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4DOS Update Documentation
Version 3.03, 4/12/91
Copyright 1988 - 1991, JP Software Inc., All Rights Reserved. Published
by JP Software Inc., P.O. Box 1470, E. Arlington, MA 02174 USA, (617)
646-3975.
This file provides details on features changed and bug fixes in versions
3.01, 3.02, and 3.03; and corrections to the version 3 printed manual
due to typographical errors or new features added after the manual went
to press. The ASCII manual distributed with shareware copies of 4DOS
has already been corrected to include most of the changes in this file
(all the ones we could fit!), but such corrections have not been made in
the printed manual. We have made every effort to ensure that this file
is as accurate as possible, but we cannot guarantee that every single
change is included.
This file does not document changes between versions 2 and 3 of 4DOS.
If you are a 4DOS version 2 user and this is the first copy of version 3
you've seen, contact JP Software for documentation on the extensive
changes between versions 2 and 3, or read through the new manual and
this file carefully before you begin using version 3.03.
The following marks are used to identify items in this file:
--> CAUTION: This change may require modifications to your ex-
isting batch files, aliases, commands, or common methods of
using 4DOS. Check these carefully when replacing an earlier
version of 4DOS with 4DOS 3.03.
3.0x This item is new or has been modified for version 3.0x (3.01,
3.02, or 3.03).
[p nn] This item corrects or adds to the information in the version
3 manual, on page "nn".
If you don't want to read through all changes you may find it easiest to
view this file with 4DOS's LIST command using its (F)ind capability. If
you want to see the modifications for version 3.03, search for "3.03";
if you want to see the changes in your printed manual, search for the
string "[p".
This file is formatted at 58 lines per page, and contains form feeds and
page footers. It can be viewed with a file viewer such as the 4DOS LIST
command, or printed on most PC printers using the command:
copy update30.doc prn
Printing it with a program that formats the pages is not likely to work
due to the formatting included in the file.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 1
Table of Contents
Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
General Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Automatic Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Features and Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
General Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Command Line Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Batch Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
I/O Redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Environment Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Technical Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
ALIAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
BEEP, DELAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
CD and CDD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
COPY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
DATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
DIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
EXIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
FOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
GLOBAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
GOSUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
GOTO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
IF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
KEYSTACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
LIST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
LOADBTM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
PROMPT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
REN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
SET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
SETDOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
TYPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
HELP System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
New Capabilities and Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Environment Variables and Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Configuring HELP with HELPCFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 2
Installation and Configuration
------------------------------
This section discusses changes in the way 4DOS is installed and config-
ured on your system. It is not an explanation of how to install your
upgrade to version 3.03 (for that see README.DOC). For more information
on installation see pages 9 - 26 of the manual.
General Enhancements:
3.02 [p 27] When starting a shareware copy of 4DOS there is a 1/2-
second, two-tone beep to identify this as a shareware copy, fol-
lowed by a 3-second delay to allow reading of the shareware re-
minder message. Beginning with version 3.02, you can skip this
delay by pressing any key.
Automatic Installation:
[p 13] The command to start automatic installation has been
changed to:
x:install x y
where "x" is the drive the 4DOS disk is in, and "y" is the drive
on which you want to install 4DOS. See README.1ST for more de-
tailed instructions if you need them.
Command Line Options:
All the items below refer to information on pages 21 - 23 of the
manual.
3.01 [p 21-23] Either / or - may be used as the switch character on
the 4DOS command line (eg SHELL=4DOS -S:E instead of /S:E, etc.).
[p 21] The file specified in the "@filename" option can have
more than one line, and is limited to a total of 255 characters
in the file, not 128. A file invoked with @filename can have
another @filename inside it. Wherever @filename occurs, all
options placed after it are ignored, so it must be the last item
present.
[p 21] The /A switch supports the same incremental syntax used
with /E, i.e. /A+n. When used in 4DSHELL this allows you to
guarantee a specified amount of free alias space in secondary
shells.
[p 21] /E:nnnn may also be followed by S (/E:nnnnS) to swap the
master copy of the environment. This will save a small amount of
low memory, but may not be compatible with all applications, and
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 3
will not work with any application that needs to modify the mas-
ter environment.
