The CIA World Factbook 1992

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4DOS Update Documentation Version 3.02, 9/7/90 Copyright 1989, 1990, J.P. Software. All Rights Reserved. Published by J.P. Software, P.O. Box 1470, E. Arlington, MA 02174 USA, (617) 646- 3975. This file provides details on features changed and bug fixes in versions 3.01 and 3.02, and corrections to the version 3 manual, due to either typographical errors or new features added after the manual went to press. The ASCII manual distributed with shareware copies of 4DOS has already been corrected to include most of the changes in this file (all the ones we could fit!), but such corrections have not been made in the printed manual. We have made every effort to insure that this file is as accurate as possible, but we cannot guarantee that every single change is included. This file does not document changes between versions 2 and 3 of 4DOS. If you are a 4DOS version 2 user and this is the first copy of version 3 you've seen, contact J.P. Software for documentation on the extensive changes between versions 2 and 3, or read through the new manual and this file carefully before you begin using version 3.02. The following marks are used to identify items in this file: --> CAUTION: This change may require modifications to your ex- isting batch files, aliases, commands, or common methods of using 4DOS. Check these carefully when replacing an earlier version of 4DOS with 4DOS 3.02. 3.01 This item is new or has been modified for version 3.01. 3.02 This item is new or has been modified for version 3.02. [p nn] This item corrects or adds to the information in the version 3 manual, on page "nn". If you don't want to read through all changes you may find it easiest to view this file with 4DOS's LIST command and using its (F)ind capability. If you want to see the modifications for version 3.02, search for "3.02"; if you want to see the changes in your printed manual, search for the string "[p". This file is formatted at 58 lines per page, and contains form feeds and page footers. It can be printed properly on most PC printers using the command: copy update30.doc prn Printing it with a program that formats the pages is not likely to work due to the formatting included in the file. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 1 Table of Contents Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 General Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Automatic Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Features and Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 General Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Command Line Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Aliases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Batch Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 I/O Redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Environment Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Technical Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 ALIAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 CD and CDD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 COPY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 DEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 DESCRIBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 DIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 DRAWBOX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 FOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 GLOBAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 GOTO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 IF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 IFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 INPUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 KEYSTACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 LIST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 LOADBTM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 LOG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 MOVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 QUIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 REM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 SELECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 SET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 SETDOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 HELP System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 New Capabilities and Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Environment Variables and Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Configuring HELP with HELPCFG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 2 Installation and Configuration ------------------------------ This section discusses changes in the way 4DOS is installed and config- ured on your system. It is not an explanation of how to install your upgrade to version 3.02 (for that see README.DOC). For more information on installation see pages 9 - 26 of the manual. General Enhancements: 3.01 Disk swapping should no longer cause occasional system hangs if the Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break key is hit while 4DOS is swapping itself in from disk (i.e. when exiting an application). 