Contents
a powerful filemanager making use of the capabilities of WindowsNT and NTFS

Features of WarpCommanderNT :

•	native 32Bit-console-application

•	supports many NTFS-features

•	can copy files with all security information (ACL)

•	files and drives >4GB are handled correctly

•	fast - no overhead for a fancy GUI

•	commandline with many edit functions and history

•	a real file viewer - does not try to load all the file into memory

•	console application - works in fullscreen

•	mouse support

•	lean and mean - all the functions you really need


Shareware

WarpCommanderNT is copyrighted software. However, you are encouraged to copy it and share it with others if the following conditions are met:

•	WarpCommanderNT may be freely copied and shared with others, as long as no charge is made for the software. It must be copied unmodified and entirely, including program documentation. It may be distributed by electronic means (BBS, ftp etc.)

•	WarpCommanderNT is shareware. Notice that shareware is copyrighted software, it is not ‘Public Domain’ software. If you continue to use this program beyond a reasonable ‘trial period’, not to exceed 30 days, you must pay for it by registering. See Registering for how to register.

•	If you use the program for commercial purposes, you must register.

•	Your registration fee buys you the right to use WarpCommanderNT beyond the trial period of 30 days. Your registration covers all versions of WarpCommanderNT. This means, you only have to register once and will be able to use future versions of it.

•	You may not charge anyone for a copy of this software other than a small copying fee. You may not include WarpCommanderNT with any commercial software without the prior consent of the author.

This software is supplied without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

In no event shall the author be liable to you for any consequential, special incidental or indirect damages of any kind arising out the performance or use of the software, even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages. By using the software, you agree these terms.


Registration

If you like this program and use it, you must register it. You will receive a password that you enter in the register-dialog. This will remove the shareware-reminders (i. e. the ever changing window-title and the boxes that appear from time to time).

The registration fee for WarpCommanderNT is 40,00 DM (German Mark) or 30,00 US-Dollar.

To order write to :

Juergen Bohl

Schlitzer Strasse 79

36039 Fulda

Germany


The file panels

The file panels offer an overview of all files in one directory. It displays their filename, their size and their time stamp.

One file is always highlighted. You can move the highlight using Cursor-Up/Down, Home and End. To move the highlight to the opposite panel, press Tab. Alternatively, you can use the mouse.

The files can be sorted by name, extension, time of creation, time of last access, time of last write, size or can be unsorted. You set this option using the pull-down menu (which is activated by pressing F9). You can also set this option pressing Ctrl-F3 - Ctrl-F10.

You can choose which time stamp is being displayed in the file panels using the pull-down menu.

The file panels disappear if you press Ctrl-F1 (left panel) or Ctrl-F2. This lets you see the output of a previously executed command. Ctrl-O turns off or on both panels.

Pressing Enter tries to open the currently highlighted file. If it is an executable, it is executed. If there are shell associations for the file, they are used to open the file (e. g. pressing Enter on a .DOC file will open WinWord).


Moving around in the current directory

If you have a list of files showing you can move around the list using the following keys:

Up Arrow	Move up one filename.
Down Arrow	Move down one filename.
Page Up	Move up one screenful of filenames.
Page Down	Move down one screenful of filenames.
Home	Move to the first filename.
End	Move to the last filename.
Alt-[printable char]	Move to the first file starting with [printable char]. If you continue typing characters (holding down the Alt-key), WarpCommandetNT will search for a file starting with the string you have typed. Your typing is displayed in the status line of the current panel. If there is no file matching the character you typed, this character is dismissed and is not displayed.
Alt-Up/Down	If you have just used the above function you can move to the previous/next file matching the partial name displayed in the status line.


Storing and retrieving paths

You can save the current directory in one of ten ‘slots’ to speed up access to your most frequently used directories. Later you can retrieve these paths which changes the current directory to the stored path.

To store your current directory, hold down the Ctrl-key AND the Shift-key and press one of the keys 0-9. Don’t use the numeric keypad for this, it won’t work.

