Power-Programmierung/CD1.mdf/pascal/library/dos/files/fileman/fm/fm.doc

Text File | 1988-08-23 | 13.3 KB | 287 lines

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Program: FM (FileManager)
Author:  Jim Zwick
         51-C Cottage Street
         New Hartford, CT 06057
Version: 1.0
Date:    03-04-88


OVERVIEW

FM facilitates DOS file-handling procedures by providing a visual
display of a directory's files and allowing files to be copied, moved,
renamed, erased, printed and viewed by highlighting the files on the
display and picking commands from a menu.  Files can be spooled for
printing using the DOS 3.xx Print Spooler from within FM.  The program
also displays the current spool and provides options to cancel printing
of either selected files or the whole queue.  On-line help is available
by pressing <F1> from either the main File Manager or Spool Control
menus.


GENERAL OPERATION

To start the program enter FM at the DOS prompt.  FM will store the
start-up screen and display a full-screen list of the files in the
current directory, the number of files, and the amount of free disk
space.  The files will be displayed in alphabetical order with the
first file in the list highlighted in reverse video.  The following
command menu will be displayed near the bottom of the screen:

    mArk  Copy  Move  Erase  Rename  View  Print  Spec  Dir  dOs

To issue a command, type the capitalized letter in the desired command
name.  The following is a full list of the commands available from this
menu:

  mArk    - Mark current file to be copied, moved or erased.

  Copy    - Copy marked file(s) from current directory to another
            directory or drive.

  Move    - Move marked file(s) from the current directory to another
            directory.  Note that you cannot move files from one drive
            to another -- you can only move them between directories on
            the same disk.

  Erase   - Erase marked file(s) from the current directory.

  Rename  - Rename the currently highlighted file.

  View    - View the currently highlighted text file.

  Print   - Display DOS 3.xx print queue and access spool control
            options.

  <Alt>-P - Submit the currently highlighted file to the print queue.

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  Spec    - Change the file specification used in the directory display
            (this works like the DOS DIR command and wildcard
            characters can be used).

  Dir     - Change directories.

  dOs     - Exit temporarily to DOS.

  <Esc>   - EXIT from program.

  <F1>    - Display a help screen listing these commands and
            descriptions.

The arrow keys can be used to move around within the display and <PgUp>
and <PgDn> can be used to move between screens when more than eighty
files are in a directory.  The currently highlighted file will be
displayed in reverse video, as will all marked files.  The current file
will also have a blinking cursor under the first letter in its name so
that it can be distinguished from marked files.

Using <PgUp> or <PgDn> to move between screens does not remove marks from
files.  If you are in a directory with a lot of files, you can mark all
that you want in the first 80 files, move to the next screen(s) using
<PgDn>, mark still more files, and copy, move or erase them all at once.

The dOs command allows you to exit temporarily to DOS.  When you enter
this command the message 'Type EXIT to return to File Manager ...' will
be displayed on the screen and a new copy of DOS will be loaded into
memory.  You can do almost anything you want, including changing
directories and running other programs, before you return to FM.  You
should keep in mind, however, that both FM and this second copy of DOS
are stored in memory, substantially reducing the memory available for
running other programs.  Be careful to return to FM and finally
exit from it using <Esc>.

The print spooling commands are only available when you run the program
under DOS 3.xx and have installed the print spooler before starting FM.
If the commands are not available the Print option in the main menu line
will not be highlighted (the capitalized letter will not be displayed in
bold video) and nothing will happen if you press P or <Alt>-P.  When
the spooler is available the following spool control options are
available:

Pressing <Alt>-P sends the current file to the print spooler.  Note
that the program does not check the file to see if it is a text file
so it is a good idea to double-check the file extension of the file
you are submitting to the spool.

Pressing P from the main FM menu will display the Spool Control window.
It will list any files currently in the print spool and the following
command menu will be displayed at the bottom of the screen:

    Print   Cancel File   Cancel All

In addition to these commands, pressing <F1> will display a brief help
screen with descriptions of the commands and their use, and <Esc> will
return you to the main FM window.

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The options in the Spool Control menu have the following functions:

  Print       - Allows you to enter the file name of a file to print.
                You can add a file you don't see on the queue or another
                copy of a file already on it.  This option will prompt
                you for a file specification of the file you want to
                print.  Because you can enter a full file specification,
                the file can be on any drive or in any directory.

  Cancel File - Allows you to selectively cancel printing of files that
                are on the queue.  You will be prompted to enter a file
                specification.  DOS wildcard characters can be included
                so you can cancel as few or as many files as you want.

  Cancel All  - Cancels all files from the queue.

If your printer is not on-line when you cancel files from the queue, the
program may 'hang' temporarily before displaying the revised queue.  Try
the same command from DOS when your printer is not on-line and you will
get a similar response followed by an error message.

When entering information at the directory, destination and file spec
prompts the following keys are available for editing:

  Left and Right Arrow - Move cursor one position without affecting text.

  <Ctrl>-Left and
    <Ctrl>-Right       - Move cursor one word without affecting text.

  <Home>  <End>        - Move cursor to beginning or end of entry.

  <Back Space>         - Delete character left of cursor.

  <Del>                - Delete character at cursor.

  <Esc>                - Exit from editing if the cursor is at the first
                         position in the field, otherwise delete all
                         characters entered and move cursor to first
                         position.

