DiskBase 5 for Windows - Contents
DiskBase 5 for Windows - Disk Cataloging Program

This Help can also be used as Users Guide; you can read it from the beginning to the end, like a book. To do that, simply use the browse buttons [ << ] a [ >> ] that can be found under the menu bar. The following table of contents shows the order of chapters in this "book". You can always return to this place by pressing the "Contents" button.

Contents

About DiskBase

Program installation

16-bit and 32-bit version of the program

Differences between versions

Quick, step by step guide how to work with the program

Step 1: Creating a new database

Step 2: Scanning a disk

Step 3: Options for display

Step 4: Search in the database

Step 5: Editing a description

Step 6: Automated creation of descriptions

Step 7: Print

And what else?

DiskBase in Detail

MDI interface of the program

Menu, toolbar with buttons

Creation of database

Scanning a disk

Disk name

Scanning archive files

Speed of scanning

Time saving features

Rescanning a disk

Scanning a folder as a disk

Window with database

Current and selected items

Panel with disks

Panel with tree

Panel with files

Status panel with subtotals

Descriptions

Manual creation of descriptions

Automated creation of descriptions

Conversion filters

Size limit for the descriptions

Rules for automated creation of descriptions

Disk description

Searching in the database

Mask

Searching files

Searching selected files

Window with found files

List of free space

Window with the list of free space

Information about disk and database

Program settings

Display

Font

Print and other

Save

Database settings

Descriptions

Options

Copying to Clipboard

Print

Compressing the database

Exporting the database

Creation of read-only database

Importing database

Command line mode

Parameters

Appendices

Technical data

Program limitations

Program speed

What is new in this version?

FAQ - frequently asked question

Known problems

What to do in case of other troubles with the program

List of recognized types of archive files

ZIP

ARJ

RAR

LZH

ARC

Backup (Microsoft)

Microsoft Backup (DOS)

Norton Backup 1.2 for DOS

PC-Tools Backup

Creation of conversion filters

Registration

Registration

Where to get the latest version of the program?

What is the difference between the registered and unregistered version?

What I get when I register?

The license is valid also for future versions

Where is the registration stored?

Payment using a registration service

Payment by sending a check or cash

Payment by SWIFT or wire money transfer

What is Shareware?

Trial Use License

Software License Agreement

Limited Warranty

Distribution License

Technical Support

Price List

Contact Info

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About DiskBase

DiskBase is a disk cataloging program, i.e. it is able to read all the file and folder names from a disk and save it to its database. Then you can display the disk contents in a natural way and search in it - without necessity to have the disk present in the computer.

This ability can be widely used namely with replaceable disk media, like floppy disks, CD-ROM, CD-R, ZIP, JAZ, optical disks, Bernoulli disks and any other disk media that behave as a standard disk in Windows. But not only that. DiskBase can also be used with fixed or network drives, as is mentioned later in this chapter.

Storing just names of files and folders into the database might not be enough for searching. But DiskBase is also able to extract the names of files and folders from archives created by common compressing programs, like ZIP, RAR, ARJ, LHA and other (including self-extracting archives). Moreover, DiskBase is also able to store a description for each file or folder; you can do that either manually or let DiskBase to do it automatically by scanning the content of the file. With these features the DiskBase is a powerful tool for keeping your disk archive clearly arranged.

Unlike most other disk cataloging programs that show disk contents as one long flat list of files, DiskBase offers the user interface similar to interface of common file managers - with a tree and a list of files in current folder displayed. If you are comfortable with file managers like Norton Commander or Windows Explorer, you will find DiskBase easy to use.

There is also no need to install any database engine in order to run the program. Also unlike most other disk cataloging programs, DiskBase (in 32-bit version) supports long file names, used in Windows 95 and Windows NT.

DiskBase 5 is distributed as shareware. You could not hear about earlier versions as till version 4 the program was available in Czech language only. The history of the program began in 1991, when it was formed as a collection of command-line utilities rather than standalone program. The first commercially successful version was version 4, released in 1994. The version 5 is the first version for Windows and was released in 1996 in Czech language and translated to English version in 1997.

The program in the Czech version is called QuickDir from the very beginning. However, before doing the translation to English language we found that a shareware of the same name already exists (a DOS file manager), so we decided to use the DiskBase name for the international version in order to avoid misunderstandings.

The author of the program is Zdenek Martinek, Czech Republic.

What it is good for?

Let us give you a few examples for an illustration of DiskBase usage:

1. You are looking for a file with a (bit un)certain name, like "ACMELOGO.BMP" in a big heap of disks. Moreover, the file is probably hidden in some archive like ZIP or ARJ. You can spend dozens of minutes, even hours to find it. DiskBase, however, can do the search in seconds. Even if you do not have the disks scanned in a database, it is often faster to scan them first and then let DiskBase make the search than to look for the file on disks manually using some file manager.

2. One of the common backup strategies is to make a cyclic backup, i.e., you do not backup on one media (floppy disk, for example), but iterate through multiple media (10 for example) with the rule that the new backup is placed on the disk with the oldest backup. But how can you find, on which disk is the oldest backup? With DiskBase easily: it can sort a list of found files according to their date.

3. The short 8.3 file names from DOS are history now - but still too young history. A lot of reasons remain why to use short, hardly understandable names for files. You are searching for some file, but cannot remember what name you gave it - was it CURVIATE.DOC or CV.DOC or CURRIC.DOC or anything completely else? If you are using descriptions in DiskBase, you can search for "Curriculum Vitae" and you will find it. Or you can remember approximate date when you last modified the file and it may also be enough for finding it. These features of DiskBase are useful not only for replaceable media, but also for fixed disks.

4. As a LAN Administrator you want to save information about the current state of network volumes. No problem with DiskBase. Also repeated searching on network volumes can be much faster using DiskBase (and a local database) than direct search on the volumes.

5. You are creating a CD-ROM with thousands of files. To give a fast orientation on the slow CD-ROM to the users, you can add unregistered version of DiskBase with the read-only database of the CD-ROM contents to the CD-ROM (such usage of DiskBase is free of charge - see the Trial Use License).

And so on...

How to make the database up-to-date?

Well, this is the only thing, that requires a bit effort from you: you should run DiskBase disk scanning process each time you changed something on the disk and are going to remove it from the drive. Unfortunately this cannot be automated: there is no way, how the program on a PC can recognize that you are going to eject a disk.

However, scanning a disk by DiskBase is really a simple task. As it is explained in the Command line mode chapter, you can even create an icon for running DiskBase with parameters that cause DiskBase to run, scan a disk and terminate automatically. DiskBase also has smart time-saving features; for example if you a have a slow floppy disk full of archives, only contents of modified archives is read when the disk already have been scanned in the database.

See also:

What is new in this version

FAQ - frequently asked question

Trial Use License

Price List

Registration

Contact Info

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Program installation and uninstallation

You probably already have DiskBase installed when you are reading this help text. If it is so, just skip the next two paragraphs.

The program is distributed in two files: SETUPxx.EXE and DSKBASxx.ZIP, where xx is 16 or 32 (indicates 16-bit or 32-bit version). The SETUPxx.EXE program unpacks the contents of the DSKBASxx.ZIP file into a specified folder and creates icons in Program Manager or items in the Startup Menu. Then it is not needed anymore.

Note for Windows 3.1x: The program requires the "ctl3dv2.dll" file to be present in the \windows\system folder. This file is not a standard part of Windows, but it is added to Windows by most of the recent Windows programs, so it is highly probable that you already have it installed. If not, the installation program SETUPxx.EXE will not run and will announce that this file is missing. Then you must manually copy the file into the System folder of Windows. You will find this file on our WWW server (see Contact Infoh_Kontakt). This applies only for Windows 3.1x, not for 95s and NTs.

Uninstallation

The installation does not require anything else than the above stated: normally it does not put any files into the Windows system directory, it does not modify any system profile file like WIN.INI nor the Registration Database. So it is very easy to remove the program from your PC, if you do not like it. You just delete the icons (or menu items) and then the folder with the program.

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16-bit a 32-bit program version
Program installation and uninstallation

16-bit and 32-bit version of the program

DiskBase 5 exists in 2 versions:

--	16-bit, to be used in Windows 3.1x

--	32-bit, to be used in  Windows 95 and Windows NT;

The 16-bit version can be run also in Windows 95 and NT, but not vice versa: The 32-bit version will not function in Windows 3.1x even if they are extended by Win32s. But there is no reason to do that: the license for DiskBase is valid for both versions and both versions use the same database structure, so you can easily switch from 16-bit to 32-bit version if you upgrade from Windows 3.1x to Windows 95 or NT.

Differences between versions

In version 5.0 there are only two significant differences:

--	The 32-bit version is able to work with long file and folder names (used in Windows 95 and NT).

--	The 32-bit version is able to set volume labels on replaceable disks.

In the future the differences may be larger; the next development will focus namely on the 32-bit version.

Both versions have the same limitations (see the Technical data chapter), for example maximum of 10000 disks in one database and maximum size of a description being 32 kB. These limitations are caused by the 16-bit architecture and are valid in 32-bit version because of needed compatibility.

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Quick, step by step introduction to the program

This chapter will show you the elementary program functions in several simple steps..

Step 1: Creation of a new database

Run the DiskBase program. In the menu "File" select "New database...". Then, in the standard file dialog box select a folder for storing the database, type in the name (without extension: QDR extension will be added automatically). After confirmation of file dialog box a database window appears. The database is now open.

Step 2: Scanning a disk

In the "Edit" menu select "Scan disk...". A dialog box for disk selection appears. Pull down the combo box with a list of disks and select the one you want to scan. DiskBase will then ask for the name, under which the disk contents should be stored to the database. As default the volume label of the disk is offered. Then DiskBase scans the disk and stores it to the database. The time needed for that depends on the number of files, folders and archives on the disk and on the disk speed.

After scanning is completed the disk is displayed in the database window. By repeating this step you can scan as many disks as you need to the database.

Step 3: Options for display

The window with database is split into three panels: Left one with names of disks, middle one with the tree of folders of current disk and the right one with a list of folders and files in the current folder. You can use the <Tab> key to switch between the panels. In the "Settings" menu (beginning from the "File names only" command) the commands that change the display options can be found. Try it.

Step 4: Searching in the database

Select "Find files..." command in the "Search" menu. Enter the name of the file you want to find in the dialog box. If you want to find more files, you can write more names separated by spaces. You can also use a wildcard convention, like *.txt to find all files with the ".txt" extension, for example. When you confirm the dialog box, a sequential search is started. After the search is finished, a new window with found items is displayed. When you double-click on some item, you are switched to the window with database and the corresponding disk, folder and file are displayed.

You can switch between the two windows using the "Window" menu or by pressing buttons on the toolbar (will be explained in detail in the MDI interface of the program chapter).

When you have the database window displayed, try also the "List of free space" command in the "Search" menu.

Step 5: Editing descriptions

Switch to the window with database and click on some file name in the right panel. Then, in the "Edit" menu select the "Description" command. A window with the description editor is displayed. You can enter any text there. Try it and then close the edit window. In this way you created a description for a file. With the same procedure you can edit already existing description. If you set the detailed display for the right panel, you can see parts of descriptions in the rightmost column.

Now try to create a few descriptions and then repeat the Step 4 (searching) again, but in this case enter in the search dialog box some words which you used in the descriptions. You will see that DiskBase fill find the files, which descriptions contain these words.

Step 6: Automated description creation

DiskBase is able to create descriptions automatically by scanning a contents of a file. The simplest case are the pure text files, which usually have the ".txt" extension; extracting a description for such files means just copying a part of the file to the description.

