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*BoldFace on P R O - B A T version I Professional Batch File Development Environment (C)Copyright September 11, 1988 Mark Tigges All rights reserved. *BoldFace off *FormFeed 1. COPYRIGHT This program is copyright (C) 1989 by Mark Tigges. All rights reserved. Non-registered users are granted a limited license to use this product on a trial basis, and to copy the program for trial use by others subject to the following limitations: The program is distributed in unmodified form, complete with documentation. No fee, charge or other consideration is requested or accepted. The program is not distributed in conjunction with any other product. If you intend to use ProBat on a regular basis, please register and show your support for the author. Regular commercial, business or governmental use by non-registered users is prohibited. *FormFeed 1. Table of Contents 1 Copyright Statement 1 2 Table of Contents 2 3 Introduction 3 3.1 Features 5 4 The Pull-Down Menu 5 4.1 Usage 5 4.2 Features 6 4.3 The File Menu 6 4.4 The Screens Menu 9 4.5 The Edit Menu 10 4.6 The Menu Menu 12 4.7 The Options Menu 14 5 The ProBat Editor 17 5.1 Commands 17 5.1.1 Editing Commands 17 5.1.2 Find & Replace Commands 19 5.1.3 Block Commands 19 5.1.4 Miscellaneous Commands 20 5.2 Editor Help 21 6 The Prompt Editor 22 7 The Screen Generator 23 7.1 The Screen Generator Menu 23 8 The Supplementary Programs 26 8.1 PBShow.EXE 26 8.2 PBMenu.EXE 26 9 ProBat Help 28 10 Running ProBat 29 10.1 On a Hard Disk 29 10.2 On a Floppy Disk 30 11 The Distribution Diskette 32 11.1 PrintMan.EXE . . . Usage 32 12 About Ansi.SYS 33 13 Registering your copy 34 *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 3. Introduction *BoldFace off ProBat is a program for the Ms-Dos running computer which makes the process of creating batch files simple and enjoyable. ProBat uses a pull-down menu system for ease of usage. 3.1 Features - Easy to use pull-down menu system. - Full fledged command driven editor designed for writing batch files, that features quick easy interaction with the menu. - Distinguishes files in full pathnames when user is prompted for a file. - Complete screen generator capable of creating files of screens that use reverse video, variable intensity, caps lock, box drawing and variable line types. These screens can then be recalled within a batch file by using a separate program called PBSHOW. - User customizable menu program called PBMENU which displays your data using handsome graphics. Use this program on its own or from ProBat whichever way it allows you ease of command over your hard disk. - A printing program built within ProBat that highlights your labels in your batch file. It also has other printer control commands at its disposal to help you print out text files with bold print, wide print, condensed print and pica. These commands must be manually inserted into the file to print. - A menu for controlling DOS functions on the .SCR files with an operating shell function. A menu for managing your .SCR files, and accessing the screen generator. A file for managing you batch files and accessing the editor. And a menu for controlling the customizable menu program PBMENU. - A very extensive Help system, can be used from a main help menu, or touch sensitive from within the menu. When you start Pro-Bat the main menu selections appear on the top line and the program identifies itself, showing the version number and copyright message. It also displays the registration number and name of the owner of the copy, you should send in that information if you wish to register the copy in your own name. A new copy will be sent to you that displays your name and registration number instead. NOTE - There are a lot of traps in this program that need to be understood if your work with ProBat will be enjoyable and stay disaster free. If you read this manual thoroughly you shouldn't be confronted with too much of a problem and ProBat will run smoothly and enjoyably. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 4. The Pull-Down Menu 4.1 Usage *BoldFace off Use of the pull-down menu system is easy. Across the top of the screen is displayed the five options of the main menu, these are descriptive headings for the options. By moving the highlight bar which will at first be positioned at the first option "File" you can select the other four options. These are: "Screen", "Edit", "Menu" and "Quit". This is done by pushing the right or left arrow key, the highlight bar moves in the corresponding direction. Under all of the options except "Quit" there is another menu, these four vertical menus are the secondary menses. They each have a highlight bar of their own which moves according to the corresponding horizontal arrow button you push. To select an option you simply press RETURN. ProBat's ensuing reaction is dependent on where the secondary menues highlight bar is position. For instance if you are in the "Edit" menu and the highlight bar is on "Start a new file" and you select that ( hit RETURN ) then ProBat will display a pop-up box prompting for the name of the batch file you want to start. If you have the main menues highlight bar on "Quit" and you hit return then the program stops running and you return to DOS. You can play around with this for a while if you want; if you get somewhere you don't want to be push ESC, it will return you to where you were. The PullDown menu supports quick selection, that is by pressing a letter key ProBat will automatically open the function in the present menu that corresponds to the letter you just pushed. Example: In the "Menu" menu there are the following options: Enter data for menu Run personalized menu Check menu batch file Print menu data In ProBat this appears with the first letter of each option highlighted. If you pushed "C" or "c" regardless of where the selection bar was in the "Menu" menu ProBat would select the "Check menu batch file" option and begin the corresponding process. *BoldFace on 4.2 Features *BoldFace off - Full movement of command by usage of the arrow keys. - Home and End pushing these keys depending on a few factors will get you to either the "Options" menu (End) of main menu or "File" (Home) function of main menu or Home will get you to the first option of current secondary menu and End will get you to the last. - F1 gets you help on using ProBat. CTRL-F1 gets you help on the current secondary menu. ALT-F1 gets you help on the selected topic. - F10 shows you statistics and settings you have employed. - Pushing the key 'V' will show you the version of ProBat you are using. - Pushing 'CTRL-S' will put the program in suspension so that you can leave the computer for a long period of time without having to worry about screen burn. - Pushing 'CTRL-R' will show you the registration number and owner of the copy. - Hitting ESC