FileMan v1.0 Win95/NT: Release Date: 10/13/98 Beta testing is complete and this is the Final release for v1.0.0. Minor internal updates were completed in this final release along with the FileMan.exe recompiled in VB 6.0 instead of earlier Betas which was done in VB 5.0. The installation setup files now have all VB 6.0 Runtime Libraries included and the newer componets from the Win98 for compatiblity. FileMan Win95/NT Beta 3: Release Date: 07/21/98 Some end users were having trouble with FileMan after installation with a component "SMTHLP32.OCX" not registering properly on their system. I have added the needed files this component was looking for when registering to the system registry. Added the ability to set what file date will be used when scanning for new files. By default, Fileman will use your machines "Today's Date" when adding new files. From the Main Fileman screen under menu, "View", "Options", then select the "Start Up Settings" tab, you will see a check box for: "Use Real File Dates when adding New Files". Unchecked is the default, checked will use the files real date. ============================================================================= FileMan Win95/NT Beta 2: Release Date: 05/08/98 This release I completely revamped the File Scanning routines for much faster file searches.. Fileman should now find new files 3 to 4 times faster than the previous Beta 1 release. ============================================================================= FileMan Win95/NT Beta 1: Release Date: 04/17/98 Created the help file system and linked it to Fileman. Made some minor corrections in the screens. Corrected a couple of little bugs internally that had to do with the MakeIdx File creation. ============================================================================= FileMan Win95/NT Alpha 6: Release Date: 04/08/98 Added a new Tab Page in the Options menu "FileMan Startup Settings". Added to this page is a check box which will allow a sysop to check if they want the fileman to open up as a Maximized window each time. Also added a new "Main Window Default Size" button to the new Tab Page that will allow a sysop to reset the Main window back to it's orginal default size settings. When a sysop was hand typing in a file description and the auto-wrap return to the next line without a Carriage Return being used, there were no Carriage Returns or Line Feeds being put into the file description at the end of those lines. This would cause one long line to be saved to the Files List for that File's Description. I believe I got it worked out to where if FileMan does not find the Carriage Returns or Line Feeds when saving the Files List, it will do a length check and then a step back check to keep the lines in proper alignment as they were when typed into the Text Box. Fixed! I hope :) IMPORTANT: Since changes were made in this area, It is VERY IMPORTANT that you monitor your Files List after saving for any corruption and notify me right away as I can make any needed corrections. Remember, FileMan does create a Files.bak file as a backup prior to saving your orginal files.lst. If a sysop empty a file area, from either deleting or moving files, and if the File Area used the MakeIdx Index system, then FileMan was not updating the Index file if the file area was empty.. In other words, the Index file should be a 0 byte file at that point. Fixed! Finally found a problem in the Moving Files module that was bombing out on files that were bad. Fixed! Also, reworked the Move Files module to support the problem I found with additional file paths to a given File Area.. It appeared that files in the additional file areas were not being moved properly. I hope by fixing these problems, I didn't create new ones. :) So keep a strong look out in this area! Completly rewrote the TriBBS32.DLL file in Visual Basic 5.0 Pro to allow better preformance and better future design capibities in the future. Added a "Sort Files" icon to the toolbar.. Something that I had overlooked. By default, Fileman will now check the path(s) for all File Areas defined for a selected File Area including additional paths. Also FileMan will check the path and filename for the File Area's Files List. If any of these items are not found, then FileMan will prompt you to go to TriMan and correct this problem for that File Area. Added better offline CDRom Disc support. FileMan will now prompt you to insert your Offline CDRom Disc showing the Disc # and Drive Letter as defined in Farea.dat file via the Triman setup. Once you inserted the CD, then FileMan will verify it can read the path for that offline CDRom File Area. Fileman's View, Options screen was not allowing Drive selections if the Network was not a True Windows Network. To solve this problem to where all network software drive lists to be displayed and more compatible with