In the "Settings" menu select the "Database settings..." command. In the dialog box select the "Descriptions" card and click on the "Add" button. By this action you added this condition: "If the file extension is ".txt", then copy 500 bytes of the file to the description, without any conversion" (you will find detailed information about it in the Descriptions chapter). Confirm the dialog box and then scan a disk into your database (Step 2) - best in this case is to scan a hard disk with software; there is a high probability, that there will be at least a few files with the ".txt" extension there. Then repeat the Step 4 - search for the files with ".txt" extension again. You will see that these files have descriptions now. By double-click on some of the found files you can switch to the database window and display the full description using the "Description" command in the "Edit" menu.

Again, you can also try searching some words, that are in the descriptions.

Step 7: Print

Click on some panel in the window with database; best for your try is the panel with tree now. In the "File" menu select the "Print..." command. Print the tree by using standard Windows steps.

And what else?

The above stated steps showed the features of the program very briefly. In the next chapters you will find detailed description of the program functionality. The whole text of this document is not too long and we recommend you to read it all - you will find a lot of information how to use this program effectively here.

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Detailed program description

We suppose you know elementary rules how to operate with a Windows program. In the next text we will use this convention for a menu-based command: "Menu -> Submenu (-> Card)". For example: "Settings -> Program settings... -> Font" means to select the "Program settings..." item in the "Settings" menu and in the displayed dialog box to select the "Font" card.

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MDI interface of the program

As a lot of other programs, DiskBase uses MDI (Multiple Document Interface), which means that inside the main program window multiple child windows can be displayed. In DiskBase the windows are of three types.

--	window with database,

--	window with found files,

--	window with the list of free space.

If you close the window with database, automatically all the windows, that belong to this database are closed.

The MDI interface is universal, but not very practical. Although you can have dozens of child windows displayed, still even a large screen is usually too small to have more than two or three windows displayed.

The default setting of DiskBase is to have child windows maximized, i.e. one window uses all the area and other windows cannot be seen (note that when you maximize one child window in MDI, all child windows are maximized - it is a Windows feature). Most users prefer this setting. To switch between windows you can use the "Window" menu or keyboard shortcuts <Ctrl-Tab> and <Ctrl-Shift-Tab>.

You can open as many databases as you want; but in real life you will work mostly with one database only. In the Program settings chapter you will find, how to set the name of the database that is to be opened automatically at program startup.

In real life you also probably prefer not to have the number of windows increased after each search. That is why the default setting of DiskBase is to reuse the existing window, so only one window is used for displaying the search results belonging to one database; each new search overwrites the previous one in the same window. You can disable reusing windows in the Program settings.

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Menu, toolbars with buttons
Menu, toolbar with buttons

The main program window has common controls: menu, floating menu, hot keys and toolbars.

Some commands in the menu might be disabled in case the corresponding function does not make sense in the current program status. For example, when there is no window with found items available, the command "With found items" in the "Window" menu is disabled. Similarly, a lot of commands are disabled when the window with the database is not at the top (scanning a disk is disabled in such case, for example).

There is also a floating menu available when you click with right mouse button over a window. This menu lists commands related to the place over which you clicked (i.e. window or panel).

Note that the often used commands have their hot keys; for example you can edit a description simply by pressing <F2>, without necessity to go to the menu. These hot keys are listed on the right side of the menu commands and we will no more mention them in the following text because you will easily find the usage of them after some time of working with the program using the menu.

The third alternative way how to execute some command is to press a button on the toolbar. These buttons correspond to commands in the menu and you will find a description of each button, when you place a mouse cursor over the button for a while (without pressing it).

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Creation of database

You can create a new database by the "File -> New database..." command. The whole database is stored in a single file. The default file extension for it is the ".QDR" extension (comes from the QuickDir name used for Czech version). If you specify just the name, without an extension, this default extension is added automatically.

A new database does not have zero length, although it is empty - the empty database takes about 64 kB of space, because it already contains a header and an index table. With each change then the size of the database grows. For example, when you scan a disk to the database, the old disk of the same name in the database is not overwritten, but just marked as deleted (so it can be undeleted if needed), and the new one is stored physically at the end of the database, increasing the size of the database.

This increasing of the database size is not visible in the program; visually the newly scanned disk replaces the old one, the edited description replaces the old one and so on. So it is important to remember this fact and not to forget to make a Compressing the database from time to time. The compression copies the content of the database into the new one, skipping all the deleted items in the database.

The database is not intended for multi-user access; it can be opened by one program at a time only. It must be placed in the folder, that is accessible for reading and writing. The only exception is the read-only database, that can be created by the registered version of DiskBase - such database can be then copied to read-only media, like CD-ROM. See Creation of read-only database chapter for details.

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Scanning a disk

When scanning a disk, always the names of folders and files are scanned and, according to the settings, also the contents of archive files can be read and descriptions can be created automatically from some types of files.

You can scan a disk by the "Edit -> Scan disk..." command. The list of currently available disks is displayed and you can select one of these. The window with the list of disks is sizable. If you want to save the size of the window for the next DiskBase session, go to the Settings->Program Settings->Other and press the "Save sizes of the main window and panels" button. See also the "Do not read volume names for Scan disk dialog box" option that can be set in Program settings.

To scan the content of A: and B: disks, you can also use the "Edit -> Scan A:" or "Edit -> Scan B:" command, which is faster (the dialog box is omitted). Note that all these commands have their hot keys (<F4>, <Ctrl-A>, <Ctrl-B>) and corresponding buttons on the toolbar.

Note: In case you need just to start the DiskBase program, update disk in database and close the program, you might prefer to use the command line settings for the program. See Command line mode  chapter for details.

See also:

Disk name

Scanning archive files

Rescanning a disk

Scanning a folder as a disk

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Disk name
Scanning a disk

Disk name

Before starting the disk scanning process you must enter or confirm the name, under which the disk contents is to be stored to the database. As a default name DiskBase offers the volume label of the disk, if it exists. It is practical to have the volume label set on all disks (and written on their paper labels) when you want to update them in the database periodically: then while updating the disk in database you just confirm the name of the disk and thus avoid accidental overwriting of improper disk in the database. Having the disk name recorded in the volume label is also important for running DiskBase from the command line (automated database update).

DiskBase compares the name you entered with the volume label and if they are different, you are offered to change the volume label on the disk to the disk name. Note that this feature is intended for replaceable disks only, so in case of fixed disk or network drive you will not get this possibility. Note also that this feature is implemented in the 32-bit version only; in the 16-bit version of DiskBase you must use File Manager or the Label command on DOS prompt to change the volume label.

The disk name in DiskBase can have up to 255 arbitrary characters; however if you are synchronizing the disk names with volume labels, you must keep on mind that there are certain limitations according to the disk file system:

--	On FAT systems is the maximum length of 12 characters (even in Windows 95 and NT).

--	On NTFS and HPFS the limit is 255 characters and you must have proper rights if you want to change it.

--	The limits on network drives vary according to the operating system; but you are usually not permitted to change it at all.

Each disk in the database must have a unique name (case insensitive, i.e. "My Disk" and "my disk" are considered as same). If you enter the name of disk already existing in the database, this disk is overwritten in the database (but still can be undeleted). You can set whether you should be warned about overwriting a disk or not in "Settings -> Database settings... -> Options" card (see the Program settings chapter for details).

See also:

Scanning a disk

Scanning archive files

Rescanning a disk

Scanning a folder as a disk

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Scanning the content of archives
Scanning a disk

Scanning the contents of archives

If enabled (in "Settings -> Database settings... -> Options"), DiskBase analyses the name of each file to determine, if it might be an archive or not. DiskBase is able to read the contents of most popular shareware archivers, as well as some commercial backup programs.

The file name must match one of the following masks in order the file to be read by DiskBase:

*.ZIP 	for archives created by PkZIP, WinZIP etc.

*.ARJ, *.Ann 	for ARJ

*.RAR 	for RAR

*.LZH, *.ICE 	for LhARC, LhICE, LhA

*.ARC 	for PkARC, PkPAK

CONTROL.nnn 	for BACKUP (the old MS-DOS one)

xxnnnnnx.nnn	for NBackup a MSBackup (DOS versions)

PCBACKUP.DIR	for PCBackup

(where n is digit, x is letter)

If the contents of an archive is successfully scanned, it is stored into the database and the archive file then looks like a folder in the database; you can look what is inside just by clicking on it, like on normal folder. If there are subfolders stored in the archive, these are displayed as folders under the archive folder.

It might happen that archive is not scanned successfully, because it is corrupted or it is just a non archive file accidentally having the name matching one of the masks above. In such case DiskBase simply skips this file, leaving it as normal file in the database; no message box is displayed.

All the scanning of archive files is done internally by DiskBase, without employing any external programs. As the archive formats are developing, it might happen that some formats will not be recognized properly in the future. If you find such case, please contact us; we will try to update DiskBase to a new format (if we get enough information from the author about the format - which is usually a problem with commercial companies).

In the List of supported archive file types chapter you will find a list of versions of archiver programs with which DiskBase was successfully tested.

Scanning self-extracting archives

DiskBase can also read the contents of self-extracting archives (SFX), created in ZIP, ARJ or RAR format. As the name of the executable file does not provide any information whether the file is SFX or not (and what kind of), its contents must be read and analyzed. This may increase the scanning time of a disk, if the disk contains a lot of executables. See the Program settings chapter for details.

Speed of scanning the archive

DiskBase must read the content of the archive file in order to find file names; however, the speed depends more on the number of files stored in the archive than on the archive file size. Some archives have a central directory, which can be read very quickly; ZIP is an example of such format (although some variations of ZIP format without the central directory also exist). Reading the contents of the self-extracting archive adds also some time needed for the file analysis.

Time saving features

If the disk already exists in the database and you are scanning it again to the database, DiskBase scans the content of those archives only, that were changed since last scan; the content of not modified archive files it copied from the existing disk in the database. This feature significantly saves time when you are scanning slow disks, like a floppy disk or CD-ROM. You might appreciate this feature namely with large CD-Recordables, to which you are adding some data periodically and rescanning it then to a DiskBase database.

See also:

Scanning a disk

Disk name

Rescanning a disk

Scanning a folder as a disk

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Rescanning a disk
Scanning a disk

Rescanning a disk

In case you use disk names that are different from the volume labels on the disks, the rescan of the such disks using the normal "Scan disk..." command is not very comfortable; each time you rescan it you would have to type in the corresponding disk name again.

For such case the "Edit -> Rescan disk..." command is useful. Before this command, select the disk in the left panel. Then it is usually enough just to confirm the dialog box, asking for name and path.

From the version 5.08 DiskBase remembers also the volume label of each disk and when you attempt to rescan a disk with a different volume label, you will get a warning: such case indicates that probably different disk is inserted in the drive, than is the disk you wish to scan.

See also:

Scanning a disk

Disk name

Scanning archive files

Scanning a folder as a disk

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Scanning folder as disk
Scanning a disk

Scanning a folder as a disk

You can also scan only a part of the disk - from selected folder down. To do so, select the "Edit -> Scan folder as disk..." command from the menu.

Be careful with manually created descriptions in such case: If you change the folder when you are rescanning the disk, the manually edited descriptions can be lost.

See also:

Scanning a disk

Disk name

Scanning archive files

Rescanning a disk

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Window with database

The database window is split to three panels:

--	Panel with disks

--	Panel with tree of folders and archives (can be hidden)

--	Panel with files and folders in the current folder

There is a header in the upper part of the panels. You can change the width of each panel by placing the mouse cursor over the vertical border of the panel in the header (the cursor changes its shape) and dragging the border in required direction.

The header also indicates which panel is active by displaying a label in the active panel:

-- the panel with disks displays the database name
-- the panel with tree displays the current disk
-- the panel with files displays current folder (with path)

The active panel is the one, that receives keystrokes from the keyboard. You can activate a panel by clicking by mouse inside the panel; also the <Tab> and <Shift-Tab> keys can be used to toggle between panels.