[p 22] 4DOS will normally reduce the space used to swap a sec-
ondary shell by retrieving static information from the primary
shell's swap area. This reduces secondary shell swap size from
68K or more to about 20K. This feature will not work if the
total of your alias, history, and environment sizes in the sec-
ondary shell is larger than that specified for the primary shell,
or if the size of DOS memory has been reduced when the secondary
shell is started (e.g. by a program like DESQView that reserves
some memory at the top end of DOS memory). In such cases second-
ary shells will require a full-size swap area. The size of the
swap area is displayed in the "swapping initialized (nnK)" mes-
sage when 4DOS starts.
3.01 [p 22] The default location for disk swap files in secondary
--> shells is now in the root directory of the drive specified in the
COMSPEC environment variable (the drive where 4DOS.COM is
stored). If you want disk swap files to go to another drive or
directory, use the "/S:Bd:\path" or "/S:Dd:\path" settings in the
4DSHELL environment variable (see page 25 of the manual). This
should cut down on swap file clutter, yet leave you with complete
control over swap file location.
3.01 [p 23] The /U switch requires 386MAX, MOVE-EM 1.02 or above,
QRAM, or QEMM 5.0 or above. It may not be compatible with all
other software products. See COMPAT.DOC for full details on com-
patibility.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 4
Features and Usage
------------------
This section discusses changes in 4DOS features and usage which are not
specific to a particular command and which are not related to installa-
tion and startup.
General Features:
[p 29] The command history is now automatically passed to sec-
ondary shells. It is passed in one direction only, i.e. addi-
tional commands entered in the secondary shell will not be passed
back to the primary shell. To disable this option, place a HIS-
TORY /F command in your 4START file.
3.02 The "?" character in filename wildcards now matches zero or more
--> characters like COMMAND.COM instead of one or more like previous
versions of 4DOS. Thus "DIR A?." will match both the files "A"
and "AA"; before it would only match "AA". This change adjusts
4DOS to work the way COMMAND.COM works instead of the way
COMMAND.COM is documented to work.
3.03 4DOS will now preserve leading whitespace on the command tail for
external commands, and pass no whitespace to the command if
that's how the line is entered. For example, the command:
myprog/c
will pass "/c" to MYPROG; previously an extra space (" /c") was
passed. This should fix occasional problems with programs that
can't handle leading whitespace.
3.03 [p 31] There is one additional character which can be used after
the 4DOS escape character (the escape character is normally ctrl-
X): a "t" will mean the ASCII TAB character, so that:
^Xt
will place a TAB on the line (^X means the single character ctrl-
X, which appears on your screen as an upward-pointing arrow).
Command Line Editing:
3.01 [p 28] You can now enter characters that would normally be in-
terpreted by the line editor as a command (e.g., Ctrl-D or Ctrl-
K). To do so precede the character with an ASCII 255 (hold down
the ALT key and enter 255 on the numeric keypad, then release the
ALT key). To enter the ASCII 255 itself into the line, you must
enter it twice.
3.02 [p 28] The F3 key now works like COMMAND.COM, so you can type
part of a line and hit F3 to get the rest of the previous line.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 5
3.03 [p 28] TAB has been added as a synonym for F9, and Shift-TAB as
--> a synonym for F8. Also the F3 key will now put the cursor at the
end of the command line after recalling the previous command.
Batch Files:
3.01 See the commands section below for information on the new LOADBTM
command, which allows any batch file to work as a BTM file some
or all of the time.
3.03 [p 33-34] The maximum batch file nesting depth has been in-
--> creased to 8; the previous limit was 4 or 6, depending on the
version of 4DOS.
3.03 Error levels generated by external programs in batch files are
now returned properly to the calling program when the batch file
is run from a transient 4DOS shell (4DOS /C). This should fix
problems with BBS systems which return error levels through batch
files (also see the EXIT command below for related information).
I/O Redirection:
--> [p 43-44] Redirection is now fully nestable. For example, in-
voking a batch file XYZ with "XYZ > OUT.DAT" will redirect all
output from the batch file to OUT.DAT unless additional redirec-
tion is encountered within the batch file. Note that nested
redirection applies to input and output only, NOT to pipes.
