As CATDISK has evolved during its development, it has grown in size and no longer fits on a 360K floppy disk in its raw format. The documentation files are now provided in a compressed format in the form of a self-extracting LHARC file. If you are running on 360K floppy disks, do the following:
1) Put the CATDISK disk in drive B: 2) Put a blank, formatted disk in drive A: 3) Log onto Drive A: 4) Type "B:CATDOC" <Enter> (without the quotes, of course).
5) The documentation files will be uncompressed to the blank disk in A:
All other forms of disk should have enough capacity to accept the all the files. Simply execute CATDOC.EXE in its current directory and delete CATDOC.EXE when done.
To print the CATDISK manual, issue the command: COPY CATDISK.DOC PRN
Please read at least the section on configuring CATDISK in the configuration section of the manual.
One important note to consider in the user manual. When ARCHIVE files are mentioned, it is in reference to any type of file that contains a collection of files, compressed or not. This currently includes ARC, DWC, LBR, LZS, LZH, PAK, ZIP, and ZOO files.
IF YOU ARE UPGRADING TO THIS RELEASE FROM V3.61 OR LATER
Before copying the new program files to your work disk, you might want to rename the executable file from the previous installation (CATDISK.COM or CATDISK.EXE) to another name. The new configuration utility, CDISKCFG.EXE now has the ability to read the configuration information from the release that you were using for easy installation into this release. This can save you some time in setting the program up for your preferences, particularly if you've customized all the screen colors.
When you run CDISKCFG, hit <F8> and follow the prompts.
IF YOU WERE USING A VERSION OF CATDISK PRIOR TO V2.10
As there is now more information being stored in the summary file, you will have to discard your old catalog files and start from scratch. Any .SUM files created with CATDISK versions before V2.10 are NOT compatible with this one.
IF YOU WERE USING A VERSION OF CATDISK FROM V2.10 to V3.28
Starting with CATDISK V3.50, file comments were fully supported. You do *NOT* have to purge your old catalog files and start over... just run the program CDISKCVT.EXE on each catalog file that you have, and it will be converted to the new format.
The syntax of this command is:
CDISKCVT catalog_name
- where catalog_name is the name of the catalog file to be converted.
(do NOT include the filename extension of .DTA on the command line)
If you were using V3.50 or later, you do _NOT_ need to run this conversion program - your files will work as they are.
IF YOU'VE EXPERIENCED MISALIGNED FIELDS ON PRINTED REPORTS
Some disk labelling programs have an annoying habit of placing null characters at the end of a volume label. While this is not a fatal problem, it can have a nasty effect on the printed reports that CATDISK produces by causing misalignment of some of the fields.
The program CLEANCAT.EXE has been provided to correct this problem in catalog files that have been created with V3.50 to 4.10, or those that have been converted by the above mentioned CDISKCVT.EXE utility.
If you have noticed your printed reports appearing in this strange manner, CLEANCAT can help you. This program will simply change all the null characters to spaces, which will appear correctly on your printer.
The syntax for CLEANCAT is:
CLEANCAT catalog_name
- where catalog_name is the name of the catalog file to be "cleaned up".
(do NOT include the filename extension of .DTA or .SUM on the command line)
If you created your catalog files with a release after V4.10, the corrective procedures have been built right into the program, therefore this procedure will not be necessary.
*** NOTE TO ALL SINGLE DRIVE FLOPPY DISK USERS ***
Please read the note in the configuration section regarding setting CATDISK up to function correctly with your system, particularly the section dealing with the disk cache. Failure to do so could result in lost data on your floppy diskettes.
If you are running on a hard drive, this note does not apply.
