The ALT-attribute functions allow you to set
attribute bits while the CTRL-attribute functions allow you to
remove the bits. The A, R, H, and Y keys control the Archive,
read-Only, Hidden, and System bits respectively. (An S-key
would have conflicted with the sort function, so the system
attribute was assigned a different key since it will be seldom
used anyway.)
In general, attribute functions can be performed using standard
marking just like all other functions. The exception is
un-hiding hidden files. Hidden files can be unhidden one-by-one,
but hidden files cannot be marked. This is because the ability
to mark must carry over to all program functions and I thought
that, in general, users would want hidden files to be
automatically skipped since most DF functions are illegal on
hidden files. (On a broader note, DF intentionally forces a few
extra steps to delete or otherwise disrupt both Read-Only and
Hidden files. I believe that this philosophy represents
reasonable, if conservative, practice. Files are generally made
Hidden or Read-Only for a reason and, therefore, I don't believe
it should be too easy to tamper with them.)
4.4 Ultravision Compatibility
Directory Freedom Revision 4.0 and later is compatible with
Personics' Ultravision. Ultravision is a very nice program
which allows for an expanded range of screen modes on EGA/VGA
systems as well as providing for alternate palette sets.
DF will respond to Ultravision in the following ways:
If the screen mode is 80 columns by n rows (where n is any
number), DF will come up in that mode, whether n is 25, 43, 50,
63, or whatever. The Swap Video Mode (Alt-F8) will, however,
alternate between 25 lines and 43/50 lines only.
If the screen mode is j columns by n rows (where j is any number
not equal to 80 and n is any number), DF will come up in 80
column by 25 row mode. The Swap Video Mode will work as above.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 24
In all cases, DF will, upon exit, restore the screen to whatever
mode was in effect on entry.
In other words, DF can display any number of rows but requires
an 80 column display and will act accordingly.
4.5 DESQview Compatibility
While Directory Freedom is not fully "DESQview-aware," the
LShift key can be substituted for the Alt key as the "hot-key"
for the secondary menu. This solves a problem encountered in
older revs in which pressing the Alt key caused the DESQview
menu to pop up. This addition, in conjunction with the
following setup information, should allow you to effectively use
DF in a DESQview environment.
When configuring DESQview to add DF to its program list, the
following characteristics should be specified in the advanced
program setup:
Writes directly to screen Y
Uses its own colors Y
Maximum height/width 25,80
Starting Row/Column/Height/Width 0,0,25,80
4.6 Hints and Suggestions
The following techniques, explanations, and hints have proven
useful to myself or to other users. They may help you to get
more out of your copy of Directory Freedom.
To "re-mark" a group of files (i.e. mark the same group of files
which have just been operated on and which now have a * next
to their entries) press F6 and F7 in sequence. (If you have an
extended keyboard, just use the F11 function.)
One of the PC Magazine utilities is called SWEEP and allows you
to automatically repeat the execution of a command through
multiple directories. If you type 'SWEEP DF' from the root
directory, therefore, DF will be executed in succession in each
directory on the hard disk. Ben Stock suggests that this "is
the best thing for housekeeping, reclaiming disk space, and
preparing for major backups." SWEEP should be available on most
major bulletin boards.
To pop up a directory level, highlight the '..' entry and press
<Enter>.
The DF Destination directory is also the current DOS directory.
Hence user-defined commands which send output files to the
default directory regardless of the directory of the source file
(e.g. PKUNZIP) will send their output to the DF Destination
directory -- NOT the (displayed) Working directory.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 25
To print a file, COPY the file to your print device. For
example, to print a file to LPT1:, press F1 and give LPT1 or PRN
(note that there is no trailing colon) as the destination file
name.
To efficiently pack files on to multiple floppies, do a sort in
descending size order. This way, DF will copy the all the files
it can (starting with the largest) onto each diskette in order.
When DF runs out of room on a diskette, it will skip all files
which don't fit. Just put in a new diskette and press the COPY
key again. (There's a bit of beeping associated with this
procedure -- if you set the Beep Option to "Beep 1" rather than
"DOS Beep", the sound is a good bit less obnoxious.)
5.0 Customization
User customization is carried out through the DFCONFIG program
which is menu driven and includes its own help screens. DF
version 4.50 requires that DFCONFIG also be version 4.50. The
matching revision requirement is enforced by the software and
DFCONFIG will give you an error message if you attempt to use it
to modify a mismatched revision of DF.
5.1 DFCONFIG Command Line
There are three possible permutations of the DFCONFIG command
line:
a) DFCONFIG
If you do not specify a path and filename on the DFCONFIG
command line, DFCONFIG assumes that the program you wish to
modify is called DF.CFG (the name for the Directory Freedom
configuration file as shipped) and is in the current directory.
The current configuration settings will be initially read from
this file and any modifications made will be saved to this file.
If DF.CFG cannot be found, DF.COM is searched for. If that
cannot be found, DFCONFIG terminates.
b) DFCONFIG [path\filename]
The specified filename will be used for both input and output
as specified in a).
c) DFCONFIG [path\in_file] [path\out_file]
The current configuration settings will be initially read from
in_file. Any modifications will be saved to out_file.
If you do specify any path\filename(s) on the command line, you
must give a full legal pathname from either the current
directory or a root and the full filename with extension. This
allows you to use any names you desire for DF and/or its
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 26
configuration files. (You must maintain either the .COM or .CFG
extensions, however.)
5.2 DFCONFIG Usage Notes
A mouse is supported in DFCONFIG's menus. The <Left Mouse
Button> button is equivalent to <ENTER> on the keyboard, the
<Right Mouse Button> button to <ESC>.
