Night Owl 6/Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso/033a/df450r.zip/READ_ME.DF

Text File | 1991-12-05 | 12KB | 278 lines

EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO READ THE DOCUMENTATION, PLEASE READ THIS FILE.
IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT SETTING UP AND USING DF!


                  Directory Freedom (DF) Version 4.50
          Copyright 1989 - 1991 by Gordon Haff.  All Rights Reserved.


          Shareware: $20 registration; See REGISTER.DOC for ordering
                     information and manual/disk/update pricing
          Gordon Haff is a member of the Association of Shareware
                     Professionals.

          A product of Gordon Haff and Bit Masons Consulting
               3205 Windsor Ridge Dr.
               Westborough MA 01581
               Compuserve ID: 72561,2637
               Phone: [phone] (after 6pm; no collect calls please)


Descriptions for BBS operators and Vendors:
-------------------------------------------

Short:    DF 4.50: Small, fast, configurable file manager

Medium:   DF 4.50: Small, fast, configurable file manager with advanced
          user-defined functions and SmartViewers.  100% assembly = <25KB!
          New version is even more configurable and even faster.

Long:     DF 4.50: Small, fast directory manager with advanced
          user-defined functions such as SmartViewers.  Move and copy
          files, delete and rename files and directories, create archives,
          change file time/date stamps, create archive files, and much
          more.  Yet the program is less than 25KBytes in size!  Ideal for
          both the latest 80486 desktop system and the most venerable
          laptop, Directory Freedom addresses the needs of both the novice
          unsure about cryptic DOS commands and the experienced user who
          just wants to avoid typing in whole lists of filenames.  New
          version allows even greater user configurability and file sorts
          are at least 3x faster.


Feature Summary:
----------------
Directory Freedom 4.50 offers users a fast, compact alternative to DOS
Shells and a wide range of features including:

     A scrollable environment for examining files and directories
     Selective file and directory operations such as Copy/Move file;
          Rename/Delete file or directory; Change file/directory
          attribute; Create directory
     User-defined keys which can operate upon highlighted
          files (such as defined editors)
     SmartViewers which call different user-defined viewers depending on
          the highlighted file's extension
     Archive (e.g. .ZIP) creation
     File date/time modification
     Volume label editing
     Support for extended screen modes (e.g. 43/50 line)
     Extensive configuration through an external, user-friendly
          configuration program

There are many DOS shells on the market, but DF is small and fast.  Yet at
the same time, DF is powerful and highly configurable.  DF lets you
continue to use the utilities (such as file viewers) which you have become
comfortable with but it ENHANCES those utilities by providing a scrollable
environment from which they can be called.


Files:
------

      DF.COM               Directory Freedom program file
      DF450.DOC            Documentation
      DFCONFIG.EXE         Configuration program
      DF.ICO               Windows 3.0 icon
      LIBERTY.ICO          Another Win3 icon (from Phil Baltzer)
      READ_ME.DF           This file
      REGISTER.DOC         Registration and update info
      VENDOR.DOC           Distribution info for vendors and BBS's
      DF450.NEW            Info on DF 4.50 revisions

      (The X-Ray file viewers.  This archive incorporates XRAY101.)

      ZR.COM               Zip X-Ray
      AR.COM               ARJ X-Ray
      LR.COM               LHA X-Ray
      ZOR.COM              ZOO X-Ray
      XR.TXT               Archive X-Ray documentation

      (Other utilities.)

      ND.EXE               Convert filenames to current date
      ND.DOC               Short documentation for above

Hardware Requirements and Important Information:
------------------------------------------------

Directory Freedom does not require any special hardware to operate.  It has
been tested across a wide range of IBM compatible hardware.  Graphics cards
and hard disks are NOT needed to use this program.

The Directory Freedom user-defined commands and archive creators come
preconfigured with command lines which use some common shareware and
freeware software.  Except for those programs written by the author, this
software is NOT supplied with DF.  If you do not have the appropriate
programs on your system and accessible through your PATH statement, the
pre-configured commands WILL NOT WORK out of the box.