See also:

Current and selected items

Panel with disks

Panel with tree

Panel with files

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Current and selected items
Window with database

Current and selected items

In the next text two words are used for items (=disk, folder, file etc.): current and selected.

There can be one current item only (in the standard color scheme it is white on blue), however there can be multiple items selected (white on gray). Setting items as selected is used when copying, printing, deleting or exporting some (=selected) items from the list only.

The current item is changed by keys with arrows, <Home>, <End>, <PgUp>, <PgDn>, or by clicking with mouse on the item, which you want to make current.

You can use several ways to make an item selected: With the keyboard you can toggle selection by a spacebar, <Ins> key or by <Shift-Arrow> or <Shift-PgDn>, <Shift-PgUp> keys. With a mouse you can toggle item selection by clicking on it while holding <Ctrl> or you can select multiple items by clicking and holding <Shift>.

Note: This behavior is intentionally not fully corresponding to the standard Windows user interface, which is much less comfortable in selecting items.

Multiple selection using a wildcard

In the panels with disks and files you can also select multiple items using wildcards. The "Edit -> Select disks/files..." command brings up a dialog box, in which you can enter a mask for selection. The rules for mask creation are the same as in the search dialog box and are described in detail in the Mask chapter. So here just briefly: the "a*" mask selects all files, which name begin with the "a" letter.

You can also:

--	select all items by the "Edit -> Select all" command.

--	unselect all items by the "Edit -> Unselect all" command.

See also:

Window with database

Panel with disks

Panel with tree

Panel with files

Status panel with subtotals

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Panel with disks
Window with database

Panel with disks

The panel with disks shows the list of all disks in the database, sorted alphabetically. Change of the current disk automatically makes corresponding change in the other panels as well.

To select disks, use the actions described in the Current and selected items chapter.

In the panel with disks also the Copy and Print commands are available. See Copying to Clipboard and Print chapters for details.

Renaming a disk

Disk in the database can be renamed by the "Edit -> Rename disk" command. However, when renaming a disk in the database, keep on mind that the difference between the name of the real disk (= its volume label) and the name of the disk in the database will cause that these two disks will be considered as two non-related disks by DiskBase.

Deleting and undeleting a disk

The disk (or multiple selected disks) can be deleted in the database by the "Edit -> Delete disk..." command. Deleted disks are preserved in the database until a compression of the database is made (see Database compression chapter for details). They can be undeleted if needed.

To undelete a disk, you first must enable display of deleted disks in the "Settings -> Database settings... -> Options" card. The names of deleted disks are displayed in square brackets and have a number added, which is making the name of the disk unique. Then you can undelete the current deleted disk.

See also:

Window with database

Current and selected items

Panel with tree

Panel with files

Status panel with subtotals

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Panel with tree
Window with database

Panel with tree

The default setting for the tree is a simplified display, i.e. not all the folders are shown, but just the top level folders. If there is a plus sign (+) in the graphical symbol of the folder, then there are some more folders hidden in this folder. You can display the content of such folder (=expand the branch) by double-clicking on it or pressing the <Enter> key while the folder is the current one.

By the same way you can hide the contents of the folder (=collapse the branch).

If you want to expand or collapse all branches of the tree, you can do that by clicking on the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. However, this setting is temporary;if you change the current disk, the tree is collapsed again. If you want to have the tree always expanded, check the corresponding option in the "Settings -> Program settings... -> Display" card.

The panel with tree can be hidden (by unchecking the "Settings -> Show tree" menu item); then more space is available for other panels. Hiding the tree panel also speeds up updating of the right panel when the current disk is changed in the left panel.

The tree can also be printed - see the  Print chapter for details.

See also:

Window with database

Current and selected items

Panel with disks

Panel with files

Status panel with subtotals

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Panel with files
Window with database

Panel with files

shows a list of folders and files in the current folder. By double-click with a mouse on a folder name you can set the clicked folder to be the current one; equivalent is pressing the <Enter> key, which applies to the current folder.

The folder with two dots instead of name represents a parent folder, i.e. reference to one level up in the tree (closer to the root). So by double-clicking or pressing <Enter> on it means switching to one level up in the folder hierarchy. As an alternative, you can use the <Backspace> key as a hot key for switching one level up. Another alternative is a button on the toolbar.

List appearance

The appearance of this panel can be set by "Settings -> Program settings... -> Display". A lot of these settings are duplicated directly in the "Settings" menu, so you can switch these options quickly, using also hot keys. Another alternative are the buttons on the toolbar.

When the detailed display is set, you can set sort order of the list also by clicking on the head of the column, according which the list is to be sorted (with the exception of the column with descriptions). There is a difference on place, where you clicked in the Name column header: when you click on the left part, sort is made by file names, when you click on the right part, sort is made by file extensions. In all cases the folders are listed first (but this does not apply for archives that behave like folders).

The descriptions are shown shortened to max. 255 characters in this panel and line breaks there are replaced by slashes. To show and edit the full description, call "Edit -> Description" (see Descriptions chapter for details).

To select files, use the actions described in Current and selected items chapter.

In the panel with files also the Copy and Print commands are available. See Copying to Clipboard and Print chapters for details.

See also:

Window with database

Current and selected items

Panel with disks

Panel with tree

Status panel with subtotals

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Status panel with subtotal information
Window with database

Status panel with subtotal information

There is a status panel in the bottom of the database window. In the left part of it a subtotal information belonging to the currently selected folder is shown; in the right part a detailed information about the currently selected file is shown.

Subtotal information has the following form: x folders, y files, z MB. The numbers indicate that the currently selected folder (in the tree panel) contains x folders, y files and the sum of file sizes in this folder and subfolders is z MB (or kB or B).

In case the folder (or its some of its subfolder) contains archive file(s), the subtotal information has a modified form: x/xa folders, y/ya files, z/za MB. The numbers before the slash have the same meaning as above; the numbers following the slash indicate unpacked data values -- they simulate situation when you create a standalone folder for each archive on the disk, unpack it there and delete it.

Note: This functionality was added to DiskBase in version 5.08. The information is collected during scanning the disk, so it is missing on disks scanned by previous versions of DiskBase. That is why it is not shown until you rescan the disk. However, if you call Compress database; then the disks data are recalculated and displayed correctly for all the disks in the database.

See also:

Window with database

Current and selected items

Panel with disks

Panel with tree

Panel with files

Status panel with subtotals

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Descriptions

Sometimes it is pretty hard to guess what is a file contents just from its name. Although Windows 95 enable using long filenames (supported in 32-bit version of DiskBase), the DOS 8.3 limit for file name length is still having its consequences.

This is one of the reasons why DiskBase offers to assign a piece of text as a description for each folder and file. A plain text, without any formatting (like using bold, italics, multiple fonts etc.) is used for descriptions; but for describing the file contents and for searching purposes it is fully sufficient.

To create or modify a description for the current file or folder is very easy: when you execute the "Edit -> Description" command, a window with a simple editor is displayed for writing or modifying the description.

When the detailed display is set in the right database panel, the part of the description is also displayed there, in the rightmost column.

When searching for a file, DiskBase enables to search the text either in names of files and folders, or in descriptions, or in both. Usually, it is enough to put a few keywords describing the file content into the description; then it becomes very easy to find the proper files in the database by searching a keyword.

Manual creation of descriptions

Automated creation of descriptions

Disk description

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Manual description creation
Descriptions

Manual creation of descriptions

Creating descriptions manually is simple and straightforward, but you should understand how DiskBase is dealing with descriptions when a disk content in database is updated by scanning the disk contents again. The procedure is as follows:

When scanning a disk into the database, DiskBase first verify whether a disk of the same name already exists in the database. If so, then during the scanning process a verification is made for each file, whether the file of the same name in the same folder exists and whether it has a description. If so, the description is moved to the currently scanned file. By this mechanism is assured that the descriptions are not lost when you scan the disk into the database again.

However, there are cases, when DiskBase is not able to verify the existence of the original description:

--	when you decide to save the disk into the database under a different name (if you want to preserve descriptions in such case, you must first rename the disk in the database to the name you are going to use).

--	when the file with a description is on the real disk
- moved to another folder
- or moved to another disk,
- or renamed,
- or the folder, which contains the file is renamed or moved.
In such case there is no solution how DiskBase can find the proper description when scanning the disk again and the description is lost.

--	when you first delete or rename the original disk in the database and then scan the disk into the database.

If you avoid such cases, you can use descriptions successfully. Avoiding it is easy namely in case of media, that you are scanning only once to the database, like CD-ROMs.

On rewritable media it is safer to use Automated creation of descriptions as then you cannot accidentally loose any of them.

Note also, that once you start write descriptions manually to the database, it is recommended to start making backup copies of the database. If you accidentally loose the database without manually edited descriptions, you can easily create a new one just by rescanning all the disks to a new database, but with manually edited descriptions you input unique work into the database, which is should be backed up.

See also:

Descriptions

Automated creation of descriptions

Disk description

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Automated creation of descriptions
Descriptions

Automated creation of descriptions

Let's start with an example: There is a lot of sample programs on the MS Developer Network CD-ROMs and there is a convention to place each sample to a standalone folder and add a text file called "Abstract.txt" to the folder. This file contains a brief description of the sample and thus it would be good, if the text of this file was transferred to DiskBase database as a description of the folder. Then searching for some sample in heap of CD-ROMs can be easy (this example is just illustrative; there are actually other searching tools available on MSDN CD-ROMs).

DiskBase is able to copy the text from a file to its description (not to a folder, but it does not mind). To make it, the file name must match one of the masks set in the "Settings -> Database settings... -> Descriptions". You can find detailed explanation about masks in the Mask chapter)

This can be utilized in two main ways:

--	by creating text files on disk for this purpose

--	by copying contents of existing files of various types

The first possibility can effectively replace manual creation of descriptions made directly in the database in case you want to describe the whole folder rather than one file. This is very common case; usually you organize files, that are related into one folder and you usually do not search for a single file, but for a folder with files. You can decide for some unified name that you will use for descriptions, like "Info.txt" or "Contents.txt", create such file in every folder and write keywords describing the contents of the folder (using some plain text editor like Notepad). Then, if you specify this name as a mask in the descriptions settings, the contents of these files will be copied to the DiskBase database. The advantage is that you can move the folder or rename it without loosing the description (as is mentioned by the manual creation of descriptions).

The second possibility means that you can read a part of a file, which was not originally created for this purpose, but is at least partly suitable for it. Typical examples would be files like "ReadMe.txt", "Abstract.txt", "FileDesc.id" etc.

Another typical example would be reading a part of document written in some word processor. But this case is bit more complicated: Word processors, like most other programs, store beside the text a lot of other (usually binary) data into the file; these data should not be copied into the description, because they do not provide useful information for description (for example tags in the RTF format) and if they are binary, they look like a heap of random characters (for example a bitmap in a document). DiskBase provides a solution to this problem: you can use a filter that makes a conversion from the specified file format to a plain text.

Filters

in DiskBase are not part o the program itself, but are appended to the program as dynamically linked libraries (DLLs). The advantage of this solution is that if you know a bit about programming DLLs, you can create your own customized filters (see the Creation of conversion filters chapter for details).

The following standard filters are available in DiskBase 5.0:

HTML	extracts text from the HTML format

RTF	extracts text from the Microsoft Rich Text Format

UNI	universal filter: it tries to find text in a binary file with unknown data structure

Universal filter

was created because there is a huge number of data file formats and it is not possible to cover them all in DiskBase. Moreover, their data structures are most often not published, so it is usually impossible to write the properly functioning filter for such files.