will almost always get you out of mistaken selection. Or if you are not in one into the editor editing the file that is loaded. - Pushing ALT-Q anywhere including in the editor except for a menu option has been selected, will quit the program. - When there is no prompt in progress pressing ESC will put you into the editor so that you can edit whatever file has been loaded there. You will be returned to the same line you were last editing, however the cursor position, and therefor the lines position will be shifted to a position as low on the screen as possible. *BoldFace on 4.3 The File Menu *BoldFace off This menu enables you to take care of menial DOS functions from within the program and without using the Os Shell function. These are "Dir" and "ChDir" however for anything else there is the Os-Shell option. Whenever you are asked for the name of a file when you are in this, or any other menu for instance you can use full path names for the file, eg. C:\BATCH\MYSCRNS.SCR, ProBat will go to the directory C:\BATCH before trying to load the file MYSCRNS.SCR. With the screen files ProBat reserves no convention for the file extensions, it does not care what you call the file. Therefore if you load "DBASE.EXE" if you own it and you try and save a screen on top of the program then you are out a $300 program so watch out, don't do anything dumb. It is a wise thing to call all of your screen files "????????.SCR" that way you know what your looking at. *BoldFace on Load *BoldFace off This option simply loads a file for use with the screen functions. With this function the file must have previously existed, if you want to create a new file to use for storing screens use the New File option. After selection a pop-up prompt box appears asking for the name of the file. *BoldFace on Pick *BoldFace off This option is a very handy utility. Every time you load a ".SCR" file ProBat remembers it and puts it in a list. Then when you use the Pick function it shows you that list in menu form and you pick the file that you want to re-load. *BoldFace on New file *BoldFace off This option is used when you want to start a file for storing screens. A prompt box appears asking for the name of the new file and then if ProBat does not find conflict it creates that file. If ProBat does find a conflict (another file by the same name on the same directory) then it asks you if you want to continue. When ProBat asks you if you want to continue it really means "Do you want to sacrifice whatever is in that already existing file for this one you want? Because if you say yes the original will be deleted, and replaced with this one." So keep that in mind. Used improperly this option could make you a very frustrated person. *BoldFace on Write to *BoldFace off This option allows you to save the current screen file in use to another file with a different name. This lets you make copy of some screens which you use often, even create a file that lets you archive all of the screens that you have ever used, or screens that you use frequently. *BoldFace on Directory *BoldFace off Selecting this option will let you view the contents of the current directory in a pop-up window. You will be first asked to enter a file mask, so that you can view more specifically those files that you wish to see. If the number of files in the directory are greater than can be shown at once in the window then you will be abe to scroll through the files using PgUp and PgDn. The function is able to display four screens of files in total. If more files than that exist (400+) in the directory then they simply will be left out. There shouldn't be too many occasions when the number of files on a directory exceeds ProBat's limits. *BoldFace on Change dir *BoldFace off This option prompts you with a pop-up box for a path name to switch the current DOS directory to. If an error occurs then ProBat alerts you to that fact and lets you enter again. *BoldFace on Os shell *BoldFace off This option prompts you with a pop-up box for a DOS command. You can use any valid DOS command that you ordinarily would use and MS-DOS will perform that command. If however you have more than one command to give to DOS you need only hit return without entering anything and ProBat will put you in DOS for as long as you want. When you want to come back to ProBat just type EXIT and the DOS prompt and ProBat will resume where you left off. *BoldFace on Quit *BoldFace off This option closes your session down. It can also be accessed by pressing ALT-Q anywhere in Pro-Bat. If you have opted to generate Pick files then they are created now. *BoldFace on 4.4 The Screens Menu *BoldFace off This menu lets you manage all of your screen files. Doing the tasks to them that need to be done. Such as adding screens editing screens deleting screen and copying screens between files. If you have not loaded a screen file then ProBat will ask you what file you want to use. You can use full path names to specify files. *BoldFace on Add a screen to the file *BoldFace off This functions is the gateway to the screen generator. When you use this function ProBat clears the screen and lets you and your artistic sense loose to create your screen, when you are finished creating your masterpiece then ProBat adds that screen to the file when you push F9, to get out of the generator push F10. For more info go into the screen generator and hit F1 and you will be shown all the commands for high and low intensity and reverse video, capital letters and box drawing characters. Or you can refer to this manual in the Screen Generator section for more detail. *BoldFace on Edit an existing screen *BoldFace off You must use this function when you want to change a screen that you have already designed in the file. ProBat will ask for the number of the screen and then let you edit it if it exists. When you are finished press F9 and ProBat saves the screen in the same position that it got it from. *BoldFace on Delete a screen in the file *BoldFace off When you have a screen that you no longer want then use this function. However all that ProBat does is blank the slot. You now have a file that has a hole. You can now re-edit that screen. When you call it up there will be a blank screen. *BoldFace on View all screens in the file *BoldFace off This option shows you all of the screens in the file in use. When you call it up it starts on the first screen and then waits for you to press a key - telling ProBat that you want to see the next screen. *BoldFace on Copy a screen between files *BoldFace off If you have one screen in a file that you want in another file as well then use this option. Use is pretty straightforward - ProBat prompts for the source file, the destination file and then the source files screen number and then it does the job. If it can't find the source file, the destination file or the screen in the source file