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tm Diskcat-5 Version 1.14 Copyright 1983-1989 Nelson Ford All Rights Reserved Member: Association of Shareware Professionals CONTENTS License Agreement .. Warranty .. Introduction 1 DC5-READ 6 Starting DC5-READ 6 Main Menu 6 Read a disk into the catalog 7 Free space on drive C: 8 Duplicate disk names and updating disks 8 Multiple Catalogs 9 Give a disk a directory file 9 Delete a disk or subdirectory 10 Examine a catalog 10 Printing labels 11 Printing inserts 12 Find a file in the catalog 13 Change volume label on a disk 13 Modify program options File names 13 Printer set-up 14 Superscript spacing 15 Drives, Screen colors 16 Graphics, Sound 17 DC5-CAT: add descriptions 18 Description field length 18 Alt-B: find Blank 18 Alt-D: find Disk 19 Alt-F: find File 19 Alt-C: edit Categories 19 Alt-K: Kill entry 20 Alt-M: make a Manual entry 20 Alt-N: reName a file/disk 20 Alt-P: get Prior entry 20 Alt-R: Repeat last entry 21 Alt-S: Skip disk 21 Alt-V: View file 21 Alt-Fkey: memorize entry 21 DC5-SORT 23 Temporary sort files 23 Printing part of a catalog 24 Setting printer parameters 24 Comparing two catalogs 26 DC5CLONE 28 DC5-FIND 30 DC5-CNVT A1 Directory Listing Labels and Inserts B1 DISKCAT-5 (tm) Copyright 1983-1989 FORD SOFTWARE License Agreement This software and documentation are copyrighted and protected by National and International Copyright law. You may copy Diskcat-5 for people who would like to try out the program. If you charge a fee of any kind for such distribution, you must have the advance written permission of Ford Software, except of distributors approved by the Association of Shareware Professionals. If you try Diskcat-5 and decide to continue using it, you must register with the author. The registration fee is $39.95 and entitles you to certain benefits, such as technical support. Diskcat-5 registration is sold ONLY by Ford Software directly to the customer. You should not have paid more than a small "disk fee" for an evaluation copy of Diskcat-5. "Disk fees" go entirely to the distributor and not to the author of the program. WARRANTY Although Diskcat has been thoroughly tested, it is impossible to test it under every conceivable combination of hardware and software with which it might be run. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for any problems that may arise from its use, including, but not limited to, loss of files, loss of time or loss of income. It is the responsibility of the user to test the program on any particular system before relying on the program. Good data processing procedure dictates that any program be thoroughly tested with non-critical data before relying on it. The user must assume the entire risk of using the program. Any liability of the seller will be limited exclusively to product replacement or refund of purchase price. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM ... before deciding that something is wrong with Diskcat, please follow these steps: 1. If you have a "compatible" PC and Diskcat locks up when you try to run it, first try executing the MS_DOS.BAT file. If it still locks up and you have some resident utilities in memory, try it without them. If you still have a problem, call us. 2. If you have a PCJr with a Racore expansion system, you must use the IBM emulation video mode or the straight PCJr video mode. 3. If you have an IBM machine (or very close compatible) and Diskcat will not run and you have resident utilities in memory, try removing the "least popular" of those utilities first. Diskcat will run with properly written resident utilities. 4. Some versions of MS-DOS have a bug in them which results in a "Cannot run as child of BASIC" error message. If the company that sold you the buggy version of MS-DOS cannot give you a corrected version, you can probably get PC-DOS to run on your machine. 5. Run DC5CLONE. (See that section of this manual.) 6. Try duplicating the error by creating a new test file into which you just read a couple of disks, and then see if the error repeats on the new file. If it does not, something is probably wrong with your old data file. Run DC5CLONE. "Diskcat-5" and "DC5" are trademarks of FORD SOFTWARE P.O.Box 35705 Houston, Texas 77235-5705 Introduction ------------ REQUIREMENTS Minimum: IBM-PC or compatible, 128K free memory, one disk drive, an 80-column monitor. Recommended: a RAM disk-emulator or hard disk to hold the data files; a printer. DOS: 2.0 or later version of PC-DOS or MS-DOS. INCOMPATIBILITIES Copy-Protected Disks cannot be read reliably by Diskcat-5 because, of their very nature. Copy-protected disks are designed to fool other programs that try to read them, so trying to test a disk to see if it is copy-protected is probably futile. We recommend that you do not buy copy-protected programs or, at least, that you do not try to read them with Diskcat. Instead, use the "manual entry" feature in DC5-CAT to enter the name of such a disk into your catalog. A bug in some versions of MS-DOS results in a "Cannot run as child of BASIC" error message. If your dealer cannot give you a bug-free version of MS-DOS, try IBM's PC-DOS. Diskcat-5 should work on all close compatibles of the IBM PC. If it fails to work on your machine, we are willing to work with you to make it work or we will refund your purchase price. There are no incompatibilities with other software that are known at this time. However, it is not possible to test with every possible resident program on the market. If you have trouble getting Diskcat to run and you have programs resident in memory, try removing those programs from memory. Diskcat will run with all major resident utilities known at this time, including Superkey, Sidekick, and Ready!. WHAT DISKCAT-5 DOES: READ reads the