If you make changes to DF's parameters, make sure that you tell
DFCONFIG to save them; i.e. changes are not automatically saved.
DFCONFIG operates by reading in DF.COM, making changes to the
memory image of the program, and then saving the memory image
back to disk if told to save the changes thereby overwriting the
original. This modification procedure may alert certain
anti-viral programs such as Flushot+ and will alter the CRC
(Cyclic Redundancy Check) value of the DF.COM file. Starting
with version 4.50, a configuration file may be used in place of
direct modification of the program file.
DFCONFIG cannot work on a DF.COM (or DF.CFG) file if it has been
compressed with a program such as LZEXE or PKLITE. DF.COM is
compatible with these programs, but it cannot be modified in its
compressed state since DFCONFIG depends on data being in
specific locations in the program.
DFCONFIG is compatible with Ultravision from Personics. If
Ultravision is detected, DFCONFIG will set an 80x25 screen mode,
but will restore the initial screen dimensions upon exit.
If you have a monochrome monitor attached to a graphics card
(CGA/EGA/VGA), DFCONFIG will automatically map the screen colors
to their monochrome equivalents (with minor changes to make it
easier to recognize the "quick selection characters" in the
menus). The best results will be obtained, however, if you
issue the "MODE MONO" command prior to invoking DFCONFIG.
5.3 DFCONFIG Main Menu
Attributes: Accesses the Attributes sub-menu for changing
DF settings such as color and Printer Port. This menu item is
described in detail in Section 5.5.
Commands: Accesses the Commands sub-menu which allows the
specification of user functions such as SmartViewers. This menu
item is described in detail in Section 5.4.
Info: Gives registration information.
Registration Form: An easy way to enter your information and
print a registration form for DF.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 27
Filenames: Allows the current in_file or out_file to be
changed. See Section 5.6 for additional information.
Save and Quit: Saves the current settings in memory to the
current out_file. These settings could have been read in from
another copy of DF and/or could have been entered by the user
through the Attributes and Commands sub-menus.
Quit w/o saving: Quit the program without making any alterations
to the out_file.
5.4 Commands Modification
DFCONFIG can be used to modify the user-defined shell functions
accessed by the following menus:
Control Keys (Ctrl F1 through Ctrl F10)
Right Shift Keys (RShft F1 through RShft F6)
Extended Keys (Ctrl and RShft F11 and F12)
Viewers (SmartViewers and default viewers)
More SmartViewers (What do you think?)
Archivers (Command line used by 'Create Archive'
functions)
See Appendix D for the edit keystrokes used in these data entry
screens.
At the simplest level, the shell functions can merely be used to
run an external program with no arguments (or at least no
variable arguments). Thus, if you had a program called CPUTYPE
which you would ordinarily run just by typing:
CPUTYPE
at the DOS prompt, you would just enter the same thing as one of
the command lines within the DFCONFIG commands modification
screen.
There may indeed be situations where you want to access such a
program from within DF, however, this usage does not take full
advantage of the DF user-defined shell feature.
Since the DF highlight cursor is always resting on a file or
directory, it might seem useful to be able to pass that
information to a shell command line. DF can do exactly this.
By entering a ~ (tilde) as part of a defined command line in
DFCONFIG, the user tells DF to "Insert the full path and
filename of the file or directory under the highlight at this
spot in the command."
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 28
Command-line syntax
-------------------
In addition to the aforementioned tilde, a variety of other
parameters are available to increase the flexibility of the
user-defined command lines.
%n Synonym for ~. This parameter is replaced with the full
drive:path\filename of the highlighted file. (e.g.
c:\util\df.txt)
%d Work/displayed drive (e.g. c:)
%p Highlighted pathname (e.g. c:\work\)
%f Highlighted filename only (e.g. df.txt). This differs
from %n in that drive and path information is not
included.
%e Highlighted extension only (e.g. .txt)
%c Current DOS = destination drive
%% Literal %
` (grave, i.e. the backwards accent under the tilde on most
keyboards). This allows for the runtime insertion of
parameters. The user is prompted for the input to this
field. More than one grave may be placed on a command
line, but the user will only be prompted one time and
the input will be replicated.
Example
-------
All the above is really a whole lot more complicated to read
than it actually is to do, so let's go through an example.
Let's suppose that we want to define a key for Phil Katz's
PKUNZIP program which views or extracts the archives found on
many electronic bulletin board systems. Although we would
normally set this program up on two different keys (one to view
and one to extract), let's assume for the purposes of the
example that this is a seldom used function and we only want to
use one key for it.
We go into DFCONFIG and the Commands menu. We then enter the
desired command line. (We'll assume we've programmed CTRL-F3):
PKUNZIP ` ~
(Enter whatever you like for the menu name -- it's only for your
own reference. Don't worry about the Pause?, Refresh?, and
Multi? fields for now. They're described later.)
We save the modified data entry screen with a <CTRL-Enter>,
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 29
return to the main menu, and choose Save and Quit from the main
DFCONFIG menu.
When we next run DF, you'll notice that, when pressing the
Control key, the new item has been added to the menu.
We now select a file to operate on. Just move the cursor down
until the desired file is highlighted and, while holding down
the Control key, press F3. DF will prompt you to enter
parameters. Let's assume you want to view the archive. In this
case, type -v and then hit the <Enter> key. If the highlighted
file were called ARCHIVE.ZIP and was in the DOWNLOAD directory
on the C: drive, DF would expand the command line to the
following:
PKUNZIP -V C:\DOWNLOAD\ARCHIVE.ZIP
Other command line controls
---------------------------
The Pause? value is asking whether you want a "Press any key to
return" after exiting the program. You probably don't want a
pause for things such as editors and do for programs which place
information on the screen without inserting their own pause
before exiting.
