Informática Multimedia 1995 April

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ZIPNEW Zip New files Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1992 Transversal Design Transversal Design PO Box 66082 Chicago, IL 60666-0082 Beeper: (312) 999-0745 (digital) 071590 First Things First: Please take the time to read the License, Warranty and Registration information. If you have received this file without printed documentation, this information is contained in the file named LICENSE.DOC. The information contained in this file/pamphlet outlines copyright information, licensing agreement, warranty, technical support policies and additional information about registering your software. It also includes descriptions of other programs by Transversal Design in which you might be interested. Please take the time to read this information to be sure you understand your rights and the expectations/guidelines of Transversal Design. ZIPNEW ZipNew came about one day while working on a large project. It started getting very difficult to maintain an adequate backup of JUST the files modified on that day. We wrote ZipNew to step through a directory and check which files had changed for that day, then create a batch file of these file names and shell out to PKZIP to make our backup. We then added the ability to specify a date and time, then the ability to work globally across the drive. ZipNew is intended to be used by anyone who works with a large number of files over the course of a given day. This may include a medical secretary who works upon several grants or patient letters over the course of the day. It may include any writer who works under the grind of headlines, working on several stories at one time. It is DEFINITELY for any programmer working on a program split over several files. Prior Knowledge/Limitations It is assumed that the user is reasonably familiar with PKZIP and has a copy of it in their default path. PKZIP is one of THE BEST compression programs out there in terms of speed and resultant size of the files. Compression is the process of taking a file and compressing the data so that it takes a fraction of the space on a user's disk. Unless told otherwise, both the compressed and the original files reside on the disk. Many people find it useful for making copies of files which are smaller and storing them on floppy disks, among many other uses. Consult LICENSE.DOC for more information about obtainining a copy of PKZIP, if you are not using it. ZipNew can still be used to tell you which files have changed, but you will not be able to "collect" them into a backup file. It is also assumed that this copy of PKZIP is a registered copy. If you are using it, please register it. Enough soap boxing. Further assumptions are that the user is familiar with DOS, entering commands into the computer, and entering parameters on the command line for programs. ZipNew should run on any IBM or compatible. It is assumed that the user has at least 512k, although this is not a requirement of the program. The EXE file is about 30k, leaving the rest of memory for PKZIP. Any computer which will run PKZIP should be able to run ZipNew. NOTE: ZipNew has not been tested on any networks. Feedback is desired (in writing please) from any users with access to networks. What It Does: ZipNew will step through every file in the current directory, compare its time and date against the specified time and date, and if the file matches or is later than the time/date, will queue it up for zipping. After all files are queued, ZipNew will determine where PKZIP is at on your drive, create the batch file to be used with the @ directive, then shell out to PKZIP to create the zip file. The zip file, if the name is not specified, will be ddddtttt.yyZ where dddd=month/day, tttt= hour/minute and yy=year-1900 (at least until the year 2000). For instance, running ZipNew on July 16, 1990 at 5:23 pm will create the default file of 07161723.90Z (remember, time is in military format). Conventions Used: One of the main problems of all software documentation is how to differentiate between what to type and other information. We will use UPPERCASE letters to signify what to type. Any information enclosed within less-than ( < ) and greater-than ( > ) signs means to locate and press the key within the signs, not the letters themselves. For instance, <Enter> means to press the key labelled "Enter" (note: on some computers, this may be labelled as "Return"). <F1> would mean to press the <F1> key, not to type the letter F followed by the number 1. <Shft-F1> means to hold the shift key down and press F1, <Ctrl- F1> means to hold the Ctrl (or control) key down and press F1, and <Alt-F1> means to hold the Alt key down and press F1. When uppercase is used, it always refers to a program name or a directory name. The Programs: ZipNew comprises of two programs. They are: TouchIt.EXE "Touches" a file and makes its time and date the current time and date. ZipNew.EXE Creates zip files of changed files for the day(s). General Information: Whenever you create a file, DOS records the time and date the file was created. This time and date is updated whenever the file is changed. You can take your favorite wordprocessor, load a document and print the file as many times as you like without changing the time and date. BUT, once you make changes and save the file, it has now had information written to it and DOS faithfully updates the time and date of the file. This is the main reason why it is so important to set the time and date whenever you turn on your computer. EVERY user has, at some point, used the time and date to determine the most recent file when a file is in several areas on the disk. ZipNew takes advantage of the fact that the time and date are changed every time a file is changed. With it, you can change 5, 10, 100 or even 1,000 files and ZipNew will queue them up for zipping. Installation: ZipNew is one of several utilities available from Transversal Design. Most users, after they have had their systems for a while, will have collected a hodge-podge of utilities and really don't know where to store them. The simple solution is to make a directory called \UTILITY and put all these program files there. If you have not already made such a directory, type the following: MD \UTILITY <Enter> Change to the directory with: CD \UTILITY <Enter> If you purchased ZipNew via shareware, the fact that you are reading this document indicates that you have already unzipped the file. Copy the ZipNew program files to the \UTILITY directory. If you purchased ZipNew directly from Transversal Design, insert the ZipNew diskette in drive A and copy the files: COPY A:*.