128KB memory is required.  When shelled to a user-defined function, DF
requires 64KB for its resident portion.  Thus, in order to run a program in
a shell, the user must have memory equal to the shelled program's
requirements + 64KB.

DF will function with DOS 3.0 and later (DOS 3.3 and later recommended).
DF is no longer supported under DOS 2.1.

To run DF, you must set the DOS COMSPEC variable (e.g. SET
COMSPEC=c:\command.com).  This requirement is discussed in detail in the
manual.

Directory Freedom is a shareware program.  If you use DF and find it
useful, registration with the author is required.  Please see the
REGISTER.DOC file for more information on registering.

Manual Addenda:
---------------

     Using Loadfix when running DF in a shell

DF generally has a limit of between 500 and 1000 files in a directory.
The limit varies, not as a function of total system memory, but as a
function of other programs or program stubs which may prevent DF from
fully utilizing the space in its 64K segment.  If DF is accessed by
shelling from certain programs, the file limit may decrease to as few as
300 or 400 files because of the way these programs leave a portion of
themselves in low memory.  This problem can frequently be solved (if you
are running DOS 5) by using the "loadfix" DOS command.  In other words,
the command line in the parent program to run DF would be:

   LOADFIX DF /switches (where switches are any command-line switches
                         you care to specify for DF)


What's New with DF 4.50:
------------------------

Rewrote sort routines.  They're now MUCH faster (at least 3x -- not
counting time to read from disk)

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.  Note: Drive table must be manually specified in DFCONFIG.

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.

Mouse now uses software reset instead of hardware reset.  This seems to
cut a second or so off DF's initialization on some systems.

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 length of Smart Viewer command lines.  Increased number of
SmartViewers.  Added ability to configure multiple extensions per
SmartViewer command line together with '?' wildcards.

Pause and refresh switches added for SmartViewers.

Added new parameters in user-defined command lines:
   %n (synonym for ~) highlighted filename with drive & path
       (e.g. c:\work\DF.COM)
   %d work/displayed drive (e.g. c:)
   %p highlighted pathname (e.g. c:\work\)
   %f highlighted filename only (e.g. DF.COM)
   %e currently highlighted extension only

   %c current DOS drive (destination drive)

   %% literal %

Eliminated dir checks from user-defined command lines (i.e. a directory is
now treated just like a filename)

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 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.

ZOO SmartViewer written as addition to the XRAY viewers (ZR, etc.).

Delete a file option added to Smartviewers ('D').

DFCONFIG extensively rewritten to handle DF changes and relinked with new
versions of user interface libraries.

Context-sensitive help added to DFCONFIG.

"Print registration form" option added to DFCONFIG.

Documentation extensively rewritten.


Distribution Points:
--------------------

I frequently am asked: "Where can I download future versions of DF when
they appear?"  DF actually makes the rounds pretty well -- you can usually
pick up a copy on most major BBS's.  To make certain of a few specific
locations, however, I will try to make sure DF gets to the following
boards.  The name is always DFxxx.yyy where xxx is the revision number and
yyy is the archive name (typically ZIP for now).  So, for example, this
version is DF450.ZIP.

I don't guarantee DF will make it to all these boards immediately, but
they are all on my distribution list.

Channel 1, Cambridge MA            [phone]
Xevious, Cambridge, MA             [phone]
Remote Host BBS, NJ                [phone]
Ameriserve, NY                     [phone]
HNS, MD                            [phone]
CenLA Shareware Network, CA        [phone]
House of Ichthys                   [phone]
Windraker II, CA                   [phone]
Aardvark BBS, CA                   [phone]
Reality Alterations                [phone]
Kandy Shack                        [phone]
Chips                              [phone]

(To the best of my knowledge, at the time of this writing, the above
boards allowed downloads without membership -- although membership may be
available to offer access to more nodes and other benefits.)

and on Compuserve in the IBMSYS area, LIB 5 (DOS Shells).