Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 16KB | 44 lines
MPARTICLE
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INFO
Title : ABCDirectory 2.4.
Author : Marc Dionne.
Country : Canada.#Source : See Shareware column.
Conditions : Shareware - $20
Canadian.
Category : Utility.
Released : 28th April 1993.
Opinion : ****
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1.
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY$A500 wb 1.3.2 : NO - requires wb2.x.
A600 wb 2.05 : YES.
Multi-tasks : YES.
Display : PAL.& I'm not a fan of directory editors&believing that the functions they&provide should be part of Workbench&which, with Workbench 2, some now are.&If I did want one however I think&ABCDirectory would be near the top of the list.& This Workbench 2 utility opens it's&own hi-res interlaced screen with the&now common left and right boxes for&the directory listings, a box at the&bottom right for the volumes available&and a larger box at bottom left which&is a CLI shell. There's also the usual&swag of buttons along the top of the&directory boxes and down the middle of&the screen. For those without a&suitable monitor for viewing&interlaced screens there's non-&interlaced configurations to save your eyesight.& The number of different ways you&can configure ABC is extensive with&over thirty different options. These&cover confirmation prior to deletions,&whether actions should act on a file's&icon as well as the file, how files&and directories are displayed, screen&types (including a non-interlaced&screen that's double height and&scrolls smoothly up and down), whether&to give newly created directories an&icon and a host of other choices. If&there's a feature you want then it's&probably here. I would have liked the&ability to add an icon to files but&that would require knowledge of what&type the files were. Otherwise,&there's choices here I never would%have thought of, and all seem useful.& The buttons on the screen provide&the usual and not so usual options you&would find in a directory editor.&Apart from the expected copy, move,&rename and suchlike there's also a hex&reader as well the usual text reader.&One button is called Reduce and copies&just the right sized files to a&destination so it fills it completely.&Another checks if there's enough room&for the selected files to fit on a
destination. And so on.& Everything about this program is&fast. From loading directories to&scrolling to displaying information.&As you move the pointer over each&button a line of text describing it's&function is displayed. File comments&are displayed in the same way. Colour&is also used to highlight the&different sections of the program's&screen. The overall display is well&thought out and very intuitive in the
way it works.& The only criticism I have with&using ABC is with loading directories&into the right-hand box. Selecting DF0&or one of the other volumes from the&list along the top works as you would&expect. However, if you choose a&volume from the box in the bottom&right of the screen it always loads&the contents into the left box even if&the right box is the selected one at&the time. This isn't the way I feel it
should behave.
[3m! Everything about this program# is fast. From loading directories to scrolling to displaying
information.
[23m& There are ways to run and launch&programs and to use files based on&their types but I couldn't get these&to work as I expected. This I think&was due to me not deciphering the very&cryptic instructions in the docs&correctly and not to the way the&program is designed. I managed to run&one program I wanted but not when or&in the way I expected. There's also&some empty buttons on the screen which&I assume is for user defined programs&but I couldn't find any information on
how to set them up.& In the docs the author thanks the&writer of SID for the bug that made&him not register and write his own&directory editor instead. There are&however bugs in ABC too, which are&acknowledged, and which made it crash&while I was using it. Doing it&yourself doesn't always get the job
done right it would seem.& There's extensive support for&archived files and LHA archives are&treated as directories by ABC so you&can examine their contents without&needing to unpack them. Unfortunately&you can't execute LHA packed programs&or examine text files packed with it.&You can unpack archived files from&within ABC although my attempts to do&so failed. Don't take that as a&criticism though as I usually fail to&unpack the things until about the&tenth attempt when working from the&CLI. I suspect comms users would love
ABC for it's archive support.& This is an impressive utility that&seems to cover most of what is needed&in a directory editor. The docs need&to be updated though for the less&technically minded. For those who like&directory editors but are perhaps not&happy with the one they're using then&ABCDirectory could be the one you're
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