* <Enter> DOS always looks for files in the current directory first and in its startup path second, as mentioned earlier. You should make sure that the UTILITY directory is a part of this path. Enter the following: TYPE \AUTOEXEC.BAT <Enter> If you do not see a line that starts with the word PATH, you should edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to have at least the following: PATH \UTILITY. If you do see the word PATH, you should edit the line so that it includes the path \UTILITY. Remember, each directory must be separated by a semicolon. Below is a typical path. PATH C:\;C:\DOS;C:\WP;C:\UTILITY Note that the last directory does not have a semicolon after it. This example path tells DOS, when trying to find a command to execute, to look in its internal commands first (such as DIR or COPY), then the current directory, then the root directory (C:\), then the DOS directory (C:\DOS) then the WP directory (C:\WP) and finally in the UTILITY directory (C:\UTILITY) before giving up and saying "Bad command or file name". Getting Started: Perhaps the easiest way to see how to use ZipNew is to do a few examples. Included with ZipNew is a program called TouchIt. This program will take a file and change the time and date of the file. We won't get too far into the intricacies of TouchIt. It does nothing more than change the time and date of a file. We WILL cover how this may be important to you later in the documentation. With your program is the documentation files. These end in both .DOC and .WP4. Let's start with a simple example first. Let's say you worked for Transversal Design (us) as a secretary or wordprocessor, and early in the morning, we had you work upon ZipNew.WP4, among other files. To simulate this, type the following: TOUCHIT ZIPNEW.WP4 <Enter> The real power in TouchIt is that you can specify the time and date, but that is outside of this document, or this example. TouchIt, in the above example, will take ZipNew.WP4 and set it to the current time and date of your computer. Now, let's say that also, later in the morning, you worked upon ZipNew.Doc. Simulate this with: TOUCHIT ZIPNEW.DOC <Enter> Now, let's assume it is the end of the day. You know you worked on several files, but don't necessarily remember that ZipNew was one of them. To zip the files for today, simply type: ZIPNEW <Enter> This will create a file with a filename of ddddtttt.yyZ where dddd=month/day and tttt=hour/minute, and yy=year-1900. If this were run on July 16, 1990 at 4:30 pm, the file name would be 07161630.90Z, or, in English terms, 07/16,16:30.1990Z. You may use the default file name, if desired, or specify your own. We chose the date/time format, although somewhat difficult to read, because it is very easily understood that any file ending in .90Z is a "zip" file from 1990. Any file starting with 07 is from the month of July. We think you get the idea. You should see, for this example, at the least ZIPNEW.WP4 and ZIPNEW.DOC being queued for zipping, then actually zipped. That's all there is to ZipNew. If you run it at the end of each day, using the /g global command and A: as your output drive, you will always have a current backup of your drive. For example, at the end of each day, type: ZIPNEW A:/g <Enter> This will create a backup of ANY file changed today on your hard drive to drive A:. It will ONLY backup the modified files, not any other. To do weekly backups using ZipNew, you might use: ZIPNEW JULY16 /d=07/16/90 /g <Enter> This would create the zip file JULY16.ZIP, using any files greater than or equal to July 16, 1990 with any time. The file would be created on your hard drive and would need copied to a floppy using: COPY JULY16.ZIP A: <Enter> In Closing: Experiment with ZipNew. The time and date are moderately rigid formats for this version. /L may be used to "see" the files before any action is actually taken. /G may be used to force an entire ZIPNEW across the entire drive. The best way to learn the program is to use it. No files are ever erased (except within the scenarios where the parms to PKZIP might erase files). You may find yourself, at the end of each day, typing: ZIPNEW A: /G <Enter> much like we do here at Transversal Design. We hope you find a lot of use out of this utility Usage For those users who are fairly familiar with command-line driven programs such as PKZIP, the usage should be fairly straight-forward. The command line is: ZIPNEW [zipname] [/d[=]date] [/t[=]time] [/L] [/h|/?] [/g] ["zip parms"] where: zipname = output file name. /d[=]date = date in the format of /d=01/01/90 /t[=]time = time in the format of /t=13:23 NOTE: Date and time MUST be 8 and 5 chars long, respectively. Time is in military format (hours=0..23) /L = show (log) files which will be processed. /h or /? = show help only. /g = work globally across the drive. "zip parms" = parameters to pass to PKZIP. ZipNew is not case-sensitive. The parameters may be entered in any order. The quotes ( " ) must be included surrounding the parameters to pass to PKZIP. The parameters are passed to PKZIP EXACTLY as entered, with no conversions other than to remove the quotes. All output may be redirected using standard DOS conventions. PKZIP is a registered trademark of PK Ware, Inc. For more information regarding PKZIP, contact: PK Ware, Inc. 7545 North Port Washington Road Suite 205 Glendale, WI 53217 (414) 352-3670 The inclusion of these product names in this documentation is no indication whatsoever that the respective companies have used or endorse this product. ----------------end-of-author's-documentation--------------- Software Library Information: This disk copy provided as a service of Public (software) Library We are not the authors of this program, nor are we associated with the author in any way other than as a distributor of the program in accordance with the author's terms of distribution. Please direct shareware payments and specific questions about this program to the author of the program, whose name appears elsewhere in this documentation. If you have trouble getting in touch with the author, we will do whatever we can to help you with your questions. All programs have been tested and do run. To report problems, please use the form that is in the file PROBLEM.DOC on many of our disks or in other written for- mat with screen printouts, if possible. PsL cannot debug pro- programs over the telephone, though we can answer questions. Disks in the PsL are updated monthly, so if you did not get this disk directly from the PsL, you should be aware that the files in this set may no longer be the current versions. Also, if you got this disk from another vendor and are having prob- lems, be aware that some files may have become corrupted or lost by that vendor. Get a current, working disk from PsL. For a copy of the latest monthly software library newsletter and a list of the 2,000+ disks in the library, call or write Public (software) Library P.O.Box 35705 - F Houston, TX 77235-5705 1-800-2424-PSL MC/Visa/AmEx Outside of U.S. or in Texas or for general information, Call 1-713-524-6394 PsL also has an outstanding catalog for the Macintosh.