The UNI filter employs a bit of heuristics to find a text in a file. The result text usually contains some percents of characters, that are not a valid text, and on the other hand it may not recognize all the valid words in the file; however, the result text might be still sufficient for the purpose of searching and getting a rough information about the file contents.

Description size limit

You can set the size limit for the text copied from a file to the description. Usually 500 bytes is enough for storing information suitable for search (for illustration: 1000 bytes corresponds to about a half page of typewritten text). When you increase the limit to a higher value, keep on mind than the DiskBase database can then grow fast to a pretty large file.

Rules for automated description creation

are represented by a list in form: Mask - Size limit in bytes - Filter. When scanning a disk, DiskBase compares each file name with all the masks in this list; if some file name matches some of the mask, the content up to the specified size limit is read to the description, using the specified filter.

An example of such rules is shown below:

Mask	Size limit in bytes	Filter

info.txt	1000

readme.txt	2000

abstract.txt	500

*.txt	200

*.doc	200	Uni

*.sam	500	Uni

*.rtf	500	RTF

*.htm	200	HTML

*.html	200	HTML

This list of rules can be set in the "Settings -> Database settings... -> Descriptions" card. See also the Database settings chapter. Note that you can set no filter for a rule; then just removing of non-printing characters is done when the file contents is copied to the description.

Manual modification of automatically created descriptions

Finally it is necessary to explain what happens if:

--	you manually modify an automatically created description and then rescan the disk

--	you manually create a description to a file, that later on matches some rule for automated creation of descriptions.

In such cases the priority always has the manual work; files with manually modified descriptions are excluded from the automated creation of descriptions.

See also:

Descriptions

Manual creation of descriptions

Disk description

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Disk description
Descriptions

Disk descriptions

A description for disk can be created in the same way as folder and file descriptions are done. A file name DiskInfo.txt in the root folder is reserved for disk descriptions. The file of this name is automatically placed as first to the list of folders and files regardless of sort criteria set, so it is always visible when browsing through the database.

If you create a text file of this name to the root and set the rules for automated description creation to read the contents of this file, then the disk description does not differ from normal file description.

However, in case you want to write down such description directly into the database (for example in case of archiving read-only media like CD-ROM), DiskBase can create a simulated file in the disk root folder, so you can edit its description. To let DiskBase to simulate it, check the "Simulate disk descriptions" check box in "Database settings".

DiskBase adds this simulated file when scanning a disk to the database; in case a real file of this name exists, the simulated one is not added.

See also:

Descriptions

Manual creation of descriptions

Automated creation of descriptions

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Searching in the database

Searching is sequential in DiskBase, i.e. the program goes through all the file and folder names and descriptions to find the searched text. The time needed for search is thus dependent on the database size; it is also dependent on the complexity of searching criteria: for example searching just in names is faster than searching in both names and descriptions.

Mask

Searching files

Searching selected files

Window with found files

List of free space

Window with the list of free space

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The mask
Searching in the database

Mask

The mask is usually the main criteria for searching. DiskBase compares each file name with the mask and if the name is matching the mask, the file is put to the list of found files. Similarly it works with descriptions. If you are familiar with the DOS wildcard convention, you will find the mask criteria in DiskBase similar; however, DiskBase offers more flexibility using these wildcards.

Let's start with a few examples:

Mask	means (i.e. the name will match the mask in case of)

*.txt	file with any name and the ".txt" extension

a*	file which name begins with the "a" letter

backup??.*	file which name is 8 characters long, and this name begins with the "backup" word followed by two arbitrary characters; the extension is arbitrary

tax97.xls	the file, which name is exactly "tax97.xls"

As you can see from the examples, an asterisk (*) and a question mark (?) have specific meaning (they are referred as wildcards ):

The asterisk  means: on this place any number of any characters can occur (including no characters).

The Question mark means: on this place just one arbitrary character must occur.

Usage of asterisk

The example above were designed to be usable also in DOS, which might be familiar to you. There is a limitation in DOS, that asterisk can be placed at the end of mask only. In DiskBase there is no such limitation; you can use asterisk on multiple places in the mask.

Example: With the mask *author* the words like author, unauthorized, authoring, authoritative, authorities, authorship, etc. will match.

Another difference is that DOS distinguishes name and extension as two independent parts of file name. So you might expect that the mask with which any file will match is "*.*". But this is not exactly true in Windows 95 and NT, where a dot (.) is treated as any other character and need not necessarily be contained in the file name, so in fact this mask would match all files, which contain at least one dot. The right mask to match any name would be simply one asterisk: "*".

Multiple masks

You can specify multiple masks for searching just by writing them separated with space.

Example: a* b* c* are three masks and all files beginning with letter a, b or c will match this multiple mask criteria..

Multiple word phrases in one mask

As space is considered as separator of multiple masks, how can a multiple word phrase, like sales department be searched? The solution is in using quotation marks (") around masks, containing spaces.

Example: When searching a computer science phrase, then, if you write it as "computer science" (including the quotation marks), the phrase is correctly searched, but if you do not use the quotation marks, the all the files and descriptions containing the word computer and all the files and descriptions containing the word science will be listed.

You can use wildcards in phrases too; the quotation marks just determine actual begin and end of the mask. If you want to search for quotation marks, you must write them doubled.

You can combine masks surrounded with quotation marks with masks not surrounded arbitrarily.

See also:

Searching in the database

Searching files

Searching selected files

Window with found files

List of free space

Window with the list of free space

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Searching files
Searching in the database

Searching files

To search files you must enter criteria for it in the dialog box, that is displayed after calling the "Search -> Find files..." command. This dialog box has the following items:

Search text

One or more masks are to be entered here (see the Mask chapter for details about masks). When you are repeating search, you can select form the list already entered masks, by clicking to the button with arrow right to this edit control.

The same masks are used for searching in (file and folder) names and descriptions.

Go through

You can set which part of database should be searched in:
 -- the whole database
 -- selected disks
 -- current disk

Search text in

- names (of folders and files)
- descriptions
- both names and descriptions

Case sensitive comparison

If checked, upper and lower case of the same letter (e.g. A and a) are considered as different letters when comparing the text with masks.

Sort found items by

Three sort keys can be set; the second one is used for comparison of two items when the first one is the same; the third one is used when the second one is the same. The sort order can be changed also later on, when the window with found files is already displayed, by clicking on the column header.

Stop search after n files found

You can set a limit for a number of found files. By setting this limit you can avoid creation of very large list when you accidentally set too wide criteria to which too many files are matching.

More options

By pressing this button, you can display another dialog box with more options for the search, that are not used very often, but sometimes might be suitable.

Exclude files

Files and folders with names and descriptions that match masks entered here are not put to the list of found files.

Example: You are searching for text files with the "*.txt" extension, but do not want to list files called "readme.txt" and "abstract.txt", so you put readme.txt abstract.txt mask to this edit control.

File date must be from ... to ...

Sometimes it might be suitable to have possibility to search for file, which was last modified in certain time period; for example you are searching for some Word document, but you have no idea what name it had, but you know, that you were certainly working with it in December of the last year. Then you specify just the mask "*.doc" and the dates in this dialog box.

You can also have only one time limit set (checked by the check box), so you can search for files not older than certain period, for example.

File size must be from ... to ...

Similarly as in previous case, you can set a range of sizes in kB, which the file must match.

See also:

Searching in the database

Mask

Searching selected files

Window with found files

List of free space

Window with the list of free space

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Searching selected files
Searching in the database

Searching selected files

By the "Search -> Find selected files" command you can start immediate search without filling the Search dialog box. As masks all the names of selected files (including the current one) are used. Typical usage of this command is when you want to know "where else do I have the same files?"

See also:

Searching in the database

Mask

Searching files

Window with found files

List of free space

Window with the list of free space

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Window with found files
Searching in the database

Window with found files

is divided into 6 columns: Disk, Folder, File, Size, Date and time, Description. You can change the width of any column by dragging the vertical edge of the column header. The actual width of the column is then also used for printing.

If you double-click with mouse on a found item, the DiskBase switches to the window with database and displays the file or folder there. The same action can be made by pressing the <Enter> key, which is applied to the current line. You can switch back to this window by using the "Window" menu or the corresponding button on the toolbar.

The lines in the list can be selected using the same method, as was described in the Current and selected items chapter. Selecting lines makes sense for copying to Clipboard and printing. See Copying to Clipboard and Print chapters for details.

You can change the sort order of the lines by clicking on the header of any column (with the exception of the Description column); then the lines are sorted by the content of the column.

See also:

Searching in the database

Mask

Searching files

Searching selected files

List of free space

Window with the list of free space

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


List of free space
Searching in the database

List of free space

By the "Search -> List free space..." command you can create a list of all disks, each with information about total size and free size. Before creating the list you can select the sort order; the sort order can be set also later on by clicking on the column header in the window with the list.

See also:

Searching in the database

Mask

Searching files

Searching selected files

Window with found files

Window with the list of free space

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Window with a list of free space
Searching in the database

Window with a list of free space

is divided into 4 columns: Disk, Size, Free space, Free space in %. You can change the width of any column by dragging the vertical edge of the column header. The actual width of the column is then also used for printing.

If you double-click with mouse on a line, the DiskBase switches to the window with database and displays the corresponding disk there. The same action can be made by pressing the <Enter> key, which is applied to the current line. You can switch back to this window by using the "Window" menu or the corresponding button on the toolbar.

The lines in the list can be selected using the same method, as was described in the Current and selected items chapter. Selecting lines makes sense for copying to clipboard and printing. See Copying to Clipboard and Print chapters for details.

You can change the sort order of the lines by clicking on the header of any column; then the lines are sorted by the content of the column.

See also:

Searching in the database

Mask

Searching files

Searching selected files

Window with found files

List of free space

press [ << ] or [ >> ] browse buttons to go to the previous or next chapter


Information about disk, database

Disk information

dialog box can be displayed by the "Search -> Disk information..."

Disk:	Name, under the disk which it is stored in the database.

Volume label:	Volume label of the disk (physically stored on the disk).

Original path:	The drive letter assigned to the disk, when it was scanned, and the path in case a folder was scanned as disk.

Total folders:	Total number of folders on the disk. Folders inside archives are not counted.

Total files:	Total number of files on the disk. Files inside archives are not counted.

Total archives:	Total number of files, which were successfully recognized and scanned as archives.

Sum of physical file sizes:	Sum of sizes of all files found on the disk (not including files in archives).

Disk size:	Disk size as it is reported by operating system (in the 16-bit version an incorrect value of disk size and free space is sometimes reported by the OS for CD-ROMs).

Disk free size:	Disk free space as it is reported by operating system.

Total files in archives:	Total number of files in successfully scanned archives.

Total folders in archives:	Total number of folders in successfully scanned archives.

Sum of file sizes in archives:	Sum of sizes of all files in archives.

Total data size:	Calculated as Sum of physical file sizes + Sum of file sizes in archives - Sum of sizes of archive files. In other words the data size corresponds to an imaginary situation when you unpack all the archives to the disk and then delete all the archive files.

Last update:	The date and time when the disk was last scanned.

Database information

dialog box can be displayed by the "Search -> Database information..." command.

Database:	Name of the file with the database (without the QDR extension).

Size:	Current database size.

Total number of records:	Total number of disks stored in the database.

Number of deleted records:	Number of deleted disks in the database (recall that a disk is always deleted when you rescan it).

Compression recommended:	This value is derived from the ratio of deleted disks and total number of disks; however, you can do the compression even if it is not recommended. Compression just release the unused space and does not have any other significant influence to the database functionality.

Read-only:	Indicates whether the database is of Read-Only type.

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Program settings

The Program Settings dialog box can be displayed by the "Settings -> Program settings..." command. Here you can change settings that are related to the program itself, regardless of a database currently open. The dialog box has three cards:

Display

This card is concerned on settings how the contents of the three panels in the database window is displayed.