3.01 CLS, LIST, and SELECT are no longer affected by a video BIOS bug in old IBM PCs. 3.02 [p 27] When starting a shareware copy of 4DOS there is a 1/2- second, two-tone beep to identify this as a shareware copy, fol- lowed by a 3-second delay to allow reading of the shareware re- minder message. Beginning with version 3.02, you can skip this delay by pressing any key. Automatic Installation: [p 13] The command to start automatic installation has been changed to: x:install x y where "x" is the drive the 4DOS disk is in, and "y" is the drive on which you want to install 4DOS. See README.1ST for more de- tailed instructions if you need them. Command Line Options: All the items below refer to information on pages 21 - 23 of the manual. 3.01 [p 21-23] Either / or - may be used as the switch character on the 4DOS command line (eg SHELL=4DOS -S:E instead of /S:E, etc.). [p 21] The file specified in the "@filename" option can have more than one line, and is limited to a total of 255 characters in the file, not 128. A file invoked with @filename can have another @filename inside it. Wherever @filename occurs, all options placed after it are ignored, so it must be the last item present. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 3 [p 21] The /A switch supports the same incremental syntax used with /E, i.e. /A+n. When used in 4DSHELL this allows you to guarantee a specified amount of free alias space in secondary shells. [p 21] /E:nnnn may also be followed by S (/E:nnnnS) to swap the master copy of the environment. This will save a small amount of low memory, but may not be compatible with all applications, and will not work with any application that needs to modify the mas- ter environment. [p 22] 4DOS will normally reduce the space used to swap a sec- ondary shell by retrieving static information from the primary shell's swap area. This reduces secondary shell swap size from 68K or more to about 20K. This feature will not work if the total of your alias, history, and environment sizes in the sec- ondary shell is larger than that specified for the primary shell, or if the size of DOS memory has been reduced when the secondary shell is started (e.g. by a program like DESQView that reserves some memory at the top end of DOS memory). In such cases second- ary shells will require a full-size swap area. The size of the swap area is displayed in the "swapping initialized (nnK)" mes- sage when 4DOS starts. 3.01 [p 22] The default location for disk swap files in secondary --> shells is now in the root directory of the drive specified in the COMSPEC environment variable (the drive where 4DOS.COM is stored). If you want disk swap files to go to another drive or directory, use the "/S:Bd:\path" or "/S:Dd:\path" settings in the 4DSHELL environment variable (see page 25 of the manual). This should cut down on swap file clutter, yet leave you with complete control over swap file location. 3.01 [p 23] The /U switch requires 386MAX, MOVE-EM 1.02 or above, QRAM, or QEMM 5.0 or above. It may not be compatible with all other software products. See COMPAT.DOC for full details on com- patibility. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 4 Features and Usage ------------------ This section discusses changes in 4DOS features and usage which are not specific to a particular command and which are not related to installa- tion and boot. General Features: [p 29] The command history is now automatically passed to sec- ondary shells. It is passed in one direction only, i.e. addi- tional commands entered in the secondary shell will not be passed back to the primary shell. To disable this option, place a HIS- TORY /F command in your 4START file. 3.01 4DOS now has better support for non-English characters in file- names, environment variables, and aliases. 3.01 Most of the changes in version 3.0 to allow shareable file access --> on networks have been removed, because some networks and a few popular programs (e.g. SHARE and FASTOPEN) couldn't handle them properly. SHARE/LAN support is now provided where possible, but is avoided in many places where it has been found to cause trou- ble. This change should eliminate most or all I/O redirection problems on networks. 3.02 Several changes have been made in 4DOS's file handling to elimi- nate problems with incomplete redirected output files on Novell networks. 3.01 A number of changes have been made to increase 4DOS's execution speed, and reduce its size slightly. Speed improvements are primarily in the areas of file access (particularly .BAT files), and environment variable and alias expansion. They may not be noticeable on higher-speed systems. 3.01 4DOS can now correctly handle text files (.BAT or .BTM files, files to be LISTed or TYPEd, etc.) which have CR/LF, CR only, or LF only at the end of each line. Previously not all of these line terminators worked correctly. 3.02 There is a small speedup in description processing for the file commands (COPY, DEL, MOVE, and REN). 3.02 The "?" character in filename wildcards now matches zero or more --> characters like COMMAND.COM instead of one or more like previous versions of 4DOS. Thus "DIR A?." will match both the files "A" and "AA"; before it would only match "AA". This change adjusts 4DOS to work the way COMMAND.COM works instead of the way COMMAND.COM is documented to work. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 5 Command Line Editing: 3.01 [p 28] You can now enter characters that would normally be in- terpreted by the line editor as a command (e.g., Ctrl-D or Ctrl- K). To do so precede the character with an ASCII 255 (hold down the ALT key and enter 255 on the numeric keypad, then release the ALT key). To enter the ASCII 255 itself into the line, you must enter it twice. 3.01 The cursor shape will now be changed properly when you hit the Ins key to switch editing modes. Previously if SETDOS specified a block cursor in the default mode it would not be changed to an underline when Ins was hit. 3.02 [p 28] The F3 key now works like COMMAND.COM, so you can type part of a line and hit F3 to get the rest of the previous line. Aliases: 3.01 Fixed a bug in alias expansion which occurred when a "%" was the last character on the line. Batch Files: 3.01 See the commands section below for information on the new LOADBTM command, which allows any batch file to work as a BTM file some or all of the time. 3.01 [p 33-34] Batch files can now be nested 6 levels deep (the --> previous limit was 4). 3.02 The ECHO state is now inherited properly when batch files chain. In version 3.01 the echo state was inherited properly on a CALL, but not on a chain. I/O Redirection: --> [p 43-44] Redirection is now fully nestable. For example, in- voking a batch file XYZ with "XYZ > OUT.DAT" will redirect all output from the batch file to OUT.DAT unless additional redirec- tion is encountered within the batch file. 3.01 4DOS now checks for duplicate redirection (i.e., "DIR > 1.DAT > 2.DAT"). Previously duplicate redirection could hang the system. 3.01 The system will no longer hang if a command specifies input redi- rection after output redirection. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 6 Environment Variables: 3.01 [p 40] In order to support subtraction in the new %@EVAL func- --> tion (see below) 4DOS will no longer accept a "-" in the name of an environment variable to be expanded, unless the name is en- closed in brackets []. 3.01 [p 41] Three new internal variables have been added: %_dow The day of the week as a string (Mon, Tue, etc.) %_rows The height of the screen %_columns The width of the screen 3.02 [p 41] One new internal variable has been added: %_ndp Returns: 0 if no coprocessor is installed 87 for an 8087 287 for an 80287 387 for an 80387 [p 42] There are a few minor errors or points which are not clear in the list of variable functions in some versions of the manual: * When using variable functions they must be preceded (and optionally followed) by a percent sign, like all other envi- ronment variables. For example the "ext" function is refer- enced as %@ext[filename] or as %@ext[filename]%. * The correct spelling for the string length function is "%@len", not "%@length". * The %@line function is missing from early copies of the manual. This function returns the nth line of a file. The first line of the file is numbered 0. * In the %@substr function, the first character is numbered 0, and the correct syntax is "%@substr[string,start,length]" not "%@substr[string,start,end]". 3.01 [p 42] A new function, %@eval, has been added. The syntax is: %@eval[expression] Where "expression" is any arithmetic expression. The expression can include any of the following elements: parentheses, which may be nested unary + or - operators multiplication and division operators: *, /, and %% (modulo) addition and subtraction operators: + and - environment variables, variable functions, and constants 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 7 The elements of an expression are processed with the precedence shown above. For example, 5*3+2 is treated as (5*3)+2 rather than 5*(3+2). Examples of the use of %@eval are: Increment a variable: set a=%@eval[%a+1] Perform environment variable arithmetic: set c=%@eval[(%a*2) + (%@len[%b]-5)*7] Evaluate expressions in IF: if %@eval[%@substr[%_time,0,2] %% 12] == 0 echo 12:00! Set up a simple command line calculator: alias calc `echo The answer is: %@eval[%&]` 3.02 [p 42] Commas will now be ignored by %@eval. This will allow (for example) %@eval[10,000 * 3] to get the expected result. It will also allow %@eval to work on the output of a command like FREE, which contains embedded commas. Also %@eval will give a "Divide by zero" error message if you try to use 0 as a denomina- tor for division or modulo calculation; previously it would give an error for the modulo, but return the numerator as the result for the division. 3.02 [p 42] %@substr can now handle quotes around the "string" argu- ment. Double quotes and back quotes are equivalent in this con- text, and the quote characters DO count when determining which characters are placed in the substring. This capability allows you to get substrings of strings which contain commas. For exam- ple: %@substr["Mon, Aug 27, 1990", 1, 3] will return "Mon". Previously the commas would be seen as argu- ment separators, even if they were within a quoted string. 3.01 [p 42] Another new function, %@index[string1,string2] returns the position of string2 within string1 (string2 can be as small as a single character). The first position in string1 is num- bered 0. If there is no match, the function returns -1. 