To retrieve a directory, hold down Ctrl and press one of the keys 0-9.

By pressing Alt-F5 you get a list of the stored paths. You can select one using Up/Down-Arrow or the mouse.

The stored paths will be saved if you do a ‘Save Setup’, either manually or automatically when exiting WarpCommanderNT. So these paths will be remembered when you start up next time.


Tagging files

If you want to do a operation on several files (i. e. copying, moving, deleting, changing attributes,...), you can tag the files you want to work with. Tagged files are displayed in a different color (yellow).

Files can be tagged by the following commands:

Insert	Toggles the tag for the currently highlighted file and moves the highlight down one file.
Left mouse-button	Toggles the tag for the file below the pointer.
Grey +	Pressing the ‘+’ on the numeric keypad pops up a dialog into which you can type a file mask. All files that match this mask will be tagged.
Grey -	All files that match the mask you enter will be untagged.
Grey *	Invert tagging.
Alt-Grey +	Tag all files.
Alt-Grey -	Untag all files.
Shift-Grey +	Same as Grey +, but with full regular expression evaluation.
Shift-Grey -	Same as Grey -, but with full regular expression evaluation.
Compare directories	Selecting ‘Compare directories’ (or pressing Ctrl-K) tags all files that do not exist in the directory of the opposite panel (or are not the same). See Comparing Directories.
If the ‘Tag Directories’ option is not set, then tagging with file masks does not tag directories.

When files are tagged, the status line of the file panel shows the number of files tagged and their total size.


Working with file masks

WarpCommanderNT allows you to tag files using a file mask. There are two different modes for this.

There is a somewhat easy mode that you can use by pressing Grey + and Grey -. This mode is comparable to what you are used to from commands like dir, copy, etc. To be precise:

*	Matches zero or more characters of any value.
?	Matches one character of any value.
[a-d]	Matches one character of value a, b, c or d.

So for example, [a-f]* matches all files that start with a, b, c, d, e or f.

*.ZIP matches all files that end with .ZIP.

If you press Shift-Grey + or Shift-Grey - you can use the ‘Regular Expression Mode’. This is a very powerful method to searching for strings, but it is also more complicated. You might know this from the UNIX-utilities grep, sed etc. A short explanation is given below.

Regular expressions have a syntax in which a few characters are special constructs and the rest are ordinary. An ordinary character is a simple regular expression which matches that character and nothing else. The special characters are `$', `^', `.', `*', `+', `?', `[', `]' and `\'. Any other character appearing in a regular expression is ordinary, unless a `\' precedes it.

For example, `f' is not a special character, so it is ordinary, and therefore `f' is a regular expression that matches the string `f' and no other string. (It does not match the string `ff'.) Likewise, `o' is a regular expression that matches only `o'.

The special constructs are:

.	This matches anything. E. g. x.y matches any three character string that starts with x and ends with y.
*	This means the preceding regular expression is to be repeated as many times as possible. In fo*, the * applies to the o, so fo* matches f followed by any number of o's. The case of zero o's is allowed: fo* does match f. * always applies to the smallest possible preceding expression. Thus, fo* has a repeating o, not a repeating fo. The matcher processes a * construct by matching, immediately, as many repetitions as can be found. Then it continues with the rest of the pattern. If that fails, backtracking occurs, discarding some of the matches of the *'d construct in case that makes it possible to match the rest of the pattern. For example, matching c[ad]*ar against the string caddaar, the [ad]* first matches addaa, but this does not allow the next a in the pattern to match. So the last of the matches of [ad] is undone and the following a is tried again. Now it succeeds.
+	+ is like * except that at least one match for the preceding pattern is required for +. Thus, c[ad]+r does not match cr but does match anything else that c[ad]*r would match.
?	? is like * except that it allows either zero or one match for the preceding pattern. Thus, c[ad]?r matches cr or car or cdr, and nothing else.
[ ]	[ begins a character set, which is terminated by a ]. In the simplest case, the characters between the two form the set. Thus, [ad] matches either a or d, and [ad]* matches any string of a's and d's (including the empty string), from which it follows that c[ad]*r matches car, etc. Character ranges can also be included in a character set, by writing two characters with a - between them. Thus, [a-z] matches any lower-case letter. Ranges may be intermixed freely with individual characters, as in [a-z$%.], which matches any lower case letter or $, % or period.
[^ ]	[^ begins a complement character set, which matches any character except the ones specified. Thus, [^a-z0-9A-Z] matches all characters except letters and digits.
\	\ quotes a special character or introduces a new one. So \+ means +.
\|	This specifies an alternative. Thus, foo\|bar matches either foo or bar but no other string.
\( \)	This is a grouping construct. \(foo\|bar\)x matches either foox or barx. ba\(na\)* matches bananana, banananana etc.