Show tree: if not checked, the panel with tree is hidden. Hiding the tree speeds up the program response when you change the current disk.

Show (tree) always expanded: if checked, all the tree branches are always displayed.

Sort files by: (name, extension, date and time, size) - sets the sort order of files in the panel with files. Folders are always put to the beginning of the list, however, this does not apply to archives, which otherwise look and behave like folders.

Display files:

Names only in columns: only names with extensions are displayed, the rest of the file information is available for the current file only in the bottom status bar of the window.

With details: you can check which columns are to be displayed (with size, with date and time, with description).

File size display:

in bytes: i.e. as long number

in kB, MB: i.e. for sizes under 1 MB the size is displayed in kBytes, over 1 MB is displayed in MBytes.

Show icons by folders: this applies to the panel with files; by hiding the icons you can save some space and make the display of the list faster.

Time with seconds: if not checked, only hours and minutes are displayed (this apply also for printing).

Use Windows date format: if checked, the short date format from Windows is used for displaying the date.

Calculate: 1 kB = 1024 bytes: If checked, then the following arithmetic for kilo- and mega- is used: 1 kB = 1024 bytes, 1 MB = 1024 kB. If not checked, then 1 kB = 1000 bytes, 1 MB = 1000 kB. This setting is used for all size values displayed in DiskBase.

Fonts

Fonts used in child windows and panels can be set on this card.

Print

Print font: here you can set the font used for all printouts.

Header text for print: If set, it is printed in the header of each printed page; if empty, DiskBase uses a default header (according to print type).

Page margins: Are counted from the edge, from which the printer is able to print (which need not be equal to real paper edges by some printers).

Other

Open database at startup: If you enter the database name here, the database is opened automatically at program startup. The name must be specified with full path and extension; best way how to do that without a mistake is to use the "Browse..." button.

Save settings automatically at program end: When checked, then the current settings are always stored to the initialization file, which is read at program startup. This requires the folder with the program be available with read-write access. Compare this option with the "Save" button functionality.

Each search to a new window: If checked, the recycling of windows with lists of files is not used, so when you make a search for files, the output of this search is made to a newly created window. This settings applies for the window with found files only (does not apply to the window with the list of free space, which is always recycled).

Make backup copy when compressing database: if checked, the original database is saved under the same name with extension modified to ".~QD" when making the compression of the database.

Use Windows language support for sorting: DiskBase normally uses Windows language services for comparing strings (when sorting and searching) and for upper- and lowercase conversion. In case these services do not function properly, DiskBase can fail to find a disk in the database. Typically the improper language driver function causes that DiskBase does not recognize the name of the disk as the same, when you change upper to lowercase or vice versa (for example "My Disk" and "my disk" should be considered as same in DiskBase; however, when the language driver is not working properly, DiskBase recognize such disks as two different disks). In this version you can switch off using Windows language support; DiskBase then uses simple algorithms, sufficient just for English language. But be careful: whenever you change this setting, be sure to compress all your databases (using File -> Compress database...).

Do not read volume names for "Scan disk" dialog box: Normally DiskBase always scans all disks for their names before the "Scan disk" dialog box is displayed, in order to update the list of available disks in the system and their names. This normally does not cause any problem, but in special cases (e.g. when using a CD-ROM changer) the reading of volume names can take pretty long time. When you uncheck this check box, the volume names will not be scanned and you will see just drive letters (A:, B:, C:, D: ...) in the "Scan Disk" dialog box.

Save sizes of the main window and panels:

By pressing this button the current window size of the program and state of the main and child windows (= normal, minimized or maximized) are saved to the INI file, belonging to the program. Also the widths of the panels in database window and the "Scan disk" dialog box size are saved. These values are then used at program startup.

Example: If you prefer to have DiskBase maximized over the whole screen at startup, maximize the main window, then display Program Settings dialog box and press this button.

Save button

By pressing this button all the settings from this dialog box are saved to the initialization file, which is placed in the same folder in which the program is placed. The file has the same name as the program, but the ".ini" extension. DiskBase is reading the settings stored in this file at its startup. The folder with the program has to have a read-write access enabled, otherwise the Save button will not function.

See also:

Database settings

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Database settings

The Database Settings dialog box can be displayed by the "Settings -> Database settings..." command. Here you can change settings that are related to the currently open database. The settings are stored to the database. The dialog box has two cards:

Descriptions

See also the Descriptions chapter for information about descriptions themselves.

Read descriptions: if not checked, no descriptions are read even if the rules for them are set.

To decide whether to read a part of file into its description the list of rules is used. The list has three items in each rule: Mask, Size limit and Filter. If the file name matches the mask, then its contents up to the size limit is read into the description, using the specified filter.

To add an item to the list you first have to enter proper values to the three fields on the left and then to press the "Add >>" button.

You can delete items in the list by pressing the <Del> key.

You can modify an item by moving it to the fields on left side by pressing the "Remove <<" button, modify it and then add it back to the list by pressing the "Add >>" button.

The order of rules is significant in the list; the comparison is made in direction from the first to the last rule until a matching rule is found.

Example: When you specify a rule with "readme.txt" mask after a rule with "*.txt" mask, the rule with the "readme.txt" mask can never be matched, because all the files with the ".txt" extension are catched by the "*.txt" rule. But if you specify them vice versa, then you can process "readme.txt" files with other rule than other ".txt" files.

You can move items in the list by dragging the left (gray) part of the line with a mouse.

Options

Warning before overwriting a disk in database: if checked then there is a warning displayed, if you try to scan a disk to the database and a disk of the same name in the database already exists. This setting is ignored when the program is run with command line options. See the Command line mode chapter for details.

Display deleted disks: If checked, the deleted disks are displayed at the end of the list in the left panel. The names of deleted disks are in square brackets. Even if displayed, the deleted disks are ignored when searching in the database. The main purpose of displaying the deleted disks is to enable the Undelete disk function.

Scan archives

- yes, without prompt: DiskBase will try to find out the contents of an archive file in case its name matches some of recognized archive types. See the Scanning archives chapter for details.

- yes, with prompt: before scanning the contents of the file a dialog box is displayed and you can decide whether to scan it or not.

- no

Scan self-extracting archives of ZIP type: the files with the exe extension are analyzed whether they contain compressed data in the ZIP format. The last 32 kB of the file is checked and if the central ZIP directory is found there, the contents of the archive is put to the database.

Most self-extracting files available in Internet today are in ZIP format.

Scan self-extracting archives of ZIP, ARJ and RAR types: the files with the exe extension are analyzed whether they contain compressed data in the ZIP, ARJ or RAR format. The first 64 kB of the file is analyzed (including the ZIP format, so non-standard ZIPs without the central directory can be detected here too).

Analyzing the contents of exe files adds some overhead time for disk scanning. This is the reason why scanning of self-extracting archives can be enabled/disabled independently.

Always rescan archives: If checked, then the contents of archives is always rescanned when the disk is scanned. If not checked and the disk is already in the database and the archive is unchanged, then the contents of the archive is copied from the previous disk image instead of scanning it again - this feature saves time (namely on slow media, like floppy disks).
Normally you should leave this check box unchecked; the option is available here only for the case you have a real reason to check it.

See also:

Program settings

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Copying to Clipboard

The following items can be copied to the Clipboard

--	selected disks in the panel with disks (in the window with database)

--	selected folders and files in the panel with files (in the window with database)

--	selected files in the list of found files

--	selected lines in the list of free space

When copying disks and folders, just the names are copied, not the contents.

In lists where multiple columns are displayed, their contents are separated by the Tab character. If you are then pasting the list into a word processor, it is easy to use the Tab characters for text formatting. Also most spreadsheet programs (like MS-Excel) can preserve columns when such text is pasted into them.

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Print

The "File -> Print..." command applies to the top window (and to the active panel).

Some print settings (header text, margins, fonts) can be found in the "Settings -> Program settings -> Print and other" card. Before sending data to the printer the standard Print dialog box is displayed, in which properties like printer, number of copies, paper orientation etc. can be set.

For some prints it is suitable to set the landscape orientation and use some narrow font in order to fit all the columns to the paper.

You can print either all items or selected items (the "Print selection" option in the dialog box).

Printing the list of found files

Note that the widths of columns in the window are used also for printing, so it is recommended to set the column widths first, according to your needs.

Printing the tree

The tree is printed in several columns in order to save paper. If you set "Print selection" option in the Print dialog box, only the current folder with its subfolders (a branch) is printed.

Printing a part of the database

If you select print from the left panel with disks, the most complex print is done: Each disk in the database can be printed with all the files it contains. Only the current disk or selected disks can be printed (this limitation is intentional, as printing the whole database could mean even thousands of pages). Before printing the dialog box for print options is displayed:

Print:
  -- this disk - current folder
  -- this disk - whole
  -- all the selected disks

DiskBase first calculates expected number of pages an in case the number is high, it displays a prompt whether you are sure to print them all. The sort order of files is determined by the setting in Settings -> Program settings -> Display.

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Database compression

With each change in the database the size of the database grows. For example, when you scan a disk to the database, the old disk of the same name in the database is not overwritten, but just marked as deleted (so it can be undeleted if needed), and the new one is stored physically at the end of the database, increasing the size of the database.

So it is important to remember to make a database compression from time to time. The compression copies the content of the database into a new one, skipping all the deleted items in the database, so the database then occupies less space on disk.

The compression can be executed by the "File -> Compress database..." command. Then you select the database which is to be compressed. The database must not be open if you want to compress it. The compression might be a lengthy process, it can take even a few minutes, depending on the database size and the speed of your computer.

By the "Settings -> Program settings -> Print and other -> Make backup copy..." option you can decide whether the original database is to be saved for backup purposes.

See also:

Exporting the database

Creation of read-only database

Importing the database

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Exporting database

The meaning of the export word here is creating a new database and copying the selected disks into it from the current database. The export can be executed by the "File -> Export..." command.

By using export you can easily split a database into several databases or you can move disks from one database to another by doing export to a temporary database and then import from the temporary database to the target database.

Export from the read-only database is not enabled.

See also:

Compressing the database

Creation of read-only database

Importing the database

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Creation of read-only database

works similarly as the export with the difference that the exported database is set to be read-only. This feature is enabled in the registered version of the program only.

The read-only database can be viewed by the unregistered version of DiskBase without any limitation, so the users need not to purchase a license of DiskBase if they want to use it just for viewing a database created by someone else. This can be useful for providing a disk search tool on CD-ROMs.

The database that is set to be read-only, can be opened on write protected media, while the normal DiskBase database always requires read-write access.

ATTENTION: There is no reverse conversion of read-only database back to normal database available. So always save the original database, from which you made the read-only one.

See also:

Compressing the database

Exporting the database

Importing the database

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Importing database

The meaning of the import word here is reading all disks from a database into the currently opened database. The import can be executed by the "File -> Import..." command.

If some of the imported disks has the name which already exists in the database, the name of the imported disk is modified by the tilda character (~) and a number in order to make the name unique.

See also:

Compressing the database

Exporting the database

Creation of read-only database

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Command line mode

DiskBase can be run with parameters on the command line. This feature can be used namely to force DiskBase to make some action (like scanning a disk) and possibly end itself after finishing the action.

Although the command line seems to be a DOS relic, it is available under Windows too. The most often usage is to create an icon for some action and set the command line by the icon. For example, you can prepare an icon for scanning a disk in drive A:.

In Windows 3.1x you can acquire the icon simply by copying the existing icon of the DiskBase program itself - by pressing the <Ctrl> key, holding it and dragging the icon with mouse to a new position. Then you can set the command line by the "File -> Properties".