Environment Variables:
3.01 [p 40] In order to support subtraction in the new %@EVAL func-
--> tion (see below) 4DOS will no longer accept a dash ("-") in the
name of an environment variable to be expanded, unless the name
is enclosed in brackets [].
3.01 [p 41] Three new internal variables have been added:
%_dow The day of the week as a string (Mon,
Tue, etc.)
%_rows The height of the screen
%_columns The width of the screen
3.02 [p 41] One new internal variable has been added:
%_ndp Returns:
0 if no coprocessor is installed
87 for an 8087
287 for an 80287
387 for an 80387
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 6
[p 42] There are a few minor errors or points which are not
clear in the list of variable functions in some versions of the
printed manual:
* When using variable functions they must be preceded (and
optionally followed) by a percent sign, like all other envi-
ronment variables. For example the "ext" function is refer-
enced as %@ext[filename] or as %@ext[filename]%.
* The correct spelling for the string length function is
"%@len", not "%@length".
* The %@line function is missing from early copies of the
printed manual. This function returns the nth line of a
file. The first line of the file is numbered 0.
* In the %@substr function, the first character is numbered
0, and the correct syntax is "%@substr[string,start,length]"
not "%@substr[string,start,end]".
3.01 [p 42] A new function, %@eval, has been added. The syntax is:
%@eval[expression]
Where "expression" is any arithmetic expression. The expression
can include any of the following elements:
parentheses, which may be nested
unary + or - operators
multiplication and division operators: *, /, and %% (modulo)
addition and subtraction operators: + and -
environment variables, variable functions, and constants
The elements of an expression are processed in the order shown
above. For example, 5*3+2 is treated as (5*3)+2 rather than
5*(3+2). Examples of the use of %@eval are:
Increment a variable: set a=%@eval[%a+1]
Perform environment variable arithmetic:
set c=%@eval[(%a*2) + (%@len[%b]-5)*7]
Evaluate expressions in IF:
if %@eval[%@substr[%_time,0,2] %% 12] == 0 echo 12:00!
Set up a simple command line calculator:
alias calc `echo The answer is: %@eval[%&]`
3.02 [p 42] Commas will now be ignored by %@eval. This will allow
(for example) %@eval[10,000 * 3] to get the expected result. It
will also allow %@eval to work on the output of a command like
FREE, which contains embedded commas. Also %@eval will give a
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 7
"Divide by zero" error message if you try to use 0 as a denomina-
tor for division or modulo calculation; previously it would give
an error for the modulo, but return the numerator as the result
for the division.
3.02 [p 42] %@substr can now handle quotes around the "string" argu-
ment. Double quotes and back quotes are equivalent in this con-
text, and the quote characters DO count when determining which
characters are placed in the substring. This capability allows
you to get substrings of strings which contain commas. For exam-
ple:
%@substr["Mon, Aug 27, 1990", 1, 3]
will return "Mon". Previously the commas would be seen as argu-
ment separators, even if they were within a quoted string.
3.01 [p 42] Another new function, %@index[string1,string2] returns
the position of string2 within string1 (string2 can be as small
as a single character). The first position in string1 is num-
bered 0. If there is no match, the function returns -1.
3.02 [p 42] Two new variable functions have been added:
%@upper[string] Returns the string converted to upper
case.
%@lower[string] Returns the string converted to lower
case.
3.01 [p 42] When expanding environment variables 4DOS will display a
"Variable loop" error if you nest variable functions too deep, or
define variables which refer back to themselves.
Technical Information:
(All items here go with the technical information on page 149 of
the manual.)
3.01 4DOS now generates two different INT 2F calls to allow TSRs to
tell when 4DOS is back at the prompt. These calls have AX =
D44Eh. The first occurs immediately before displaying the
prompt, with BX = 0; the second occurs after displaying the
prompt and immediately before accepting keyboard input, with BX =
1. Any routine intercepting these calls should preserve at least
the SI, DI, BP, SP, DS, ES, and SS registers.