Fileman, I did away with the current select drive, and directory box windows and replaced it with the Windows's API "Browse for Folder" dialog box. This should show all connected Drives/Network Drives and their Folders accoss any Network Platform on your local machine. Also had a bug after selecting TriBBS's main node's path, the Option screen would not allow the user to go back and change it. This was fixed when I redone the Options screen. Reworked the MakeDirectory function to where it won't be so strict on the security and set it to be silent (No Message Box) if an error occurs. Basically I have now setup FileMan to verify the File Area's Path, File Area's Path to the Files List, and check the MakeIdx path. If the File Area's Path or the File Area's Files List path is not present, or can not be found, then FileMan will show a Message with instructions to go to TriMan and correct the problem. Also, if FileMan has a problem with finding or creating the path to the MakeIdx File, then it will set the MakeIdx Flag to False, which means it will not create or update the Index file for that area. FileMan's basic assumptions or logic is simple: It expects to file all files lists and there paths pointing to a directory on your Hard Drive or a device that will allow full Write/Read functions. You can not modify or update a Files Lists if it is on a CD-ROM Drive. Also FileMan expects the Index file for MakeIdx to be pointing to a Hard Drive as well, so it too can be modified or updated. The Toolbar button for Erasing file descriptions from the files list was not working. Fixed! Fileman had a True, False flag off to where even though the Sysop didn't have an index file defined in a file area, Fileman was still prompting the sysop to Run Makeidx. Fixed! ============================================================================= FileMan Win95/NT Alpha 5: Release Date: 03/14/98 This version of Fileman was written and compiled on a Win95B (OSR/2) system. The Setup.exe was run and FileMan was installed and tested on the Following Systems for speed and performance. Win95, 5x56 133 mhz, 20 Megs Ram. Win95B, 6x86 200 mhz, 64 megs Ram. FAT32 Win/NT 4.0 Server with Service Pack 3, 6x86 133 mhz, 32 megs Ram. System Recommendations: 486 DX 100 or higher with 16 megs Ram TriBBS Requirements: Must have a registered version of TriBBS 10.1 Pro or better. Ok folks you only seen bits and pieces of Fileman in Alpha's 1 through 4. This release of Fileman has all of the Windows and Forms brought into a main form called a MDI Form (Multiple Document Interface). There are many changes and additions to this release that I did not have the time to rewrite the Help File System, so if any of you have questions just email me and ask, I will be more than happy to answer them. What's New!: Greater speed and performance! I now have a built in error handler that should cover most of any error that may arise. These messages will be display whenever a user action doesn't agree with the design of the program. The title of the message box will read "FileMan Alert!" and these are not due to bugs, but user errors. Also, I do have an error handler to try to trap any other internal error that may arise and should display the Error #, and a short description of the error. This version will write those errors to a file called Fileman.err which will be kept in your Fileman directory in the event of any errors. Hopefully they won't be anymore. :) The only errors I can't trap is Windows errors which are external to Fileman. Fileman no longer needs Sysdat1.dat to find it's way back to TriBBS's Main Node. This feature has been dropped completly. You can now enter your main node's path in the "View", then "Options" menu. All Fileman settings are now written to the Windows Registry and Fileman will look there each time it is loaded to get the last known settings. You will now see a window with the File Area Titles show as they are in a true window with Icons and choices of type and arrangement. All windows now has a Right Mouse Button action that will pop-up a menu for that area. Basically, anything List Box or Text Box with a white back ground. Most Window's Forms now has the the IE 4.0 rebar toolbar setup, aka "Coolbar". Also in the Editing File Area window you have a quick select drop down box much like the ones used in the Internet Browsers today. Just click, drop open the window, select your next File Area, and then click the button next to it to Go There! Fileman no longer looks at what is set in TriMan for the sorting order of Files. Speaking of Sorting, you guys wanted more flexible sorting, well you got it! All file areas can now be sorting either accending, decending, by File Name, File Size, or by File Date! This version I also added Read File_id.diz fetures, and Remove "Uploaded By" lines from the Files Lists. Added a