directory of disks, including subdirectories, and stores all the file names, subdirectory names and disk volume names in a Catalog file. READ lets you delete a disk or subdirectory from the Catalog, give a disk its own "table of contents" file (-DIRLIST), examine the catalog contents, list the names of all disks that a file is on, print disk directory labels and disk jacket inserts and change program parameters such as screen colors, sound, file names, and printer control codes. CAT lets you add a 10-character Category field and a description field of up to 49 characters. The Category field is useful when printing. The catalog can be sorted by category and similar files will then be grouped together. CAT also lets you view files, make manual entries to the catalog, delete or rename files and perform many other functions. SORT lets you sort the Catalog by file name, disk name, category or other fields and print out all or part of the catalog to the screen, printer or to a disk file. SORT also lets you compare two Diskcat Catalogs and print a side-by-side comparative listing highlighting differences, and it will optionally copy descriptions and categories from one Catalog file into the other. FIND lets you quickly find the names of all disks containing a specified file. It will also display a list of file names or disk names whose descriptions contain specified text imbedded in them. CLONE lets you create a new catalog from an already existing catalog. This can be used to create a sub-catalog or to salvage data from a catalog that has become corrupted somehow, such as through an inopportune power outage. TUTORIAL Getting Started The first thing you should do is back up the original Diskcat disk. Then you should create a working disk. The distribution disk can create both a regular working disk and a demo disk, but it does not contain the operating system. After starting up your system with your DOS disk, insert the distribution disk in drive A: and type GO for instructions on how to create a working disk. If you do not have a hard disk, the use of a RAM disk is highly recommended. Software for creating a RAM disk is widely available. If you have a memory expansion board, the RAM disk software should have come with it. Otherwise, ask at your local user group, electronic bulletin board or computer dealer. For the rest of this session, we will assume that your files are all on drive C:. If yours are not, change references in this manual from drive C: to the appropriate letter. Be sure to define the PATH to the subdirectory or RAM disk. See your DOS manual for more information about the use of PATH. If you copied all of the files from the distribution disk, you will have copied the catalog files - those with the extensions .DTA and .DT2. Let's delete those so that you can start your own catalog. Now you are ready to run DC5. Make C: the default drive and from the DOS prompt, type DC5-READ ("READ", for short). When READ starts, it will look on A: for the default catalog files and, not finding them, will ask which drive they are on. Enter C: as the drive to look on next. The first screen you will normally see is the one that shows the default drive for the program files and data files and the name of the catalog to use and if this is a new catalog or not. If all this information is as you want it, press Enter to accept it; otherwise, press "N" or up cursor to make changes. After pressing Enter, you will arrive at the main menu. (Figure 1). Notice the "CAP" and "NUM" in the bottom, right corner of the screen. This shows if your CapsLock and NumLock keys are on or off. Main Menu Function #9 "Modify program options" The first thing you will probably want to do is to set up program parameters to your liking, so select 9 and you will see the screens in Figure 2. FILE NAMES can be anything you want, but remember to rename the files in DOS correspondingly. The filename extensions for the Catalog data files must be DTA for the main file and DT2 for the description file. If you are using a hard disk and DOS 3.0 or later, you can put the Diskcat files in a subdirectory and include the subdirectory name with the program name. For example, if you put all the Diskcat files in a subdirectory named DISKCAT and renamed DC5-READ to READ, you would enter at the prompt for that program name "DISKCAT\READ" (without the quotes, of course). The default program parameters are stored in the file DC5-PGM.DTA which must be stored in the current (default) directory of the default drive. PRINTER SET-UP codes must be entered here for your particular printer. (The ones shown are for the Epson FX and compatible printers.) See your printer manual for the appropriate codes. If you are not familiar with entering printer codes in the sample format shown, don't worry about it now. It is explained in more detail later in this manual. DRIVES may be changed here, but be sure that you already have the program and data files on the drives you want to use. These program parameters are stored in the file DC5-PGM.DTA, which must be on the program drive. GRAPHICS can be turned off by entering a 32 or a 0 for the ASCII code of the frame. The default frame character is 176, but you can enter any ASCII code as shown in App. G of the IBM BASIC manual. SOUND for prompts is turned off as distributed because some "compatibles" do not support sound. After changing the parameters you want to change, press Esc. You will be asked if you want to make the changes permanent. Press the "Y" key. The program will re-start with the new parameters and you will end up at the main menu again. Main Menu Function #1 "Read a disk or directory into the catalog" Now it is time to start reading disks into the Catalog. Press "1" at the main menu screen. You should now see a prompt (Figure 