In Windows 95 and NT 4 you can create an icon by creating a Shortcut (by clicking with the right mouse button on the icon of the DiskBase program). Then you select Properties of the shortcut (again by right mouse button) and in the Properties dialog box you set the command line.

Parameters

Let's start with examples first:

The command:

DISKBASE.EXE d:\qdata\floppies.qdr /s:a /a

means: start DiskBase, scan disk in A: drive and automatically exit the program after successfully doing so.

DISKBASE.EXE is the name of the file with the DiskBase program.

Its parameters are:

d:\qdata\floppies.qdr 	open database of this name

/s:a 	scan the A: disk

/a 	exit automatically the program after the action is done (if everything works O.K.).

Similarly the command:

DISKBASE.EXE d:\qdata\floppies.qdr /f:plan*.zip

means searching for files that matches the "plan*.zip".mask.

As can be seen from examples the parameters (with the exception of the database name) have the form: slash + letter (+ colon + text). The order of parameters is not significant.

The database name

is best to specify with the complete path. When the database name is specified, DiskBase opens it at startup.

The /f: parameter

is used for file search (find). After the colon the mask must be specified. There should be no spaces around the colon (:). If the searched text contains spaces, it must be surrounded by the "|" characters, otherwise the space will be considered as the end of the parameter.

Example: /f:|"ACME Logo*.cdr" Welcome*.doc|

The /s: parameter

is used for scanning a disk. The disk letter must be specified after the colon, without spaces. The colon after the disk letter is not to be written.

This parameter cannot be combined with the /f parameter.

The /a parameter

means automatic program exit after the action is done and everything went well. Can be used in conjunction with the /s parameter only.

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Technical data

The DiskBase program requirements for the hardware is determined mostly by the Windows 3.1x, 95 and NT operating systems. The computer should have an accelerated graphic adapter. The recommended minimal configuration is PC with i486 / 100 MHz or Pentium / 75 MHz, with VGA and IDE connected over a local bus.

16-bit version: MS-Windows 3.1x + min. 8 MB RAM

32-bit version: MS-Windows 95 + min. 16 MB RAM or MS-Windows NT 4.0 + min. 24 MB RAM.

Program limitations

There are the following limitations in the 5.0 version:

Maximum number of disks in one database (including deleted): 	10000

Maximum size of a description: 	32 kB

Maximum number of found items 	16000

These limitations are caused by 16-bit architecture in Windows 3.1x (and partly also in Windows 95) and may be removed in future 32-bit versions of DiskBase.

Program speed

Scanning a disk

The speed of scanning is dependent on the following factors:

--	if archives are scanned - the speed then depends on the type of archives

--	if descriptions are read from files - this means that each file name must be compared with a list of masks and also the filters can have different speed.

--	if the disk already exists in the database - in such case each file is looked up in the database first, to verify whether a description is to be copied..

And of course, the main factor is the speed of the media; a hard disk is usually substantially faster than a CD-ROM or a floppy disk.

Search in the database

Beside the disk and computer speed the search speed is also dependent on:

--	how complex is the search criteria (for example the more masks, the more comparisons the program must make)

--	if you are searching also in descriptions and how they are large.

Measured speed

The following are the results of measurements made on PC Pentium/75 MHz, with VGA card PCI ATI Xpression, HD Quantum Fireball 1024 MB, 24 MB RAM:

Scanning a fixed disk contents without scanning archives and descriptions and without the disk already being in the database:

16-bit version: 370 files/second

32-bit version: 450 files/second

Searching in the database using a simple mask, without search in descriptions:

16-bit version: 2600 files/second

32-bit version: 3100 files/second

Database size

The database has a header and an index table, together occupying approx. 64 kB. This is also the minimal database size, i.e. the size of an empty database.

The names and texts use one-byte encoding (no Unicode yet).

One file occupies [19 + length of the file name] bytes.

One folder occupies [39 + length of the folder name] bytes.

One description occupies [12 + length of its text] bytes.

The head of one disk occupies 1180 bytes.

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What is new in this version?
What is new in this version

(The following list is also contained in the Version.txt file).

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.09a

=============

A bug causing that the values for archives (number

of files, folders and total data size) in the "Disk

information" dialog box were not displayed

correctly after rescanning the disk. To get right

values, compress the database - the values are

recalculated during compression.

There was an incorrect explanation of the values

displayed in the status line (subtotals for current

folder) in DiskBase Help - corrected.

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.09

============

The information about the current folder

displayed in the status line was available only

for newly rescanned disks in the previous

version of the program. Now it is enough to

compress the database and the needed information

is recalculated, so it is displayed for

all the disks then - there is no more need to

rescan the disks just because of this matter.

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.08

============

DiskBase can now scan self-extracting archives

(exe files) of ZIP, ARJ and RAR types (extraction

of descriptions from archives is not supported yet,

but it is planned for the ZIP archives).

A folder can be now scanned and saved to the

database as a standalone disk.

A "rescan disk" command was added - this command

is useful namely when the disk that is to be

rescanned has a different name than is its volume

label.

The internal database structure was changed. You

may not notice this fact until you try to use

earlier DiskBase versions to open a database that

was created or opened by this version.

The window with database now displays in lower

left part (status line) information about the

number of folders, files and data size contained

in current folder. However, this information is

correct for the newly scanned disks only.

A bug causing that the read-only database could

not be freely opened by the unregistered version

of DiskBase was removed.

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.07

============

Printing: DiskBase did not sort files in folders

when the whole disks were printed. In this

version the sorting for this case was added to

the program; files are sorted according to the

criteria set in the Program Settings dialog box.

If the disk size was greater than 2 GB

(gigabytes), DiskBase did not show the size

properly. As the disk free space is also checked

when saving data to database, the database could

not be placed on disk which had more than 2 GB of

free space. These problems are removed in this

version.

You can now switch off the scanning of volume

names for the "Scan disk" dialog box (scanning of

volume names can take pretty long time when using

CD-ROM changer, for example). See Help for

detailed explanation.

The Scan Disk dialog box was redesigned; now it

is sizable, so if the names of the disks are too

long, you can easily enlarge it.

In some rare cases the Windows language driver

may not function properly. You can now switch off

using the Windows language driver by DiskBase.

See Help for detailed explanation.

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.06

============

A bug causing a loose of a disk description after

two rescans was removed.

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.05

============

Descriptions of disks are now available.

Maximum size of description is now set in bytes

(instead of kB) and the minimum value is now 100

bytes (originally it was 1 kB which was too

much).

In the Program Settings you can now select

arithmetic used for calculation of kB and MB from

bytes; 1 kB can be either 1024 bytes or 1000

bytes.

In the 32-bit version the language script for

fonts could not be set - only the default one was

used. This problem was corrected, so the proper

language script can be used.

The [Home] and [End] key functions in the file

display were corrected.

Problem with saving an empty description was

corrected.

In the previous version a disk could not be

renamed if the change was in the character case

only (for example from "my disk c:" to "My disk

C:"). This problem was corrected.

In some language versions of Windows (Hungarian

for example) the date was not properly displayed.

This problem was corrected and a possibility to

use the Windows system Short Date format was

added to Program Settings.

In the 32-bit version the folders with the Hidden

attribute set were not put to the database (for

example the folder with cache files of Internet

Explorer). Corrected.

Default folder for opening the database files is

now taken from the "Open database at startup"

specification (if set).

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.04

============

The widths of panels in the database window can

be saved to the configuration file, so they are

preserved when you run DiskBase next time. Small

changes in the Search dialog box were also done.

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.03

============

The registration process was greatly simplified.

See DiskBase help for details.

-------------------------------------------------

Version 5.02

============

This is the first English version of DiskBase.

You could not hear about earlier versions as till

version 4 the program was available in Czech

language only. The history of the program began

in 1991, when it was formed as a collection of

command-line utilities rather than standalone

program. The first commercially successful

version was version 4, released in 1994. The

version 5 is the first version for Windows and

was released in 1996 in Czech language and

translated to English version in 1997.

The program in the Czech version is called

QuickDir from the very beginning. However, before

doing the translation to English language we

found that a shareware of the same name already

exists (a DOS file manager), so we decided to use

the DiskBase name for the international versions

in order to avoid misunderstandings.

See also:

FAQ - frequently asked question

Known problems

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FAQ - Frequently asked questions

How can I delete a description?

By opening it and deleting all the text inside.

I have changed a description on disk, but after rescanning the disk the corresponding description in the database was not updated.

This happens (intentionally) when the description is manually modified in the database; then it is protected against being rewritten automatically. The solution is to delete the description, i.e. open it, delete its whole contents (with all lines and spaces). Then rescan the disk.

Is the registration dependent on my computer, i.e. will the registered program function, if I upgrade my computer?

The registration is not dependent on the computer and the program can be copied to another computer.

I have registered version of DiskBase and want to install an update. How can I register the update?

You need not register the update. If you install the update to the same folder, where the previous version was placed, the registration is preserved. If you install the update to a different folder, then you must copy the DiskBase.lic file from the previous version to the folder with the new version. DiskBase check existence of this file at its startup.

See also:

What is new in this version

Known problems

What to do in case of other troubles with the program

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Known problems

Program cannot be run

When I try to run the program, I get the following error: Exception EReadError in module ... Error reading PrintDialog.Copies. There is no default printer currently selected.

Solution: This error happens only in case you have no printer installed in Windows or no default printer is selected. To remove the problem, install any common printer driver into Windows (you can do that even if there is no printer connected to your computer) or set one of existing installed printer drivers as the default one.

See also:

FAQ - frequently asked question

What to do in case of other troubles with the program

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What to do in case of troubles with the program

A special care was taken about the database immunity against errors caused by undiscovered bugs in the program (however, making a backup of database regularly should not be underestimated).

If you discover a bug in the program, first try to download the latest version of the program and verify if the bug is still there. It may be that somebody already discovered this bug, notified us about it and we corrected it. Also check if the bug is not described in the list of Known problems (that cannot be removed).

If you do not find it there, then please try to describe as exactly as possible the steps leading to the problem occurrence, best from the program startup. Specify also the environment (hardware, operating system, concurrently running software). Then send the description to our address; see Contact Info for our address.

If the bug is connected with one specific file or database, it may help us significantly if you send us the file or database (of course if you do not have secret data there).

We will try to fix the bug as quickly as possible and publish the updated version of the program on our Web pages, from which you can then download it.

Note that some bugs may be connected with specific environment conditions (or even caused by the environment) and we also might not be able to repeat the problem on another computer; so we cannot guarantee that we will be able to repair every bug, but we will try to do the best to do so.

See also:

FAQ - frequently asked question

Known problems

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List of recognized types of archive files

DiskBase is able to recognize the following types of archives:

The ZIP format

ZIP is one of the most popular formats and is created by a number of programs. Unfortunately not all of them are using exactly the same data format, which can potentially cause problems.

ZIP files usually have a central directory of stored files at the end of file, which enables fast reading of the archive contents. If it is not so, the whole file must be read sequentially, which is slower.

Programs creating the ZIP format are namely:

--	PKZIP by PkWare, can be found at http://www.pkware.com

--	WINZIP, can be found at http://www.winzip.com

Tested with versions: 	PKZIP for DOS 1.02, 1.1, 2.04g, PKZIP for Windows 2.50, WINZIP 6.2, Norton Commander 4.0.

The ARJ format

Fomat used by ARJ, another popular archiver program. The author of the program is Robert A. Jung and the program can be downloaded from http://www.websoftware.com/arj.htm

There is no central directory in this file format, so the file must be read sequentially. DiskBase supports also reading the contents of archives splitted by ARJ to several files (with the .A01, .A02,... extension).

