Mr Pointy v1.12 (released 08/12/94) ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ Program and related files are (c) 1994 BlobbySoft. This is a not-so-little shell for network points. It works on all machines in all screen modes. The dialogue/window manager is based on FLDLIB by Martin Maisey, and takes advantages of the excellent WiNX if installed. How do I use the damn thing? ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ In the main menu dialogue there are eight buttons for pre-defined programs and nine for user-defined utilities. Shift-click on a program's button or menu-entry to configure that program. In the configuration dialogues, you can double-click on most text fields to bring up a file selector. If a program's extension is T?? then the program will be executed as a TOS program, otherwise it will be executed as a GEM program. The enviroment variable TOSRUN is ignored. In general, the close-box on a dialogue means 'cancel'. There are a few exceptions to this (eg: the file request dialogue.) Control-U can always be used to close a window, and Control-W can be used to cycle the windows if you have AES 3.30 or greater. To use the file request system you must first specify your primary outbound folder and zone number in the set-up dialogue. The file request system is simple to use. To load an old file request, type in the address and click on the little 'L' button. Selecting the 'Cancel' button will erase the fields and close the dialogue. Clicking on the close box closes the dialogue, leaving the fields intact. In dialogue boxes with no close-box, you must exit the dialogue by clicking on the "Done" button, and there is no way of cancelling the changes you made. Text files ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ You can load up to twelve text files into memory. Files packed with Pack Ice v2.4 are supported. When choosing which file to load, you can use wildcards, allowing multiple files to be loaded. The filenames of loaded text files appear in the 'Textfile' menu and selecting a name opens a window containing that text file. To remove a text file from memory, click on its menu entry or its window close-box while holding the Control key. The cursor keys can be used to scroll the text file one line/column at at time, and by holding shift you can scroll the file in page-size steps. Control-Up moves the window to the top of the file, Control-Down moves it to the bottom. You can select a line in a text file window. When a line is selected, it may be added to the current file request by selecting 'FREQ selection' from the 'Textfile' menu, or (when the text file window is the top window) pressing Return. To deselect a line, click on it a second time. There is also a faster way to FREQ a line from a text file -- Just double click on it. :] You can search for strings inside the text file. When a string is found, the line that it is on becomes the 'selected' line. You may choose between case-sensitive and case-insensitive searches. Nodelist dearchiver ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ Once set up, the nodelist dearchiver system lets you unpack all your new nodelists with a few mouseclicks. You need to set up entries in the "Archiver configuration" dialogue for each archiver used to depack nodelists. You must specify: 1. A name for the archiver (which you will use to refer to it later.) 2. The full pathname. (Path and filename.) 3. The command line that will be passed to it. The command line can (and should) contain the special strings %% and &&. Where %% is used, the name of the archive being depacked will be inserted. Where && is used, the destination path for depacked files (the path of your nodelist folder) will be inserted. Some example archiver configurations: Name Pathname Parameter Zipper C:\UTIL\ZIPJR.TTP -x %% && *.* LHA C:\UTIL\LHARC.TTP x %% && *.* m Arc v6 C:\UTIL\ARC.TTP x %% &&*.* Note that Zip requires you to seperate the destination path (&&) from the file specification. (*.