then it doesn't work. So there is a lot of stuff here that can go wrong, watch out! *BoldFace on 4.5 The Edit Menu *BoldFace off This menu is the menu that lets you do the heart of what batch files need. They need to be edited and this menu is the editor. When you are prompted for the name of a file you may enter full pathnames. When you save that file again it will be saved in its original directory. Upon loading a file if you don't specify a file extension then ProBat will assume you mean ".Bat" and will add it to your file name. Please see the section of this manual for detailed help on using the editor. *BoldFace on Edit file in editor *BoldFace off This option does the same thing as just hitting ESC anywhere in the main menu. It will return you to the editor so that you can continue editing the file that is loaded into the editor. If that file is NONAME.BAT then a new file will have been started. *BoldFace on Load a batch file for editing *BoldFace off The title of this function is a bit deceiving because what you load need not be a batch file. In fact you can load any kind of text file that you want however the editor is best suited for writing Batch files or computer programs or the like. Since it doesn't have the option of word wrap and adjustable margins. After selection of this option ProBat will respond by displaying a pop-up prompt box asking for the name of the file that you wish to edit. If ProBat can't find the file in the specified directory it will tell you so. It won't load an empty file from this option. You must use the Start a new batch file option from the same menu. To edit a file that as yet does not exist. *BoldFace on Pick batch file for editing *BoldFace off This option is very similar in purpose to the Pick option of the file menu. ProBat remembers all of the recently loaded batch files, and will, when this option is chosen, display them in a menu, enabling you to pick easily from this menu the file you want to edit. After selecting this option a pop-up box appears, sized depending on the files in the menu, displaying the files that you have recently loaded. There will also be a highlight bar which you use to pick the file you want. Position the highlight bar on the chosen file and hit Return. That file will then be loaded into the editor and you will be place at the top of that file ready to edit. *BoldFace on Begin a new batch file *BoldFace off Again the file to start need not be a batch file it can be any file, however if you don't specify an extension ProBat will assume .BAT. This option differs from the above only that it cannot load a file that already has text in it. Therefore if at the prompt you specify a file that already exists ProBat will question your intention. If you confirm your entry ProBat will ERASE THE ORIGINAL and give you a blank file where the first text can be entered. So for God's sake be careful! I hate it when my program is an outlet for inexperienced user's frustration, especially one that didn't read the manual correctly. If you do use this option to try and load a file that already exists, and answer YES to ProBat's question, that you do want to continue, then your file will be erased. *BoldFace on Delete a batch file *BoldFace off Once again the file need not be a batch file however if you don't specify an extension then ProBat adds .BAT by default. This option does not confirm your entry from its pop-up prompt box before it deletes the file. If for instance you accidentally give the wrong path or you enter .BAT instead of .BAK you will be very sorry. So before pushing the ENTER key make sure that you have entered the right file. If ProBat can't find the file then it obviously can't delete it so it will let you know if you make a mistake. *BoldFace on Run a batch file *BoldFace off The restraints on the type of file that this option requires are a little more stringent than the others in the menu. The type of file that you specify in the pop-up prompt box must be an executable file ie. ?.EXE, ?.BAT, or ?.COM. If ProBat can't find the file then it will let you know, because it can't run it if it can't find it. *BoldFace on Print a batch file *BoldFace off This option will print all of your batch files for you. If it finds a label in your batch file then it will highlight it with bold print, making them stand out from all of the other text on the page. It will stop for page breaks, and give the page number and file name at the bottom of each page, and will also automatically insert a margin of five spaces at the beginning of each line. If your printer supports compressed mode and you select it to print your batch files then ProBat will not be able to bold type your labels. *BoldFace on Save file in editor *BoldFace off This option lets you save the loaded text file to the current drive and directory. If you don't want to enter the editor, but you do want to save the file then this is a very handy option to use. It will tell you wether or not you should bother saving. If the file has been modified since the last save then the option will be displayed like this: *BoldFace on Save file in editor SAVE *BoldFace off When you see the SAVE flag you know you should save the file, if there is no SAVE flag there then the file has not been modified. If you select the option without the flag there Pro-Bat will ignore you assume incompetence and not do anything. *BoldFace on 4.6 The Menu Menu *BoldFace off This menu takes care of all of the chores that need to be done concerning the custom menu system. Such as the editing of your menu - the keys and items. And making sure that your CustMenu.Bat file will work correctly. You can even run the program to check it from within Pro-Bat. *BoldFace on Edit menu data *BoldFace off This option is the one you use to create the PBMenu.DTA file. That file contains the names of your items and whatever you want to use for your keys. I suggest using succesive numbers. Instead of letters in some configuration because the third option of this menu won't work properly otherwise, and it is very useful. You are shown a table of empty spaces after you select this option. The empty spaces are what you fill in, to define your menu. The title refers to the name of the menu. When you have finished editing push ESC to save the data. If you edit one space and then push ESC to save without first pushing RETURN then that one space won't be saved because it wasn't first entered into menu. *BoldFace on Run custom menu *BoldFace off This option simply runs the PBMenu.exe file. The exact thing as type PBMenu at the DOS prompt. If the files that the program needs aren't on the current dos directory then the program won't run you have to make sure that these files are all located on the current directory everytime the menu runs. That includes after you have selected a item and the menu is running again. *BoldFace on