Creating a directory

To create a directory in the current directory , just press F7 and enter the name for the new sub-directory.


File Info / Directory size calculation

By pressing Ctrl-Q the opposite panel changes into an info panel showing information about the currently highlighted file or directory.

If the the highlight is on a file the following information is shown:

DOS-Filename is the 8.3-alias for the file.

If the file is compressed (on NTFS-volumes), ‘Compressed’ gives you the length of the compressed file. I. e. how much space it really takes on the disk.

‘Created’ states when the files was created, ‘Last access’ when it was last used (for writing or reading) und ‘Last Write’ when it was last written to.

‘Attributes’ shows the DOS-attributes for the file (Archive, Compressed, Hidden, Readonly, System).

‘Owner’ gives you the user who owns this file.

If the highlight is on a directory the following is shown:

As long as the highlight is on the directory the program searches all subdirectories and counts how many files and subdirectories there are. ‘bytes’ shows the length of all files found. If there are any compressed files found, ‘compressed’ gives you the total ‘real length’ of the files. If there aren’t any compressed files found, it says ‘N/A’.

The search stops if you move the highlight. You do not have to wait until the calculation is ready.


Drive Info

Pressing Ctrl-L (or selecting ‘Drive Info’ from the pull-down menu) gives you some information about the currently used drive.


System Information

 By selection ‘System Information’ from the pull-down menu you can get some information about your system.

CPU-Clocks is the number of cycles your CPU has done since last reset or power-on. Up-Time gives you the time your system is running (note: this wraps around after 49 days or so).

For experts: The evaluation of CPU-Clocks uses the instruction RDTSC available only on Pentium or better. If you have a 486-CPU (or at least NT thinks you have one) this instruction isn’t used as it would raise an exception. So, on 486 this information isn’t available (and the CPU-frequency cannot be evaluated). If you know your CPU understands this instruction (and WarpCommanderNT does not give you the information) you can use the command-line switch ‘-hasrdtsc’ to force the use of RDTSC. And you might want to use the switch ‘-nordtsc’ if WarpCommanderNT crashes when using ‘System Information’.


Comparing directories

If you want syncronize the content of two directories this function can be very useful. It is activated by pressing Ctrl-K or selecting ‘Compare Directories’ from the pull-down menu.

File that are present in both the left and the right panel are not tagged, all others (i. e. those that are not in both directories or are different) are tagged.

The decision if two files are the same can be customized using ‘CompareDirs-Options’ from the pull-down menu.

If the name of two files are the same, then the above options are being tested in addition. Note that ‘Compare entire content’ does a byte-per-byte comparison.


Open Explorer Window

Pressing Ctrl-W causes the Windows Explorer to open a window corresponding to the directory that WarpCommanderNT is currently displaying. Pressing Shift-Ctrl-W the new window is opened with a tree view.


Creating Shell Links

Pressing Alt-F6 creates a link to the file or directory that is currently highlighted on the desktop. You are prompted for a name for the new object. The link object appears on the desktop after a few seconds. You may have to search for it...


The command line

WarpCommanderNT offers a command line that works in conjunction with the file panels. It makes it much more powerful than a regular CLI. It operates in much the same way as your normal command promt (cmd.exe).

