On Disk Monthly 70/odm70.zip/DOSMAN.DOC

Text File | 1992-07-11 | 25KB | 538 lines

^C^IThe Basics

DOS Manager uses pull-down menus at the top of the screen.
Mouse users can pull them down by clicking on the menu names,
like "File", "Mark", etc.  You can also pull down a menu by
pressing Alt and its first letter (Alt-F for File, etc.).
Select a menu item by clicking on it (or releasing your mouse
button while on it), or by moving around with the arrow keys
and pressing Enter when the desired menu item is selected, or
by pressing the first letter of the desired menu item.

Many of the functions of this program are also tied to "hot
keys" (such as function keys or combinations of Ctrl, Alt,
Shift, and a function or letter key) which can be pressed from
the main screen in place of pulling down a menu item.

In addition, when function keys are itemized on the bottom of
the screen, you can click on the name of the key (the part
that is in yellow on color monitors) to access the function as
if you have pressed that key.

Other mouse features:  The right mouse button acts like the
ESC key, to get you out of whatever you are in.  Also, when
there is a little square within brackets in the upper left
corner of a screen window, clicking on it works like ESC to
close the window.

In scrolling text presenters like this one, and while a
directory is displayed, you will see a "scroll bar" at the
right edge of the window.  The pointer within it shows how far
into the file or directory you are.  Clicking within the
scroll bar and above the pointer acts like PgUp; clicking
below the pointer acts like PgDn; and "dragging" the pointer
moves to a different point of the file or directory.  Also,
the arrowheads above and below the scroll bar act like the up
and down arrow keys, and will repeat if you hold the mouse
button down while pointing to them.


^C^IHELP!

Online help is available at most parts of DOS Manager. Bring
it up by pressing the <F1> key.  Pressing <F1> twice in a row
brings up this text.  <Shift+F1> brings up a list of hot keys.


^C^IUSING DOS MANAGER

After a title screen, DOS Manager goes straight to the main
command screen.  The current directory is displayed, including
file names, the dates they were last modified, and their size.

Use the arrow keys, <PgUp>, and <PgDn> to move around in the
directory.  Also, you can click the mouse on a directory entry
to go to it.  Clicking on the entry that is already
highlighted is equivalent to pressing ENTER to view that file.
(See information on file viewing below.)

You may see some unfamiliar files in the directory, since all
hidden and system files are shown.  For instance, the root
directory of the disk you boot will include files such as
"IO.SYS" and "MSDOS.SYS".  Don't delete, move, or rename these
files; this might make your disk fail to boot correctly.  You
will be given a warning if you try to delete these or other
read-only files.


^C^1Selecting Files

The highlight bar indicates the current file which will be
operated on by various commands. Some commands can act on more
than one file at once.  For example, you can mark files using
the <Space Bar> to flag a set of files to be deleted, renamed,
moved, or copied. Pressing the <Space Bar> on a "marked" file
will unmark the file. The <+> key will mark all files; the <->
key will unmark all marked files.  NOTE: Subdirectories will
not be automatically marked although they can be marked
manually. (These file-marking commands are also accessible as
items in the Directory menu.)

NOTE:  If you have a three-button mouse, you can use the
middle mouse button to click on a file for the purpose of
highlighting or un-highlighting it.

If any files are marked, the total size of the marked files is
shown at the bottom of the screen.  The amount of space needed
for copying these files to a floppy or a hard disk is also
shown.  This measurement is based on the normal 1 KB
allocation for floppies and 2 KB for hard disks. If your
destination drive does not have the indicated amount of free
space, you will not have room to copy all files you selected.


^C^1Erasing (Deleting) Files

Selecting Erase from the File menu or pressing <Del> will
delete all marked files or the current file at the highlight
bar if no files are marked.  Because deletion can be
dangerous, you are first asked if you really want to delete
each file. Answer "Yes" every time to delete the indicated
file or press the exclamation point <!> key at the first
"Yes/No" question to delete the indicated file and all
subsequent files without further questions. Answering "No" to
each question or pressing <Esc> gets you out without losing
any files.  Answer "No" if you decide you really don't want to
delete the files.

