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                             Falcon Shell 1.0
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You should now have the following files:

                FSHELL.TXT - This file
                FSHELL.BAT - The program itself
                SNIFFIT.COM - Utility for reading keystrokes

After going back and forth between Falcon 3.0, Falconer, and DOS (to either
manualy backup my squadron files or restore the ones that Falcon trashed!) I
got a little tired of it and decided to write this shell to make things easier.
What I wanted to be able to do was start the shell and by pressing *one* key
either start Falcon, start the Falconer editor, backup or restore one squadron,
or backup or restore all squadrons. I also wanted to use only *one* batch file
rather than a kludge of several (I hate having a zillion little files on my
drive labeled "1.BAT, 2.BAT, etc.). I also didn't want it to be too ugly so I
added color (this slows it down a little, but what the hell...). Anyway, I
wrote the program as a DOS batch file but by making use of a utility called
"SniffIt" I was able to assign error levels to keystrokes so I could keep it
down to one batch file. It's not really fancy but it works. This is what the 
main menu looks like:

                            FALCON SHELL
                            
                             Main Menu

                     F - Run Falcon 3.0

                     E - Use squadron editor

                     B - Backup squadron files

                     R - Restore squadron files


                   ESC - Exit to DOS


The first two selections result in either Falcon or Falconer being executed.
When you exit Falcon or Falconer you will be returned to this menu. This makes
it easy to get in and out of Falcon between missions in order to backup files
or edit your squadrons. Selecting either of the next two brings up a new menu:

                            FALCON SHELL
                            
                            Backup Menu

                     A - Backup All Squadrons
                     B - Backup Sqaudron 0
                     C - Backup Sqaudron 1
                     D - Backup Sqaudron 2
                     E - Backup Sqaudron 3
                     F - Backup Sqaudron 4
                     G - Backup Sqaudron 5


                   ESC - Go to main menu


This is, ofcourse, the Backup menu. The Restore menu is identical except it
restores! :-) Here I wanted to use the letter "A" for all squadrons and the
numbers "0-5" for the other menu choices. However, the "SniffIt" program does
not seem to be able to read the "0" key so I decided to go with letters. If
you know of a program similar to "SniffIt" that can do this, then by all means
use it and edit the backup/restore menus. Using numbers would make the program
far more intuitive. Also, if you find such a beast, let me know where I can
get it so I can include it in the next version.

Anyway, to run the program, you must place "SNIFFIT.COM" in the same directory
as Falcon. You can place FSHELL.BAT anywhere you like. The program assumes that
your Falcon files are in "C:\Games\Falcon3". If they are somewhere else then
you will have to edit one line in the program. The program also assumes that
the file "FALCONER.EXE" resides with the Falcon files. Again, if it is called
something else on your system, you will have to edit one line. The first time
you run the program it checks for a directory called "F3BACKUP" in the Falcon
directory. If there isn't one it will create it. This is where FShell places
the backed up squadron files.

That's about it. Ofcourse, you are free to edit the program and make any
changes you like. If you do anything you feel really improves it then let me
know.

Michael "Stick" Williams
70363,2235