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SHAREWARE INSTALLATION SYSTEM LITE Version 2.0 (C) 1992 by Scanlon Enterprises The Shareware Concept : The shareware concept has made it possible for you to obtain extremely powerful software at a price you can afford, and it gives you the opportunity to try the software before you buy. Shareware is kept alive by your support. Evaluate this product for 30-days and give copies to your friends for evaluation. If, after the 30 day trial period, you continue to use the program, then register it. By registering, you will be entitled to full support, the latest version and announcements of new releases and products. Registration is $39.95 Send you registration to : SCANLON ENTERPRISES 38354 17TH ST. E. PALMDALE, CA 93550 Or call your credit card order to : (805) 272-4827 Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 2 INTRO Preface by Jim Hood, The $hareware Marketing $ystem and PC-Learn Some months ago, Paul Scanlon asked me to beta test an interesting product : The Shareware Installation System Lite. In an age when most programmers are working C++, Pascal and other high level languages, Paul works in machine code. Tight, fast and clean. You know you have a treat in store when Paul does a new shareware package. Inside the tiny 6K COM file is a full featured programming system which can be configured to install just about any shareware or professional package you could imagine! It works with all current compression systems such as LHA & PKZIP. It works VERY fast. You can set errorlevel checking, color, screen layout and provide messages of any type or length. Similar installation systems I have seen are larger, slower, more limited and around 4 to 6 times the price. I think Shareware Authors should give this one a serious look - the experience when you play with this is something like finding a small jewel box with an entire orchestra inside! --- Thanks Jim ---- Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 3 Press release intro FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 6/19/92 New LOW COST, MACHINE CODE installation system uniquely designed for shareware authors! Machine code speed, fully programmable, Royalty Free and at a BARGAIN PRICE! System is a shareware package. Paul Scanlon Scanlon Enterprises 38354 17th St. E. Palmdale, CA 93550 TEL: (805) 272-4827 COMPUSERVE: 77561,2133 The Shareware Installation System, scheduled for release on 6/20/92 represents a dramatic opportunity for shareware programmers needing the ultimate SMALL SIZE, LOW COST PROFESSIONAL installation system for your shareware distribution disks. Using a copy-righted machine code algorithm, the package appends your custom installation commands to a TINY highly configurable machine code COM file program with which your end users interface. Having a RICH programming language of over 20 custom commands (including variables), the system ensures ULTIMATE flexibility, TOTAL password protection from end user tampering and high speed MACHINE CODE BULLET PROOF INSTALLATIONS for your users. Installation screens are every bit as professional and smooth as commercial installation products of similar type but having a MUCH SMALLER COM FILE than similar packages! Commands are available to fully control screen color, cursor position, displayed information, get yes/no responses, get a line of input such as a target path, get destination drive, change drives, change directories, and MUCH more, including execution of ANY external program such as self extracting files, or an un- compression systems to extract files, etc. This tiny program is a fully functional programming system! The package is shareware. Special price effective till June 30th, 1992 : $29.95 Price after June 30th, 1992 is $39.95 Please include $3 for shipping and CA residents must include tax. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 4 Shareware Installation System Lite, will be referred to as SIS from this point on. This product is designed to aid the Author / developer in making their software easy to install. This product uses the command approach to installation ease. By this, we mean, that the Author or developer creates an installation command file, which is read in by this product for later recall. The user or client, starts the installation process by entering the new product name, such as INSTALL from a DOS prompt. The Author or developer, starts a new installation program, by entering the product name, followed by the command line switch, of '/I'. The 'I' may be either upper or lower case. Once the Author or developer starts SIS, SIS will prompt for a new command file, a new password (this protects the Authors command set from being changed after installation) and a new file name (which may be the same as the previous). When the user or Client starts SIS, they will be prompted, based upon the Author or developer commands installed at the time. In this manner, the Author or developer retains full control of the installation process. The product name upon shipping is SISLITE (with a COM extension). All variations of this product will carry a 