If one of the selected files is a subdirectory, all files
within the subdirectory and any subordinate subdirectories
within it will be deleted.  Also, the subdirectory will be
removed.  In other words, this procedure will get rid of the
entire tree of subdirectories that are "below" the one you
selected.

WARNING:  The RD command from the MS-DOS command line won't
let you remove a directory until you have deleted everything
within it, from the lowest level upward; however, DOS Manager
will remove a whole subdirectory tree with all of its contents
in one stroke.  This is a powerful feature. It makes "spring
cleaning" of your hard drive easy but it can be dangerous.
Large quantities of important data can be deleted if you are
not careful. For this reason, a special warning message is
given when DOS Manager is about to delete a subdirectory.  You
must press <Y>es to go on, even if you have already used the
<!> option on an earlier Yes-No question in the same delete
command.  Of course, if you back up your hard drive regularly,
don't worry about losing too much important data.  You HAVE
backed up your system recently, haven't you?


^C^1Copying and Moving Files

Selecting Copy from the File menu or pressing <F3> copies
files to another drive or directory.

Selecting Move from the File menu or pressing <F4> moves
files.

There is a difference: Copy leaves the original files alone
and creates copies of them elsewhere; Move moves the files to
another place, either on the same or a different drive, and
removes them from their original location.  Moving within the
same drive is very fast since only the directory entries need
be moved.  Moving to a different drive is accomplished by
copying the file and then deleting it.

For both the copy and move commands, you are asked to name the
destination drive and/or path.  Type a path specification such
as "C:\STUFF\" or "A:" according to the DOS syntax.  Press
<F8> (when asked for a path) to see a tree structure of your
disk (primarily for hard disk users).  Use the <Arrow Keys> to
select the desired directory; press <Enter> to select it.

If you type a path representing a directory that does not
exist, you will be asked if you'd like to create it.

If the files you have selected include subdirectories, they
will be copied along with all of their contents.  This means
that directories of the same name will be created at the
destination path and all files within each selected directory
(and any subdirectories nested beneath it) will be copied to
the destination directories.  Hence, you can copy or move an
entire tree of subdirectories from one place to another.  This
can be handy for copying disks that include subdirectories or
rearranging your hard disk's tree structure.  For your own
safety, DOS Manager will not allow you to move a directory
tree structure to a position where a directory would become
its own ancestor. This procedure is not allowed because it
would create a messy situation.

The Copy command lets you copy multiple files to a different
path while preserving their filenames.  There is also another
command, Duplicate, to copy a single file to a different file,
possibly in the same directory.  To do this, select Duplicate
from the File menu or press <Shift+F3>. You will be prompted
for a new filename which may include a drive and path if you
wish.  The default is the path and name of the file you
selected.  Use the <Left> and <Right> arrow keys to move
around in the text line to edit the filename.  For example,
copy "C:\STUFF\TEST.TXT" to the file "C:\STUFF\TEST.BAK" in
order to make a backup copy.


^C^1Renaming Files

Selecting Rename from the Directory menu or pressing
<Shift+F4> renames the selected files or the current file if
none are selected.  You will be prompted for a new name for
each selected file in the standard DOS syntax of up to eight
characters, plus an optional extension of up to three
characters preceded by a period.  You can rename
subdirectories just like regular files.


^C^1Printing Directory

Select Print Directory from the Directory menu, or press <F5>,
to print out a listing of the current directory.


^C^1Sorting Directory

Select Directory Sort Order from the Settings menu, or press
<F6>, to select options for sorting of the directories as
viewed or printed.  The directories themselves, as stored on
the disk and viewed with the DIR command in DOS, are not
altered in their order by this sorting.  You can sort by
filename, extension, size, date/time, or numerically.

The numeric sort extracts numbers found within filenames and
arranges them in order.  For instance, "MEMO.001" has the
number 1 in it while "23SKIDOO.TXT" has the number 23.  Such
files will be arranged in numeric order with "ties" broken
alphabetically.  This sorting order is useful when you have a
series of files with consecutive numbers without leading
zeroes.  For example, if you have "FILE1.DAT" through
"FILE10.DAT", the tenth file will alphabetize after 1 rather
than after 9 but the numeric sort will put them in their
proper numeric order.