The Refresh? value is asking whether you want DF to reread the
directory before returning from the shell. You will generally
want to set this value to 'Y' when performing functions such as
extracting archives. There is a minimal performance penalty
attached to performing such a reread on hard disks unless the
directories are very large. If a function is regularly used on
a floppy diskette directory, however, you may wish to perform
Rereads manually (Alt-F4) only when you need them. Refresh will
wipe out any file markings.
The Multi? value is asking whether or not you want the function
to operate on Marked files (if any exist) or the highlighted
file. If Multi? is set to 'N', the function will operate only
on the currently highlighted file -- whether or not other files
in the directory are highlighted. If Multi? is set to 'Y', the
function will operate SEQUENTIALLY on the marked files in the
directory (or the highlighted file if no files are marked). The
Multi switch is not available for viewers.
In the customization screen, you save your work by either typing
CTRL-<Enter> at any point, or <Enter> when positioned on the
last field of the screen. Exiting with <Esc> DOES NOT SAVE THE
CONTENTS OF THE SCREEN!
All the movement and edit commands for the data screen are
available through on-line help in DFCONFIG.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 30
5.5 Attributes Modification
In addition to DF screen colors (NORMAL, INTENSE, MENU, MENU2,
BORDER, and INVERSE), the following attributes can be changed by
the DFCONFIG program:
Switch [Default: / (Standard DOS)
Snow check [Default: Off]
Sort Default [Default: Ascending Name order]
Verify Default [Default: Floppy only]
Beep tone [Default: Standard DOS Beep]
Secondary Menu Key [Default: Alt]
Extended Keyboard [Default: Auto]
Startup Video Mode [Default: 25 lines]
Exclude Attributes [Default: N for all attributes]
Printer Port [Default: LPT1]
Mouse [Default: Enable]
SmartViewer Key [Default: <Enter>]
Disable CFG Read [Default: No]
Drive Table [Default: empty]
Each of these options are explained below.
Color
-----
Both the foreground and background settings of the six color
combinations used in DF can be modified through DFCONFIG's
Attribute modification. To aid you in this process, a sample
color screen changes dynamically based on the currently set and
currently highlighted colors.
Switch
------
/ ("Standard" DOS switch)
- ("UNIX" switch)
For the UNIX hackers, the switch character is used to identify
an option entered on the DOS command line when you first call up
DF. Normally this is '/', so that options would be specified by
/d or /o. By changing the byte to '-', options can be entered as
-d or -o. This lets you use '/' in your path names, so that
instead of entering command lines like:
DF C:\COMM\DOWN D:\UTIL /D
You can now enter:
DF C:/COMM/DOWN D:/UTIL -D or
DF C:\COMM\DOWN -d D:\UTIL or
DF -d C:/COMM\DOWN D:/UTIL -D
But not: DF C:\COMM\DOWN D:/UTIL /D (This will confuse DF)
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 31
(Note that since the confusion results from the option switch,
and since there are no options entered with pathnames once the
program is running, you can use either / or \ as a path
delimiter when entering a destination or changing the path with
F9 or F10 keys.)
Verify Default
--------------
No Change
Yes
No
Floppy Only
From the DOS command line, you can type VERIFY ON or VERIFY OFF
to change DOS's write-verify status. If Verify is on, MS-DOS
performs a series of checks following each disk-write operation
to attempt to verify that the data just written can be read
without error. The downside of such checking is that write
operations are slowed down significantly and the enhanced
security provided by VERIFY ON is questionable, at least with
hard disks.
In any case, DFCONFIG allows the write-verify status within DF
to be set in one of four different ways. It can be set ON, in
which case all affected DF commands will operate with
write-verify status enabled. It can be set OFF, in which case
all affected DF commands will operate with write-verify status
disabled. It can be set to NO CHANGE, in which case DF will use
the write-verify status which was in use by DOS prior to running
DF. Or it can be set to FLOPPY ONLY in which case verify is set
on if the target is a floppy diskette and set off otherwise.
Using DF's /V command-line switch will force write-verify status
ON no matter how this switch is set.
Beep Default
------------
DOS Beep
Beep 1
If an error is made when using DF (e.g. an illegal operation
such as deleting a Read-only file is attempted), the program
beeps to alert you of the error. By default, the standard DOS
beep (ASCII 07) is used. Some users find this standard tone
rather obtrusive and grating on the ear so DFCONFIG allows an
alternative "soft beep" to be chosen instead. (This alternative
tone is generated by programming the timer chip directly instead
of using standard DOS or BIOS services. Therefore it may not
work on some computers which are not 100% IBM PC/AT hardware
compatible.)
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 32
Snow Check
----------
Yes
No
When DF starts up it determines the primary display type. If it
isn't monochrome, EGA, or VGA, then DF can query the display
adapter before writing a character to the display memory to see
if it is ok to do so. This procedure is necessary to avoid
spurious dots or "snow" on old IBM Color Graphics Adapters
(CGA's) caused by the CPU and the display-refresh circuitry
simultaneously accessing the video buffer. Unfortunately, this
check also slows things down quite a bit. If you prefer speed
over a clean display update, or if you have a (relatively)
modern Color Graphics Adapter that doesn't need to do this
checking, choose No for the snow check option. Otherwise,
choosing Yes will enable snow checking (unless a monochrome,
EGA, or VGA has been detected -- in which case snow checking is
neither performed nor necessary). Using DF's /F command-line
option switch forces snow checking off and will override the
setting of this switch.