3.02 Divide by zero handling has been removed from 4DOS, allowing
standard DOS divide by zero handling to take place. The 4DOS
divide by zero handler was not providing any advantage and could
occasionally fail to recover properly from division errors in
application programs.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 8
3.03 4DOS now does a disk reset following a ^C, or a MOVE, REN, or DEL
command. This should fix problems occasional problems with disk
caches and FASTOPEN.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 9
Commands
--------
This section describes the changes made to specific commands. Note that
some commands are also affected by the general changes in the "features
and usage" section above.
3.01 [[p 49] ALIAS: ALIAS /R can now read multiple files, for exam-
ple:
alias /r alias1 alias2 alias3
3.03 BEEP, DELAY: Fixed a bug that could hang the system if a BEEP or
DELAY was active at an even 1/2 hour.
3.01 [p 57-58] CD and CDD: Modified to allow forward slashes (/) in
path names.
3.01 [p 62-64] COPY: There are two changes:
The /R and /U switches are now ignored if the target is a
device.
A ^Z (end of file mark) is now properly added to the target
file when it is in ASCII mode.
3.03 DATE: If you enter only two digits for the year and it is below
--> 80, 4DOS will now assume it is in the 21st century; if it is 80
or above 4DOS will assume it is in the 20th century. You can
specify the year you want explicitly by using a 4-digit value.
The system of using 3-digit year values for dates in the 21st
century, as documented in the printed manual, has been removed.
Also DATE now supports the European date display format (Mon 1.
Jan 1991).
3.02 DIR: Problems with occasional "Out of memory" errors and missing
description displays in DIR have been resolved. However, if you
fragment DOS memory (for example by loading two TSRs, then un-
loading the first but not the second) you can get "Out of memory"
errors in larger directories as DIR tries to expand the memory it
is using to store your filenames and descriptions. If this oc-
curs, determine the cause of the fragmentation and resolve it.
The primary tool for solving such a problem is a memory mapping
program like MAPMEM, PMAP, or Manifest.
3.03 DIR: Fixed an occasional problem with doing a "DIR ." in the
root directory.
3.03 [p 80] EXIT: EXIT now accepts a numeric argument (EXIT n). The
argument value is returned to the previous program as the error
level. If no argument is given the error level from the most
recent external program will be returned; this is a change from
previous versions of 4DOS, for compatibility with COMMAND.COM.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 10
3.03 [p 81] FOR: An active FOR is now aborted properly when a nested
batch file CANCELs, or when a batch file chains to another batch
file.
3.01 [p 83] GLOBAL: Added a /Q(uiet) switch to disable the display
of "GLOBAL: pathname".
3.03 GOSUB: Previously if a GOSUB was used within an IFF statement
--> and there was another IFF statement inside the called subroutine,
the two IFF statements could interfere with each other. This has
been corrected; two such IFF statements will now operate indepen-
dently of each other. This also means that you can use a GOTO
inside the subroutine without canceling the operation of the IFF
statement in the calling part of the batch file (see next item on
GOTO and IFF).
3.01 [p 85] GOTO: A GOTO inside an IFF statement now cancels all IFF
--> processing, and assumes you've branched completely outside the
IFF construct. If you haven't, you will get "Unknown command"
errors on subsequent ELSE, ELSEIFF, and ENDIFF statements (see
examples below). This change was necessary to avoid frequent
errors caused by GOTOs from inside an IFF block which left IFF
processing active. Also fixed a bug which prevented GOTO from
branching to the end of the file from within a GOSUB subroutine.
iff "%1"=="Y"
:test
copy file1 a:
goto done <--- Legal - branches outside the
else IFF block
copy file2 b:
goto test <--- Illegal - branches within IFF
endiff block
[do some other work here]
:done
3.01 [p 88-90] IF: There are several corrections to the description
in the printed manual. Some of these errors are present only in
early copies of the manual:
* The DOS memory size option is named DOSMEM, not DOSFREE.
* The tests which check a numeric value (EMS, DOSMEM, etc.)
use the same relational operators as the string tests, as
shown in the examples. For example, the syntax for EMS
should read:
EMS relop n[K|M]
where "relop" means EQ, GE, GT, etc. The "relop" is optional
for ERRORLEVEL, but required for all other numeric tests.