  <Crtl>-<End>         - Delete all characters from the cursor to the
                         end of the field.

  <Ins>                - Toggle insert mode on and off.  When on the
                         cursor will be about twice its normal size.

  <Num Lock>           - Toggle Num Lock on and off.  When on a #
                         character will be highlighted in the bottom
                         right corner of the screen.

  <Caps Lock>          - Toggle Caps Lock on and off.  When on a C will
                         be highlighted in the bottom right corner of
                         the screen.  This actually has no affect within
                         this program because all input is forced to
                         uppercase as it is entered.



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OPTIONAL MODIFICATIONS (Notes for Programmers)

Stack and Heap.  Both the stack and heap sizes must be set so that the
program will not reserve all available memory for itself at start-up.
There is a compromise in this setting between how much memory is
available for file buffering during copying and viewing and the
amount of memory available when you use the dOs command to exit
temporarily to DOS.  The program has a very small data segment (less
than 1k); the stack has been set at 8k (the program ran out of stack
once when I had it set at 4k but I haven't tested the range in between).
Most of the program's larger variables are stored on the heap and the
program will use all available memory up to the maximum heap set using
the $M compiler directive.  The only problem that increased heap creates
is that every byte of increased heap is a byte of decreased memory
capacity when using the EXEC (dOs) procedure to exit temporarily to DOS.
Experiment with these settings to find the combination that works best
for your day-to-day use of the program.  If you want to remove the dOs
option and not restrict the heap, comment out the MemLimited compiler
definition as explained in the source code comments.  This will
eliminate the dOs option from the compiled program and the program will
be compiled with whatever default stack and heap settings you have set.

Colors.  The background and foreground colors are set in the
InitVideo procedure included in FMScreen.PAS.  I do not have
a color display so I really do not know how the colors will appear.
If they are not right, or you just have different color preferences,
this is the procedure to modify.  CheckSnow is set to TRUE in the
InitVideo procedure if a color adapter is in use.  This works well
for the standard Turbo screen writing procedures but it is by-passed
by both the window routines and the DisplayLine procedure.  If you
know of a way of stopping snow, the procedures to add it to are
DisplayLine, WOpen and WClose.

File Attributes.  The GetFAttr and SetFAttr procedures in Turbo Pascal
4.0 allow you to read and set a file's attributes.  This makes many
file-handling procedures much easier than they were under version 3.0.
In particular, you can now write programs that perform operations on
read-only and hidden files by saving their attributes, performing the
desired operation, and restoring the original attributes.  In this
implementation of the program I have restricted the display to files
which have their read-only and/or archive bits set.  All operations
except erasing are allowed on read-only files.  To display hidden
and/or system files, change the attribute used in the call to
FindFirst in the GetFilesList procedure contained in FMFile.PAS from
ReadOnly to ReadOnly + Hidden [+ SysFile].

From Program to Unit.  Most of this program was originally written for
inclusion in a much larger application which required easy manipulation
of the files it produced.  It became a separate program as I was
converting the larger program to Turbo Pascal version 4.0, turning
the old Include files into Units.  Since Turbo Pascal version 4.0
allows conditional compilation FM could be made into a unit and a
program at the same time!  This is probably not the primary use of
conditional compilation but it is certainly useful when you include
small utilities in your larger programs.

If you want to include the File Manager in your own applications all you
have to do is delete the '(* *)' comments around the {$DEFINE FMasUNIT}
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statement at the top of FM.PAS.  If you will not be setting a low maximum
heap in your program you should also put comments around the
{$DEFINE MemLimited} statement.  This will eliminate the dOs option (which
requires that the maximum heap be set) from the unit.  That is all that has
to be done.  {$IFDEF xxx} and {$IFNDEF xxx} statements in FM.PAS do the rest!
All variables and procedure declarations will be hidden from your main
program except the FileManager procedure declaration which is compiled in the
Interface section of the unit.  The short sample program, FMUTest.PAS,
provides an example of how to call the File Manager when used as a unit.


FILES INCLUDED

FM.PAS        { Main Program File }
FM.EXE        { Executable version of FM.PAS }
FM.TPU        { Compiled Unit version of FM.PAS }
FMScreen.PAS  { Screen and keyboard status routines }
FMInput.PAS   { Input routines }
FMFile.PAS    { File-handling routines }
FMView.PAS    { View procedure }
FMUTest.PAS   { Short sample program that USES FM Unit and calls FM through }
              { the FileManager procedure declaration compiled into the }
              { program when it is compiled as a unit.  You will have to }
              { remove the comments from the {$DEFINE FMasUNIT} statement in }
              { FM.PAS to re-compile this if FM.TPU is not available. }
FMUTest.EXE   { Compiled version of FMUTest.PAS. }
FM.DOC        { This file }


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

In its current configuration (8k Stack, 64k Heap), the program should
run with as little as 98k of available RAM.  More is needed to use the
dOs option.  Either monochrome or color monitors are acceptable.
Turbo Pascal version 4.0 is required to re-compile the program.  Because
many low level machine-specific routines are used in the program, an
IBM PC/XT/AT or close compatible running MS- or PC-DOS version 2.0 or above
is required.  A DOS version of 3.0 or greater is required to use the print
spooling functions.