Tested with versions:	ARJ 2.0, 2.41, 2.50, 2.55

The RAR format

is created by RAR, an archiver program which became popular in recent years. The author of the program is Eugen Roshal and the program can be downloaded from http://www.ivsoft.com/ivcs/RAR.HTM

There is no central directory in this file format, so the file must be read sequentially.

Tested with versions: 	RAR 2.0, WINRAR 2.0

The LZH format

is created by LHARC and LHA programs, author of which is Haruyasu Yoshizaki.

There is no central directory in this file format, so the file must be read sequentially.

Tested with versions: 	LHARC 1.13c, LHA 2.10.

The ARC format

is created by an older archiver program PKARC (by PKWare).

There is no central directory in this file format, so the file must be read sequentially.

Tested with versions: 	PKARC 3.6, PKPAK 3.61.

Backup (Microsoft)

Archaic backup program, which was a part of older versions of MS-DOS. The central directory is stored in a separate file CONTROL.nnn, so reading its contents is fast..

Tested with versions: 	BACKUP in MS-DOS 3.30, 4.01, 5.0, 6.0.

Microsoft Backup (DOS version)

is in fact the Norton Backup, included in MS-DOS version 6.x. See Norton Backup.

Tested with versions: 	MS-BACKUP in MS-DOS 6.0 and 6.2.

Note: Microsoft Backup which is a part of Windows 95 is not yet supported, as there is no information about the format available.

Norton Backup 1.2 for DOS

is a backup program created by Symantec. DiskBase is able to read files created by version 1.2 only.

The central directory is stored at the beginning of the file with name xxnnnnnx.nnn (for example: DD40215A.001), which enables fast reading of the backup contents.

Tested with versions: 	NBACKUP 1.2.

PC-Tools Backup

An older backup program created by Central Point Software as a part of formerly popular PC Tools package. The central directory is stored in the PCBACKUP.DIR file, so reading the contents is fast. When you make a large backup split to several floppy disks, the central directory is stored to the last disk of the series, so in DiskBase all the backed up files will appear to be on this last disk.

Tested with versions: 	PCBACKUP 5.5.

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Creation of conversion filters

This chapter is intended for programmers, who want to create their own conversion filters.

The conversion filter is a DLL with a simple interface. Instead of the ".DLL" extension, the ".Q16" (for 16-bit version) and ".Q32" (for 32-bit version) are used. The reason for it is automatic recognition of available filters by DiskBase at startup: if you create a new filter, it is enough just to place it in the folder with the program and DiskBase will show it in the list of available filters (after restarting the program).

You cannot mix 16-bit DLL and 32-bit version of DiskBase and vice versa; 16-bit DLLs must be created for 16-bit version of the program, 32-bit DLLs must be created for 32-bit version of the program.

The DLL interface consists of three functions.

In C++ their declaration looks like this:

long OpenTransfer (char* pszFileName, long& Handle);

long GetOneBlock  (long Handle, char* Buf, long BufSize, long& CharsRead);

long CloseTransfer(long Handle);

In Pascal it would look like this:

function OpenTransfer (FileName: PChar; var Handle: longint): longint;

function GetOneBlock  (Handle: longint; Buf: PChar; BufSize: longint; var CharsRead: longint): longint;

function CloseTransfer(Handle: longint): longint;

The OpenTransfer function is used to open the file. FileName is a zero terminated string with the name of the file (full path is required). The function must return a handle to the open file in the Handle parameter and itself must return 0 in case the opening of the file was successful. The handle is then used when calling the other two functions to identify the file. The DLL should be able to open multiple files at one time and should be reentrant. Although such features are not used in the current version, multithreading can be introduced to file scanning in the future 32-bit versions of DiskBase.

The CloseTransfer function closes the file. If closing was successful, the function must return 0 value.

The GetOneBlock function is used to read the text. Its task is to insert into the Buf array converted text of maximum length equal to BufSize. The function must return the actual length of the text in the CharsRead parameter; this length can be shorter than BufSize. The GetOneBlock function is called repeatedly, until the requested size of the text is transferred. When the function returns zero length in the CharsRead parameter, it is considered as the end of the file and the reading is closed. The function itself must return 0 if everything is processed O.K., and non zero value, when an error is encountered. The Buf array is never larger than 64 kB.

Notes:

--	The functions must be exported with the Pascal calling convention (not Cdecl).

--	If the compiler used for DLL creation supports using exceptions, all the exceptions must be catched inside the DLL, i.e. there must not be uncatched exception left in the stack.

--	DiskBase does not display any error message when the file cannot be read; it simply skips it. The same behavior is expected from the DLL: no dialog boxes should stop the program.

--	When using C++, remember to export functions as extern "C" { ... }, so mangling of names is avoided.

--	Be careful to open the file in the right sharing mode in order to avoid sharing conflicts with other programs.

--	A line break must be represented by CR-LF i.e. 0xD-0xA (13-10).

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Registration

Fill in the DiskBase Registration Form after you receive the license number from us.

DiskBase 5 is distributed as shareware (see the What is Shareware? chapter for detailed explanation of the shareware concept), i.e. you got an unregistered version free of charge (if you paid someone for it, you paid just for copying it or for media, but not for the program itself). The unregistered version is fully functional, but it is legal to use it for a one-month evaluation period only, see the Trial Use License chapter.

If you find the program useful, you should register yourself as a user, so you can use the program legally after the evaluation period. The registration is paid: the price for one license is $29 and there are significant discounts for multiple licenses  (see the Price List chapter for details).

After you make payment for the license to use the program, you will receive the license number and information how to fill in the DiskBase Registration Form. Filling in the form will convert the unregistered version into the registered version, without necessity to reinstall anything.

It is recommended to use a registration service for payment. See information about the registration service below.

Please, try the program first

Before registering yourself, try to work with DiskBase for some time. When you are registering the program, we suppose that you are already familiar with it and you know, what you can expect from it and what not. Thus, we do not provide any money-back guarantee. However, we would like to avoid any conflicts with unsatisfied customers.

You should also know the following before you register:

Where to get the latest version of the program?

What is the difference between the registered and unregistered version?

What I get when I register?

The license is valid also for future versions

Technical Support

Making payment

There are several possibilities how to pay:

--	Using a registration service. Using the registration service is highly recommended namely in case you want to purchase one license only and if you want to make the registration process as fast as possible. See Payment using a registration service for details.

--	Sending a check or cash directly to us. See Payment by sending a check or cash for details.

--	Making a SWIFT or wire money transfer to our account. This is the most expensive way how to make the payment. See Payment by SWIFT or wire money transfer for details.

Important: In any case we need your name (or company name), postal address and if applicable also your e-mail address or fax number. Be sure you specify it correctly; this applies namely for your e-mail address. If you make a typing error in your e-mail address, you will not receive your registration and we may not be notified about that.

Registration Form

After we receive your payment or confirmation about if from the registration service, we will send you the license number and instructions how to fill in the Registration Form in DiskBase. If you have an e-mail address, we will send it to you by e-mail, if not then we will send it by fax. If you do not have either e-mail or fax, we will send it by snail mail, which can take pretty long time to deliver.

To open the Registration Form select "Help -> Registration..." command from the menu.

The registered version shows your name and address in the "About" dialog box. If you order multiple licenses, you still receive a single license number, but the number of licenses is then shown in the "About" dialog box. You should know where is the registration stored in order to make a backup of it and use it for DiskBase updates.

Note: Together with the license number you will receive also an information, how to fill in the other fields in the Registration Form. You must fill it exactly as you receive it. The license number is calculated as a checksum of other fields, so any difference would cause the license number not be valid. To avoid problems with non-English alphabets, only English letters can be used in the Registration Form (no accents, diacritics, umlauts etc.). If you find a typing error in your data you receive from us, please contact us; we will correct it and send it to you with a recalculated license number.

Using Clipboard: If you receive the license number from us by e-mail, select the whole e-mail text and copy it to Clipboard. Then you can paste your data to DiskBase Registration Form by clicking on "Paste from Clipboard" button, instead of filling it manually.

Acknowledgment

By registering yourself you acknowledge that you have read the Software License Agreement and Limited Warranty, understand it, and agree to be bound by its terms and conditions.

See also: Contact Info.

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Where to get the latest version of the program?

We have a WWW site on Internet which is the only genuine home page for DiskBase, see Contact Info for the WWW address. You can easily download the latest version of the program from there. We recommend to do so if you want to be sure that the program was not modified by someone putting a virus or Trojan inside.

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What is the difference between the registered and unregistered version?

There are two differences only:

--	The unregistered version displays a dialog box, reminding that you are working with an unregistered version. This dialog box is displayed once at the program startup. If you open some database that is older than one month (= evaluation period), the dialog box appears also from time to time during the program execution. You must confirm the dialog box in order to continue working with the program. The registered version does not display this dialog box, of course.

--	There is a possibility to create read-only versions of databases with DiskBase. The read-only database cannot be modified; the user can just explore its content. When you open the read-only database with an unregistered version of DiskBase, the reminder dialog box is not displayed and the DiskBase Trial Use License enables to use DiskBase with read-only databases free of charge (see the Trial Use License chapter). This feature enables you to distribute databases created by DiskBase without necessity to force the users to buy DiskBase. The read-only database can be created by the registered version of DiskBase only - this feature can be considered as a bonus for registered users.

There are no other differences between the registered and unregistered version of the program; in fact the registration itself is a just pure software procedure and there is no need to reinstall DiskBase in order to have a registered version.

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What I get when I register?

You will get the license number . This license number converts your unregistered version into the registered one.

You will NOT get any printed manual - the program is so simple to use that printing a manual would be just a waste of paper. This help file contains all the information about the program.

You will NOT get any floppy disk. The program in its latest version can always be easily downloaded from our WWW site - see Contact Info.

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The license is valid also for future versions

When you receive the license number, it is valid not only for the current version of DiskBase, but also for:

--	all program updates, i.e. all subversions (with any number after the decimal point).
Example: The license for the version 5.0 is valid for all subversions till 5.99.

--	all new versions, that are released within one year period from the registration.
Example: You register version 5.4 in January and the same year in December the version 6.0 is released. As the one-year period is not over in December, you can still use the license for this new version of the program.

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Where is the registration stored?

The registered version of the program is able to display who is the owner of the license to use the program in the "About" dialog box. You, as the future owner of the license, enter this information about you in the Registration Form. However, this information is not displayed in the program until it is validated by a license number you receive from us. When it is validated, the program converts itself from unregistered to registered version (and stops displaying the dialog box notifying about the unregistered version).

Physically the registration data are stored in the DiskBase.LIC file, which is placed in the same folder as is the DiskBase.EXE file of the program. DiskBase reads this file at startup and if valid license is found in it, it starts as a registered version. So this file is a key file for your registration; if it is accidentally deleted or corrupted, your licence is lost. After registering yourself DiskBase will recommend you to make a backup copy of this file and you really should not ignore this recommendation.

Having the registration stored in a separate file rather than in the program itself has an advantage: You can download a new version of DiskBase and if you put this DiskBase.LIC file to the folder with this new version, the program is then started as registered one. In reality, you will usually do this vice versa - leave the registration file in a folder to which you install the new version of DiskBase, overwriting the previous one.

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Payment using a registration service

is usually the easiest way how to make payment. The software registration service is an independent company, that provides easy and fast payment methods; it usually accepts a wide range of kinds of payments, including credit cards, checks, bank money transfers etc., with advantages like secure HTTP protocol (when you send information about your credit card) or 0800-phones.

The registration process might be very fast, if you have an e-mail address and use the registration service for payment: As soon as we receive the notification from the registration service that you paid for the license (by a credit card, for example), we send the license number to you by e-mail. The whole process can take from just a few hours to no more than 48 hours, no matter on which place on the Earth you are.