* The MONITOR and VIDEO tests also require a relational oper-
ator (==, EQ, or NE) as described above for numeric tests.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 11
* The IF ATTRIB test has an additional option: "N" tests for
no attributes set (i.e. all of the other attributes are off).
* IF ATTRIB volname V will only work if the volume name re-
fers to the root directory, and if there is a period after
the eighth character in volume names of nine characters or
more (e.g. to test for volume "MYFILES0107" in drive A:, use
IF ATTRIB A:\MYFILES0.107 V ...).
* Two tests are missing from some copies of the printed manu-
al:
IF DISKFREE relop n
Tests the disk free space on the current drive.
Cannot be used to test other drives.
IF FILESIZE filename relop n
Tests the size of the specified file.
For example:
if diskfree gt 40M echo Plenty of room
if filesize myfile.dat gt 360K echo It won't fit!
3.01 [p 88-90] IF: String comparisons will now be done numerically
if both values being compared begin with a digit. This allows
you to do true arithmetic tests. For example:
set aa=027
set bb=20
if %aa gt %bb ... This test will succeed because it
will compare the numeric values 27
and 20.
if "%aa" gt "%bb" ... This test will fail because it will
compare the alphanumeric values
"027" and "20", and the "02" will
appear 'smaller' (alphanumerically)
than "20".
3.01 [p 94] KEYSTACK: There are two changes:
* KEYSTACK now supports a new symbol, !, to clear keystrokes
from the typeahead buffer, as well as anything in the
KEYSTACK buffer. For example:
keystack ! @59
will clear the typeahead buffer before stacking the @59 (F1)
keystroke.
* Some programs will not interpret stacked keystrokes proper-
ly unless they contain both the correct ASCII value and the
correct keyboard "scan code". For example, if you attempt to
KEYSTACK an "Enter" using ASCII code 13 (carriage return) and
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 12
see a small musical note instead, the program you are running
probably needs the scan code to interpret the keystroke prop-
erly.
KEYSTACK now supports the entry of scan codes for standard
ASCII keys. To enter the scan code, multiply it by 256 and
add it to the ASCII code. Using the same example, the scan
code for the Enter key is 28, so the full value for this key
would be 28*256+13 = 7181. With some programs you will find
that KEYSTACK 7181 works when KEYSTACK 13 does not (or vice
versa). Experimentation is required to get the correct val-
ue. A full discussion and table of scan codes is beyond the
scope of this document, but is available in many basic PC
books.
3.01 [p 95] LIST: There are two changes:
--> Changed the search and print keys to use letters instead of
function keys: F(ind), N(ext), and P(rint). This avoids
conflicts when you wish to redefine the function keys for
other purposes.
Added a new switch, /H, to strip the high bit of each charac-
ter, for displaying WordStar documents and other similar
files.
3.01 [p 96] LOADBTM: This is a new command. It will switch the
current batch file to and from .BTM mode. The syntax is:
LOADBTM [ON | OFF]
LOADBTM ON loads the entire file into memory and processes the
following lines as a .BTM file. LOADBTM OFF unloads the file
from memory and processes the following lines one by one like a
.BAT file. Both commands can be used regardless of the file's
original extension.
LOADBTM will allow you to have a single batch file for both
COMMAND.COM and 4DOS, and select .BTM mode via a statement like:
if "%@eval[2+2]" == "4" loadbtm on
Since the %@eval function does not exist under COMMAND.COM, the
IF test will fail there and the rest of the line will be ignored.
Under 4DOS where %@eval exists, the LOADBTM ON will be executed.
LOADBTM will also allow you to load TSRs from a .BTM file by
switching it into .BAT mode, loading the TSRs, and switching back
to .BTM mode. However note that, depending on what the file
does, such mode switching can erase much of the speed gained by
using a .BTM file in the first place.
3.03 PROMPT: When displaying the date in the prompt 4DOS now supports
--> the European format (e.g. Mon 1. Jan 1991).
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 13
3.03 REN: Fixed a bug which would give an "Invalid path" error when
the only thing specified for the target was ".", as in:
ren \4dos\4dos.doc .
3.01 [p 117] SET: SET /R can now read multiple files, for example:
set /r env1 env2 env3
3.01 [p 119] SETDOS: There are two changes:
/S now resets the cursor shape immediately, so it can be used
to hide the cursor while in a batch file.
