Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1

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*+* File Description Utility *+* Copyright (c) 1990 By Brad Kidder (Version 1.21) This utility allows the user to view files with descriptions and to add or change these descriptions using a system compatible with 4DOS. It also allows you to delete files and empty directories, to view files and archive lists, and to copy or move files and their descriptions. This utility doesn't require 4DOS. However, the DIR command of 4DOS displays descriptions created by this program and will copy the description when a file is copied to another directory. (If you haven't met 4DOS yet, find yourself a copy on a local BBS, download it and TRY IT! 4DOS is a complete replacement for the DOS command processor, COMMAND.COM. It is a significantly better user interface for MS-DOS, and the reaction of most people to it is that 4DOS provides the user interface and capabilities the MS-DOS should have had. 4DOS is a shareware product with a reasonable registration price. If you can't find 4DOS locally, contact: J.P. Software P.O. Box 1470 E. Arlington, MA 02174 for information.) NOTE: FDU.COM IS NOT SUPPORTED BY J.P. SOFTWARE, THE DISTRIBUTOR OF 4DOS. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT J.P. SOFTWARE WITH QUESTIONS OR SUPPORT REQUESTS. This archive contains the following three files: FDU.DOC -- File Description Utility Documentation FDU.COM -- File Description Utility Ver. 1.21 FDUFIG.COM -- File Description Utility Configuration Program DESCRIPT.ION -- Hidden file created by FDU.COM in each dorectory. The syntax for FDU is: FDU [d:][directory] [/E] [/D|/T] [/S] [/U] [/?|H] The optional drive and/or directory specifies the drive and/or directory to be used; the single switch specifies the sort order: extension, date or time, size, or unsorted. Directories are sorted by filename as a default. The ? or H provides a usage message. Any switch must be specified last. While in FDU, the description currently highlighted can be edited. The last letter of a full description is pushed off the end if more characters are inserted. F1 Invokes a help screen. F2 Will do one of three things based on the line being displayed: 1. If the line is for a file with a file extension of: .ARC, .DWC, .LBR, .LZH, .PAK, .ZIP, or .ZOO it will call an archive program to view these files. 2. If the line is for a file with a different extension than those mentioned above, it will call a view program to view these files. F2 uses the two programs specified by FDUFIG for these displays, (See FDUFIG.COM below). 3. If the line is for a directory, then FDU will switch to display the files in that directory. F3 Allows you to delete a file or an empty directory. F4 Allows you to rename a file or directory. (Press Enter after changing the file or directory name.) (Press Esc to escape without changing the name.) F5 Allows you to copy a file to another directory. (You will be asked to specify the name of the new drive and directory.) F6 Allows you to move a file to another drive and/or directory. (You will be asked to specify the name of the new drive and/or directory. If the drive is different, you will be asked to confirm that you do want to MOVE the file.) F7 Sort listing by file name. F8 Sort listing by extension and name. F9 Sort listing by size. F10 Sort listing by date and time (latest at the top). Ctrl-C will exit FDU without saving the new description file and will leave you in the displayed directory. Ctrl-Q will start all over by reloading all descriptions. Ctrl-R will restore a description, or file name, to what it was when the cursor was last moved to that line. Ctrl-X will place the file name on the command line and exit the FDU program in the displayed directory. Ctrl-Y will clear to the end of the edit area. Grey + and grey - will move the page up and down on the screen. FDUFIG.COM - This program allows you to reconfigure FDU.COM. It allows you to: - Change the screen colors for a color monitor. - Set the starting insert mode to either overstrike or insert. - Set the cursor shape for these modes. - Set the viewing program and the parameters to use with it. - Set the archive viewing program and the parameters to use with it. You may find it handy to use FDUFIG often to change FDU.COM to use different viewing programs for different needs. DESCRIPT.ION file. This file is created or updated by FDU. It contains the file names with any descriptions that were present when it was written. FDU will keep the same