3) asking which drive and path to read. You can select a drive with one of the function keys or type in a drive and path to be read. If you are using a hard disk, enter "C:\", otherwise, enter "A:\" or press the corresponding function key as indicated at the bottom of the screen. READ will read the root directory of the selected disk and display its files on the screen (Figure 4). If you have more than one screen full of file and directory names, the program will pause for each screen full to let you look them over. Press "Q" to make the program quit pausing for each screen. To make the screen pause again, press any key when the names are being written to the screen. If your disk has a volume label, you will be asked if you want to use it as the disk name in the catalog. If you do not, then enter a new name. If you change the disk name or if the disk has no volume label, you will be asked if you want to change it on the disk too. The default is to not change the label, so you must press "Y" to make it change the label. The file names, names of any subdirectories in the root directory and disk name will all be added to the Catalog file. If subdirectory names were found, you will be asked if you want to add all the subdirectories on the disk to the Catalog too. Make your choice. You can continue to read disks until you are finished, at which point you can press Esc to return to the main menu. Then, let's go to the DC5-CAT program module and see about adding descriptions. (Select #2 at the main READ menu.) Main Menu Function #2 "Add descriptions to catalog" The middle of the screen is where most of the activity takes place. The following message should appear on the main message line the first time you add descriptions to a Catalog (unless it is a catalog that you converted from DC4). Desired length of Description field (0-49): 49 The maximum length of the description field can be set to any length from 0 to 49 characters. The larger this field, the larger the file will be. After entering a number and pressing Enter, you will be asked to enter a description for the Catalog. You will then see the first disk name. Try pressing PgDn and PgUp to scroll through some of the entries in the Catalog. Enter some descriptions so that you will have something to look at when we go through the other parts of the program that display descriptions. Notice that disk names and subdirectory names, as well as file names, are displayed and that you may give them descriptions. The bottom part of the screen are your command keys. To use these functions, you must hold down the Alt key and press the key indicated (the capitalized, highlighted letter). These functions should be self-explanatory. Just try each one in turn and see what happens. For more information, see the reference section of the manual. When you are ready to move on, press Esc or Alt-Q and return to DC5-READ. At the main menu, press 3 or G. Main Menu Function #3 "Give a disk a directory listing file" The purpose of this function (Figures 5 & 6) is to give a disk a "table of contents" file that lists the files on the disk with their descriptions. This is very useful when you give a disk to others who are not familiar with the files or if you have forgotten what the files are yourself. Try this and then the next time you return to DOS, TYPE the file -DIRLIST to see what it looks like. Main Menu Function #4 "Delete a disk or subdirectory" This function (Figures 7 & 8) allows you to remove all entries in the catalog for a particular disk or subdirectory. Before trying this, select #5 at the main menu to see a list of all the disks in your catalog, then Esc back to the main menu, delete one of the disks and return to #5 again to verify that it is gone. Main Menu Function #5 "Examine catalog by disk, path and file" The DC5-SORT program will print a list of files to the screen, but function #5 of the READ program is much handier for examining the contents of your catalog in most cases. First the names of all of the disks in the catalog are displayed (Figure 9). You can select a disk and press Enter and all the paths on that disk will be displayed, if any (Figure 10). Select one of the subdirectories, and all of its files will be displayed (Figure 11). If a disk has no subdirectories, the program will jump directly from the disk display in Figure 9 to the file display in Figure 11. By selecting a file, you can see the name of every disk and directory in the catalog that contains that file name. When you press Esc at the file display screen, you will be asked if you want to make a hardcopy of the file listing (Figure 12). There are two types of hardcopy: on a label to be attached to the disk and on paper that can be cut to a size that will fit inside a disk jacket. Before this function will work properly, the printer control codes specific to your printer must be entered via function #9 (see discussion of function 9 earlier in this chapter). If yours have not been set up, press Esc until you return to the main menu; otherwise, follow the prompts as seen in Figure 13. At the screen which displays the disk names, pressing "P" will cause a lisitng of all of the disks in the catalog (and their descriptions) to be printed. Main Menu Function #6 "Find all occurrences of a file in catalog" This function duplicates the function of DC5-FIND. The FIND program is faster to use if you are in DOS. This also duplicates the display that you can get by using function #5 and selecting a file from the file screen (Figure 12), but function #6 is more convenient if you just want to find a file and it also allows the use of "wild cards". (See Figures 14 and 15.) Main Menu Function #8 "Change volume label on a disk" For more information about "volume labels", see your DOS manual under "FORMAT". See