Once you have selected a sorting type, all directories
displayed within DOS Manager will be sorted in this manner
until you change it by pressing <F6> again.  There is an
"Unsorted" option which you may select in order to return to
displaying directories in their actual order on your disk
rather than any sorted order.


^C^1Changing Directories

Press <F10>, or select Go To Drive/Path from the Directory
menu, to change directories so as to view and operate on files
at other places on your disks.  You may type in a path to go
to this location or press <F8> to see the tree structure just
like the copy and move commands.

Another way to move around is to press <Enter> while the
selection bar is sitting on a subdirectory (or double-click on
a subdirectory with the mouse).  The ".." entry at the top of
a subdirectory is a special directory entry created
automatically by DOS, standing for the parent directory.
Therefore, when you press <Enter> while the selection bar is
on "..",  DOS Manager goes up one level to the directory in
which the current subdirectory is contained.

Changing directories unmarks all marked files because file
marking is only retained in the current directory.

Changes of directory done within DOS Manager stay in effect
only while you're within the program, unless you have used the
"Toggle Change Dir Option" from the Settings menu to enable
the feature of remaining in the changed-to directory upon
exit.


^C^1Searching for Files

Select Find File from the Directory menu or press <F8> to
search for a file.  With this feature, DOS Manager looks
through the entire drive for a particular file.  You are
prompted for the filename.  The filename may include wildcards
in standard DOS syntax.  If a matching file is found, you are
given an option to go to the directory in which it is found
with the selection bar sitting on the particular file you
want.

You can resume your search where you left off by pressing
<Shift+F8> to find the next matching file.


^C^1Creating Directories

Select Create Subdirectory from the Directory menu or press
<Ins> to create a new subdirectory.  This is similar to the
"MD" command in DOS.  You are prompted for the pathname.  If
you don't include a drive and directory prefix, the directory
you name will be created within the directory currently being
displayed.


^C^1Viewing Files

One of the most powerful and easy-to-use features of DOS
Manager is the built-in file viewing feature.  To look at any
file, just press <Enter> while the selection bar is resting on
the file you are interested in viewing, or double-click on a
file with the mouse.  (Selecting the View File item in the
File menu is equivalent.)  The file will be displayed.  There
are a number of different ways of viewing files.  The method
is selected automatically based on the kind of file.  For most
common kinds of files, you simply press <Enter> to get a peek
at the file.  This is handy when you're cleaning out your
directories and aren't sure what is contained in a particular
file.

Ordinary ASCII text files will be displayed as plain text with
a text presenter similar to the scrolling text viewers in
various programs we have published.  In fact, you are in this
presenter right now.  Use the <Arrow Keys>, <PgUp>, and <PgDn>
to move around within the text or <Esc> to return to the main
screen.  <Home> goes to the top of the file, <End> to the end.

When a line is longer than 80 characters, it will be word-
wrapped onto the next line.  This feature is denoted by a
right-pointing arrowhead indicating that this is really part
of the previous line.

TECHIE NOTE:  Line breaks are recognized whether they consist
of the usual carriage-return followed by linefeed; just a CR
or LF by itself; either or both CR/LF with its high-bit set;
or several other possibilities. Therefore, files from just
about any word processor will display in a readable manner
despite their individual quirks.

To search for particular text within a file, press <F8> and
type in the text you are looking for.  Use either upper or
lower case.  The search starts with the first line displayed
on the screen. It continues until the end of the file or the
desired text is found.  If the text is found, it is
highlighted.

Most word processors use embedded commands.  There are too
many different programs for DOS Manager to provide specific
support for each; however, DOS Manager can read most text
files, although some may be accompanied by some "funny-
looking" characters.

WordPerfect is given special support by DOS Manager.  Its
special embedded commands are automatically stripped so you
can view the text without all the embedded commands.  The text
won't look exactly as it does within the word processor
because most of the special commands are ignored rather than
interpreted, but the text will be readable.