3.02 [p 42] Two new variable functions have been added: %@upper[string] Returns the string converted to upper case. %@lower[string] Returns the string converted to lower case. 3.01 [p 42] When expanding environment variables 4DOS will display a "Variable loop" error if you nest variable functions too deep, or define variables which refer back to themselves. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 8 Technical Information: (All items here go with the technical information on page 149 of the manual.) 3.01 4DOS.COM now closes file handles 5 - 29 when it starts. This should solve problems with programs that pass open file handles to a secondary shell. 3.01 4DOS now generates two different INT 2F calls to allow TSRs to tell when 4DOS is back at the prompt. These calls have AX = D44Eh. The first occurs immediately before displaying the prompt, with BX = 0; the second occurs after displaying the prompt and immediately before accepting keyboard input, with BX = 1. Any routine intercepting these calls should preserve at least the SI, DI, BP, SP, DS, ES, and SS registers. 3.02 Both 4DOS.COM and the 4DOS EXE files now check for version mis- match (e.g. trying to use version 3.01a 4DOS.COM with a version 3.02 EXE file). Previously this testing was done by 4DOS.COM only, so a mismatch could go undetected in some circumstances. 3.02 Divide by zero handling has been removed from 4DOS, allowing standard DOS divide by zero handling to take place. The 4DOS divide by zero handler was not providing any advantage and could occasionally fail to recover properly from division errors in application programs. 3.02 Cursor positioning during command line editing will now take place in the current video page, rather than assuming page 0. This should fix minor cursor positioning problems with programs that shell to DOS with the video adapter set somewhere other than page 0 (like Turbo Debugger). 3.02 Handling of the Abort response to a critical error during a 4DOS command has been modified to solve some obscure problems with changing floppy disks after Aborting from a disk error. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 9 Commands -------- This section describes the changes made to specific commands. Note that some commands are also affected by the general changes in the "features and usage" section above. 3.01 ALIAS: ALIAS /R can now read multiple files, for example: alias /r alias1 alias2 alias3 3.01 [p 57-58] CD and CDD: Modified to allow forward slashes (/) in path names. 3.01 [p 62-64] COPY: There are several changes: Problems with appending files in binary mode have been fixed. The way that COPY accesses files has been modified to mini- mize or eliminate problems with the MS-DOS APPEND command. The /R and /U switches are now ignored if the target is a device. A ^Z (end of file mark) is now properly added to the target file when it is in ASCII mode. 3.01 [p 66] DEL: Speed has been improved somewhat, especially on non-cached disks. 3.01 DESCRIBE: 4DOS description files will no longer get mixed up between directories when running reasonably-behaved data pathing utilities like DPATH. 3.02 DESCRIBE: Problems with missing <cr>s in description files have been solved. These problems did not cause any trouble within 4DOS, but 3rd-party description editors were confused by them. 3.01 DIR: Changed to display directory totals even when the "File not found" message is displayed. Changed the /F and /H switches so they don't conflict with each other. 3.02 DIR: The time separator character will now be correct when the country code is set for outside the US. Previously it was hard- coded as a colon. 3.02 Problems with occasional "Out of memory" errors and missing description displays in DIR have been resolved. However, if you fragment DOS memory (for example by loading two TSRs, then un- loading the first but not the second) you can get "Out of memory" errors in larger directories as DIR tries to expand the memory it is using to store your filenames and descriptions. If this oc- curs, determine the cause of the fragmentation and resolve it. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 10 The primary tool for solving such a problem is a memory mapping program like MAPMEM, PMAP, or Manifest. 3.01 DRAWBOX: Styles 3 and 4 now work properly. 3.01 FOR: Now aborts when a nested batch file CANCELs. Also, fixed a bug that was causing FOR variables to be ignored inside double quotes. 3.01 [p 83] GLOBAL: Added a /Q(uiet) switch to disable the display of "GLOBAL: pathname". 3.01 [p 85] GOTO: A GOTO inside an IFF statement now cancels all IFF --> parsing, and assumes you've branched completely outside the IFF construct. If you haven't, you will get "Unknown command" errors on subsequent ELSE, ELSEIFF, and ENDIFF statements (see examples below). This change was necessary to avoid frequent errors caused by GOTOs from inside an IFF block which left IFF parsing active. Also fixed a bug which prevented GOTO from branching to the end of the file from within a GOSUB subroutine. iff "%1"=="Y" :test copy file1 a: goto done <--- Legal - branches outside the else IFF block copy file2 b: goto test <--- Illegal - branches within IFF endiff block [do some other work here] :done 3.01 [p 88-90] IF: There are several corrections to the description in the manual. Some of these errors are present only in early copies of the manual: * The DOS memory size option is named DOSMEM, not DOSFREE. * The tests which check a numeric value (EMS, DOSMEM, etc.) use the same relational operators as the string tests, as shown in the examples. For example, the syntax for EMS should read: EMS relop n[K|M] where "relop" means EQ, GE, GT, etc. The "relop" is optional for ERRORLEVEL, but required for all other numeric tests. * The MONITOR and VIDEO tests also require a relational oper- ator (==, EQ, or NE) as described above for numeric tests. * The IF ATTRIB test has an additional option: "N" tests for no attributes set (i.e. all of the other attributes are off). 