ASP Advantage 1993/The Association of Shareware Professionals Advantage CD-ROM 1993.iso/files/utilties/xmenu/xmenu.doc

Text File | 1993-02-09 | 20KB | 577 lines

                                        XMENU

                                        DISK MANAGER

                                        USERS GUIDE

                                        for

                                        MS-DOS




                                        by

                                        GARY W. WOOD

            *** READ CAREFULLY BEFORE USING XMENU ***
                    PROGRAM LICENSE AGREEMENT

XMENU is NOT "Public Domain" and it is NOT "Freeware".  XMENU is
a copyrighted software product developed and owned by Gary W. Wood.
XMENU is distributed under the shareware concept.  You are free to
copy and use the software for personal use and shareware
distribution in its original, unmodified form provided no fee
beyond reasonable media and/or shipping charges is levied.

If you are using the software for personal use, your required to
license the software after a 21 day evaluation period for $25 and
become a XMENU supporter.  XMENU supporters will receive the next
major release free of charge and be keep informed of major
developments for one (1) year.  A license is required for use of
XMENU by corporations and institutions, and for its commercial
distribution.  You may obtain a license for the use of XMENU by
writing to me.  The license is for perpetual, non-exclusive use of
any version.  Purchase orders and invoicing are acceptable.  If you
have special requirements, such as licensing for an unlimited
number of copies, local area networks, site licenses, or
customization, please feel free to submit them in writing.  You may
request a license for:

     o    an unlimited number of end user copies at a single site;
     o    customization of messages and documentation,  an
          additional fee may be required depending on the extent of
          changes;
     o    permission to distribute within your organization;
     o    permission to include with your company's commercial
          products;

The fee for a license depends on the estimated number of copies of
the program that you will use.  If you wish to distribute XMENU
with your own programs or hardware, write for a "Marketing
License".  To use the discount schedule below, estimate the total
number of copies that you may eventually use.

     2 to  9 computers ..... at $20 each
    10 to 24 computers ..... at $16 each
    25 to 49 computers ..... at $13 each
    50 to 99 computers ..... at $10 each
    100 or more computers .. $1000 one time fee

Regardless of the quantity, only one set of materials will be sent
to you.  You may then make as many copies of it that are licensed.
Maintenance is free.  Upgrades will be made available upon request.
Technical support is available via mail, or through the Compuserve
bulletin board systems (76156,317), at no charge.

              Copyright (C) 1985-1992 Gary W. Wood




If you use XMENU after the 21 day evaluation period a license fee
of $25 will register you to receive a current version of XMENU.
Please state the current version of XMENU that you have.  Send
contributions to:

          Gary Wood
          5401 Lakeview Road
          North Little Rock, Arkansas  72116

All rights reserved.  Printed in the United States of America.  No
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
written permission from Gary W. Wood, 5401 Lakeview Road, North
Little Rock, Arkansas, 72116.




                           DISCLAIMER

The author has taken due care in the preparation of this document
and the associated program.  Insofar as specific mention of program
features, the author believes the information to be true.  No
warranty is made regarding the suitability of the program to be
compatible with your computer.  Incidental and consequential
damages caused by malfunction, defect, or otherwise are not the
responsibility of Gary W. Wood, and to the extent permitted by law,
and hereby excluded both for the property and, to the extent not
unconscionable, for personal injury damage. (Some states or
jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of
incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or
exclusion may not apply to you.)  Gary W. Wood also reserves the
right to make amendments to the contents of this document from time
to time, to reflect changes made to the specification of the XMENU
system or for any other reason.








