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The Original Shareware 1.1
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The Original Shareware (WeMake CDs)(Volume 1.1)(CDs, Inc)(1993).iso
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1989-06-03
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PAM (Program Access Menus) Version 4.19
Version 4.10
Initial public release, given to the public domain by
Dave Kuntzsch, Burnsville, Mn. 55337
Version 4.10a
No code change. Documentation changed to reflect PATH
statement requirement.
Version 4.11
1) Start parameter "BW" has been added to allow displaying
the menu bar and DOS command line as black on white.
2) Start Parameter "SN" has been added to eliminate snow
on CGA monitors.
3) CD or CHDIR commands from the DOS command line will switch
directories and immediately display the menu associated
with the new directory and include it as one of the five
rolling directory levels.
4) Help text can be specified for individual menu entries.
5) Prompt substitution for a menu entry consisting of
only a CD %1 is added.
6) Five depressions of F3 (Previous menu) will not return
to the root directory anymore. Instead you will be
left positioned at the first of the five rolling levels.
7) Menu flicker is eliminated when trying to position past
the top or bottom of the menu.
8) Documentation Changes: The restriction of 128 lines per
menu has been clarified. Added a restriction about
running PAM in multiple DOS windows.
Version 4.12
1) A temporary menu is automatically built if one does not
exist when a directory is entered via a CD command from
the menu or command line. This eliminates the need to create
menus and allows executing .COM, .EXE, or .BAT files in
directories where PAM.MNU does not exist.
2) Insert mode has been fixed. It would write beyond the
end of the line.
3) CHDIR bug fixed (max pathname length was 12).
4) CD\PATHNAME now allowed (no space is required).
5) REM commands follow DOS rules and echo if ECHO is ON.
They are now included in the 128 lines per menu restriction.
Version 4.13
1) Two problems with automatic menuing have been fixed. One
caused a garbage line to be displayed. The other dropped
a menu item in some cases.
2) Screen colors are changed.
3) Item help text has been moved to the top of the menu. The
"Parms:" prompt has been simplified to " >".
4) Path statement is no longer required for Dos Ver 3.0 and above.
It is still required for previous Dos releases.
Version 4.14
1) Mouse support added for all operations, including function
keys and cursor movement. "IM" (ignore mouse) has been added
as an optional start parameter.
2) If a valid drive is not entered when started, PAM now puts
its Bat file in the root directory of the drive specified
in the COMPSEC environment variable.
3) Cosmetic changes to the screen. Pam version logo is only
displayed while in "Help".
4) Fast path drive change has been added from the command line.
"Press any key to continue" will not be displayed if only
a drive specification is entered (ie. "b:").
5) The "add line" function in Menu Alter now positions the cursor
at the beginning of the new line.
6) Six rolling directory levels are now maintained. The number
of recallable Dos commands has been increased from 5 to 8.
7) Up arrow will wrap to the bottom of the screen if the bar
is at the top and on the first menu item. Down arrow will
wrap to the top of the screen if the bar is on the last
menu item.
Version 4.15, 4.16, 4.17 (never released)
Version 4.18
1) Current drive is now displayed and can be selected by mouse
or the Alt key plus drive letter.
2) Fixed rolling directories to work as documented.
3) Added error detection in change drive and directory logic.
4) Bypass PAMCMDS.BAT from auto menus. It would cause a loop if
inadvertently executed.
5) Documentation cleaned up.
Version 4.19
1) When in Dos command mode, Cursor Up, Cursor Down, PgUp, PgDn
will switch immediately to Menu mode and and move the Item
Select Bar.
2) When in Dos command mode, Pg and Pg are displayed so the
the mouse can click on them.
DESCRIPTION:
PAM is a small, easy to use menu system which runs with
DOS 2.0 through DOS 4.01 and the DOS compatibility box of OS/2 1.1.
It uses ordinary DOS commands as its language, prefaced by a few
simple directives which delineate menu entries. A built in editor
is included to build the menus, but for complex editing, your
favorite full screen editor can be used. Existing BAT files can
easily be converted to menu items by copying them to filename
PAM.MNU which exists in every directory for which you want a menu.