'COM' extension. Because of this extension and file type, no SIS product can be larger than 64K total (after adding you installation commands). This really is NOT a problem, since a typical command file is less than than 5K (typically less than 1K). The size of SIS without commands is under 10K, thus leaving room for up to 54K in commands ! That's a whole lot of commands. **** P A S S W O R D **** SIS comes with a password of SISLITE (all uppercase). SIS knows the difference between upper and lower case on passwords. The remainder of this documentation will be devoted to explaining usage of the commands and variables which are available for commands in the command file. Any command which is NOT a command of SIS, must be a DOS program, not a batch file command. Thus, ECHO is not allowed, but FORMAT is ! Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 5 QUICK START USAGE Create your master disk(s) and save room on disk one for SIS, which is about 10K (usually less than 7K) . Now, using any Text Editor or Wordprocessor, create the command list, using the special commands of SIS and any valid DOS program (executables with the extension COM and EXE). A typical command file will contain : 1) Opening screen describing your product in brief and the base requirements of the product. 2) A prompt to Abort or continue. 3) Next, prompt for the destination drive. 4) Prompt for the destination path You are now ready to copy files from the source drive (you don't have to ask for the name, as SIS automatically knows). 5) Copy files from the source to the destination. 6) Unpack any files using your un-packing program or using a command to start a self un-packing program. 7) Start any new program, or display a closing screen giving the user quick start instructions. The next step is to type SISLITE /I at any DOS command line prompt. This will be the process of applying your commands to a new installation file. You will be prompted for the existing password (SISLITE is the original one), for verification to proceed on deleting the existing command set, the new command file (path may be included), the name of the new installation program (no extension is required), and finally the new password, so others can not modify your command list. Passwords are limited to 16 characters, upper and lower case (even spaces). Your new installation program will be created. You must copy this to your new master disk. Then, you should test it. This is the time to find mistakes. If you have the registered version, we provide both a Text Editor and a SIS verification system. Our SIS verifier will find over 90% of the possible errors. We have found, if your installation command set works once, and the user has a PC or compatible system running any DOS from 2.0 up, that SIS will work as installed each time ! Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 6 Quick Start with Commands .. SIS accepts the following commands : 01) CLR - clears the display 02) COPY - copy files from source to destination 03) CR - waits for ENTER key to be pressed 04) GET DRV - Gets destination drive from user 05) GOTO - Branch to a label 06) IF CR - Test last CR entry for escape key 07) IF DOS - Test DOS version 08) IF EXIST - Test for existence of a file 09) IF VID - Test for color system 10) IF YN - Test response from YN input function 11) IF ERR - Test if an error level is there 12) LIN - Gets up to 80 character line input 13) LOCATE - Position cursor 14) MKDIR - Create destination directory 15) SET COLR - Set color for CLR function 16) SET PTH - Set path to last LIN (line input) 17) WRITE - Display text using current colors 18) YN - Waits for 'Y', 'N' or Escape (upper or lower case) as yes no response. 19) CD - change directory Any other command file entry is a DOS program, such as FORMAT. In addition, there are a few variables that SIS knows about. To use these variables, prefix them with the '@' character. EXAMPLE : COPY @LIN The @LIN above will be replaced with whatever is in the current line input buffer, from a previous LIN function call. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 7 Quick start variables ... The following is a list of available variables : 1) DRV - The selected destination drive 2) PTH - The selected destination path 3) YN - Current response from the YN function 4) CR - returns 'E' if escape was pressed at last CR function 5) COLR - returns the value of the current color setting in HEX 6) SRC - Returns the source drive 7) LIN - returns the string input at the last LIN function Remember, to use these variables on a command line, precede it with the '@' character. COMMAND FILE This is the file the Author or developer creates, which contains the SIS commands and DOS commands. A SIS command file can NOT have any BATCH file commands. These are commands which are built into DOS. A command other than SIS commands, are the names of COM or EXE programs residing on the source disk or the client system, with a DOS PATH set to it. This file is merged into SISLITE when SIS is started with the /I command line switch. Command file line lengths should be under 120 characters A command file size can be up to 54K bytes. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 8 A typical command file might contain the following : CLR 1 1 25 80 17 LOCATE 5 5 WRITE INSTALLING THE SHAREWARE INSTALLATION SYSTEM LITE LOCATE 7 5 WRITE ENTER YOUR DESTINATION DRIVE GET DRV LOCATE 9 5 WRITE ENTER THE DESTINATION PATH TO INSTALL TO CLR 10 5 10 75 07 LOCATE 10 5 LIN SET PTH MKDIR COPY *.* The above would get the destination drive and path, make the directory on the destination and finally copy all files on the source to the destination. The user is prompted for both the drive and path. The screen is cleared to white on blue (color systems) and just ahead of the line input command, LIN, the line input the string at, is cleared to white on black. The above file takes less than 400 bytes ! Also, in this case, we do not use any additional commands other than those supplied within SIS, thus keeping the total installation system size to a small under 10K bytes. The command file itself is NOT included on the installation disk, as the commands will reside within the SIS installation system itself. EXTERNAL COMMANDS An external command must have either a COM or EXE extension, no batch files allowed. The line containing an external command, must include the full path and name. IE .... C:\SIS\SIS.COM In the above, we are starting the COM program SIS, from the SIS directory, on drive C. If the drive letter is NOT included, then the file is assumed to be on the current drive, usually the source drive of the program to be installed. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 9 SIS Variables : Although all of the variables can be retrieved on the command line (of any line in a Command File), the most useful ones are : LIN, DRV & PTH Your command line will be expanded to include the variable(s) which are currently set. In this way, a command line like the following will be expanded : IF EXIST @DRV:@PTH\COMMAND.COM GOTO XIT If the variable @DRV is 'D' and @PTH is \SIS then the line would be expanded to : IF EXIST D:\SIS\COMMAND.COM GOTO XIT In this manner, some things can be done, with unknowns at run time. This is a very powerful feature. An example of using the DRV variable follows : @DRV: This will set the current drive to that selected by the user In this way, you will be logged onto the destination drive We can also change directories by using the CD command : CD @PTH This will expand to the current path after the PTH variable is set using the SET PTH function. Also, in conjunction, we can also specify the drive with this command, so : CD @DRV:@PTH Is also perfectly legal SIS ERRORLEVELS SIS will exit with an errorlevel if any major errors are detected at run time. Following are pages that describe the SIS command set, and how to execute external DOS programs (any COM or EXE program) Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 10 CLR Syntax : CLR srow scol erow ecol colr Where : 'srow' & 'scol' are the starting row / column to clear 'erow' & 'ecol' are the ending row / column to clear 'colr' is the color to clear the area to in HEX All of these are decimal values, except 'colr', which is HEX, and must be two digits (no more, no less). 'colr' may also be selected by using the variable @COLR instead of a value. Example : CLR 5 5 20 75 17 The above clears lines 5 thru 20 and columns 5 thru 75 to white on blue. Example : CLR 6 6 20 76 @COLR Clears lines 6 thru 20 and columns 6 thru 76 to the value of the variable @COLR. COPY Syntax : COPY fname Where : 'fname' is any valid DOS file name and my include wild cards, such as '*' or '?' Example : COPY SISLITE.COM Would copy 'SISLITE.COM' from the source to the destination CR Syntax : CR Waits for the user to press ENTER or ESCAPE GET DRV Syntax : GET DRV Waits for the user to enter the destination drive letter or the ESCAPE KEY. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 11 GOTO Syntax : GOTO label Where : 'label' is any string beginning with a colon ':' Example : GOTO XIT Would look for the label ':XIT' IF CR Syntax : IF CR command Where : 'command' is any valid command file command Example : IF CR GOTO XIT This would branch to the label if the last CR operation returned an ESCAPE. IF DOS Syntax : IF DOS ver command Where : 'ver' is the version to test for, and the condition is met, if the actual DOS version is greater than or equal to 'ver' 'command' is any valid Command File command Example : IF DOS 2.0 THEN GOTO GOODOS Would branch the file to the label 'GOODOS' if the actual DOS version was 2.0 and up (IE.. 3.0 would branch.) IF EXIST Syntax : IF EXIST fname command Where : 'fname' is any valid DOS file name 'command' is any valid Command File command Example : IF EXIST SISLITE.COM GOTO XIT Branches if the file 'SISLITE.COM' exists, to the label 'XIT' Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 12 IF VID Tests if current video is color Syntax : IF VID command Where : 'command' is any valid Command File command Example : IF VID GOTO COLOR Branches to 'COLOR' if the video system in use is color IF YN Syntax : IF YN resp command Where : 'resp' is the expected YN response being tested for, and may be either 'Y', 'N' or 'E', where 'E' is for escape. 