XMENU is a Trademark of Gary W. Wood.  IBM, IBM-PC, PC-XT, PC-AT,
PS/2, DOS, OS/2, VM/CMS, FLIST, and PC-DOS are Trademarks of
International Business Machines Corp. MS-DOS is a Trademark of
Microsoft Corporation.CHAPTERS



1.  Introduction                                            5

2.  Getting Started                                         8

3.  Invoking the XMENU Command                              10

4.  Using the Keyboard                                      11

5.  XMENU Memory Requirements                               12

6.  XMENU DOS Commands                                      13

7.  XMENU Help Text                                         15

8.  Invoking the XCRYPT command                             16

9.  Invoking the XSETUP command                             17

INTRODUCTION



WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF USING A MENU SYSTEM USING
XMENU - MENU MANAGER

This program is for the person or organization that prefers not to
use the PC-DOS environment to invoke applications under DOS.  XMENU
will provide a standardized interface that can be easily used by
the novice computer user.  It can be used by an organization to log
usage of the computer by creating a log file of every command the
user uses while under the control of XMENU.
WHAT IS XMENU


XMENU is an organizational menu program that takes full advantage
of fixed disk drive(s) on a Personal Computer.  XMENU can increase
productivity by allowing you to create a common command structure
using menus.  These commands consist of complex sets of IBM Disk
Operating System (DOS) instructions.  Once these instructions are
defined by you, they are saved by XMENU into a ".MNU" file.

XMENU presents you with simple menu(s) to quickly find and select
the menu options you have defined.  This enables you to access
virtually any application program on you fixed disk through one
simple menu.  XMENU returns to the menu after completion of the
option you select.
FEATURES


Allows creation of simple menus to process DOS commands.

Ten (10) options per page

Ninety-nine (99) pages of options per menu

Sixteen (16) menu levels deep

Fifty (50) DOS commands per option

DOS commands up to 128 characters long

Argument lengths up to sixty-eight (68)

Allows access to applications with a common user access.

Online help text can be associated with each menu option.

Menu files are encrypted for greater security control.

Passwords can be assigned to menus and options for access and
maintenance.

A log file can be created showing usage of the Personal Computer
(PC) while using XMENU.

Supports both monochrome and color monitors.

Gives you control of the screen colors.

Isn't memory resident or requires to be loaded first in memory.

Will reduce memory requirements to 7K when executing DOS commands
when the environment parameter SET TMP= points to a temporary work
sub-directory.

Supports text modes from 80x25 up to 132x60.
GETTING STARTED



WHAT KIND OF HARDWARE DO I NEED


To use XMENU you need the following:

     An IBM PC with hard disk or a very closely compatible
     microcomputer.

     A color/graphics adapter or monochrome adapter

     256K of RAM memory for best results.  The program requires at
     least 80K of memory.

     One diskette drive

     DOS 2.1 or greater
WHAT DO I DO NOW


Installing XMENU to operate on your system is a simple process.
You should start by copying the distribution diskette and putting
the original away in a safe place.

Now, copy the files on the diskette to a directory on your hard
disk.  The files that make up the menu manager are:

     XMENU.EXE      - Menu manager main program
     XCRYPT.EXE     - Encrypt / De-encrypt menu program
     XMENU.DOC      - Documentation
     XMENU.INI      - Configuration file (created by first execution)
     MAINMENU.MNU   - Sample initial menu
     DOS.HLP        - Sample help file
     XSETUP.EXE     - Create APPLICAT.MNU initial applications
     XSETUP.INF     - Text control file for XSETUP.EXE

You are now ready!

INVOKING THE XMENU COMMAND



WHAT ARE THE INVOKING PARAMETERS


First, no parameters are mandatory, but under some conditions you
may want to specify parameters to tailor how the program performs.

To invoke the program enter:

     XMENU [[d:][path][menuname][.ext]] [/M][[logname][.ext]

The optional parameters have the following definitions:

[[d:][path][menuname][.ext]]  is the optional initial menu
                              displayed when XMENU first starts
                              up.  This defaults to the name of
                              MAINMENU.MNU.

[[/M][logname][.ext]]    is used to start logging activity to
                         a log file.  If the "/M" parameter
                         is used by itself, the default name
                         of the log file is XMENU.LOG.  This
                         log file contains the date, time,
                         and activity performed from within
                         XMENU.  XMENU will append to the end
                         of this file when a file that
                         already exists is used.

/L                       is used to display license information.