Figure 16. This function is simple, just give it a try. Main Menu Function #7 "Sort/print catalog to printer/screen/disk" This function will run the program DC5-SORT.EXE and show you the main menu screen as seen in Figure 17. As you can see, it is possible to sort the Catalog in several different ways. For right now, select "1" to sort by file name. The screen in Figure 18 allows you to print out just a portion of the Catalog file. For example, if you had elected to sort by disk name, you could print out just the disks whose names started with the letter S through Z or just the file names starting with the letter R by entering R as both the starting and stopping point. Or if you sorted by extension, you could just print out EXE files by entering EXE as the starting and stopping point. By pressing Enter for both prompts, printing will start with the first record and go through the last. After specifying the name and drive for the Catalog (Figure 19), the data will be loaded and sorted (Figure 20). You will then be asked if you want the output sent - 1 To printer 2 To screen 3 To disk For right now, let's send it to the screen, #2. Then you will be asked - When sorted field changes: 1 Don't skip any space. 2 Skip two lines. 3 Skip to top of next page For the screen, let's have it skip two lines when the sorted field changes. This makes it easier to spot changes in the sorted field. Since virtually every filename will be different Diskcat only skips when the first letter of the filename changes. The following programs are meant to be run from the DOS prompt. DC5-FIND.COM Is used to quickly find which disk(s) and directories a file is on given all or part of a filename using DOS-type wildcards. It will also list files which have specified text in their categories or descriptions. To try the program, just type DC5-FIND from the DOS prompt and follow the prompts. DC5CLONE.EXE Is used to create sub-catalogs of your catalog or to salvage data from a file that has been corrupted somehow. To try the program, just type DC5CLONE from the DOS prompt and follow the prompts. DC5-CNVT.EXE You will not need this program at all unless you are upgrading from Diskcat-4. This utility creates a Diskcat-5 catalog from a Diskcat-4 catalog. Just follow the prompts. This concludes the tutorial. The next section of the manual is for reference. INTRODUCTION Diskcat was orginally written in 1983 to maintain a catalog of files on floppies. It still can be used strictly for keeping track of files on floppies, but it has now been rewritten to make it possible to keep track of files on a hard disk. Some people use Diskcat only for keeping track of floppies and others use it strictly for their hard disk, but it can handle both comfortably in the same or in different catalogs. Some users have reported that they find Diskcat-5 essential for managing hard disks with removable media. THE PROGRAMS Diskcat-5 is divided into four subprograms, READ, CAT, SORT and FIND. On disk, these file names are all preceded by "DC5-" to help identify them as a group when mixed with other files. For example, DC5-FIND.EXE should not be confused with the FIND.EXE that comes with DOS; likewise DC5-SORT.EXE and DOS's SORT.EXE. In addition, there are a couple of utility programs, CLONE, which can repair damaged catalogs in some cases, and CONVERT, which is only for people who have upgraded from Diskcat-4 and needn't be kept on your work disk. These programs are not copy-protected and may be transferred to a hard disk. If you do not have a hard disk, the use of a RAM disk is highly recommended. THE DATA FILES Each catalog has two data files, the main one with the extension .DTA, which contains the file names and related information and is referred to as the "main" file, the "DTA" file or the "catalog", and the other with the extension .DT2, which contains the category and descriptions for the entries in the main data file and is referred to as the "description" file or the "DT2" file. The catalog files that come with the distribution disk, DC5-FILE.DTA and .DT2, are sample files that you can use for trying out the features of Diskcat and as a guide for setting up your own catalog. Do not confuse the file ***DC5-PGM.DTA*** with catalog data files. This file contains program parameters and must be in the current directory of the default drive when Diskcat-5 is run. CREATING A WORK DISK You cannot run Diskcat-5 from the distribution disk nor a DISKCOPY of the distribution disk, although you SHOULD make a copy of distribution disk for backup purposes. To get started, boot up your computer with your DOS disk. When you get the DOS prompt, put the Diskcat-5 distribution disk in drive A:, make drive A: the default drive, and type 'GO' (without the quotes) and follow the directions on how to create a working disk. USE ON A HARD DISK The Diskcat programs expect to find the other program files and data files in the current directory (default directory) of the specified drive. There are numerous commercial and public domain (eg: DPATH) programs, as well as DOS commands (especially in DOS 3.1+) that allow you to access programs and data files not in the current directory. See your DOS manual. If you are using DOS 3.0 or later, you can put all of the Diskcat programs and data files except DC5-PGM.DTA into a subdirectory and still access them from the root directory. See the section on Function #9 of the READ program for more information. Even if you have a hard disk, you may find a significant amount of time saved on some functions if you use a RAM disk to store the data files. This is primarily true in the SORT program, but if you have a large catalog in the RAM disk, make sure that you still have plenty of room for the temporary files used when sorting the catalog. USE ON A RAM