Sort Option
-----------
Name
Extension
Size
Date
Attribute
Original
A new default sort key and order can be chosen from within
DFCONFIG. The choices (Name, Extension, Size, Date, and
Original) are the same as those which can be specified on either
the DF command line or by pressing the appropriate Alt- or
Ctrl-key. If a sort order is specified as a command line
switch, this default setting is overridden.
If (O)riginal is chosen, no sort takes place and the filenames
are displayed in the same order as they are displayed when
typing the 'dir' command at the DOS prompt.
Other choices (e.g. (N)ame) bring up a secondary menu which asks
you to specify (A)scending or (D)escending. You can use the
sort menu to specify a sort order for each primary key (except
for (O)riginal). This sort order will be used as the
command-line default if you specify a primary key but not an
order suffix. (In other words, if you specify a sort key but no
order on the command line, (e.g. /D) whether the sort takes
place in ascending or descending order will be a function of
what you set up in this menu item.)
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 33
If (N)ame or (E)xtension is chosen, the sort is in ascending
(i.e. alphabetical) order by default. If (S)ize is chosen, the
sort is in descending order by default to allow for more
efficient packing when copying to multiple floppy diskettes.
(D)ate also sorts in descending order by default to place the
most recently created or modified files at the top of the
directory listing.
DF automatically uses a logical secondary key and secondary key
order for each primary key sort. The identity and sort order of
this secondary key is not configurable.
Press <esc> from the primary sort key menu to return to the main
attributes menu.
Secondary Menu Key
------------------
Alt
Left-Shift (i.e. the Shift key on the left side of
the keyboard)
This switch chooses the "hot-key" used to bring up the secondary
menu of "hardwired" DF functions. (This is the menu which
includes the Directory-specific functions and items such as "Run
a Program.") The choice is offered because pressing and
releasing the Alt key also brings up the DESQView menu if
DESQView is active. Since Alt has been the secondary "hot-key"
in all versions of Directory Freedom to date, however, it has
been left as the default for backward compatibility. Choosing
Left-Shift as the hot-key will also lessen the chance of
keystroke conflicts with memory resident programs.
Extended Keyboard
-----------------
Yes
No
Auto
On systems with extended keyboards (101-key or equivalent),
selecting Yes will allow the user to program two additional
function keys on the Control and RightShift menus (and use the
function key commands Alt-F11 and Alt-F12). The status of this
switch does NOT affect the ability to program these keys in the
DFCONFIG command line editor. Unless this switch is set to Yes,
however, those programmed keys cannot actually be used (nor will
they be displayed) within DF.
In revision 4.0, a new default setting (Auto) was added to this
menu. The Auto setting attempts to automatically detect the
presence of a BIOS which supports a 101-key keyboard.
Unfortunately, this sort of detection is kind of a kludge and
101-key support will NOT be automatically detected on all
systems. If automatic detection doesn't work on your system and
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 34
you know that you have an extended keyboard BIOS (or memory
resident software which emulates such a BIOS), just manually
force the support by selecting "Yes".
Simply having a 101-key keyboard does not guarantee that the
BIOS of your system will support the extended function keys. If
you do not have an extended keyboard BIOS, enabling F11/F12 may
hang your system.
Startup Video Mode
------------------
25 line
43/50 line
The setting of this item will determine whether your system
starts up with a 25 row display or a 43 row (EGA) / 50 row (VGA)
display. If you do not have an EGA or VGA display adapter, this
switch setting will have no effect and you will start up with a
25 line display.
Exclude Attributes
------------------
Read-Only Y/N
Hidden Y/N
System Y/N
By default, DF will display all files in the Working (source)
directory regardless of their file attribute bits. This menu
item allows you to exclude the display of one or more of the
"special" attribute settings. (There is also an archive bit
which is most commonly used to handle backups as well as
subdirectory and volume bits -- the latter two are already
handled in a special manner by DF.) If , for example, Read-Only
were set to 'Y', files with a Read-Only bit would not be
displayed by DF. This switch settings allows a person such as a
PC manager to protect files which would be hidden from normal
DOS displays or protected from normal DOS functions such as
ERASE but which DF would normally display.
Printer Port
------------
LPT1
LPT2
This item selects the printer port which will be used by the
Print Directory Listing command.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 35
Mouse
-----
Enable
Disable
By default, DF uses mouse cursor emulation if a mouse driver is
detected. If you wish to disable this support for some reason,
use this menu.
Disable CFG Read
----------------
Yes
No
Normally, DF searches for a DF.CFG file in its home directory if
no configuration file is specified on the command line. If that
search fails, the settings stored in DF.COM are used. If you
definitely don't want to use configuration files, you can save a
little time when DF starts up by disabling DF's search for a
configuration file.
Note that this setting is not stored in any configuration files
created. Doing so wouldn't make sense since DF would see the
setting too late to do any good. This setting is only stored
when DFCONFIG saves directly to a DF.COM file.
SmartViewer Key
---------------
<Enter>
Grey<Enter>
DF normally uses the <Enter> key on the main keypad as the
SmartViewer key (i.e. the one which calls up user-defined
viewers if an extension matches). Some people prefer to use the
numeric keypad <Enter> key as their primary key. This switch
lets them do that.
Drive Table
-----------
The Drive Table is the list of drives which you can move among
with the <left arrow> and <right arrow> keys from the main DF
menu. By default, the table is empty. Fill it up with the
drive letters you wish to add to the list unseparated by colons
or spaces. For instance, CDEFG would allow you to move among
those five drives.