/B[nnnn]                 is the parameter used to envoke a
                         automatic screen blanker.  nn is the
                         number of seconds before the screen is
                         blanked.  A blinking diamond is
                         positioned in the lower right corner of
                         the screen to denote a blanked screen.

On the first execution of XMENU, it will create the configuration
file called XMENU.INI.  This file contains the default colors and
two lines of headings.  XMENU  will prompt you for the text of the
first two lines of headings.  This can be used to enter the name of
your company, etc..  If you mess up the headings, just erase the
XMENU.INI file and try again.

XMENU will search the directories searched by the PATH= parameter
to locate menus.  You may set the environment parameter XMENU= in
order to locate menus more directly.USING THE KEYBOARD



WHAT KEYS ON THE KEYBOARD DOES XMENU USE


XMENU has a natural feel to the keyboard.  In most cases you can
use the menus without knowing any special keys.  But, there are a
few keystrokes that you must know to access maintenance and the
help text.

Keystroke             Definition

Alt-m     Maintenance menus

?         Access help text per menu option

Esc       Exit menu

Enter     Pass control to XMENU menu option

F1        Help (same as ?)

F2        Maintenance menus (same as Alt-m)

F3        Goto DOS

Ins       Add new option

Del       Delete existing option

XMENU MEMORY REQUIREMENTS



USING THE "TMP" ENVIRONMENT PARAMETER


XMENU reduces the resident portion of XMENU to 7K while another
command is executed by temporarily storing the XMENU program in EMS
or Extended memory or disk. The TMP= environment parameter is used
within XMENU when storing memory to disk if extended or expanded
memory is unavailable.  After the evoked command is finished,
XMENU is read back in memory and execution resumes.  This will
effectively reduce the memory requirements of XMENU down to only
7K!  If expanded or extended memory is unavailable, XMENU will free
memory to a temporary work file.  This file can be up to 70K, and
takes a long time to page out when the file isn't on a RAM drive.
I would suggest setting up a RAM drive in extended memory if you
don't have EMS memory using the RAMDRIVE.SYS device driver provided
by MS-DOS.  The feature can be temporarily disabled by using the
"/s" option after the command.

Example:  Change CONFIG.SYS to include the following:

          DEVICE=C:\DOS\RAMDRIVE.SYS /e 128 512 64

          Change AUTOEXEC.BAT to include the following:

          SET TMP=D:\

The above changes would set up a 128K RAM drive using the next
available drive, ie. D:.  XMENU would save the memory file to the
location specified by the "TMP" environment variable.

When the TMP= environment paameter isn't provided XMENU will NOT
page out the program.  The "/s" will turn off this feature when
provided before the command to be executed.  It will be stripped
off the command line.

Example:  /S CHDIR \WP51
          WP

In the above example, you wouldn't need XMENU to page out to do the
CHDIR command.  This would make the CHDIR command execute faster.

XMENU DOS COMMANDS




XMENU allows you to specify a virtually unlimited number of DOS
commands to execute for a menu option.  Each command is
interpreted, prompts are performed if necessary, then the command
executed.  In order to make the commands more flexible, XMENU
allows you to enter part of the command using prompts to the user.
XMENU supports the use of variables in the DOS commands.  By using
these variables, you can change information in the DOS commands
used by XMENU.  This permits greater flexibility when designing
your menu options, and reduce the need to maintain the menus.

FORMAT: [symbol "message" default]

The "symbol" specifies and symbol to be associated with the field
entered.  This field may be anything up to a length of 68
characters.  The "message" is the prompt given to the user to enter
the field associated with the "symbol".  And the "default" is the
prototype of the command to be entered.  This can be used to
specify a size of the field by using the "#" sign to be used as a
space or any string to be put in the prompt.

If the first DOS command is the @ECHO or ECHO command used with the
option ON or OFF, XMENU will determine that you are going to use
DOS batch commands.  Under this condition XMENU will copy the
commands to a disk file with an extension of .BAT and allow PC-DOS
to execute the batch file.  After the batch commands are executed
XMENU will delete the batch file from the disk.
XMENU VARIABLE EXAMPLES


Example #1:    Invoke Lotus 1-2-3 with no prompts.