RUNNING PAM:
Pam is executed by typing "PAM [drive letter] [BW] [SN] [IM]".
The drive specification is used to determine the root directory
of the drive to place a bat file on. It can be entered with
or without a ':'. If drive is not specified or invalid, the
root directory of the COMSPEC environment variable is used.
For speed, a VDISK or ramdisk is recommended.
If BW is specified, the menu bar and DOS command line will
be displayed as black on white. This is helpful if you are using
a monochrome monitor with VGA or MCGA since the blue background
is very dim.
If SN is specified, BIOS routines are used to write the screen.
If you are experiencing snow on a CGA monitor, use this option,
but screen writes will be a bit slower.
IM can be used if you have a mouse but do not want to use Pam's
mouse support.
If BW, IM or SN are included as start parameters, they must be
after the drive specification. They can be the only parameters and
the order is not significant.
Examples of valid invocations:
pam bw
pam d: bw
pam c sn
pam sn bw
pam e im bw sn
DOS VERSION 2 CONSIDERATION:
A PATH statement MUST be included in your AUTOEXEC.BAT which
includes the root directory of the drive to which the
PAMCMDS.BAT file will be written! An example of commands
to include in AUTOEXEC.BAT assuming you have a VDISK of D:
would be:
path d:\;c:\;c:\batfiles
rem the following statements allow the shell process
rem to run faster since command.com will not have
rem to be loaded from disk.
copy command.com d: > nul
if exist d:command.com set comspec=d:\command.com
pam d
NOTE! THE PATH STATEMENT IS REQUIRED EVEN IF DRIVE SPEC IS
NOT SPECIFIED FOR DOS VERSION 2. IT IS NOT REQUIRED
FOR DOS VERSION 3 AND GREATER.
TEMPORARY MENU SUPPORT:
Each time the current directory is changed PAM will search
the directory for a file named PAM.MNU, and will display its
menu entries if found. If not, a temporary menu is built and
displayed containing CHDIR commands to the parent and all
subdirectories. Also all .COM, .EXE, and .BAT files are included
and can be executed via menu selection. This temporary menu is
not written unless you enter Alter Menu (F4) and save it. It can
be tailored as desired before saving.
MOUSE SUPPORT:
A mouse following the Microsoft (TM) standard is supported. Proper
drivers must be preloaded before Pam is started. Only 2 buttons are
recognized and there is no distinction between them. To run a program
from a menu, position the mouse anywhere within the box on the same
line as the item. Click once and the menu bar will move to that
line and any optional help text will appear. A second click will run
the program. If the bar was already on the line, the first click
will run the program. You can click on a menu item directly, even
if you are in Dos Command Mode.
Pg, Pg, [Y], [N] and function keys can also be clicked.
"Press any key to continue" when displayed on the help screen
can also be replied to with a button press.
FUNCTION KEYS:
F1 - Help screen for using PAM.
F2 - Toggle between MENU mode and DOS command mode. In MENU
mode, entries are selected using the cursor keys and
Press Enter to run when the desired entry is highlighted.
In COMMAND mode, any DOS command can be entered and
executed as if from the native DOS prompt.
F3 - Backup in menu structure. This function follows single
CHDIR or CD commands in the menu files, or the same
commands from the DOS command line. It does not necessarily
follow your DOS directory hierarchy. If you traverse more
than six directories without backing up, the six most
current paths are retained.
F4 - Alter or create the current menu in the current
directory using the built in editor. All editor
functions are documented by the function keys displayed
on the screen, or by the editor help screen.
F5 - Recall one of eight previous DOS commands for modification
and/or execution. Each successive depression will
recall another command from the eight. This list will
continually wrap as more commands are entered.
F10 - Return to the root directory menu.
Alt-F10 - Exit the PAM system permanently. It can be
reentered as described above.
Alt-a thru Alt-z - Switch to the drive specified by the alpha
character (a - z).
Esc - Same function as F3.
CREATING MENUS:
Menus are nothing more than ordinary DOS commands necessary
to execute whatever function or program you desire. There
are four special character sequences which direct PAM.