attribute that the file had before. If FDU creates the file, the file attribute will be that of a hidden file. NOTE: 4DOS changes this file's attribute to hidden any time it updates this file. *+*+* HISTORY *+*+* FDU.COM is based on three other programs. DIRNOTES - That provided the ability to specify descriptions for files. DR - That allowed you to list a sorted directory and view files within the directory and to move, rename, and delete files. MDU - A program that took DIRNOTES and changed it to sort the directory and view files, using an external viewing program, and to use the DISCRIPT.ION file used by 4DOS in a compatible way. DIRNOTES.COM is the original utility program written by Michael J. Mefford and published in PC Magazine, Sept 15 1987. DR.COM Was also written by Michael J. Mefford for PC Magazine. MDU.COM (11/29/88) is an adaptation of the DIRNOTES utility. It was developed by David P. Lemire. It uses the 4DOS description file format rather than the format used by the original DIRNOTES. It also provides a much improved editor, multiple file sorting options, a help screen and the capability to invoke an external file viewing or editing utility, such as BROWSE.COM or Van Buerg's LIST program. FDU.COM Version 1.00 (7/6/90) was strongly based on MDU.COM and fixed many of the bugs in that program. The following problems were corrected by FDU.COM 1.00: 1. MDU did not recognize the lower-case names that 4DOS's DESCRIBE function used for directory names and would delete any descriptions for these directory names. 2. When 4DOS came out with version 3.0, they changed the way they handled the descript.ion file and started eliminating the carriage return from the carriage return-line feed pair at the end of every record. MDU couldn't handle this and would lose all following descriptions. 3. MDU had an unsort switch [/U], but it didn't work. 4. MDU's ^Q didn't work correctly, if the editing program changed the location of the DTA. 5. MDU's ^Q put the cursor in column one but the data got put in the column where the last cursor happened to be. 6. MDU's ^Q Also failed, if the displayed page was beyond the first page. It put the wrong description for the top file on the page. 7. When MDU sorted by extension, it didn't also sort by name. 8. MDU sorted the date and time in ascending order. I feel that users prefer it in descending order as they are more likely to work with the latest files first. FDU.COM (Version 1.00) also provided a byte count for the files listed in the directory. FDU.COM (Version 1.01 7/19/90) 1. Provide an indication for the most important one of the file's attributes. 2. Indicate that there are more files above or below the current screen by using " MORE " and " MORE ". 4. Improve page-up and page-down bar placement. 5. Add Ctrl-R to restore a line to what it contained when the cursor was last moved to that line. 6. Left the display on the screen on exit, so the file names could still be seen, to aid in entering commands. 7. Added the DELETE file function. (F3) 8. Added the RENAME file function. (F4) FDU.COM (Version 1.02 8/20/90) 1. Added the COPY file function with descriptions. (F5) 2. Added the MOVE file function with descriptions. (F6) 3. Added the ability to switch to a different directory. (F2) 4. Added the ability to use another program to view archive files. (F2) 5. Added a way to provide parameters to the viewing programs. 6. Removed the need for the FDU_ED= environment variable. 7. Added the ability to delete an empty directory. (F3) 8. Added Ctrl-C to exit FDU in the displayed directory. 9. Put sorted directories before all other lines. 10. Provided the ability to stack the file name in the keyboard input buffer. (Ctrl-X) 11. Improved page-up and page-down on the first and last page. 12. Added grey + and grey - to move the page up and down. 13. Provided a configuration program (FDUFIG) to allow users - to specify the viewing programs and their parameters, - to change the handling of insert and overstrike, - to change the screen colors used by FDU. 14. Extended the cursor bar to include the file name, to make it easier to see which file is going to be acted upon. FDU.COM (Ver. 1.21 8/27/90) (Ver. 1.02 should have been called Version 1.20) 1. Fix the total byte count to reflect the change when a file is deleted or moved. 2. Detect the error when the target disk is full during a copy or move operation. Some of the features I am thinking of adding are: 1. Make name sort more like 4DOS. (test2 between test1 and test10) 2. To improve the sort by using a different sorting technique. 