Important notes:

--	The registration service is a company focused on selling licenses; do not contact it when you want to get anything else than to order a program license; if you ask for any information about this program or for technical support, you will get just this Contact Info.

--	If you do not receive the license in time or the license number is not working, do not contact the registration service, but contact directly us; the registration service will not help you with this problem.

You can select from two registration services: PsL (USA) and ShareIt (Germany).

Public Software Library (PsL), Houston, TX, U.S.A.

DiskBase number in PsL is 15394. Please refer to this product number when ordering by fax, mail, or email.

On-line order: 	Fill in the form found at http://www.pslweb.com - Program #15394

E-mail order: 	Fill in the form below and send it to 15394@pslweb.com

Phone (for orders only!):	800-242-4775 Extension:15394
713-524-6394 Extension:15394

Fax order: 	713-524-6398 When ordering by fax, PLEASE type or print VERY plainly.

Registration form for DiskBase

Program No.: 	15394

Last name: 	______________________________________

First name: 	______________________________________

Company: 	______________________________________

Street and #: 	______________________________________

City, State, postal code: ________________________________

Country: 	______________________________________

Phone: 	______________________________________

Fax: 	______________________________________

E-Mail: 	______________________________________

Credit card information (if applicable)

Credit card type:

Card holder:	___________________________________

Card No.:	__________________________________

Date of Expiration: 	___________________________________

Date / Signature: 	___________________________________

ShareIt!, Reimold&Schumann Internet Services, Köln, Germany.

Registration fee for one license: $ 29

If you would like to register DiskBase, you can do the registration online on the Internet at

http://www.shareit.com/programs/100513.htm

Alternatively, you can go to http://www.shareit.com and enter the program number there: 100513.

If you do not have access to the Internet, you can register via phone, fax or postal mail. Please print out the following form, and fax or mail it to:

ShareIt! - Reimold & Schumann Internet Services GbR
Habsburgerring 3
50674 Koeln
Germany

Phone: 	+49-221-2407279, ext. 100513
Fax: 	+49-221-2407278
E-Mail:	register@shareit.com

If you are located in the USA, you can also pay by sending a check or cash to the following address:

ShareIt! Inc.
P.O. Box. 97841
Pittsburgh, PA 15227-0241
(Please send only checks drawn by US-American banks to this address.)

Registration form for DiskBase

Program No.: 	100513

Last name: 	______________________________________

First name: 	______________________________________

Company: 	______________________________________

Street and #: 	______________________________________

City, State, postal code: ________________________________

Country: 	______________________________________

Phone: 	______________________________________

Fax: 	______________________________________

E-Mail: 	______________________________________

How would like to receive the registration key/full version?

- e-mail
- fax
- postal mail

How would you like to pay the registration fee of $ 29:

- credit card
- wire transfer
- EuroCheque
- cash

Credit card information (if applicable)

Credit card:	Visa - Eurocard/Mastercard - American Express - Diners Club

Card holder:	___________________________________

Card No.:	__________________________________

Date of Expiration: 	___________________________________

Date / Signature: 	___________________________________

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Payment by sending a check or cash

Sending a check

This way of payment requires more work on both sides and generally it is time consuming procedure: it takes some time to the snail mail to deliver the check to us, then it may take some time to verify your check, so the total time to get your license can be counted in weeks rather than in days. However, if you cannot use a registration service for some reason, sending a check is pretty safe and universal way of payment.

As recipient the author of DiskBase must be filled in: the author's name is Zdenek Martinek and his address is in Contact Info.

Sending a cash

You can also send a cash in some easily exchangeable currency - it is less work either for you and for us; however, keep on mind, that it is your own risk to send cash by postal mail. Even if you use a registered mail for this purpose, there is no guarantee, that we will not receive an empty envelope. Our experience is that sending a cash by mail works well, but one never knows...

If you send a cash, you can lower the license fee down to $25 (or equivalent in another currency) in order to reduce the number of banknotes. See our address in Contact Info.

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Payment by SWIFT or wire money transfer

is very safe, but usually very expensive way, how to transfer money. All the expenses connected with it must be paid by you (it can be even more than $20); otherwise we will send you a notification how much money is missing from your payment and expect another payment from you.

Due to this high cost we expect that this kind of payment will not be used for single licenses. In case you are going to order a multilicense, site license or unlimited license and pay by money transfer, please contact us first, we will send you and invoice with our account number.

See our address in Contact Info.

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What is Shareware?

Shareware is a marketing technique that allows computer users to try a software program before buying it.  This allows you, the user, a chance to make sure a program runs well on your computer and meets your specific needs ... before paying for it.

Just as retail software has its distribution points, usually in computer stores, shareware has its distribution points as well. You can obtain shareware programs from the Internet, BBS's, disk vendors, AOL, CompuServe, Genie, Prodigy, and a wide variety of other sources, making shareware easily accessible to everyone.

Please understand that the people who write shareware programs work very hard. If you try a shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to purchase it. You'll find the details for buying the program in the documentation that comes with the program. By purchasing the program, you help the program author continue to improve his or her program, and you reward that individual for a job well done.

Remember that copyright laws apply to shareware software just as they do to retail software. You may not copy the shareware program except as allowed in the program's license.

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Trial Use License

DiskBase is not freeware and it is not in the public domain. It is sold through the shareware market. As such, you may evaluate the program for a period of one month free of charge. If after that time you decide to continue using DiskBase, you must purchase it (i.e. register it).

The only exception is using the unregistered version of DiskBase for viewing the contents of read-only DiskBase databases, created by a third party. Such use is legal without any time limitation and any requirement to purchase it.

DiskBase and its accompanying documentation are protected by the Copyright law and also by international treaty provisions. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this package, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties.

You may not use, copy, rent, lease, sell, modify, decompile, disassemble, otherwise reverse engineer, or transfer the licensed program except as provided in this agreement.  Any such unauthorized use shall result in immediate and automatic termination of this license.  All rights not expressly granted here are reserved to Zdenek Martinek, the author of the program.

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Software License Agreement

This legal document is an agreement between you, the Licensee, and Zdenek Martinek, the Licensor. The subject of the agreement is the Licensor's software program named DiskBase, herein called the Software.

By registering, you agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. In order to protect the Licensor's rights, the Licensor does not sell any rights to the Software. Rather the Licensor grants the Right to Use the software by means of a software license, which is the subject of purchase by the Licensee.

1. Grant of a License

In consideration of payment of the license fee (part of the price you paid for your registration), and your agreement to abide by the terms and conditions of this License and the Limited Warranty, the Licensor grants you, the Licensee, a non-exclusive right to use this copy of the Software on the number of computers (i.e. CPU's) specified in the registration so long as you comply with the  terms of this License.

2. Ownership of Software

As the Licensee, you own the physical media on which the Software is originally or subsequently recorded, but an express condition of this License is that the Licensor retains title and ownership of the Software recorded on the original disk(s) and all subsequent copies of the Software, regardless of the form or media in or on which the original and other copies may exist. This License is not a sale of the original Software or any copy.

3. Copying Restrictions

The Software and the accompanying written materials are the subject of copyright. Unauthorized copying of the software, including the Software that has been modified, or of the written materials is expressly forbidden. You may be held legally responsible for any copyright infringement which has been encouraged or caused by the failure to abide by the terms of this License.

See the Distribution Licence for conditions for authorized copying of the Software.

4. Use Restrictions

As the Licensee, you may physically transfer the Software from one computer to another provided that the Software is used on only the number of computers specified in the heading of this License at any one time.

5. Other Limitations

Limitations on Reverse Engineering, Decompilation, and Disassembly. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation.

Separation of Components. The Software is licensed as a single product. Its component parts may not be separated for use on more than one computer.

Rental or Lease. You may not rent or lease the Software.

Software Transfer. You may not transfer your rights under this Licence to another person or subject.

6. Termination

Without prejudice to any other rights, the Licensor may terminate this License if you fail to comply with the terms and conditions of this License. In such event, you must destroy all copies of the the Software and all of its component parts.

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Limited Warranty

This software is provided on an "as is" basis. The author of the software disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including but not limited to any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Neither the author nor anyone else who has been involved in the creation, production, or delivery of this software shall be liable for any indirect, consequential, or incidental damages arising out of the use or inability to use such software, even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages or claims.  The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.

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Distribution License

The distribution requirements are the following:

--	Only unregistered version of DiskBase (herein called the Software) can be distributed. It is expressly forbidden to distribute any registered or cracked version of the Software.

--	Only complete and unmodified package of the Software can be distributed. Neither the distributor nor anybody else is permitted to make any extraction, modification and repacking of the package contents, created by the author of DiskBase. The only permitted modification is adding a short zip comment about the distributor to the zip file.

--	If the user pays for the Software, he/she must be clearly informed, that the payment is just for distribution, not for any right to use the Software.

Any distribution satisfying all the distribution requirements expressed above is hereby authorized. No explicit permission from the author needs to be acquired in order to make authorized distribution of the Software.

However, any other copying or distribution is unauthorized and as such is expressly forbidden. You may be held legally responsible for any copyright infringement which has been encouraged or caused by the failure to abide by the terms of this License.

All rights not expressly granted here are reserved to Zdenek Martinek, the author of the Software.

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Technical Support

For the period of 3 months a free technical support is provided, beginning with the date of successful completion of the registration process.

The support is provided off-line, by means of e-mail only. You may also use our answering machine or a regular mail to send a request for support; however, if you do not supply your e-mail address to which the author can send the answer, you will get the answer by regular mail (which can take pretty long time period).

See the Contact Info chapter for our address.

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Price List

The price depends on the number of licenses you order; for multiple licenses significant discounts from the price are offered:

Number of licenses	Price for one license

1	$ 29

2	$ 23

3-4	$ 19

5 and more	$ 15

Site license	$ 199

Site license: is valid for an unlimited number of computers owned by one person or organization. The distance between any two of the computers must be lower than 1 km.

There is also an unlimited license available; contact us for details.

Note: If you send check directly to us, you can also pay in another common currency; in such case recalculate the price using the current exchange ratio.

See also:

Registration

What is Shareware?

Trial Use License

Software License Agreement

Limited Warranty

Distribution License

Technical Support

Contact Info

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Contact Info

The author of the DiskBase program is Zdenek Martinek.

The home server for the DiskBase program is at

http://www.learsy.top.cz

You will find the latest information about the program there as well as a possibility to download its latest version.

If you want to contact us, please prefer e-mail. If you are a registered user and need technical support, please read also the Technical Support chapter.

E-mail:	learsy@top.cz

Snail mail:	Zdenek Martinek
Masarykova 4
312 19 Plzen
Czech Republic

Answering machine:	+420 - 19 - 638 35

Phone:	+420 - 609 - 46 34 30. Please use the phone in necessary case only. Prefer the GMT time 17.00-21.00, which is for example the local time:
  18.00-22.00 in Czech Republic (and most of Europe)
  20.00-24.00 in Kuwait, Moscow,
  01.00-05.00 in Singapore, Honk Kong,
  02.00-06.00 in Tokyo, Seoul,
  03.00-07.00 in Sydney
  09.00-13.00 in U.S. & Canada Pacific Time
  11.00-15.00 in U.S. & Canada Central Time
  12.00-16.00 in U.S. & Canada Eastern Time

This is the end of DiskBase User's Guide

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Installation of DiskBase is complete

Thank you for installing DiskBase on your computer.

Please note that this program is distributed as a shareware and you may use it for a one-month evaluation period only. If you find it useful and want to continue using it after that period, you must purchase it.

See the following topics for details:

What is new in this version?

What is Shareware?

Trial Use License

Limited Warranty

Registration

Distribution License

Contact Info

By using this program you acknowledge that you have read the Trial Use License and Limited Warranty, understand them, and agree to be bound by their terms and conditions.