               123

          This example of specifying only the filename of "123"
          without specifying the extension will cause XMENU to
          search the "PATH=" environment paths until is finds
          either "123.BAT", "123.COM", or "123.EXE".  If it locates
          one of these files, it will pass control directly to the
          program.  If it doesn't locate the file, XMENU will pass
          the command to the DOS command processor to see if it can
          recognize the command.


Example #2:    Invoke Lotus 1-2-3 with no prompts from a particular
drive
               and path.

               C:\LOTUS\123.COM

          This will cause XMENU to execute the program from only
          the specified drive "C:" in the sub-directory "LOTUS".


Example #3:    Invoke Lotus 1-2-3 with user specified driver set.

               123 [DRIVE "Enter driver set?"]

          This will prompt the user for driver set into a 68
          character input field.


Example #4:    Invoke Lotus 1-2-3 with user specified driver set.

               123 [DRIVE "Enter driver set?" 123.DRV######]]

          This will prompt the user for driver set into a 13
          character input field with "123.DRV" as the default
          value.
Example #5     Execute either Lotus or 1-2-3 depending on whether
Lotus is found.

               @ECHO OFF
               IF EXIST LOTUS.COM GOTO XLOTUS
               123
               GOTO EXIT
               :XLOTUS
               LOTUS
               :EXIT

          This example above causes XMENU to write the above
          commands to a temporary disk file and allow PC-DOS to
          execute the batch file commands.  This is caused by
          having the commands following the @ECHO OFF command.
   XMENU HELP TEXT



CREATING HELP TEXT


You can create help text for XMENU with most ASCII text editors.
Using the editor, create a text file with the help information
associated with one menu option.  Give this file the extension of
".HLP" and put this in a sub-directory that can be located through
the "PATH=" environment path.  Then maintenance the menu option and
specify the name of the help file.  After the menu file is saved,
the help can be accessed by pressing the "?" key when positioned to
the option in a menu.

XMENU will present the help text using the DOS command "TYPE".  In
some cases, you may want to specify another program to present the
help text to the user.  This program can be specified by using the
"LIST=" environment parameter.  To change XMENU to use the
"LIST.COM" program to present help, the user of XMENU would enter:

     SET LIST=LIST

before using XMENU.

INVOKING THE XCRYPT COMMAND



WHAT IS THE XCRYPT PROGRAM


The XCRYPT.EXE program is a supplemental program that can be used
to encrypt or de-encrypt the .MNU files that you create.  This is
for creating your own .MNU file with a file editor.  Also, if for
some reason a .MNU file is corrupted, you can recreate the file.

This is basically an input to output type of program.  It needs
three pieces of information, input file, output file, and a flag
specifying to encrypt or de-encrypt.

To invoke the program enter:

     XCRYPT [[/E][/D]] [source][.ext] [target][.ext]

The parameters have the following definitions:

[/E]           is the flag specifying to encrypt the source file
               into the target file.

[/D]           is the file specifying to de-encrypt the source
               file into the target file.

[source][.ext] is the name of the input file.  When the "/D"
               option is specified, this is usually a ".MNU" file.

[target][.ext]      is the name of the output file.  When the "/E"
                    option is specified, this is usually a ".MNU"
                    file.  The "-" can be used to redirect the
                    output to the console.

INVOKING THE XSETUP COMMAND



WHAT IS THE XSETUP PROGRAM



The XSETUP.EXE program is a supplemental program that can be used
to initially create a sub-menu of the main menu.  This menu, (i.e.
APPLICAT.MNU) will contain all user applications found on the
default drive.  XSETUP will create a menu option for every
application found on the default drive in effect when XSETUP is
executed.  It will use the information in XSETUP.INF to select
valid applications.

The program has only one optional parameter.

To invoke the program enter:

     XSETUP  [drive letter]:

The parameters have the following definitions:

[drive letter] is the drive to search for applications.