DISK Software for setting up a RAM disk is widely available. Ask at your local user group or computer store. If you have not used a RAM disk before, you will be astounded at the speed increase in all of your programs, including Diskcat, that is to be gained by using a part of your RAM memory to emulate the functions of a disk drive. However, you should be aware that any power interruption will cause you to lose data stored on a RAM disk that has not been copied to a floppy or hard disk. If your area is subject to frequent power interruptions (several times a month), you may want to limit the use of the RAM disk to the SORT and FIND programs, where the disk access is the heaviest, but no data is being added to the catalog files. If you are just running READ and CAT, disk speed is not quite as noticeable, and you may find that running these programs from floppies is satisfactory and on a hard disk, very satisfactory. DATA FILE SIZE If you are trying to minimize the size of the RAM disk, you can keep all the program files (including BASRUN20.EXE) plus the DC5-PGM.DTA data file on a floppy and just put the two catalog data files on the RAM disk. If your average floppy has 30 files and you have 100 floppies, the 3,000 entries in the catalog at 32 bytes each will take up a total of around 100,000. At this rate, you could store a catalog of the contents of 350 floppies, or over 10,000 file names, on a single 360k floppy, if no descriptions are added. The size of the description file depends on the number of characters that you choose as the maximum for the description field (0 to 49). It also depends on the number of main catalog entries for which you enter a description, since no space is used in the description file for an entry in the main file unless you specifically give it a description or category. The maximum record length in the description file is 64 characters. A main catalog file of 3,000 entries with each entry having a category and description entry of maximum length should all fit comfortably on a single 360k floppy or RAM disk. You can increase this number by specifying a smaller description field, but this can only be done the first time you run CAT for a particular catalog. If you have more files than will fit in a catalog on a single disk, you can either subdivide your files into two or more specific catalogs (probably the better choice) or use these files only on a hard disk. Splitting your files into more than one catalog will also speed up sorts and searches. BACK UP YOUR FILES When you are copying your data files from the RAM disk to a floppy at the end of a work session, take an extra few seconds to copy them again onto another backup disk. If you are not using a RAM disk, backup the files from your hard disk or floppies every time you make a change. And be sure to keep a copy of the old catalog file as well. If you have somehow trashed your new file and don't realize it until you have copied the new file over the old one on your backup disk, you have nothing to fall back on. A good procedure is to have two (or more) backup disks and alternate using them. Another good idea is to back up your data files BEFORE you start a session. That way you know for sure that you have a current backup. If you have a hard disk, you don't even have to backup the files, just copy them to new files with different names. The reason for this caution is that the data file structure is very complex and if the files do not close properly because of a power failure or system lockup, you will have to resort to your backup files if you were in the process of reading disks into the catalog or adding descriptions. If you do have problems and don't have backup files, trying using DC5CLONE to salvage data. If DC5CLONE won't do it and you don't have backup files, you will have to start your catalog over. You CANNOT delete all the descriptions for a catalog by simply deleting the description (.DT2) file. The pointers into the description file will remain in the main (.DTA) file and that will cause you problems later. The rest of this section contains detailed information about the use of READ, CAT, SORT, FIND and CLONE. DC5-READ STARTING DC5-READ READ first checks the default drive and directory for the file DC5-PGM.DTA, which contains the program parameters shown. This file also contains the default category names for the DC5-CAT program. If READ cannot find DC5-PGM.DTA, it will ask what drive it is on. If it still cannot find it, READ will create a new DC5-PGM.DTA file. Assuming it finds the file, it will get the drive specs and file names for the programs and data files and display them on the screen. If you want to change the data drive or data file name, you can do so at this point. The program drive is where the programs and the program data file, DC5-PGM.DTA, are stored. You normally will not have to change these. MAIN MENU The following functions are available from the main menu of READ: 1 Read a disk or directory into the catalog 2 Add descriptions to catalog 3 Give a disk a directory listing file 4 Delete a disk or subdirectory from catalog 5 Examine catalog by disk, path and file 6 Find all occurrences of a file in catalog 7 Sort/print catalog to printer/screen/disk 8 Change volume label on a disk 9 Modify program options You can select any of these functions by pressing the number, the first letter of the line, or the corresponding keyboard function key. EXAMPLE: To "Change a volume label on a disk", you can press 8 or C or F8. If you make a selection and then change your mind at any time in a series of prompts, pressing the ESC key will return you either to the previous prompt or to the main menu. The rest of this section covers each of the functions of the READ program in the same order as they are listed in