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 11 * IF ATTRIB volname V will only work if the volume name re- fers to the root directory, and if there is a period after the eighth character in volume names of nine characters or more (e.g. to test for volume "MYFILES0107" in drive A:, use IF ATTRIB A:\MYFILES0.107 V ...). * Two tests are missing from some copies of the manual: IF DISKFREE relop n Tests the disk free space on the current drive. Cannot be used to test other drives. IF FILESIZE filename relop n Tests the size of the specified file. For example: if diskfree gt 40M echo Plenty of room if filesize myfile.dat gt 360K echo It won't fit! 3.01 [p 88-90] IF: String comparisons will now be done numerically if both values being compared begin with a digit. This allows you to do true arithmetic tests. For example: set aa=027 set bb=20 if %aa gt %bb ... This test will succeed because it will compare the numeric values 27 and 20. if "%aa" gt "%bb" ... This test will fail because it will compare the alphanumeric values "027" and "20", and the "02" will appear 'smaller' (alphanumerically) than "20". 3.01 IF: The ATTRIB test for a volume label has been changed to get around a bug in DOS, and should now recognize labels correctly. 3.02 IF and IFF: The string tests will now work correctly even if the string contains an "=" sign (which is one of the IF test charac- ters) or a "/" (which is the 4DOS switch character). Also the EMS test now returns the correct value (0) if there is no EMS driver present. In version 3.01 it would return a random value. 3.01 IFF: ELSE and ENDIFF will now be recognized properly even if they are not followed with whitespace. 3.01 INPUT: Fixed a bug with very long variable names and/or input text. 3.01 [p 94] KEYSTACK: There are two changes: 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 12 * KEYSTACK now supports a new symbol, !, to clear keystrokes from the typeahead buffer, as well as anything in the KEYSTACK buffer. For example: keystack ! @59 will clear the typeahead buffer before stacking the @59 (F1) keystroke. * Some programs will not interpret stacked keystrokes proper- ly unless they contain both the correct ASCII value and the correct keyboard "scan code". For example, if you attempt to KEYSTACK an "Enter" using ASCII code 13 (carriage return) and see a small musical note instead, the program you are running probably needs the scan code to interpret the keystroke prop- erly. KEYSTACK now supports the entry of scan codes for standard ASCII keys. To enter the scan code, multiply it by 256 and add it to the ASCII code. Using the same example, the scan code for the Enter key is 28, so the full value for this key would be 28*256+13 = 7181. With some programs you will find that KEYSTACK 7181 works when KEYSTACK 13 does not (or vice versa). Experimentation is required to get the correct val- ue. A full discussion and table of scan codes is beyond the scope of this document, but is available in many basic PC books. 3.01 [p 95] LIST: There are two changes: --> Changed the search and print keys to use letters instead of function keys: F(ind), N(ext), and P(rint). This avoids conflicts when you wish to redefine the function keys for other purposes. Added a new switch, /H, to strip the high bit of each charac- ter, for displaying WordStar documents and other similar files. 3.02 LIST: The switches now work properly when specified without spaces, eg as /WS or /W/S. Previously they required a space (/W /S) to work correctly. 3.01 [p 96] LOADBTM: This is a new command. It will switch the current batch file to and from .BTM mode. The syntax is: LOADBTM [ON | OFF] LOADBTM ON loads the entire file into memory and processes the following lines as a .BTM file. LOADBTM OFF unloads the file from memory and processes the following lines one by one like a .BAT file. Both commands can be used regardless of the file's original extension. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 13 LOADBTM will allow you to have a single batch file for both COMMAND.COM and 4DOS, and select .BTM mode via a statement like: if "%@eval[2+2]" == "4" loadbtm on Since the %@eval function does not exist under COMMAND.COM, the IF test will fail there and the rest of the line will be ignored. Under 4DOS where %@eval exists, the LOADBTM ON will be executed. LOADBTM will also allow you to load TSRs from a .BTM file by switching it into .BAT mode, loading the TSRs, and switching back to .BTM mode. However note that, depending on what the file does, such mode switching can erase much of the speed gained by using a .BTM file in the first place. 