Another kind of file displayed in a different manner is a
spreadsheet.  DOS Manager recognizes spreadsheets created with
the popular Lotus 1-2-3, Symphony, and Quattro programs as
well as other programs compatible with this data format. These
spreadsheets will be displayed in a simulation of the
spreadsheet screen.  Not all of the formatting options are
implemented.  The columns are all the same width regardless of
what is set in the template.  Many other special features are
not recognized, but you will usually be able to interpret the
data in the spreadsheet.

Press the <Arrow Keys>, <PgUp>, and <PgDn> to move around the
spreadsheet.  Every time you move, the entire spreadsheet must
be loaded again, because all the data is not saved in memory.
You needn't wait for the load to be completed before pressing
another key because all keystrokes will automatically
terminate the load and execute the next command.  Generally,
the upper-left portion of the spreadsheet is at the beginning
of the file.  This part of the file will load and display
quickly after which time you can exit or move about the
spreadsheet without waiting for the rest of the spreadsheet to
load.

Database files, such as those in the dBASE III format, can
also be displayed.  These are files with a ".DBF" extension.
Foxbase, dBASE III, Clipper, and many other programs use
database files of this standardized format.  These files
contain lists of field names and values for each of the
database's records.  Press <Enter> at the end of each page to
continue or press <F5> to print the entire contents of the
database.  (Warning: this may be a very long printout in some
cases, since databases can have an almost unlimited amount of
data.)

Another file type supported by DOS Manager is the archive file
such as .ARC, .ARJ, .ZIP, or .LZH.  These files, familiar to
computer bulletin board system users, consist of a number of
files compressed into one smaller archive file. DOS Manager
will not extract files from an archive.  You need the ARC,
ARJ, PKUNZIP, and LHARC programs to accomplish this.  DOS
Manager will display a listing of the files contained within
each archive.  For ZIP and ARJ files, DOS Manager tells you
what version of the archiver was used to create the file;
which operating system was used (ZIP and ARJ programs exist on
many non-MS-DOS machines); and what version is needed to
extract the file.

When all else fails, DOS Manager will display files as
straight binary data, in hexadecimal bytes, along with their
ASCII equivalents.  If you're not a "techie", you probably
won't be able to interpret this display.  You can press <Esc>
to get out of it.  A binary display is selected for files that
are unsupported for display.  You can also get a raw binary
display of any other type of file by pressing <F6> during the
normal display of a file.  Pressing <F6> while a binary dump
is displayed switches the mode to text-file display.  This
display will usually look like garbage unless the file
actually IS a text file.  You can also find text strings
within an .EXE program file this way.  A display of a binary
dump can be viewed just like a text file.


^C^1Editing Files

In addition to viewing text files, you can also edit them. You
can only edit text files.  Spreadsheet, database, archive, and
binary files can be viewed but not changed.  To edit a file,
select the Alter (Edit) File item from the File menu, or press
<F7> from the main screen, when the desired file is
highlighted.

To create and edit a new file, press <Shift+F7>, and type the
name of the file when prompted.  The file will be created and
you will be placed in the editor to edit it.

Only straight ASCII files can be edited and there is a limit
to the size of files you can edit.  If you try to edit a file
which cannot be edited, you will be told so.  The built-in DOS
Manager editor is not usable for massive documents or for
documents that need embedded word-processor commands; however,
it is ideal for creating and modifying the simple text files
needed by DOS such as CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, other batch
files, and configuration files.

The editor screen is similar to the text viewer used when
pressing <Enter> on text files; however, this feature allows
you to change as well as view the text.  Move around with the
arrow keys; type characters to insert them; press <Ins> to
toggle between overwriting the character at the cursor and
inserting new characters before it; and press <Del> to delete
the character at the cursor.  Also, <F7> deletes a line and
<F6> inserts a line.  <F1> gives you a help screen for the
editing commands.  <F8> searches for a particular text string.
DOS Manager starts the search at the point of the cursor.  The
cursor is moved to the start of the desired string if it is
found or to the end of the file if it is not found.  <Home>
and <End> go to the beginning of the current line, and
<Ctrl+Home> and <Ctrl+End> go to the top and bottom of the
file.