3. To support screen sizes other than just 25 by 80. 4. To support more than 430 files in any one directory. 5. To provide the ability to copy descriptions from one line to other lines. 6. To tag files for multiple copy and viewing. *+*+*+*+* Technical Information *+*+*+*+* FDU.COM is written in assembly language and Assembled using the Microsoft Assembler 5.1. I used CodeView for debugging the more difficult problems. It has taken me approximately 850 hours since the 16th of June 1990 to develop this program. FDU uses some of the more advanced DOS functions, such as RENAME to move a file from one directory to another, but makes no test of the DOS version. Thus, some functions may not work. It also uses INT 16H function 5 to write to the keyboard, (to put the file name in the keyboard buffer. This may not work on systems that don't support this function. MDU used an environment variable to specify the view program to use. I don't feel that this is a good use of these variables for programs that may not be used all the time. I tried finding the path that called FDU and use that same path to find the programs called to view files. This required that you keep these programs in the same directory with FDU.COM. Also, it didn't work when FDU was called from within some other program. Therefore, I finally settled on searching the PATH= string for the viewing programs. FDU tries to use the RENAME function to move a file from one directory to another. If this fails it will then try to copy the program from one to the other. FDU checks to see it the drive is different and if it is, it will ask you to verify that you do want to MOVE the file for the first file only. This is because I use MOVE quite a bit. One day a friend wanted some of the files on my hard disk and I MOVEd them to a floppy for him. Was I surprised when I couldn't find them later. Also, FDU will ask if you want to replace a file if it exists at the target location. This may be annoying, but it is safer. If you try to delete a directory, FDU will try the DOS REMOVE DIRECTORY function. For this to be successful, The directory must not have any files in it including the description file. For you to get rid of the description file with FDU, you must also remove any descriptions for the . and .. directory names or the description file will be written back when you leave the directory. Like MDU, FDU changes the default directory to the directory that it is displaying. This makes it easier for the viewing programs to work, but may cause TSR programs to leave files where you don't expect them to be. FDU will return to the original default directory when it exits, unless you exit by the Ctrl-C or Ctrl-X key. FDU.COM, as distributed, is set up to use SMOOTH.COM as the normal viewing program and FV.COM as the archive listing program. SMOOTH.COM is by Michael J. Mefford and can be found on one of the the two disks supplied with the book DOS POWER TOOLS 2nd edition by PC-Magazine. It provides a smooth scroll of the screen on EGA and VGA machines. FV.COM is a "Verbose Archive Directory Lister" program by Vernon D. Buerg, 139 White Oak Circle, Petaluma, CA 94952. It should be available on most bulletin boards. FDU checks for all the same archive extensions that FV supports, so it is an excellent choice to use with FDU. *+*+*+*+*+*+*+* FDU is supplied for personal, private use. Feel free to distribute FDU given these restrictions: - the program shall be supplied in its original, unmodified form, which includes this documentation; - no fee is charged; - "commercial" use without a license is prohibited; - the program may not be included, or bundled, with other goods or services. Exceptions may be granted upon written request only. This also applies to clubs and distributors. This program is provided AS IS without any warranty, expressed or implied, including but not limited to the program's suitability for any specific purpose. Considerable testing effort has been expended, but the user is advised to check the program's suitability before relying on it. The user assumes full risk as to the results of using this program. In no event shall the author be liable for any consequential damages arising from the use, or inability to use this program. If you find FDU useful, your gift in any amount would be appreciated. Remember I have spent over 850 hours developing and testing this program. If you have any problems or suggestions for FDU.COM, please notify: Brad Kidder 5126 Glentree Court San Jose, CA 95129 (8/27/90)