Check batch file *BoldFace off This option only checks the Batch file custmenu.bat. Therefore it needs to read the data in PBMenu.dta first, therefore both of these files have to be located on the current directory for this option to work. What it does is look at all of your labels to see if there are the right number of numeric labels. ( If you are unfamiliar with labels please refer to your Dos manuals. Books such as Running Ms Dos by Van Wolverton are also very helpful.) Therefore if you don't use numeric labels then this option won't work. It is your choice and the burden is yours to check you CustMenu.bat file if you use a different method. *BoldFace on Print menu data *BoldFace off For convenient reference this option will print for you the data that is in your menu. This is so that you have something to refer to when you are creating your CUSTMENU.BAT file. *BoldFace on Menu text height *BoldFace off This option allows the user the affordability of changing the relative height of the text displayed in the menu. For graphic formats reasons the height of the text is interpreted differently by different systems. The higher resolution of some systems displays the Fonts larger then a smaller resolution. For this reason I have included this option. I wrote the code on a hercules monochrome card and a height value of 2 is optimum therefore it is the default. On a CGA or AT&T it is a different value. Experiment and come up with the value that you like the best. *BoldFace on 4.7 The Options menu *BoldFace off This menu lets you customize Pro-Bat to your tastes. Creating an environment that lets you work to an optimum level. You have the choice of turning on/off the sounds, editor window, mode pick file saves, and changing the colors. *BoldFace on Editor window mode *BoldFace off This option is a toggle on/off option, its value is displayed as ON or OFF at the right of the selection bar. If the mode is ON then the editor is displayed inside a thin frame, the full pathname of the file being edited is displayed at the lower left corner of the window. If the option is OFF then there is no frame around the editor and the user gets the full amount of room possible to edit the file. There is not a large sacrifice of room when the editor window is on. *BoldFace on Auto-backup *BoldFace off This option is a toggle on/off option, its value is displayed as ON or OFF at the right of the selection bar. If the mode is ON the editor will create a backup copy of the file when ever it is saved, naming that copy with the extension .BAK. If the mode is OFF this service is not done. it is highly recomended that you leave this mode on. *BoldFace on Generate pick file *BoldFace off This option is a toggle on/off option, its value is displayed as ON or OFF at the right of the selection bar. If the mode is on then when you quit the current run of ProBat a file named PROBAT.PCK is saved. It is a list of all the files that were on the pick sequences. If the mode is off then ProBat will not save this file. ProBat will read a PROBAT.PCK file and use it regardless of the value of this option. *BoldFace on Warning sound *BoldFace off This option is a toggle on/off option, its value is displayed as ON or OFF at the right of the selection bar. Whenever you make a mistake for instance naming a false directory or filename, ProBat will make an obnoxious noise to alert your attention to your mistake. If you do not like this noise, or you have a hangover you can turn it off, in effect silencing ProBat. *BoldFace on Colors *BoldFace off This option will let you create the visual effect that you enjoy the best. After selecting the option a menu and another box is displayed. When you choose an option from the main menu, a sample of the choice is displayed in the other box. For instance say you chose : *BoldFace on Main menu normal text *BoldFace off a portion of the main menu would be displayed, you then have the power to change the color in which this item is displayed. Change the foreground color by pushing 'f', the background by pushing 'b'. If you use the upper case versions of these letters then the numeric values corresponding to the colors will decrease, as oppose to increase with the lower case. When you use Pro-Bat from there on the colors will be displayed as to your choice. The method of manipulating the colors is simple. In the CGA color spectrum (the one that ProBat assumes) there are 15 colors. As the numeric value corresponding to the item you've selected change ProBat selects the numbered color value in the CGA spectrum. This applies both for ForeGround and BackGround aspects. *BoldFace on Save set-up *BoldFace off This option lets you save the environment configuration that you have created to a file called PROBAT.DTA. When you start Pro-Bat with a file by this name on the current directory then Pro-Bat will read this file and use the settings in it instead of the default set. This makes for convience, you don't have to change the environment to your needs every time you use the program. If you have several users of the same copy, they might not all like the same configuration. These people could all have a floppy of their own containing there version of PROBAT.DTA on it. Then these people each load probat like this : *BoldFace on A:\>c:\bat\probat *BoldFace off this way Pro-Bat will look on A:\ for the PROBAT.DTA file. Remember that when you change the configuration Pro-Bat doesn't automatically save it. You might be mad next time you run Pro-Bat if your configuration doesn't appear. So save it. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 5. The Pro-Bat Editor *BoldFace off To start the editor refer to the various functions under the Edit menu section. To enter text into the editor you use basically the same technique that you employ in using a type writer. There are however many important differences. The cursor always indicates where the new text will be entered, and you can move the cursor in a number of ways (the commands to do so are described later). You can correct mistakes quickly and easily using the delete commands. You can copy and move text with the block commands. You can locate a particular string of text with the find command, and optionally replace it with another string using the Find-Replace command. And in most cases, you can even undo your last few changes with the restore line or undo commands. Each of these commands ( and there are many more ) is described in the sections that follow. However for a quick glance at all the commands and their respective keystrokes, refer to, the quick-reference tables available in the editor's help section - hit F1 to obtain help in the editor. *BoldFace on 5.1 Editor Commands *BoldFace off NOTE - When you see CTRL-? it means that the CTRL key is held down while ? is pressed. *BoldFace on 5.1.1 Basic Editing Commands *BoldFace off LEFT