MENU TITLE
Any line preceded by /$ becomes the title of the menu. It
can be placed anywhere within the menu. If more than one
is encountered, the last one is used as the title.
/$THIS IS A MENU TITLE
MENU ITEM
Any line preceded by /* is a menu item title. This line
will generally be followed by the DOS commands to run what
the item describes.
/*LIST DIRECTORY and RUN CHKDSK
dir
pause
chkdsk
HELP TEXT
A line preceded by /# will be displayed as help text when
its associated menu entry is highlighted. The "/#Help text"
can be placed anywhere within the command stream for a menu
entry and is used to display more information about the
entry such as what kind of response is appropriate for the
" >" prompt. If multiple /# lines are encountered in an entry,
only the last one will be displayed.
/*MOVE FILES FROM TEST DIRECTORY
/#This moves files from test to production
copy \test\*.* \prod\*.*
del \test\*.*
ENTERING OPTIONAL PROGRAM PARAMETERS
Any time %1 appears in any line of DOS menu commands, a
" >" prompt will be presented for that highlighted menu
item. Anything entered in response to the prompt will be
substituted for the %1. (%2 though %9 are not supported as
in normal DOS bat files.) As long as unique parameters do
not have to be passed on separate lines, the same effect can
be achieved by entering multiple parameters and all will
be substituted for %1:
MYPROG %1 %2 %3 could be changed to MYPROG %1 and
MYPROG parm1 parm2 parm3 will be substituted for %1.
SAMPLE MENU
/$THIS IS A SAMPLE MENU
/*LIST SPECIFIED DIRECTORY
rem Lines are indented for readability only,
rem since spaces are ignored.
rem The following statement allows the user to
rem enter a pathname in response to a prompt and
rem then execute the Dos DIR command.
/#Enter the pathname of the directory
dir %1
pause
/*CHANGE TO UTILITIES MENU
rem The following command changes the
rem current directory. PAM will automatically
rem read and display any menu in that directory.
rem The menu filename will always be 'Pam.Mnu'
CD \util
/*RUN MYPROG IF NEWFILE EXISTS
if not exist newfile goto MSG
MYPROG parm1
goto END
:MSG
echo Program not run!!!
:END
RESTRICTIONS:
1) DOS RELEASES PRIOR TO 3.0 MUST HAVE A PATH STATEMENT
WHICH INCLUDES THE ROOT DIRECTORY OF THE DRIVE ON
WHICH PAMCMDS.BAT IS PLACED. Read RUNNING PAM and DOS
VERSION 2 CONSIDERATIONS for more detailed information.
2) Menu lines are restricted to 50 characters and will be
truncated if exceeded.
3) Each menu can have a maximum of 64 item titles. Menus
exceeding 64 items will be truncated
4) Each menu can have a maximum of 128 lines including
titles, help lines and commands. Menus exceeding 128
lines will be truncated.
5) Directory pathname length is restricted to 40 characters.
The rolling directory function will be unpredictable
if you enter a directory with a pathname of greater than
40 characters.
6) If you are running something which allows multiple DOS's
or windows, the PAM running in each window must specify
a different drive ID. If not, several copies will share
the same PAMCMDS.BAT file and results will be unpredictable.
Here is a bat file which allows PAM to run in 2 DOS windows
using DOS 3.3 and IBM's Work Station Program (TM). It might be
applicable to other environments.
rem The following code sets up unique directories on a VDISK
rem to allow two copies of PAM to run. It uses the environment
rem to save the drive ID to use for Pamcmds.Bat. The VDISK is D:
if exist d:\pamcmds.bat goto :DIR1
set pam=d:
goto :RUN
:DIR1
rem create a new directory and call it drive E:
md d:\pam1 > nul
subst e: d:\pam1 > nul
set pam=e:
:RUN
rem The next statements create a dummy file in a VDISK directory.
rem It also copies Command.Com to the VDISK.
copy command.com d:\ > %pam%\pamcmds.bat
if exist d:\command.com set comspec=d:\command.com
rem invoke PAM using parameters set in the environment
pam %pam% bw