'command' is any valid Command File command Example : IF YN Y GOTO DOYES Would branch to 'DOYES' if the last YN operation returned a response of 'Y' (for yes). IF ERR Syntax : IF ERR var command Where : 'var' is the expected errorlevel 'command' is any valid command file command The command 'command', will be performed, if ERR is equal to or greater than the selected test 'val'. LIN Syntax : LIN Gets up to 80 characters as input from the user This input can be set to the PTH by using SET PTH command Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 13 LOCATE Syntax : LOCATE row column Where : 'row' and 'column' are decimal values representing the new cursor location of row and column. Example : LOCATE 5 5 Would position the cursor to line 5 column 5 MKDIR Syntax : MKDIR Creates the destination directory set with the SET PTH function SET COLR Syntax : SET COLR foreground background Where : 'foreground' is the foreground color to use 'background' is the background color to use Both values are in decimal, in the range of 0 thru 16 See COLORS below for the standard set of colors available. This puts the combined value into the variable 'COLR' for later use with the @COLR variable. This is useful if you don't want to calculate the HEX value for the CLR function above. SET PTH Syntax : SET PTH Sets the variable PTH to the last LIN operation value. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 14 WRITE Syntax : WRITE text Where : 'text' is any string of characters. This displays the selected text at the current cursor location, using the existing colors. Example : WRITE Hello Displays 'Hello' at the current cursor location YN Syntax : YN Waits for the user to press 'Y', 'N' or the Escape key. 'Y' & 'N' may be upper or lower case, typed characters. CD Syntax : CD dir Where : 'dir' is the name of a directory to change to Example : CD \SIS Would change the current directory to SIS off the root Any other string of characters starting a line will be assumed to be a valid file name, except labels (beginning with a colon). Remember, NO batch commands such as ECHO, CD, MD, etc.. are allowed in the commands used. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 15 SIS COLORS The colors available for the SIS commands must be in the range of 0 thru 16 (exclusively), for foreground and background. For entering colors as HEX (both values are combined), the colors range from 0 thru F (IE... 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F) When used with the CLR command, both values are entered as a combined value, with the background first. (IE... 17 would be 1 for background and 7 for foreground) For background colors, any value over 7, makes the foreground color blink. IE... 87 would be 17 plus, the foreground color 7 would blink. COLOR TRANSLATION Foreground and background Foreground only 0 = Black 8 = Dark Gray 1 = Blue 9 = Light Blue 2 = Green 10 = Light Green 3 = Cyan 11 = Light Cyan 4 = Red 12 = Light Red 5 = Magenta 13 = Light Magenta 6 = Brown 14 = Yellow 7 = White (gray) 15 = White (intense white) Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 16 WHEN YOU REGISTER Although this document contains more than enough to get any user going, if you register, you will get an enhanced version of this documentation, several command file examples and the SISLITE.COM file will NOT contain the opening screen requesting registration of the SIS product. Additional documentation includes coverage of SIS run time errorlevels. One useful errorlevel, is the escape (value 27) . This can be tested for after each call for input. EXAMPLE: GET DRV IF ERR 27 GOTO XIT Would branch to the label ':XIT' if the errorlevel is 27 OR higher ! To trap just the escape, use : GET DRV IF ERR 28 GOTO PROCD IF ERR 27 GOTO XIT :PROCD Additionally, the built in commands (within SIS LITE) SET DRV, SET SPTH, ROOT, LEN & SET LIN will be explained. Of course, you are also entitled to full phone or write in support and to discounts when updating to new versions. Shareware Installation System Lite PAGE 17 In Addition, you get the bonus programs SISVER and REG. SISVER will verify the command file, and display, the command file errors. This program will spot commands which are Batch commands, invalid SIS commands, or lines which are too long. REG is a program you can use to request your user to register your product. This program may be executed by the SIS system, just like any other you would any program. This program prompts the user for the information you request, then creates an order form to print. The order form can be a typical order form of 1 page, a fold & mail order form, or even a 2 side fold and mail order form. This system, like SIS LITE, is command file oriented, You make a command file and use a switch to install them. And like SIS LITE, this is also pass word protected. You will supply REG with the instructions on the type of registration you want, from a powerful set of commands, similar to the commands used by SIS LITE.... If you have any problems with this Shareware version, please call or write me. Thank you for trying Shareware : Paul Scanlon / Author