3.01 LOG: Fixed a problem which caused a ^C to occasionally hang the system when LOG was ON. Also changed LOG to automatically switch LOG OFF if it couldn't open the log file. 3.01 MOVE: Now returns an "Access denied" error if you try to move files to a character device. Also the way that MOVE accesses files has been modified to minimize or eliminate problems with the MS-DOS APPEND command. 3.01 QUIT: Fixed a bug which kept 4DOS from QUITting within a GOSUB subroutine. 3.01 REM: Will now be echoed if ECHO is ON. 3.01 SELECT: Fixed a bug that was causing SELECT COPY to copy from the wrong directory when the argument was a directory name with no trailing backslash. 3.01 SET: SET /R can now read multiple files, for example: set /r env1 env2 env3 3.01 SETDOS: There are two changes: /S now resets the cursor shape immediately, so it can be used to hide the cursor while in a batch file. /U1 should now properly return uppercase filenames in all instances. 3.02 SETDOS: The COMPOUND character (SETDOS /C) can now be any ASCII character except those specified in the manual as not allowed. Previously characters above ASCII 127 would not work as the sepa- rator. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 14 HELP System ----------- This section describes changes made to the 4DOS HELP system. New Capabilities and Topics: 3.01 There are many corrections and additions to the text, including a complete ASCII table. 3.01 A new "soft pagination" capability enables many commands to be displayed completely on one screen if using more than 25 lines, but paginates in a logical spot if using a 25-line screen. 3.01 HELP is now DESQView-aware and should run properly in a less than full screen DESQView window. 3.01 HELP now accepts up to 16 pages per topic and 32 cross-references per topic, to allow 4MAKE users to install longer topics inside the help file. 3.02 The text has been modified in many places. An ANSI table has been added along with the APPEND, FASTOPEN, GRAPHICS, KEYB, NLSFUNC, RECOVER, and REPLACE commands, and more information on HELP itself. The explanations of JOIN and SUBST are more de- tailed. All resident commands now show their DOS 3.3 resident size. Several minor typographical errors have been corrected. Environment Variables and Switches: 3.02 HELP has two switches which can be set temporarily on the command line (in version 3.02), or "permanently" -- until explicitly changed -- via the 4HELPC environment variable (see below). When switches are set on the command line they can be placed before or after the topic name (if any), so for example these two commands are equivalent: help copy /r help /r copy The switches are: 3.02 /BW: Forces HELP to display all text in monochrome colors, to support the use of monochrome monitors attached to color video boards (e.g. use of a composite monochrome monitor on a CGA system). If you have such a system you will probably want to set the /BW switch permanently as shown under 4HELPC below. 3.01 /R: Disables dynamic window resizing and forces all text screens to be displayed at the full screen height for those who prefer an unchanging display window size. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 15 3.01 Three new environment variables have been added to give you bet- ter control over HELP: 4HELP: Specifies the full path and file name for the help program to be loaded when F1 is pressed. If 4HELP is not used, 4DOS will look for HELP.EXE in the current directory and then on the PATH. 4HELP affects only F1, NOT the HELP command; if you need to change how the HELP command works as well, use an alias. For example, if your HELP files are in the directory D:\4DOS\HELP you will need the following lines in AUTOEXEC.BAT: set 4help=d:\4dos\help\help.exe alias help d:\4dos\help\help.exe 4HELPF: Specifies the full path and file name for the help text file. If not used, HELP will search for DOS.HLP in the directory specified in 4HELP (if any), then in the current directory and on the path. 4HELPC: Specifies permanent control switches for HELP.EXE. More information on switches is above. For example, to per- manently force HELP into monochrome mode, place the following line in AUTOEXEC.BAT: set 4helpc=/bw Configuring HELP with HELPCFG: The HELPCFG.EXE program, provided with 4DOS, can be used to con- figure the help system display colors. To use it, change to the directory HELP.EXE is in, be sure HELPCFG.EXE is in the same directory, and enter the command: HELPCFG HELPCFG allows you to set the colors for several different por- tions of the help display. Use the vertical arrows to select which type of display color you wish to adjust. Hit <cr> and you will be able to move a box in the left-hand window to select the color. Hit <cr> again to select the color, or Esc to return to the right hand window without changing the color. Another Esc will save the new colors and return you to DOS. If you are using a monochrome monitor on a color system and re- quire HELP's /BW switch for proper displays, you may not be able to change the monochrome display attributes easily with HELPCFG, which does not currently have a /BW switch. This will be changed in a future release of 4DOS. 4DOS 3.02 [9-7-90] UPDATE30.DOC page 16