You use the right and left arrow to position the cursor (or you can use the mouse). Ctrl-Shift-Insert is used for toggling between insert- and overstrike-mode. You can select text by holding down the Shift-key (like in Notepad, Word, etc.). The selected text can be copied into the clipboard using Ctrl-Insert. Vice versa, text from the clipboard is copied into the command line by using Shift-Insert.

In addition, the following commands are working if there are file panels showing :

Ctrl-F	Pastes the currently highlighted filename into the command line with ist full path.
Ctrl-J	Same as above, but without the path.
Ctrl-V	Pastes the directory of the left panel into the command line.
Shift-Ctrl-V	Pastes the directory of the right panel into the command line.
Ctrl-End	Jumps to the last character. If no panels are showing, End works also.
Ctrl-Home	Jumps to the first character. If no panels are showing, Home works also.
Ctrl-Left/Right	Moves cursor left/right one word.
Esc	Clears command line.
Backspace	Deletes character to the left of the cursor.
Delete	Deletes the character under the cursor.
Ctrl-Left/Right	Moves cursor left/right one word.

The command ‘cd’ to change the directory is interpreted by WarpCommanderNT instead of being executed by the command interpreter. So you can use it to change the current directory in WarpCommanderNT. In addition you can change the drive by typing ‘cd c:’. Note that ‘c:’ by itself does not work currently.

If you press Enter to execute the command, WarpCommanderNT tries to decide wheter the program you want to start is a textmode-application or a GUI-application. If it is a textmode-application like cl.exe or qbasic.exe the program runs in the same console-window as WarpCommanderNT and the program waits for the application to terminate. If it is a Windows-application WarpCommanderNT does not wait for it to terminate. If you want your textmode-application to be executed in a separate session, you have to press Shift-Enter.

WarpCommanderNT offers a command line history. You can recall the commands you have entered by pressing Ctrl-Up (or Ctrl-E) to step back. Use Ctrl-Down (or Ctrl-X) if you overshoot. Alternatively, you can press Alt-F8 which displays a containing your previously entered commands.


Setting file attributes

You can set the attributes of the currently highlighted file by pressing Ctrl-A. If there are files tagged, you can set the attributes for all the tagged files.

In this case, [x] sets the attribute for all files, [ ] clears them and [.] does not change this attribute.


Copying and Moving Files

1.	Move the cursor to the file you want to copy. If you want to copy more than one file, tag them as described in Tagging Files.

2.	Press F5 to copy these files or F6 to move them.

3.	A dialog box appears. You can edit the destination if you wish.

4.	Just press Return to start. You may change the options by selecting the Options-button.

Copy options:

Copy Security-Info :	Copies the ACL (Access Control List) of the files.
Copy DOS-Attributes :	Copies the file attributes (e. g. hidden, system, readonly). This is useful when copying from CD to remove the readonly-attribute. Deselect this option in this case.
Copy File-Date :	The copy will have the same file date as the source.
Keep compression-state :	If copying compressed files (from a NTFS-volume), the copy will be compressed as well.

Pressing the ‘As Default’-button will save the settings. They will be the default for the next copy-operation.

To be able to copy the ACLs of a file you must have backup-operator-privilege (or be able to acquire this privilege).

Note: ACLs and file compression is only supported on NTFS-volumes.


Deleting Files

1.	Select the files or directories you want to delete.

2.	Press F8.

3.	If you try to delete a non-empty directory, you will be prompted whether to delete all files and sub-directories.

If there is a problem deleting the files a dialog box appears:

(Sorry, screenshot has been made on a German NT. Message means: Permission denied.)

‘Try all’ does the following:

1. 	If the readonly-attribute of the file is set, this is being cleared and the delete-operation is retried.

2.	If the delete-operation still fails, it might be that the file’s ACL does not permit this operation. The program will try to remove the ACL, and if this fails as well, it tries to take ownership of the file.

If you have superuser-priviledge this should remove every file (in theory).

‘Always try all’ will try this everytime without prompting again.