ARROW or CTRL-S - CHARACTER LEFT. Moves the cursor left one column. This command does not work across line breaks; when the cursor reaches column 1, it stops. RIGHT ARROW or CTRL-D - CHARACTER RIGHT. Moves the cursor one character to the right. This command does not work across line breaks; when the cursor reaches the right-hand edge of the text window, the text starts scrolling horizontal until it reaches the extreme right edge of the line ( column 999 ), where it stops. CTRL-LEFT ARROW or CTRL-A - WORD LEFT. Moves the cursor to the beginning of the word to the left. This command works across line breaks. CTRL-RIGHT ARROW or CTRL-F - WORD RIGHT. Move the cursor to the beginning of the word to the right. This command works across line breaks. UP ARROW or CTRL-E - LINE UP. Moves the cursor to the line above. If the cursor is on the line of the window, the window scrolls down one line (if there is more text to scroll). DOWN ARROW or CTRL-X - LINE DOWN. Moves the cursor to the line below. If the cursor is on the last line of the window, the window scrolls down one line (if there is more text to scroll). PGUP or CTRL-R - PAGE UP. Moves the cursor one page up with an overlap of one line. PGDN or CTRL-C - PAGE DOWN. Moves the cursor one page down with an overlap of one line. CTRL-K 0..3 - SET MARKER. Sets one of the ten text markers at the current position of the cursor. CTRL-K 0 sets marker 0 and CTRL-K 1 sets marker 1 . . . CTRL-Q 0..3 - GOTO MARKER. Goes to the specified marker. If the specified marker has not been set the cursor does not move. CTRL-Q-P - PREVIOUS CURSOR POSITION. Moves the cursor to its previous position. This works after a Find or a Find/Replace function has been carried out. DEL or CTRL-G - DELETE CURRENT CHARACTER. Deletes the character which contains the cursor the cursor does not move. BACKSPACE or CTRL-H - DELETE CHARACTER TO THE LEFT. Deletes the character to the left of the cursor and moves the cursor right. CTRL-Y - DELETE LINE. Deletes the entire line that contains the cursor. CTRL-Q-Y - DELETE TO THE END OF LINE. Deletes from the character position to the end of the line. CTRL-T - DELETE WORD. Deletes the text up to the beginning of the word to the right of the cursor. TAB - INDENT. Indents the cursor to the first character of the previous line that is past the position of the cursor. *BoldFace on 5.1.2 Find & Replace Commands *BoldFace off B - Searches backwards from the current cursor position toward the beginning of the file. G - Searches globally. The entire file is scanned for the search string regardless of the current cursor position. L - Searches only the marked block. U - Ignores case configuration. W - Searches for whole words only, skips out matching patterns embedded in other words. n - n may be any number. Find the nth occurence of the search string counted from the current cursor position. CTRL-Q-F - FIND. Lets you search for string of up to 67 characters. When you call this command you will be asked for a search string and then options; you can include any of the above options in any combinations. CTRL-Q-A - FIND/REPLACE. Lets you search for a string the same way as above however it replaces that string with a specified replace string. There is one more option that is available for searching : N this lets you skip confirmation to replace every match. CTRL-L - REPEAT LAST SEARCH. This command will do the last search that you did again allowing you to quickly find the next occurence of the search string without reentering the specs. *BoldFace on 5.1.3 Block Commands *BoldFace off F7 or CTRL-K-B - BEGIN BLOCK. Marks the beginning of a block. The block is not visible unless an end of block marker has been set. The block is shown in highlighted text. F8 or CTRL-K-K - END BLOCK. Marks the end of a block. Like the begin-block command the block does not become visible unless a start of block marker has been set. CTRL-K-C - COPY BLOCK. Creates a copy of a marked and displayed block at the current cursor position. The original block is left unchanged, and the markers are placed around the new copy of the block. CTRL-K-V - MOVE BLOCK. Moves a marked and displayed block from its current position to the cursor's position. The markers remain around the block at its new position. CTRL-K-Y - DELETE BLOCK. Delete a marked and displayed block. Although the Undo last deletion command ( ctrl-Q-U ) can usually restore portions of an accidentally deleted block, there is no command to restore a deleted block in its entirety so use this command with care. CTRL-K-H - HIDE BLOCK. Toggles off and on the visual marking of a block. CTRL-K-T - MARK WORD. Marks word contained by the cursor as a block. CTRL-K-R - READ BLOCK FROM FILE. Reads a file into the text at the cursor's current position exactly as if it were copied from another part of the text. You are prompted for the path and name of the file. CTRL-K-W - WRITE BLOCK TO FILE. Writes the currently marked block to a file. You are first prompted for a file name, and then ProBat writes the block to disk under that name with no change to its text. *BoldFace on 5.1.4 Miscellaneous Commands *BoldFace off CTRL-U - ABORT. Halts whatever command is already in progress. CTRL-K-S - SAVE AND EDIT. Simply save the current file and continue editing. CTRL-Q-L - RESTORE LINE. Will undo any changes done to the current line since you entered that line. It does not work after you left that line anymore. CTRL-Q-U - UNDO DELETION. Restores whole lines deleted with the delete line command (CTRL-Y) or the Delete block command ( ctrl-K-Y ). It does not restore single characters or words. INS or CTRL-V - TOGGLE INSERT MODE. Selects Insert or Overwrite mode. The cursor's size is an indication of which mode you are in. CTRL-Q-I - TOGGLE AUTOINDENT. When autoindent mode is in effect, the new line command ( ENTER ) will return the cursor to the first character of the previous line. F10 - EXIT EDITOR. This command will return you to the main menu. However it does not save the file, so you must keep that in mind. *BoldFace on 5.2 Editor Help *BoldFace off The editor's help system isn't very extensive. All that is included are tables of commands. When you push F1 you are faced with a message and a menu from which you can select a group of commands to choose to get further help. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 6. The Prompt Editor *BoldFace off The line editor which is used for all of the prompts has itself many commands to alter and edit text. If you are presented with a response already you can enter that response by hitting <return>. Home : This moves the cursor to the beginning of your line. End : This moves the cursor to the end of your line. Insert : This will toggle the insert specification. If you have it on then hitting the insert key will call overwrite and vice versa. Del : This key will delete the Digit that the cursor is centered on. BackSpace : This key moves the cursor backwards one space at a time while deleting every character in its path. ALT-B : This key will automatically enter the path name of the file in the editor to the prompt editor. ALT-S : This key will automatically enter the path name of the screen file that is in current use. Horizontal arrow keys : These keys will move, in their respective direction, the cursor one space. Vertical arrow keys : These keys are treated as the equivalent of <RETURN>. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 7. The Screen Generator *BoldFace off The screen generator is a low level word processor that allows you to type anything on the screen in any video attribute, including boxes with either of the two IBM line modes (single and double). The generator does not have any idea what you are typing in. After you have typed the key the screen generator forgets what it was. Therefore if you go to the same place again the generator won't know what is there so it ignores it. If you type a character on top of another character the original character will be lost. Arrow keys are not included as characters, if you hit an arrow key when there is another character at the cursor the original character will still be there. If you are editing a screen by having used the Edit existing screen or the Add a new screen option and are finished doing so, you will want to save it. Pushing F10 does not save the screen before giving you back ProBat, you must first use F9 or your screen will be lost. Be careful, after much thought I concluded that this was the best way because this way you can edit - save and continue editing without leaving the generator or the screen. In short save before you are finished or mid way in your editing job in case an accident occurs. The theory upon how the screen generator is integrated into the rest of Pro-Bat is this. You work on screens in a file environment, each screen being a separate record withen a file that stores your screens. You can change a screen at your whim after you have created and saved it once, just like a word processor. However the first screen in the file is a special screen. It is numbered 0 and is called the template. Presumably when you store screens in a file those screens must somehow be related. For instance in the file EXAMPLE.SCR all of those screens are for display in the sample menu system. We can assume that on some circumstances the screens in the file may look very familiar to each other. This is where the template comes in. To work on a series of screens, all you have to do is load the template before you start work on each screen. Then doing whatever is unique about each particular screen. *BoldFace on 7.1 The Screen Generator Menu *BoldFace off The screen generator has several functions that can be accessed via a menu. This menu is called up by pressing F10 when you are in the screen generator. Those functions are listed below. *BoldFace on Change foreground color *BoldFace off Choosing this option calls up a menu of the 16 different colors possible in a CGA system, choosing one of those colors changes the color with which the foreground of subsequent text is displayed. *BoldFace on Change background color *BoldFace off This option is identical to the above only that you choose the background color. *BoldFace on Display color table *BoldFace off This option will merely bring up a reference table of the numerical values of the colors in the CGA spectrum. *BoldFace on Load the template *BoldFace off This option loads screen no 0 into the present screen and allows you to edit it. The editing you do does nothing to change the template screen. if you have worked on a screen and then load the template the work you have done previously will be lost. *BoldFace on Save this screen *BoldFace off This option will save the screen you are working on in the correct position in the file. *BoldFace on Abandon this screen *BoldFace off This will merely give you a clear slate by clearing the screen. If you saved your previous work however then that work still exists on the disk. *BoldFace on Toggle box mode *BoldFace off When on box mode allows you to display boxes. Selecting this mode changes the value of box mode. If it was on it will be turned off and vice versa. To display a box use the following keys when in box mode: w rrrrr e ie. W : Top left corner f f R : Horizontal line f f E : Top right corner s rrrrr d F : Vertical line D : Bottom right corner S : Bottom left corner *BoldFace on Toggle box style *BoldFace off This changes the line mode between single and double regardless of the value of the Box drawing mode. *BoldFace on Display statistics *BoldFace off Selecting this option will display a window containing the following information: -Filename -Screen no. -Value of Box drawing mode -Type of Box style enabled -Foreground color -Background color -X position -Y position *BoldFace on Quit screen generator *BoldFace off This function will allow you to exit the screen generator back to the point where you left ProBat. It will not check to see if you have saved your screen, so if you need to make sure you do. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 8. The Supplementary Programs *BoldFace off On the distribution disk there are two PB????.EXE files. These two files are not cardinal to ProBat's running however if you want to take full advantage of ProBat's capabilities then you will be using these programs. There are two of them: PBSHOW.EXE and PBMENU.EXE. Each has their own use and each depend on ProBat to produce the things they need to run however once they have them they run totally on their own. 8.1 PBSHOW.EXE This file is used in conjunction with the .SCR files it is your ticket to displaying the screens you have created in ProBat from within a batch file. Usage : PBSHOW %1 %2 where %1 & %2 are parameters you pass to the program. %1 - The number of screen in the file you want displayed. The first screen is #0, the second screen is #1 etc. %2 - The file that the screen is located in. ie MYSCRNS.SCR. Therefore typing PBSHOW 0 MYSCRNS.SCR will display the first screen in the file MYSCRNS.SCR. 8.2 PBMENU.EXE This file is used to display your customized menu. If you haven't defined one using the Enter menu data option of the Menu menu then it won't work, otherwise it will display the Keys and Items that you defined. Usage : PBMENU. All you have to type is the files name. From there the program will display your menu ( in a very good-looking graphic format ). PBMENU will take your reponse and pass it to your CUSTMENU.BAT file as a parameter. CustMenu.bat : This file is a batch file that does what your menu says it will do. For example lets say that the user of your menu selects the first option of your menu. That response will be passed to this file as a parameter. Lets say the first option of your menu was *BoldFace on 1. Run Word Processor *BoldFace off The user would have typed 1 [RETURN] therefore CustMenu would be given '1' as its parameter. If you have a label in CUSTMENU.BAT called 1 then you can differentiate the input with labels. If you are unfamiliar with labels and batch file structure please refer to you MS-DOS manual, it should be explained there. Books such as Running Ms-Dos by Van Wolverton are also very helpful! So the CustMenu file might look like this echo off cls goto %1 :1 cd\EDIT Word REM or whatever wordprocessor you own goto DONE REM the above line is very important. It must REM be the last line in each Label or DOS will REM run each label that appears after the one REM you wanted before returning you to the REM menu. REM one label for each key of your menu would REM exist here. :DONE CD\BATCH REM Or whatever directory you hold the PBMENU REM program in. This line is very important REM because otherwise PBMENU won't be able to REM find CUSTMENU.BAT to run your next choice. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 9. The Pro-Bat Help System *BoldFace off The ProBat help system is a very extensive one. If you can see it in the main menu then you can get help on it. It is easy to use and very comprehensible. By hitting the key F1 you have a resource of information which is much more concise though certainly comparable to this manual's. By working your way through the help system using the menus you can eventually find what you want. However this is slow and becomes too repetitive if you want to look at twice very quickly. To solve this problem there are two other ways to access the information: ALT-F1 and CTRL-F1. ALT-F1. Pressing this combination of keys gives you very specific information. It will tell you all about the part of Pro-Bat that the highlighted selection bar is positioned on. For instance say you are in the Screens menu and the highlight bar is on Delete a screen from file and you press ALT-F1. Strange and wonderful things happen. You get information on what Deleting a screen from file is all about. With this method of Help access the beginner can quickly get the gist of how to use the program. And more or less what the program can do for you. CTRL-F1. To complement ALT-F1 there is this capability. If this sequence of keys is pressed then you will get help on whichever menu is currently open. Say that you are in the Edit menu. You press CTRL-F1 and you get a message revealing what this menu is all about and also a menu with each item of this menu included so that you can select more specific help. NOTE - The help system should not be used as an alternative to the manual. Before using Pro-Bat heavily you should understand a large protion of the manual. The program was not written by a professional and doesn't have a large degree of file protection written into it. If you have read the manual thoroughly you shouldn't run into any problem. I'm not saying that something WILL happen so READ THE MANUAL but there is nothing wrong with some prevention. On-Line help can be reached by phoning me at 1-(604)-365-6676 or 1-(604)-926-0366 (use the 1 only if it is long distance). I am only too glad to provide technical assistance, I realize its need and I enjoy helping you, so feel free. *FormFeed *BoldFace on 10. Running Pro-Bat *BoldFace off ProBat is a very well behaved program if you run it the way it likes to be run. By this I mean that if you keep a few things in mind about where files are and when you need and when they should be where you should avoid that noisy alarm that always sounds when something goes wrong. *BoldFace on 10.1 Running off a hard disk setup *BoldFace off With the fixed disk type set-up, I have found that using one directory say "c:\bat" to store absolutely everything you need for ProBat on that directory, and include that directory in your path command. That way when you want to run the menu program, if the last line of your CustMenu.BAT file is "CD\BAT" then the program will always return to where the files that it needs are located. The only problem though is with using the PBShow progam. Say that one of your batch files is of in some directory and it wants to run the PBShow program. What does it do? It will run the program but it won't find whatever .SCR file you want because it is located in C:\BAT. You have two options, 1) relocate the .SCR file or 2) always use a pipe command with PBShow like this: "CD\BAT | PbShow 0 MyScrns.scr | CD\WORD". With this set up DOS will go to c:\bat run PbShow and then go back to c:\word, if that's the directory the file was in - whatever! Both will work, but I recommend the latter. With this way you know where in hell all your .SCR files are, and you don't have to use long repetitive path names when refering to them inside Pro-Bat. It is however slower because the directory has to be changed. By storing all of your Pro-Bat stuff on one directory you don't have to worry about editing batch files that are on another directory like the autoexec batch file. Because you can refer to it as c:\autoexec.bat and Pro-Bat knows what you are talking about. It is for this reason that I included that function in Pro-Bat. It makes running the program a lot simpler. With this kind of a set up you won't have to use the Change dir function in the file menu but it is there if you need it. If you do decide to take advantage of the Menu you can create then you should do this type of a thing: Write an autoexec batch file that at the end changes directory to c:\bat and runs the menu program. Things should go smoothly, don't forget to add the line CD\BAT to the end of the autoexec file or PbMenu won't run properly. *BoldFace on 10.2 Running off a floppy setup *BoldFace off ProBat does really work best on a hard drive, but what program doesn't? Anyway with a little thought ProBat can be a great help even on floppy setups. If you only have one floppy though you're out of luck. All you can do is run the program and write batch files. You can take full advantage of the screen utility but all you do with the menu stuff is look at it. Or you can look at your bank account and go and by a 5 meg HD if its all you can afford. The speed of a HD alone is worth it. To run the PBMenu program you always need the system diskete in the drive that the machine booted from, always. So if you want to use the Menu program it is possible. However there is a draw back. (Isn't there always?) Because PBMenu has to read a .DTA file (PBMenu.DTA) it takes a little while running of a floppy. Soooo, what you can do is this - configure a ram disk. See your Ms-Dos manual for particulars on doing that ( if you're not running Ms-Dos 3.x forget about it ). What you can do with that is create a system diskette that has an autoexec file on it like this: echo off time date prompt $p$g copy PBMenu.