new Menu Item called "View" that has sub menu items "Tool Bar" and "Status Bar". By default, these items are Checked and are visible to the sysop. If you uncheck these items, they will not be visable to the sysop. Also added a feature in this area to where you can Add/Remove Icons to your Tool Bar. Ok, that's most of the biggest features I can think of so install and enjoy. Please send me email and let me know something, anything I beg you as I am getting close to going public with Wide Beta Testing with this product. Therefore any suggestions, ideas, comments or whatever I would love to hear from you. Gary Price ============================================================================= FileMan Win95/NT Alpha 4: Release Date: 2/03/98 When Alpha 3 was released, many of you reported little problems throughout the program and it seem like no one really report the same bugs. In Alpha 3 I experimented with some new ideas and concepts with program source formatting to cut down on code size, most likely some of this got a little sloppy. What I did in this release was basically went through ever bit of source code and tried to tighten it up the best I could in hopes to stop some of these little bugs that were reported. Basically, I could not duplicate most of them, so this version will allow me to see if I am getting any closer to resolving these problems. :) ============================================================================= FileMan Win95/NT Alpha 3: Release Date: 10/10/97 Added some other little goodies mostly graphical.. I will let you find them.. :) Forgot to add the support for the File Areas 10 Additional file paths, this release will now check those extra paths if defined for a given file operation. Added the new File Scan feature to this Alpha which will find all files in the given file area paths and add them to your File Listing. However, since I was having so much trouble tring to call dos shell calls for running 3rd party Archiving software such as Pkunzip.exe, Lha.exe, Rar.exe.. etc, I decided to drop the idea completely and go with an internal ActiveX componet that runs internally in a true 32 bit environment to handle extracting the File's File descriptions. Unfortunately at this time, only ZIP type archives are supported for this operation. FileMan was having a problem with files that used long filenames when it came to moving them to another directory. FileMan would copy the file and update the files.lst, but would not kill the orginal file in the orginal directory. Fixed! Renamed FileMan.hlp to FMan32.hlp so FileMan Win95/NT would not have a conflict with the older Dos version of Fileman.hlp. Added two new buttons to FileMan. The first will allow sysop's to select/tag all files in a given file area at one time, and the second will allow a sysop to deselect/untag all files at one time. ============================================================================= FileMan Win95/NT Alpha 2: Release Date: 8/28/97 FileMan's FMan32.Dll and TriBBS32.dll now is copied to the \windows\system or \Winnt\system directories during installation. FileMan's setup.exe was not properly setting up FileMan on WinNT systems. Fixed! If Fileman encountered a file area that did not have a files list, it would not create a 0 byte files list and the progress bar would remain on some systems during this operation and did not close out. Fixed! Setup.exe did not have all of the runtime libraries in alpha 1. I assumed that most Win95 system had all of these. Some systems were either missing some of the required runtime libraries or some of the libraries were out of date and did not run with FileMan. This new Setup.exe now contains the full runtime libraries needed. Setup.exe was overwritting all libraries whether the file was newer than the ones being sent.. Now Setup.exe will only replace these libraries if they are older or the same date that is in this archive. Updated the Help system for FileMan to include the File Length and File Date options.. FileMan's Help system now is on the Help menu and has a context tab as well. Added the File Length & File Date options to the File Operations Menu. The main File Area Selection screen was cutting off the File Area names if the sysop had used the full 40 character length to describ their file areas. Fixed! The Move File Selection screen was not display an icon in the Windows TaskBar. Fixed! The Move File Selection screen was missing a cancel button in the right hand corner so a sysop could cancel moving a file on the fly. Fixed! Also, this same screen was missing the FileMan Icon in the upper left hand corner. Fixed! Added a What's This Button to the screen. The FileMan Setup program was creating a \HELP directory and placing the FileMan help files into that directory. The Help Files should have been placed into the \FileMan directory. Fixed!