the main menu. Main Menu Function #1 "Read a disk or directory into the catalog" At the prompt, you may enter a drive designator (A:, B:, etc.) or specify a subdirectory to be read. If the latter, you must still enter the drive using a format like "C:\SUBDIR". The backslash is not optional. You can use the function keys to read the drives indicated at the bottom of the screen. If you do not specify a subdirectory, READ will read the root directory of the selected disk and display its files and subdirectories on the screen. The display will pause for each screen full of file names unless you press "Q" to tell it to Quit asking. Pressing any key while file names are being written to the screen will cause the program to pause for full screens again. Nested subdirectories will not show up at this time. You must read a subdirectory to get the names of any nested subdirectories it might contain. EXAMPLE: Assume you have a disk with a volume name of SAMPLE and the following file structure: ROOT DIR\ FILE1 FILE2 SUBDIR1\ S1FILE1 S1FILE2 SUBDIR1A\ SUBDIR2\ S2FILE1 When READ first reads this disk, it will list the contents of the root directory (FILE1, FILE2, SUBDIR1, SUBDIR2). If you tell it to read all of the subdirectories, it will do so. Notice that "Y" to read all the disk is the default prompt, so just pressing Enter will cause it to happen. But let's say that you want everything except the contents of SUBDIR1 to be cataloged. There are a couple of ways to accomplish that. One way would be to not let Diskcat catalog all the subdirectories automatically. Instead, press N and return to the prompt 3 and specify that SAMPLE\SUBDIR2 be read. However, this works better for just selecting a few subdirectories to read, rather than to just exclude a few. Another alternative is to read the entire disk and use main menu function #4 to delete any subdirectories that you don't want in the catalog. This would make more sense if you wanted to have in the catalog all but one or two directories on a hard disk, for example. FREE SPACE ON DRIVE C: At the bottom of the screen, the amount of free space on drive C: (or whatever your data drive is) is shown. This is the free space remaining on the disk containing your catalog file, not the free space on the disk you just read. The purpose of showing this here is to let you see if you have enough disk space remaining to add the directory list to your catalog. Each entry in the catalog, whether a disk name, subdirectory name or file name, takes 32 bytes, so a disk with, say, 30 files would only take about 1k to add to the catalog. DUPLICATE DISK NAMES AND UPDATING DISKS If your disk has a volume label, you will be asked if you want to use it as the disk name in the catalog. If you do not, then enter a new name. If you press ESC at this point, the files just read will not be added to the catalog. If you change the disk name or if the disk has no volume label, you will be asked if you want to change it on the disk too. The default is NOT to change the label, so you must press "Y" to change it. If the name you enter is already being used in the catalog, either you are reading a disk that has already been read into the catalog or you are trying to use a name that another disk already has. If the latter, you can go back and enter another disk name or you can have the previous disk deleted from the catalog. If it's the same disk, you can abort or you can go ahead and let Diskcat update the entries in the catalog for that disk. By updating the entries rather than deleting the disk in the catalog and reading it back in, you don't lose the file descriptions that you may have entered for files still on the disk. If the name is not in use, then the file names, names of any subdirectories in the root directory and disk name will all be added to the Catalog file at this time. If subdirectory names were found, you will be asked if you want to add all the subdirectories on the disk to the Catalog too. Using this option, Diskcat will read and catalog an entire hard disk automatically in just a few minutes. MULTIPLE CATALOGS You can have as many different catalogs as you wish simply by changing the name via function #9. See the discussion in that section of this chapter for more information. Function #3 "Give a disk a directory listing file" The purpose of this function is to give a disk a "table of contents" file that lists the files on the disk along with their descriptions. As an example, see the file -DIRLIST on the Diskcat distribution disk. The "directory listing file" is a straight text file that can be TYPEd from DOS or copied to the printer. You may also edit this file with most word processors (even EDLIN) to add additional text of your own. The default name for this directory listing file is -DIRLIST. The name starts with a dash so that it will be the first file in a sorted directory listing. You may change this default name using function 9, "Change Program Parameters". Function #4 "Delete a disk or subdirectory" This function allows you to remove all entries in the catalog for a particular disk or subdirectory. You can also optionally delete a disk when you enter the name of that disk under function #1, as described under "DUPLICATE DISK NAMES". You can delete a specific filename from the catalog using a function in the CAT program. In earlier versions of Diskcat, there was a Purge function to remove files from the catalog that had been marked for deletion. In this version, the space is reused automatically when more disks are read, so the purge function is not needed. If you have deleted a lot of entries and want to get rid of the dead entries, you can do so with the program DC5CLONE.EXE discussed later in this manual; otherwise, the space will be reused. Function #5 "Examine catalog by