Viewing Files

By pressing F3 the currently selected file is opened for viewing in the internal viewer.

F1 shows help for keys.

F3 wraps or unwraps the text.

By pressing F4 the codepage is changed from Ansi to OEM.

With F7 you can search for text. Search starts at cursor-position. To search for the same text press Shift-F7.

You can mark text using Shift-CursorUp/Down/Left/Right/Home/End and copy it to the clipboard with Ctrl-Insert.

If you press Alt-F3 the currently highlighted file is opened with ‘Quikview.exe’.


Editing Files

By pressing F4 the currently selected file is opened with an external editor. Alt-F4 uses an alternate editor. See Configuration for more information.

Hint: Try to get your hands on the Windows95 EDIT.COM. It handles large files and works very well with WarpCommanderNT.


Configuration

If you select ‘Configuration’ from the pull-down menu, you set the following settings:

Enter the name of the editors you want to use. If you preced the filename with ‘!’, WarpCommanderNT waits for the editor to terminate. This is especially useful if you use a textmode-editor...

If the ‘Save settings on exit’ option is set, WarpCommanderNT saves its settings on exit. If you deselect this option, you must manually save the settings (Alt-F9) to make this setting permanent.


Keys summary

When there are file panels showing, you can use the following keys:

Up Arrow	Move up one file name.
Down Arrow	Move up one file name.
Page Up	Move up one screenful of file names.
Page Down	Move down one screenful of file names.
Home	Move to the first file name
End	Move to the last file name.
Alt-[printable char]	Move to the first file starting with [printable char].
Alt-Up/Down	Move to the next file matching the search text.
Insert	Tag file
Grey +	Tag files matching a file name mask.
Grey -	Untag files matching a file name mask.
Grey Shift +	Tag files matching a file name mask using full RegEx-evaluation.
Grey Shift -	Untag files matching a file name mask using full RegEx-evaluation.
Alt Grey +	Select all files.
Alt Grey -	Deselect all files.
Grey *	Invert selection
Alt Right/Left Arrow	Scroll current file name if it is too large to be shown completely.
Ctrl-Shift-[0-9]	Store current directory (don’t use NumPad).
Ctrl-[0-9]	Retrieve directory (don’t use NumPad).
Ctrl-A	Change attributes.
Ctrl-W	Open shell window for current directory.
Ctrl-Shift-W	Open Explorer window for current directory.
Shift-Return	Executes command line in seperate session.
Return	Tries to execute current file. Shell associations are recognized.

The following keys can be used to edit the command line:

Left/Right Arrow	Move cursor left or right
Home	Move cursor to the beginning of the line
End	Move cursor to the end of the line
Ctrl Left/Right Arrow	Move cursor one word left or right
Ctrl E	Get last command.
Ctrl X	Get next command (if entered Ctrl E before)
ESC	Clear command line.
Ctrl-Insert	Copy selected text to clipboard.
Shift-Insert	Paste clipboard content
Ctrl-Shift-F	Copy full path of current file to the clipboard.
Ctrl-V	Copy full path of left panel into command line.
Ctrl-Shift-V	Copy full path of right panel into command line.
Ctrl-J	Copy currently selected file name into command line.
Ctrl-F	Copy currently selected file name including path into command line.
NB: Text can be selected by holding the Shift-key when moving the cursor.

The following keys can be used when using the viewer:

Up/Down/Left/Right Arrow	Moves the cursor
Home	Moves cursor to the beginning of current line
End	Moves cursor to the end of current line
Ctrl Home	Moves cursor to the beginning of the file
Ctrl End	Moves cursor to the end of the file
Ctrl Insert	Copy currently selected text to the clipboard


Known problems

Sometimes it takes a lot time until the Explorer-window comes up after pressing Ctrl-W.

Some programs do not work when launched from WarpCommanderNT. I verified this for PhotoShop4 and for some setup-programs. PhotoShop does not even start when launched from an Explorer-Window that you have opened with WarpCommanderNT. Currently, I have no idea, where the problem is.