It is allowable (though not really recommended) to add floppy
drives to the list.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 36
5.6 Filenames
The Filenames item on the main menu allows you to specify new
in_file and out_file names to replace those specified (or
defaulted to) on the DFCONFIG command line. The filenames can
be either entered directly or selected from a directory list of
.COM or .CFG files. If filenames are entered manually, they
must end in either a .CFG or a .COM extension which corresponds
to their identity as configuration or program files. If a .CFG
file which does not exist is specified as an out_file (either
through this menu item or on the DFCONFIG command line, you will
be asked whether you wish to create a new file.
DFCONFIG will attempt to validate any selected files to ensure
that they correspond to the proper format for the chosen file
type. By necessity, however, the checking is limited to a
search for certain coded strings which DFCONFIG inserts in .CFG
files or which are present in .COM files. If the chosen file is
corrupted in a more subtle way (for instance by manual editing
outside of the DFCONFIG program), DFCONFIG may still think the
file is valid when it is not. The results in such a case will
be unpredictable.
When a file is chosen for input, its contents will be read into
DFCONFIG as the current settings as soon as you verify that the
program should go ahead. When a new file is chosen for output,
no writing takes place until DFCONFIG is exited through the
"Save and Quit" item on the main menu.
6.0 Supplementary Programs
With version 4.0, major changes were made to the contents of the
DF archive. For a variety of reasons (licensing/copyright
restrictions primarily), only programs written exclusively by
the author are now included with the DF archive distributed on
electronic BBS's and by disk vendors.
6.1 Included Programs
The programs described in this section are not part of DF and
are distributed with DF only for the convenience of users.
X-Ray Viewers
-------------
The X-Ray Viewers provide a scrollable environment for examining
the contents of various types of archive files and allows the
user to view those contents by piping them to LIST. In other
words, you can read a text file contained within, for example, a
.ZIP file without extracting the archive. In combination with
the SmartViewer functions in DF, the X-Ray viewers make the
examination of .ZIP, .ARJ, .LZH, and .ZOO files almost automatic
(just highlight a file and press <Enter>).
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 37
"Freeware" but requires the appropriate archive program and LIST
to function.
Latest revision: 1.10; Archive name: XRAY110
Contains ARJ, ZIP, LZH, and ZOO viewers. See XR.TXT on the disk
for more information. Subsumes ZR which was in turn a renaming of
ZV.
ND
--
This program can be programmed to a function key and will rename
the highlighted file to a new name which is derived from the
current date. For example, FILENAME.TXT would be renamed to
891015.TXT if the date were Oct 15, 1989. It append a letter to
the base name (e.g. 891015A.TXT, 891015B.TXT, etc.) if the
"dated name" already exists. I find this very useful for
handling message-base files from BBS's. (Besides, I wrote it and
figure that no one can keep me from distributing it with DF if I
want to.)
ND is "Freeware."
Latest revision: 1.0; Archive name: ND100 or NEWDATE
6.2 Non-Included Programs
The programs in this section are NOT included with the DF
distribution, but I have found these programs (or programs
fulfilling the same functions) to complement DF well for certain
applications.
RF
--
RF, a slightly modified version of PC Magazine's RN.COM which
provides a higher-level "tree-style" directory program, is no
longer included in the DF archive. It will be included on disk
for those who order a disk with their DF registration or who
order an update disk. RN is available in the PCMAGNET forum on
Compuserve and on many bulletin boards. Instructions on
patching RN to support DF are in Appendix B. Note that only RN
2.0 and later supports disk partitions of greater than 32MB.
PRUNE
-----
A more recent Michael Mefford creation which also appeared in PC
Magazine is PRUNE. PRUNE shows two disk drives simultaneously
and contains powerful functions for manipulating entire
directory trees. I personally prefer PRUNE to RF as a
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 38
high-level disk management program. Like RF, PRUNE is available
on PCMAGNET and can be patched with the instructions in Appendix
B.
FV or RV
--------
Vernon Buerg's FV can be used to cut down on the number of
function keys needed to deal with archives. FV will basically
allow you to view any kind of archive (.ZIP, .ARC, etc.) by
programming only a single function key. DF is shipped
configured for use with FV. You'll still need a different
function key for each archive extraction function, but
consolidating all the view functions should help those users who
were running out of keys. Robert T. Kaya's RV serves a similar
function.
Most recent revisions as of this writing: FV 1.33; RV 2.13
SLED or TED or QEDIT or ...
---------------------------
Since I do not want to start a religious war, I won't even begin
to suggest which editor people should configure. SLED is a
small shareware editor which many people like and is very
sophisticated for its size. TED is a simple editor from PC
Magazine which is free copyrighted software. While lacking such
features as word-wrap, it is very compact (~ 12K bytes) and more
than sufficient to edit batch files and perform similar tasks.
QEdit is a very good shareware programmers' editor. Personally,
I have my working copy of DF setup to use Multi-Edit (a
programmer's editor).
LIST
----
As mentioned earlier in this documentation, I recommend Vernon
Buerg's LIST in place of the built-in file viewer for many
applications. Vernon has been making significant enhancements
to LIST recently (current version is 7.6b) and is well worth a
look in the event you don't already have a copy.