disk, path and file" This is the main utility for examining the contents of your catalog. The SORT program will print to the screen, but is intended primarily for making printed lists of your catalog. The first screen or set of screens displays all the disk names in the catalog. Pressing "P" at this screen will cause a list of the disks in the catalog to be printed, along with their descriptions, if any. If you have a lot of disks, they may be displayed on more than one screen. You can move to the second screen by moving the cursor through all of the disk names or by pressing the PgDn key. You can return to the previous screen with PgUp key. You can select a disk with the cursor keys and pressing Enter and all the paths on that disk will be displayed, if any. Select one of the subdirectories, and all of its files will be displayed. If a disk has no subdirectories, the program will jump directly from the disk display to the file display. By selecting a file, you can see the name of every disk and directory in the catalog that contains that file name. PRINTING LABELS AND INSERTS By selecting function 5 at the main menu of DC5-READ, and then selecting a disk and displaying the files on that disk as directed by the screen prompts, you come to the file display screen. When you press Esc at the file display screen, you will be asked if you want to make a hardcopy of the file listing. There are two types of hardcopy: on a label to be attached to the disk and on paper that can be cut to a size that will fit inside a disk jacket. Before this function will work properly, the printer control codes specific to your printer must be entered via function #9 (see discussion of function 9 later in this chapter). LABELS For this function to be at all useful, your printer must be capable of using compressed print of around 17 characters per inch. Virtually all dot matrix printers have this feature. Your printer should also allow vertical spacing of eight lines per inch in addition to the normal 6 lpi. To get the maximum benefit from this function, your printer should also have a superscript mode and the ability to adjust vertical spacing by very small fractions of an inch. For more information about printer settings, read the section later in this chapter on function #9 of the READ program. The format of the label is as follows: the top line of the label is the disk name and description (if you entered a description in CAT). The next lines contain a sorted listing of the disk's file names in five columns. If there is space after all the files are listed, a line showing disk type, free space remaining and number of files on the disk will be printed. NUMBER OF FILE NAMES ON A LABEL At eight lines per inch ("lpi"), the maximum number of file names that will fit on a 4" by 1-7/16" label is 50. If your printer can be set to 12 lpi with the software commands, the maximum number of file names for one label increases to 75. If the disk has more file names than will fit on one label, it will print the excess on a second label automatically. The program is designed to use 4" by 1-7/16" labels. You may be able to get other size labels to work if you just print one label at a time and the number of lines required to list a disk's files do not exceed the label size. However, the automatic overflow label will not work properly, nor will the option to print multiple labels. MULTIPLE LABELS You may have multiple copies of a directory listing label printed automatically if you wish. This option was added by popular demand from user group software librarians. See Appendix B for more information and sample labels. INSERTS Labels are great if the contents of a disk are not expected to change often. Otherwise, they can be messy and inconvenient. Furthermore, labels do not have room to print the category and description of each file. Another disadvantage of directory-listing labels is that you cannot see the listing without taking the disk out of the drive. A listing printed on paper which can be cut to fit inside a disk sleeve overcomes all the aforementioned disadvantages of labels. Inserts are easy to change (just pull the old one out and stick the new one in), there is room to print the category and description for each file and you can read the listing without taking the disk out of the drive. For best results, you should have the control code entered via Function #9 to put your printer into compressed print (around 17 characters per inch). See the information for that function later in this chapter. Function #6 "Find all occurrences of a file in catalog" This function duplicates the function of DC5-FIND. The FIND program is faster to use if you are in DOS. This also duplicates the display that you can get by using function #5 and selecting a file from the file screen, but function #6 is more convenient if you just want to find a file and it also allows the use of "wild cards". Function #7 "Print catalog to screen/printer/disk" This function calls up the DC5-SORT program, which is discussed in detail in another chapter. Function #8 "Change volume label on a disk" This function changes the volume label on the disk itself. It does not change the name of a disk in the catalog (which can be done in the CAT program). For more information about "volume labels", see your DOS manual under "FORMAT". You can also change the volume label of a disk when you are reading the disk into a catalog. See "Function #1" for more information. Function #9 "Modify program options" FILE NAMES Here you may change many of Diskcat's operational parameters. The program and file names can be anything you choose, but remember to change the name in DOS before changing it here. This applies to drive specifiers too. For example, if you start Diskcat from Drive A: and you want