When you reach the end of a line, words will wrap just like in
the text display mode.  This includes the use of a rightward
arrowpoint at the start of the next line indicating it is a
continuation from the previous line. This feature allows you
to create and modify text files with lines longer than 80
characters.  This is often necessary with batch files.
Carriage returns will not be inserted except where you
explicitly press <Enter>.

When you're finished editing, press <F10> to save the file and
return to the directory screen.  The file will be saved as
straight ASCII. This includes the carriage returns and
linefeeds indicated by pressing <Enter>.  The file may differ
from the way it was originally stored if it was created on a
word processor with different conventions.

When a file is loaded to be edited, the same processing is
done to it as in the text display portion of the program. This
means that various line-breaks are recognized and some word-
processor commands, WordPerfect for example, are stripped.
These commands are NOT added back into the file before it is
saved; therefore, they will be lost.  Do not use the DOS
Manager editor to edit a file created under a different word
processor using its special commands unless you don't care if
these commands are stripped when the file is returned to
straight ASCII.  This may be what you want to do.  For
instance, if the file is going to be used as a batch file or
transferred to another user with a different word processor,
it SHOULD be a straight ASCII file because the embedded
command codes will only confuse matters.


^C^1Running Programs

You can also run external programs from DOS Manager.  Do this
by selecting Execute Command from the Run menu or by pressing
the forward slash </>.  You are asked what command to use,
defaulting to the name of the file at the directory selection
bar when you press this command key.  If the file is an .EXE,
.COM, or .BAT file, you can run it immediately by pressing
<Enter>.  You can also type any other DOS command, such as
FORMAT A:, and it will be executed.  Enter a null string (by
pressing <Del> repeatedly to remove the default filename, or
pressing the <Space Bar> followed by the <Backspace Key>) to
"shell" to a DOS prompt to perform whatever other commands you
wish.  Type "EXIT" to get back to DOS Manager.

Note that there is a slight delay before a command is
executed.  This is because DOS Manager and all related data
stored in your PC's memory must be swapped out to free this
memory space for the other program you are running.  If you
have expanded memory available, this will be used to hold DOS
Manager temporarily; otherwise, it will be swapped to disk.
This function may fail if you lack sufficient space on the
current default drive.  All temporary swap files will be
deleted once you return to the menu; they will not take up
space on your disk drive permanently. If, due to a system
crash or some such problem, a temporary file does not get
deleted, you can delete it yourself later.  These files will
show up in the root directory of your current drive, and are
"read-only", with cryptic eight-letter names with no
extension.  They can be deleted using DOS Manager.


^C^1Other Functions

Press <F2> or select the "Sound/Silence Toggle" item in the
Settings menu to turn on or off the sound.  With sound off,
the "beeps" that sound on occasion will be silenced.

Select the "Toggle Opening Info Text" item in the Settings
menu to enable or disable the viewing of the informational
text about DOS Manager on starting the program.  In all cases,
you can see that text within the program by pressing F9.

Select the "Toggle Change Dir Option" item in the Settings
menu to enable or disable the feature of changing the current
DOS directory to the directory you have reached while running
DOS Manager.  If enabled, on exiting this program you will be
placed in the directory you have just displayed on the screen;
if disabled, you will be returned to the directory which was
current when you started DOS Manager.  Note that if, in the
meantime, you have renamed or deleted the original directory,
you will not be returned to it in any case.


^C^1Exiting

Select Quit from the File menu or press <Esc> to exit DOS
Manager.


^C^IDISCLAIMER

Any product name (e.g., Lotus 1-2-3, Symphony, dBASE III,
FoxBase, Clipper, ARC, ARJ, PKZIP, PKUNZIP, LHARC, or
WordPerfect) mentioned in this text or in DOS Manager is a
trademark of its respective publisher.  DOS Manager provides
viewing capabilities for several of these file formats for the
convenience of its users, but DOS Manager is not officially
endorsed or supported by the manufacturers of the above-named
programs.  Softdisk Publishing does not provide technical
support for programs created by other software companies.