* d: copy CustMenu.bat d: d: PBMenu After this, your CustMenu. bat file will look something like this when asked to run the Word process label (say it is label :3) 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 :3 5 echo off 6 cls 7 echo Please insert the Word Process diskette in drive B 8 pause 9 b: 10 WORD 11 goto DONE 12 . 13 . 14 . 15 :DONE 16 d: ( Line numbers for reference only. ) This way you have control over your applications if you want it without having to worry about DOS commands. If you are not familiar with the PAUSE command in line #8 it displays "Strike a key when ready . . ." this way you have displayed a message to the user saying that when you are finished the task you should do hit a key to continue. Remember that the disk you booted the system with should always remain in the A drive because PBMenu has to look at Command.COM everytime it runs CUSTMENU.BAT. That is where a hard drive is nice because it takes a while to read the .COM file. NOTE - If you want disk transfer of files ( reading and writing ) to work faster try adding the line "Buffers=30" to your config.sys file. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 11. The Pro-Bat Disk *BoldFace off The distribution disk holds the following files: ProBat.exe -> Pro-Bat the executable program. PBMenu.exe -> The executable menu program. PBShow.exe -> The executable program for displaying screens. PrintMan.exe -> The executable program to print the manual. ProBat.man -> The Pro-Bat manual. ReadMe.now -> Text file with last minute specific notes. RegForm.txt -> Registration form to send in. If your version doesn't contain all of these files and you would like them then write and register and I will send you a complimentary disk. If you don't have the registration form then you must include if you don't mind, your first and last names, your phone number (area code too please) and your address, along with the twenty-five dollar registration fee. Please also include the version of the copy that you are currently using and the registration number. This, so that I can justly reward whomever gave you the copy. Please see the below section Benefits of Registration for enticement to register. Make checks payable to me, Mark Tigges. In addition the diskette contains several files that are for the example on using ProBat. Study these files and understand there use and purpose and you will understand ProBat. They are: -> Example.SCR - holds the screens for the menu system -> CustMenu.BAT - batch file to carry out menu options -> PBMenu.Dta - data file holding menu data *BoldFace on 11.1 PrintMan.EXE . . . Usage *BoldFace off To print this manual properly you must use this file. At the Dos command line just type PrintMan. If you include "CRT" as a parameter then the manual will be printed to the screen. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 12. About Ansi.SYS *BoldFace off Ansi.SYS is a file included with MS-DOS. What it can do is this, give you control over: video attributes, cursor position, and other things. Therefore if you have used PBShow.EXE to display a screen you may want to move the cursor to a specific place on the screen. To do this you use Ansi.SYS commands in your batch file. The commands are much to lengthy to repeat here, they are in your Ms-Dos manual anyways. Besides if I listed them here I would be plagerizing from my MicroSoft press Ms - Dos manual - that is against the law so I won't. However these commands can be used just about anywhere and I use them extensively in my favorite system prompt. I have displayed that prompt for you below as an example. *BoldFace on prompt $e[s$e[7m$e[1;1H$p$e[m$e[K$e[1;67H$d$e[2;67H$t$h$h$h$e[u. *BoldFace off Quite lengthy. This is what it says. $e[s - save current cursor position $e[7m - change display attribute to reverse video $e[1;1H - move cursor to position 1,1 $p - display the path $e[m - put display attributes back to normal $e[K - delete to the end of line $e[1;67H - move cursor to position 1,67 $d - display the date $e[2;67H - move cursor to 2,67 $t - display the time $h$h$h - delete last 3 characters - hundreths of seconds $e[u - restore the cursor position, from the saved value . - the actual prompt that is there on each line By the way if you want to use the ANSI commands you have to include in your config.sys file the line "device=ansi.sys", you also have to make sure that ansi.sys is on the root directory of the system disk that you are using to boot. *FormFeed *BoldFace on *Wide 13. Registering Your Copy of Pro-Bat *BoldFace off Pro-Bat is more or less a piece of software that you can use for free. However it is very highly recomended that if you have copied Pro-Bat from someone and you have come to the conclusion that you want to use Pro-Bat that you should follow these steps to register: 1. Fill out the registration form supplied on the distrubution disk in the file named RegForm.txt. The owner and registration number of the copy is displayed when ProBat starts at the version screen. Hit CTRL-V in the PullDown menu and this screen will be repeated. Hitting CTRL-R will bring up the registration information and a message about shareware, you can find the necessary information there as well. 2. Send me the completed form with enclosed check or money order at *BoldFace on Mark Tigges 2925 Altamont Cr. West Vancouver B.C. CANADA V7V 3B9 *BoldFace off as well as an explanation for your planned use of the program, simply because I am very interested. The cost of registering your copy is $35 US, please enclose this sum with the registration form. It would be greatly appreciated if you also enclosed some hints about what I should add for future versions. If you have noticed any bugs in the program, or you think something else should happen at one point in the program, then please include that information. If you are a business and would like to use Pro-Bat to help set up systems in your offices then you can get a lower price per unit ($5.00 discount per 5 units to minumum of $10.00 per unit). If regform.txt is not present on the distribution disk then send the following information: Your : - Name - Phone # - Address ( inc. Country ) - The registration number of the copy you are using. - The Version number - Amount ($) enclosed - If you want the same version you are using or the newest version. There may be a slight increase in cost for subsequent versions. *BoldFace on /Benefits of registration *BoldFace off 1. Version updates for the price of a disk plus five dollars. 2. If somebody else registers a copy with your number then you get the five dollars taken away from your next version update. 3. A version of Pro-Bat that has your name written into it. Instead of somebody elses. 4. A free conscience. Thank you for registering. ShareWare is a benefit to both user and author however it can't succeed without your cooperation and support. Enjoy the program.