*) When you have set up your archivers, you can go on to set up your nodelists. For each nodelist you must specify a name (for your own purposes), an archive file specification, and the archiver used to depack the nodelists. Unlike the archiver configuration, the number of nodelists is not fixed, hence you must use the "Add" and "Delete" buttons to change the number of nodelists. Some example nodelist configurations: Name Filespec Archiver Fidonet R25 REGION25.A?? Arc v6 Nest NESTLIST.Z* Zipper Turbonet TNETLIST.Z* Zipper When you have set everything up, make sure you save your configuration. Clicking on "Scan inbound" will now depack all the inbound nodelists, and may also delete the nodelist archive afterwards if you have selected that option in the general configuration dialogue. Afterwards, Mr Pointy will activate the nodelist deleter (to remove any unwanted nodelists) and finally it will execute your nodelist compiler if there were any new nodelists depacked. Nodelist deleter ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ Once this is configured you can select "Scan nodelists" and all out-of-date nodelists in the nodelist folder will be deleted. In the nodelist deleter configuration (not to be confused with the system discussed in the previous section) you can set up varius nodelists. For each one you must enter the filename, substituting %% for the three-digit issue-number given to all fidonet-compatible nodelists. For example, if the NeST nodelists you receive are called NESTLIST.053, NESTLIST.060, NESTLIST.067, etc, you should enter NESTLIST.%% as the filename. When you click on Scan nodelists, the Mr Pointy will search for nodelists with higher issue-numbers than others of the same type. It will then delete the older nodelist. If you have turned on the "Query before deleting nodelists" option in the General configuration dialogue, the program will ask before deleting the nodelist files. Mr Pointy will always make an educated guess to decide which of two nodelists is the older. When it cannot be certain if a nodelist is old or new, it will force you to decide by way of the alert box query. There will be an extra button on this alert labelled 'Swap' which switches the two files around, allowing you to delete one or the other. Notes ÿÿÿÿÿ This program is BlobbyWare. You are free to use the program on the condition that you will send me a netmail and say what improvements you'd like to see in the program. If you can't think of any changes you would like, just say hello! If you like the program, tell me, and if you don't like it, give me some reasons and maybe I can improve Mr Pointy to match your requirements. :] Bug reports are also welcome, be sure to tell me your AES version. Thanks to the following people who have helped with Mr Pointy. (Some without realising it! :}) Martin Maisey, Kevin Osborne, Robert Darling, Colin Huxted, Evan Langlois, Mark Baines. Netmail addresses: 90:104/100.3@nest.ftn 51:504/1.3@atarinet.ftn 100:1012/0.1@turbonet.ftn 2:254/80.42@fidonet.org Future improvements ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ Mini desktop: You'll be able to drag names of a commonly-used files onto names of commonly used programs, and Mr Pointy will execute the program with the file as a parameter. You set up AREAS.BBS, BINKLEY.CFG, IOSMAIL.CFG, BINKLEY.LOG, filelists, etc as your commonly-used datafiles and a text editor and text viewer as your often-used programs. Management of AREAS.BBS. Automatic areafixing in/out of areas. :] Send me your ideas! Known problems ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ Searching text files is a little slow. I'll be adding an assembler search routine later. Scrolling the window using the cursor keys results in some problems with the fast-scroll mode. Scrolling works fine with the mouse so I won't bother fixing this problem for the moment. Minor problem in the nodelist dearchiver configuration dialogue... You won't notice it... I hope :] Programers! ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ My GFA Basic window manager is available on request. It is powerful, flexible, and is certainly not for the beginner. Once you've started using it in a project, adding new forms and features is VERY easy! There is no documentation, but the source to Mr Pointy will be provided. Ask for more info if you're interested. Version History ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ 1.10 First fully-GEMed version 1.11 Fixed redraw problems, fixed double-click file request problems, added help screen, added "Run other" option. Windows now scroll nicely if when they are completely visible. Improved text viewer. Foreign ASCII formats and tabs are now fully supported. You can now set the tab size in the font selector window, and you can also set a default tab size. Mr Pointy should still work well in 40-column modes. 1.12 Added two completely new systems, the nodelist dearchiver and the nodelist deleter. I was getting pissed off with the number of nodelists I have to depack manually and this is the solution. Change to main dialogue -- Program 'Scan' has now been replaced with 'NL Compiler', short for 'Nodelist Compiler'. This program is automatically executed after the user selects 'Scan inbound'. You can specify the filespec of textfile(s) to load on Mr Pointy's command line. They/It will load automatically. Mr Pointy makes a handy text viewer. :}