7.0 Technical
DF was written using Borland's Turbo Assembler 2.5 and debugged
using Turbo Debugger. The vast bulk of the code is custom
although some modified routines from Base Two's Spontaneous
Assembler 2.0 libraries were also used. Multi-Edit 4.0 from
American Cybernetics was used as an editor. DFCONFIG was
compiled using Borland C++ 2.0 in conjunction with the TCXL rev
5.52 libraries. [A sidebar: TCXL was formerly Mike Smedley's
CXL. The libraries were purchased by Innovative Data Concepts
and Chip Rabinowitz who now own the rights. TCXL 5.52
represents a major rewrite of the entire system. IDC can be
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 39
contacted at 215-884-3373.] Documentation was prepared using
Ami Pro 2.0 and converted for the on-disk version with the
aforementioned Multi-Edit.
DF was developed on a homebrew 386 (named Dejah Thoris) based on
an AMI 20MHz full-size motherboard with Micropolis 160MB and
660MB ESDI disks and Ultrastore 12(F) ESDI controller. It is a
dual monitor system with an Orchid Prodesigner 512KB VGA board
and an IBM MDA board. The system runs DOS 5.0, QEMM, and
Windows 3.0. While it is not possible to test with all possible
configurations, test systems have included a DG/One 2T laptop, a
Northgate 486, a DG Dasher/286 with EGA, and a DG/Dasher 386/25k
with VGA. Testing included both DOS 3.3 and DOS 5.0.
8.0 Acknowledgements
For Directory Freedom 4.50, special thanks go to my beta
testers: Don Dougherty, Mike Cromer, Mike Schmitt,
Dennis McCunney, Rick Strom, Ron Lloyd, and others (but
especially Don). Blame me for any bugs you find, but rest assured
that there would be many more without the efforts of these
testers.
I would also like to thank the many other users whose
suggestions have contributed greatly to the advancement of DF
and, of course, those who have registered their copies and made
the Shareware concept work. In addition to the above testers,
the "inhabitants" of the Ilink and RIME Shareware Relays have
been especially forthcoming with many suggestions for
improvements and new features.
Finally, I would like to thank the sysops of my "home" BBS
(Channel One), Brian Miller and Tess Hedder.
DF 1.00 was based extensively on Peter Esherick's source code
from DC rev 1.05b with the additional help of some code from
Brad Stephenson's DR26 program. Peter has also been kind enough
to share some DC code fixes with me for incorporation into DF.
Peter can be contacted at the following:
Albuquerque PC Users' Group
Albuquerque RBBS 296-7672, John Maio, sysop
ARPANET: esheric@SANDIA.GOV
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 40
9.0 Recent Revision history
DF 4.50:
Rewrote sort routines. They're now MUCH faster (at least 3x --
not counting time to read from disk) For the technically
inclined, the existing bubblesort was replaced with a quicksort
algorithm.
Sorts can now be done in ascending or descending order
Alt-N,E,S,D,T or Cntrl-N,E,S,D,T. Plus logical secondary sorts
(Extension when primary key is name; Name otherwise) now take
place automatically. Ascending and descending order can also be
specified on the command line with + or - suffices to the sort
letter.
Sorts in attribute order (T) added.
Drive table allows movement between drives by pressing left and
right arrows.
F11/F12 keys added to main menu. F11=Re-mark (equivalent to F6
followed by F7). F12=Secondary main viewer
Disable mouse switch added. Plus (for those of you who had been
given the patching information on how to disable the mouse
previously), disabling the mouse now skips ALL the mouse code.
This may help to correct some mouse incompatibilities some
people ran across.
DF now software initializes the mouse rather than hardware
initializing it. This gets DF started a bit more quickly.
Added RShift-F11/F12 to user-defined pool.
Added Secondary Create Archive key (RShift-F10) -- default is for
ARJ.
Increased length of user-defined command lines.
Function of numeric keypad <Enter> and main keypad <Enter> keys
may be swapped.
Increased SmartViewer line length. Increased number of
SmartViewers. Multiple extensions per SmartViewer command-line
plus single-character (i.e. ?) wildcards in extensions.
Pause and refresh switches added for SmartViewers.
Added new parameters in user-defined command lines
Eliminated dir checks from user-defined command lines (i.e. a
directory is now treated just like a filename)
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 41
Added configuration file option. It is now no longer necessary
to modify the executable DF file. This is particular interest
to those who run virus software in the background to detect
writes to executables. If a file called DF.CFG in xxx.COM's
directory (where xxx.COM is the name of DF.COM), it will be used
automatically. Else, the parameters stored within xxx.COM are
used. Alternate .CFG files can be specified on the command-line
using the /C switch. .CFG file checking can be turned off with
DFCONFIG setting.
Lots of large disk and large directory display problems fixed.
Also, most directory and disk sizes are now displayed with
comma separators to make them easier to read.
Cluster size for Dir size floppy estimates changed to 1024 bytes
(from 512 bytes).
Alt-F toggles file only (i.e. no directories) display
"Graceful degradation" when the number of files in a directory
exceeds DF's limit (512 to 1000 or so files depending upon max
memory, TSR's etc.)
Help screen modified to reflect changes and increase consistency.
It is "believed" that the snow problem is fixed. There was a
logic reversal problem and the display is now slower with
snow-checking on but I don't have a "snowy" old IBM CGA to
actually test on.
Bug with last character of a user-entered command line being
chopped off fixed.
X-Ray Viewers:
ZOO SmartViewer written as addition to the XRAY viewers (ZR,
etc.).
Delete a file option added to SmartViewers ('D'). (Can be
disabled with patch)
DFCONFIG:
DFCONFIG extensively rewritten to handle DF changes and relinked
with new versions of user interface libraries.
Context-sensitive help added.
"Print registration form" option added.
