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Browser.doc
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2008-06-02
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Credits:
Browser, Copyright (c) 1987 Daniel Green
Browser may be redistributed without fee, provided that the copyright
notice is maintained and that this documentation accompanies the code.
Purpose:
Browser lets you view up to eight text files at one time. The "Browser"
is a window that displays the names of all the files in the current
directory, and that lets you go up and down the directory tree. From
the Browser window you can select files to view. Files that you are
viewing each appear in their own "Viewer" windows.
Operating the Browser Window:
When you start the program (by typing BROWSER from the CLI) the Browser
window appears. It looks like this:
Inner Folders Outer Folders Change Drives (menus)
+= Browser =================== BF +
| +--------------------------+ /\ |
| |######First file name#####| || | (highlighted name)
| | Second file name | || |
| | Third file name | || |
| | Fourthfile name | || |
| | Fifth file name | || |
| | Sixth file name | || |
| | Seventh file name | || |
| +--------------------------+ \/ |
| +------+ +--------+ |
| | Open | | Quit | |
| +------+ +--------+ |
+---------------------------------+
The browser starts off displaying files in the current directory,
sorted alphabetically from 'A' to 'Z' and then from 'a' to 'z'.
If a file that you want to view resides in this directory, you can
scroll through the list of files until the highlight bar rests on top
of the file you want to view. Scrolling is accomplished in many ways.
You can click on the up or down arrows to scroll one line at a time,
you can drag the scroll bar (prop gadget) around, or you can click in
the scroll bar box to scroll up or down a windowful of filenames at a
time. If the filename that you want is one of the seven appearing in
the window, you can also directly click on that name with the mouse.
For those who don't like mice, you can use the keyboard arrow keys --
up and down arrows will scroll up or down one filename at a time.
Holding down the shift key while pressing an arrow will display either
the first windowful (for SHIFT up-arrow) or the last windowful (for
SHIFT down-arrow) of filenames. To activate a file for viewing, you can
either press the OPEN button while the desired filename is highlighted,
or mouse double-click on the filename, or press the keyboard RETURN or
ENTER keys while the desired filename is highlighted.
If you want to view a file that is not in the current directory, you
use the menus. In the Browser terminology, a "Folder" is a synonym
with "directory". The "Inner Folders" menu contains an alphabetically
sorted list of all the subdirectories, or folders, that are contained
in the current directory. Clicking on one of these menu entries will
cause the Browser to show files in that directory. The clicked-on
folder will become the new current directory. The "Outer Folders"
menu contains a hierarchical list of all the parent directories of
the current directory. The first entry is the current directory itself.
You can select this if for some reason you want Browser to re-read the
list of files in the current directory. The next entry is the folder
that contains the current directory, and so on. The final entry in this
menu is the name of the disk drive that this folder resides on; this is
the root of the current directory. As with the Inner Folders, clicking
on one of these folder names will cause that to become the new current
directory, and cause the Browser display to update. The final menu is
called "Change Drives", and lists all the drives in the system (including
RAM: and any other ram disks, hard disks, or floppies) alphabetically
sorted. Clicking on one of these will change the current directory to
the root of that disk, and update the Browser display.
Brief messages will be displayed if the current directory has no
files within it, if there are no Inner Folders in the current folder,
or if there are no drives with mounted disks.
Clicking on the QUIT button will close any viewer windows that are open,
and exit the program. Pressing the HELP key on the keyboard will display
a copyright message. The Browser window can also be dragged and depth
arranged.
Operating the Viewer Windows:
Files that have been selected and activated by the Browser are
viewed in Viewer windows. Each window can be dragged, closed, depth
arranged, and resized. Each window has a horizontal and a vertical
scroll bar, so that if the text of the file is larger then the window
size, you can scroll the window over the text. Scrolling is accomplished
by either mouse or keyboard. With the mouse you can click and drag the
scroll bar, or you can click on the scroll box to move up or down a
windowful of text. Using the keyboard arrow keys, you can scroll the
window up, down, left, or right one line. If you hold down the SHIFT
key with an arrow key the window will scroll to the extreme edge in
the desired direction. For instance, SHIFT up-arrow will scroll to the
top of the file, while SHIFT right-arrow will move the window to display
the rightmost portion of the file.
Additional keys are supported that emulate the UNIX(tm) "more" file
displayer. Pressing the space bar will scroll down a page worth of
text. Pressing the RETURN or ENTER keys will scroll down one line of
text, just like the down arrow.
To close the viewer window, you can either click in the window close
box, or you can type the "Q" key. Pressing the HELP key will display
the copyright notice.
Pressing the ESC escape key will call up the Browser window to the
front of the Workbench screen.
The Viewer windows can only display text. All non-text characters,
including tabs, are converted into spaces at the rate of one space per
control character.
Special Considerations:
If you eject a disk from a floppy drive while that disk's directory
is being displayed in the Browser, nothing ill will happen, but
obviously if you try to open a file or folder on the (now non-mounted)
disk, a disk requester will appear asking you to re-insert the disk.
Tabs are not expanded to their full length but are merely converted
to a single space per tab.
Future Work:
Should the Folder menus be disabled if the disk containing the
current directory is dis-mounted? I'm not sure yet. The Viewer windows
should have a search. My ultimate goal is to convert the Viewer to
an Editor, but don't hold your breath...