Shareware Grab Bag/Shareware Grab Bag.iso/002/expandir.arc/AN_INTRO.VUE

Text File | 1986-04-08 | 5.6 KB | 92 lines

                          Getting Started With ExpanDIR

You are now using ExpanDIR, a unique program that lets you work with PC-DOS
files much more easily.  You're reading this file in TextView, one of ExpanDIR's
windows.  Remember how you pressed 'Control-Enter' to open TextView?  That got
you to the top of the file that's highlighted in the middle of the FileView
window (see it above and to the left?).  You were instructed to open TextView
when you saw the comment describing this file in CommentView (right next to
FileView).  You'll soon learn how you can put ExpanDIR and its windows to work!
                      To continue, please press the PgDn (page down) key now...
You just went to the second ten-line 'page' of this file by pressing 'PgDn'.
Look for a moment at the bottom two rows of the screen.  They're always there to
let you know which keys are active for a particular ExpanDIR window, and what
the keys will do.  You can see that TextView lets you page up and down through
your file as well as scroll a line at a time with the up and down arrow keys
(you can also scroll left and right to view files with wide lines).  And you can
use the 'Home' and 'End' keys to go directly to the top or bottom of the file.

Why don't you try some of these keys now?  Try scrolling and paging up and down,
To continue, press 'Home' followed by 'PgDn' twice.  Ready?
Are you back?  Good!  So far, you've been exploring TextView, and you now know
that ExpanDIR will let you view the actual contents of your files.  But how do
you choose the file that you want to view?  That's what FileView is for.

When FileView is 'ACTIVE', you can scroll through a list of your files to choose
the 'current' file (highlighted in the middle of FileView).  Again, the bottom
two rows of the screen show you which keys will do what.  To open FileView,
just press the 'Enter' key.  This file will disappear when you scroll in
FileView, so don't be alarmed.  To get back here, just press 'Home' in FileView,
and then 'Control-Enter' to return to TextView.  When you return, press 'PgDn'.
Now let's look at CommentView.  It's the window to the right of FileView, and it
displays the comment and some statistics for the 'current' FileView file.

CommentView is a mini-word processor to let you write or edit your comments
using the keys shown at the bottom of the display.  To try out CommentView, you
must change the 'current' file to avoid messing up the comment for this file.
Press 'Enter' to activate FileView.  Then, press 'End' to make YOURFILE.TXT
'current', and 'Enter' to activate CommentView.  Then draft your comment.  When
you're done, press 'Enter' to return to FileView, 'Home' to make this file
'current' again, and 'Control-Enter' to get back to TextView. Then press 'PgDn'.
By now, you've probably gathered that you use 'Enter' and 'Control-Enter' to
switch between ExpanDIR's windows.  Now's the time to learn a bit more about
ExpanDIR's 'navigation system'.  It may sound odd, but we'll start with how you
close ExpanDIR windows.

To close any ExpanDIR window, press 'Enter'.  When you do, you'll return to the
window that you were in last.  In fact, ExpanDIR keeps tract of the 'path' that
you followed, and retraces that 'path' as you exit windows.

                                                      Press 'PgDn' now...
As for entering ExpanDIR windows, this also is easy.  When you press 'Enter' to
leave FileView or CommentView, you activate the other one.  If you just press
'Enter' repeatedly, you'll simply switch between FileView and CommentView.

To activate TextView, press 'Control-Enter', just as you did to read this file.
When you do, the file that's 'current' in FileView will appear in TextView.

The '/ Commands' on the third line of the screen are a menu bar of file manage-
ment functions.  To activate them, just press '/', and then select the one you
want with the arrow keys or the command's first letter.  Press 'PgDn' now...
You'll see four choices on the '/ Commands' menu: Autoscan, Erase, Rename and
Version 2.0 Preview.

Autoscan tells ExpanDIR to scan all files, looking only for those that have been
added or changed since Autoscan was last used.  Each such file will become the
'current' file so that you can write or edit the comment.

Erase and Rename do just what you'd expect to the 'current' file ( and Rename
in ExpanDIR keeps your comment with the renamed file).  Version 2.0 Preview
lets you know what ExpanDIR will become in the future.  Press 'PgDn' now...
We need to cover just a few more things before we finish this introduction.

You can press 'F1' at any time for help.  When you do, you'll see a 'Help' menu
bar in place of the '/ Commands', and the help screen for the active ExpanDIR
window will appear in TextView (which is temporarily labelled 'HelpView').  To
view other help screens, simply select the topic from the menu bar with the
arrow keys or the topic's first letter.  When you're done, press 'Enter' to
get back to the 'active' window.

To exit ExpanDIR, press 'F10' at any time.            Press 'PgDn' now...
There!  We've taken a brief tour of ExpanDIR to give you a feel for what it can
do for you.  If you haven't done so yet, you should print out the ExpanDIR
manual (EXPANDIR.DOC) with the DOS TYPE command.  You won't need to refer to it
often, but it's nice to have it handy.

To run ExpanDIR, type EXPANDIR [d:][\path] [SCAN] at the DOS prompt.

If you omit the drive designator and/or path, ExpanDIR will operate on the
current drive and/or path.  The optional word 'SCAN' puts ExpanDIR in Autoscan
mode when the program starts (this is nice for using ExpanDIR in batch files).