Contents
Show File for Windows

Show File for Windows - A simple file viewer for Windows 3.1 and beyond.

What is Show File for Windows?

What about using Show File for Windows?

More about Search.

Help with Open.

How do I change a font?

Is there any interface information that might help me use Show File for Windows more effectively?

About this software.


Show File Windows - Overview

Show File for Windows is a simple application that allows you to view files in the Windows Operating Environment.  Generally it is used to review text files, search for information in them or print them.  It is a simpler way to view than shelling out to DOS or generally using one of the editors Write or Notepad provided with Windows.

Show File for Windows is exactly that, a show utility, it performs printing and font changes, search and line movement, however it does not provide any editing capabilities.  Show File for Windows will allow a maximum of 32,256 lines of text from a file each having a maximum length of 256.

Show File for Windows was written by Eric Heverly (erichev@ix.netcom.com) of Red-Eye Computer Services using Borland's Delphi-Desktop Version 1.0 Development System.  The concept for Show File for Windows came from Show File for DOS from QuicSoft Software Company originally copyrighted in 1987.  At this point I am unaware of any plans for future upgrades to the Windows Platform so I wrote my own version which I am releasing into the public domain.  Please see the About for more information regarding release information.


Using Show File for Windows

It is really pretty simple to use, you select File -- Open from the Menu, select a file to view and the file is displayed.  If you need to you can change the font or print the file.  Use the search utility to provide quick searches for needed information.

Key strokes - The following are the responses for keystrokes:

F1 or Page Down 	 Page down

F2 or Page Up 	 Page up

F3 or Ctrl+Home 	 Top of document

F4 or Ctrl+End 	 Bottom of Document

End 	 End of current line

Home 	 Beginning of the current line

Down arrow 	 Down 1 line

Up Arrow 	 Up 1 line

Ctrl + O 	 Open a File

Ctrl + C	 	 Clear the Screen

Alt + F4 	 Exit

Ctrl + G	 GoTo a line number

Ctrl + F 	 Find

Ctrl + U	 Set Font Size to 8 Point

Ctrl + D	 Set Font Size to 7 Point


Search

Using search is simple, select Search - Find from the Menu, enter the text you are looking for and press enter, the search engine will allow you to continue searching through the document, the data found will display at the top of the window as the first line of text, highlighted in Blue.

Match case option - when checked will exactly match the case of the word you are looking for, when off it will find the word regardless of case.

Direction - up - searches backward through the file.

Direction - down - searches forward to the end of the file.


Open

Open uses the standard Windows Open Dialog.  You can select any text file or select List Files of Type and change to Report Files, or All Files.   This will allow you to select any file type and display it.

Caution:  Selecting Binary file types will display the Binary representation of the file, which means you will not see very much.


Font

There are two methods of changing the font.

First you can use the font dialog under the Menu Item "File" and "Font".  This will allow changing the font anyway you like.

The second is to use the "Font Up" or "Font Down" option under the Menu Item "File".  This changes the Font Point Size from 7 point to 8 point and back, depending on the state of the current font.  This provides some flexibility when viewing ANSI formatted files.  This can also be accessed via the hot keys "Ctrl+U" and "Ctrl+D".


Interface Information

Show File for Windows (SFW) has the ability to interperate functionality in three ways.

First you can place a file name on the command line when calling this application, it will respond by automatically opening the file and presenting it to the user.  There is a switch that is available here, and that is the -A switch.  It's purpose is to present a file with ANSI Carriage Control (ie. a 1, 2, -, or space in the first byte of each record).  It will remove the first character of each line in the file automatically, double and tripple space as necessary, it will not underline an item as a printer would though.  Example:

Second is the drag-and-drop feature, you can drag a file name from the File Manager onto the application and SFW will respond by opening that file.

Third is the DOS interface.  Here you simply need to create a SFW.INI file in the Windows directory and SFW will open the file named in it.  Here is an example of the SFW.INI file:

[File]

SFW=C:\WINDOWS\BOOTLOG.TXT

Note that you must delete the SFW.INI file, otherwise SFW will always open the same file.  Now when SFW starts up, it might look something like the following:


About

Show File for Windows is Freeware.  You may use it or the source code as long as you give the following people credit for their efforts:

· Eric Heverly 	Developer of ShowFile for Windows, Copyright 1995 - Freeware!

· Gerry Skolnik 	Developer of TBigText, Copyright 1995 - Freeware.

· Danny Thorpe	Developer of the Scroll Bar Code.

· QuicSoft Software 	Developer of the DOS version, Copyright 1987.

No warrenties written or implied are given with this software.  It is "Use at your own Risk", in any environment.

Sofware bugs should be sent to: erichev@ix.netcom.com


Font
Fonts

There are two methods of changing the font.

First you can use the font dialog under the Menu Item "File" and "Font".  This will allow changing the font anyway you like.

The second is to use the "Font Up" or "Font Down" option under the Menu Item "File".  This changes the Font Point Size from 7 point to 8 point and back, depending on the state of the current font.  This provides some flexibility when viewing ANSI formatted files.