/U1 should now properly return uppercase filenames in all
instances.
3.02 [p 119] SETDOS: The COMPOUND character (SETDOS /C) can now be
any ASCII character except those specified in the manual as not
allowed. Previously characters above ASCII 127 would not work as
the separator.
3.03 TIME: An invalid entry will now display an error message and
prompt again, instead of generating an incorrect time value.
3.03 TYPE: TYPE will now stop on a ^Z (end of file mark), for compat-
ibility with COMMAND.COM.
3.03 Y: "Y:" at the start of the command line will now refer to drive
Y rather than the Y command. This should allow network users
with mapped "Y" drives to execute programs on those drives with-
out having to disable the 4DOS Y command.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 14
HELP System
-----------
This section describes changes made to the 4DOS HELP system.
New Capabilities and Topics:
3.01 HELP is now DESQView-aware and should run properly in a less than
full screen DESQView window.
3.01 HELP now accepts up to 16 pages per topic and 32 cross-references
per topic, to allow 4MAKE users to install longer topics inside
the help file.
3.02 The text has been modified in many places. An ANSI table has
been added along with the APPEND, FASTOPEN, GRAPHICS, KEYB,
NLSFUNC, RECOVER, and REPLACE commands, and more information on
HELP itself. The explanations of JOIN and SUBST are more de-
tailed. All resident commands now show their DOS 3.3 resident
size. Several minor typographical errors have been corrected.
Environment Variables and Switches:
3.02 HELP has two switches which can be set temporarily on the command
line (in version 3.02 or later), or "permanently" -- until ex-
plicitly changed -- via the 4HELPC environment variable (see
below). When switches are set on the command line they can be
placed before or after the topic name (if any), so for example
these two commands are equivalent:
help copy /r
help /r copy
The switches are:
3.02 /BW: Forces HELP to display all text in monochrome colors,
to support the use of monochrome monitors attached to color
video boards (e.g. use of a composite monochrome monitor on a
CGA system). If you have such a system you will probably
want to set the /BW switch permanently as shown under 4HELPC
below.
3.01 /R: Disables dynamic window resizing and forces all text
screens to be displayed at the full screen height for those
who prefer an unchanging display window size.
3.01 Three new environment variables have been added to give you bet-
ter control over HELP:
4HELP: Specifies the full path and file name for the help
program to be loaded when F1 is pressed. If 4HELP is not
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 15
used, 4DOS will look for HELP.EXE in the current directory
and then on the PATH. 4HELP affects only F1, NOT the HELP
command; if you need to change how the HELP command works as
well, use an alias.
For example, if your HELP files are in the directory
D:\4DOS\HELP you will need the following lines in
AUTOEXEC.BAT:
set 4help=d:\4dos\help\help.exe
alias help d:\4dos\help\help.exe
4HELPF: Specifies the full path and file name for the help
text file. If not used, HELP will search for DOS.HLP in the
directory specified in 4HELP (if any), then in the current
directory and on the path.
4HELPC: Specifies permanent control switches for HELP.EXE.
More information on switches is above. For example, to per-
manently force HELP into monochrome mode, place the following
line in AUTOEXEC.BAT:
set 4helpc=/bw
Configuring HELP with HELPCFG:
The HELPCFG.EXE program, provided with 4DOS, can be used to con-
figure the help system display colors. To use it, change to the
directory HELP.EXE is in, be sure HELPCFG.EXE is in the same
directory, and enter the command:
HELPCFG
HELPCFG allows you to set the colors for several different por-
tions of the help display. Use the vertical arrows to select
which type of display color you wish to adjust. Hit <cr> and you
will be able to move a box in the left-hand window to select the
color. Hit <cr> again to select the color, or Esc to return to
the right hand window without changing the color. Another Esc
will save the new colors and return you to DOS.
If you are using a monochrome monitor on a color system and re-
quire HELP's /BW switch for proper displays, you may not be able
to change the monochrome display attributes easily with HELPCFG,
which does not currently have a /BW switch. This will be changed
in a future release of 4DOS.
4DOS 3.03 [4-12-91] UPDATE30.DOC page 16