Fixes in libraries allowed me to put back in the up/down cursor
movement on the data-entry forms
Other:
Documentation extensively rewritten.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 42
10.0 Appendix A: User-defined Commands
This section shows just a sample of some of the command lines
which myself and other users of DF have come up with to make our
computing a bit easier. As stated earlier, many of the programs
listed in this Appendix are Shareware. As such, you can fully
try out these programs (subject to the limitations, if any) in
their individual license agreements. If you find them useful,
however, you are expected to register them with the individual
authors. Most of these programs should be readily available
from private electronic bulletin boards, Information Services
such as Compuserve, and disk vendors such as PC-SIG. If you
can't find a particular program, I may be able to help, but some
of the command lines in this Appendix were contributed by other
users so I do not have all (or the latest versions of) some of
the software listed here.
Thanks to Don Dougherty, Robert Ramsdell, and Shakib Otaqui for
contributing to this section.
Editors and Word Processors
---------------------------
pe ~ [IBM Professional Editor ?]
me ~ [Multi-Edit]
q ~ [Qedit]
word ~ [Microsoft Word]
wp ~ [Word Perfect]
Virus Detection
---------------
chk4bomb ~|list/s
scan ~ /nomem
Listing Files
-------------
These programs tend to have complicated switches; you may well
want different settings than in these examples]
4print ~ -h -s [Print 2 to a page on Laserjet]
cl -!i~ > prn: [Clist]
lp ~ lpt1: /N /132 [Norton Line Print]
Other
-----
lzeshell ~ [Create compressed executable file]
fv ~ /p [View any archive]
pkunzip ~ [Extract archive to default directory]
pkunzip ~ s:\ [Extract archive to s: drive]
4dos [Execute 4DOS command shell]
cs ~ [Run Telix script compiler]
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 43
Viewers
-------
list ~ [LIST for general-purpose viewer]
smooth ~ [SMOOTH for general-purpose viewer]
zr ~ [ZR for .ZIP]
vpic ~ [VPIC for .GIF]
wpdraw ~ [Word Perfect Draw for .WPG]
playrol ~ bank.bnk [Plays Adlib sound files (.ROL) with
bank.bnk instrument file]
Archiver Command
----------------
The default command line for the main archiver is: pkzip -ao
@dfzip998 '
The @dfzip998 is a temporary file which DF creates to hold the
filenames to be archived. You shouldn't mess with this. The
-ao switch creates an archive, the time/date stamp of which is
equal to the time/date stamp of the most recent file in the
archive as opposed to the current time/date. (Using the -a
switch instead would cause the current date to be used.)
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 44
11.0 Appendix B: Patching Instructions
---------------------------------------
As noted earlier, RF and PRUNE are no longer included in the
general distribution archive. This section describes how to
patch PC Magazine's RN and PRUNE to call DF instead of the
default DR. An alternate method of achieving the same effect is
to rename DF.COM to DR.COM. The instructions in this section
are valid as of the specified revs of the RF.COM and PRUNE.COM
which were downloaded from Compuserve on 20 November 1990.
This section is not intended to be a tutorial on patching
programs. The changes detailed in this section can be made with
any byte-level editor such as DISKEDIT or NU in the Norton
Utilities or even DEBUG. As always, make sure that you have a
backup of the original program before you start messing around
with its bytes!
RN.COM
------
Instructions apply to RN.COM, Revision 2.0 (4676 bytes).
At offset 029Ah old: 52 2F 45 0D 00
new: 46 0D 00 00 00
At offset 043Bh old: 52
new: 46
The above changes alters DR references to DF and changes the
command line which spawns DR/O to a command line which spawns
DF with no arguments.
PRUNE.COM
---------
Instructions apply to PRUNE.COM, Revision 1.0 (7388 bytes).
At offset 0093h: old: 52
new: 46
At offset 0633h: old: 52
new: 46
The above changes DR references to DF references.
I also have patched versions of these programs which will call
DF by pressing the <Enter> key. These patches required
modification of the source code and I will include them on any
update disks I distribute.
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 45
12.0 Appendix C: Site Licenses
Site Licenses are available for DF. The rates below are for a
"basic" site license. This includes registration for the
specified number of copies and support through a single
specified individual. I will, however, be happy to address
specific requirements such as update subscriptions and support
through multiple persons.
$40 1 registration with media, typeset manual and update
$18 2-5 registrations
$16 6-9
$14 10-19
$12 20-29
$10 30-99
$8 100 and up
Unlimited $2,500
The above schedule means that the first copy is $40, the 2nd
through 5th copies are $18, and so forth. (The exception is the
unlimited license which represents the total license cost.) So,
for example, 6 copies would cost $128 ($40 + 4x$18 + 1x$16).
The table below lists the site license cost for a variety of
user counts. My terms read support through a single person,
though I'm flexible within reason. (i.e. I won't hang up the
phone on anyone who isn't the "official" contact, but I would
start to get unhappy if I were to start getting dozens of calls
with setup questions.)
DF is currently licensed by a wide range of companies and
government agencies. I'd like to add you to the list!
Users Price Users Price
5 $112 40 $546
10 $190 50 $646
15 $260 60 $746
20 $328 70 $846
25 $388 80 $946
30 $446 90 $1,046
35 $496 100 $1,144
For more information, contact Gordon Haff at:
Bit Masons Consulting
3205 Windsor Ridge Dr.
Westboro, MA 01581
Tele: (508) 898-3321
Compuserve: 72561,2637
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 46
13.0 Appendix D: Keystrokes for Data-entry
LeftArrow cursor left
RightArrow cursor right
UpArrow cursor up
DownArrow cursor down
Ctrl-LeftArrow word left
Ctrl-RightArrow word right
Tab field right
Shift-Tab field left
Enter process field
Ctrl-Enter process all fields
Decimal (.) move to right side of decimal point
Home beginning of field
End end of field line / end of field
Ctrl-Home beginning of first field
Ctrl-End end of last field
Ins toggle field insert mode
Del delete character at cursor
BackSpace delete character left
Ctrl-BackSpace delete word left
Ctrl-R restore field to original contents
Ctrl-T delete word right
Ctrl-U delete to end of field
Ctrl-Y delete to end of last field
Esc abort data entry
Directory Freedom 4.50 Page 47
14.0 Appendix E: "Undocumented" Patches
Most DF user-definable switch settings can be altered quickly
and easily through the companion DFCONFIG program. This
appendix documents the DF.COM patch locations for values stored
in DF which I do not anticipate users having a need to alter
(and as such are not settable through DFCONFIG).
Each entry in this section describes allowable values for each
patch location and what the values mean. It is assumed that any
user wishing to do such patching has the appropriate software
(DEBUG or a full-screen hex editor such as Norton Diskedit) and
knows how to use it. As always, any changes should be made on a
backup copy of DF.COM.
Mouse_reset @ 002Dh
0: [default] Use software reset
1: Use hardware reset (used in earlier revs of DF)
This patch is provided in case the change to a software reset
creates any incompatibilities. Such incompatibilities are not
expected (and using a hardware reset is slower).
DOS_version_check @ 002Ch
0: [default] Check for DOS version. Abort if < 3.0.
1: Skip version check.
If you wish to try running DF with DOS versions earlier than
3.0, you can try patching this location. No testing has been
done, however, and it is likely that severe problems will be
encountered in several areas of the program (possibly including
initialization). The recommended solution to running with older
versions of DOS (such as on older rev-locked hardware which
cannot use standard Microsoft DOS) is to run an older version of
DF which does not have code dependent on DOS 3-specific features.
Registration for Directory Freedom 4.50
To register, please return this form with your registration
check or money order (Purchase orders are also accepted) to:
Gordon Haff
Bit Masons Consulting
3205 Windsor Ridge Dr.
Westborough, MA 01581
Phone: (508) 898-3321
Name ____________________________________
Address ________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
Phone (_____)_____-______
Where did you get DF 4.50 from?
BBS / Service Name ______________________ Number (_____)_____-______
_____ DF 4.50 Registration w/ diskette @ $ 25.00 ea $ _______
(Includes a license for one user, diskette w/ DF and
all associated files, and product support.)
_____ DF 4.50 Registration @ $ 20.00 ea $ _______
(Includes a license for one user and product support;
No diskette or hard-copy documentation.)
_____ DF 4.50 Registration w/ diskette/docs/upd @ $ 40.00 ea $ _______
(Includes Registration and product support plus:
A diskette with DF and all associated files,
typeset documentation, one free update diskette)
_____ DF Update w/ diskette only @ $ 5.00 ea $ _______
(Includes diskette with latest DF and all
associated files. REGISTERED USERS ONLY)
_____ DF Update w/ diskette and docs @ $ 15.00 $ _______
(As above plus typeset documentation.
REGISTERED USERS ONLY)
(*) Non-North American shipping @ $ 5.00 $ _______
TOTAL Enclosed (in US Dollars please) $ _______
If a diskette is being ordered: 3.5" ____ 5.25" ____
(*) Non-North American orders should please include $5.00 extra
to cover additional shipping and handling charges ONLY if a
diskette and/or manual is being ordered. Please send all
payments payable in U.S. Dollars.
Canadian customers may use Canadian postal money orders in
dollar denominations.
Feel free to attach any other comments or instructions (e.g.
program features you'd like to see, or don't send a copy of the
program until the next major rev, etc.)
Note that the update options are:
1) Only available to users who have registered a previous
revision of Directory Freedom and
2) Only required of registered users if they wish a copy of the
latest revision on disk and/or a printed manual. In other
words, this is a Materials/S&H charge for sending out the latest
revision. Registered users of DF who have obtained the latest
rev from other sources (e.g. a BBS) are under no obligation to
pay an upgrade fee for the use of that rev.
(Of course, this revision will be mailed out automatically to
those users for whom it represents their free update.)
If you or your organization would like a Software Subscription
Service so as to receive the latest copies direct from the
author as soon as they become available, you may pay for
multiple updates at the time of the initial order and, by so
doing, will be automatically placed on the list for the
appropriate number of future update mailings. If you have
special requirements in this area, please call or write. We
will try our best to accommodate your needs.
NOW YOU CAN ORDER YOUR VERY OWN COPY OF DIRECTORY FREEDOM ON-LINE!
*****************************************************************
Registered copies of the full Directory Freedom package
(registration, media, typeset manual, and update) can be ordered
online from Channel 1 Communications(R). To order:
Call Channel 1(R) at (617) 354-8873 with your modem set to 8
data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity (8-N-1) at 2400 or 1200 baud and
logon as a new user (if you are not already a member)
Type S at the main Command prompt to get to the Signup menu.
Then select the Shareware Registration signup.
Order Directory Freedom (specifying 5.25" or 3.5" disks -- if
you don't specify, you will be shipped 5.25"), charging it to a
major credit card. The price is $40. Massachusetts Residents
must add 5% sales tax. Note that your credit card statement
will reflect a charge from Channel 1 and not from Bit Masons
Consulting or Gordon Haff.
Bit Masons Consulting will ship your order promptly.
Please do not contact Channel 1 for technical support or other
questions about Directory Freedom (such as site licensing or
other registration options).
*****************************************************************