to change to the use of C: as the default data and program drive, Diskcat will expect the program and data files to already be on the new drive (C:, in this case). The filename extensions for the Catalog data files must be ".DTA" for the main file and ".DT2" for the description file. You may have several different catalogs for different types of programs, if you wish. Although the capacity of a Diskcat catalog file is over 32,000 records, you may find it faster and more efficient to have smaller catalogs when you sort and print or search for a file. For example, you may wish to put all of your floppy disk filenames in one catalog and your hard disk filenames in another. Or if you have a lot of one type of file, such as correspondence, you might wish to have a single catalog for them. If you use DOS 3.0 or later, you may specify a subdirectory name for the Diskcat program files. For example, to enable Diskcat to find the program DC5-SORT in a subdirectory named DISKCAT, enter subdirectory name as part of the program name: DISKCAT\DC5-SORT. You do not have to put a "\" in front of the directory name. Diskcat catalog files can have a subdirectory name attached under any version of DOS, 2.0 or later. PRINTER SET-UP Printer setup codes can be found in your printer manual. These codes are usually shown in several different formats - as hex codes, as decimal codes, and as ASCII symbols (letters and numbers). For example, the Epson printers use decimal 15 to put the printer into the compressed print mode. The manual also explains that you can send this code to the printer from BASIC with this command: LPRINT CHR$(15);. So the code to enter into Diskcat would be CHR$(15). To put the Epson printer into the 12 characters-per-inch mode: Epson manual says: Type into Diskcat: ------------------ ------------------ Esc "M" CHR$(27) "M" in decimal: 27 77 CHR$(27) CHR$(77) where "77" is the ASCII code for the letter "M". Either of the two formats will have the same effect. Appendix G in the IBM BASIC Manual lists ASCII codes and their decimal equivalents. Sometimes you may want to combine two different commands into one parameter. For example, the Epson LQ-1500 printer will not recognize the CHR$(15) for compressed print if you are in the letter-quality mode. In that case, rather than just entering CHR$(15) for the command for 17cpi, you should precede the CHR$(15) with the printer control code to force the printer into the draft mode: CHR$(27) "x" CHR$(0) CHR$(15) There is often more than one way to execute the same printer setting and you can enter whichever you prefer. For example, the Epson manual also says that you can put the FX-80 into compressed print by sending it CHR$(27) CHR$(15), rather than just CHR$(15). Likewise, we are about to see several ways to set line spacing. SUPERSCRIPT SPACING commands are probably the least standardized among printers and therefore the most complicated to set. Look in your printer manual for a command that will let you adjust vertical spacing (linefeed distance) by fractions of an inch such that spacing can be set to 12 lines per inch ("lpi"). For example, the Epson FX-80 has five commands for adjusting vertical spacing. The standard ones, which most printers have, are for 1/8" (8 lpi) and 1/6" (6 lpi). If for some reason you cannot or do not wish to enter the printer control codes, you can still use some of the special functions of Diskcat by blanking out the control codes that come with the program and setting your printer switches as instructed in your printer manual. For example, if you select 17 cpi in the SORT program and the code shown for 17 cpi is blank, nothing will be sent to the printer and control will revert to the switch settings or, if there is no code for printer initialization, control will remain with the last commands sent to the printer. If you have a printer control program for your printer, you could set the printer before running Diskcat, but you must blank out all of the Diskcat printer control codes, particularly the reset code. Sometimes, printer manuals contain errors in the codes they give or in how they present them. If your manual says to enter ESC 1, it could mean for you to enter CHR$(27) CHR$(1) or to enter CHR$(27) "1", which are not the same at all. If one doesn't work, just experiment a little and try the other. You may have to call the manufacturer of your printer if you cannot get the codes to work at all. DRIVES may be changed here, but be sure that you already have the program and data files on the drives you want to use. These program parameters are stored in the file DC5-PGM.DTA, which must be on the new program drive. SCREEN COLORS can also be changed here. Diskcat is distributed with a rather drab black and white scheme, just to make sure that everybody can see it, including people with green or amber monitors on a color graphics card. The codes for the various colors are displayed on the screen. "GRAPHICS" simply refers to the screen framing that is done throughout Diskcat. The number entered for GRAPHICS is the ASCII code for the character to be used in drawing the frame, as shown in Appendix G of IBM's BASIC manual. A good character to use is 176, but you can use any number from 1 to 255. The fancy framing can be turned off by entering a 0 for the ASCII code of the frame. If you have a "PC-compatible" and Diskcat locks up your machine as soon as you try to start running it, you should use the number 999 for the graphics code. This number not only disables the framing, it also causes Diskcat to use normal screen writing rather than the much faster direct screen writing. Since you cannot get into Diskcat to change the code, another program data file has been provided that already has the 999 code in it. To use it, just run MS_DOS.BAT from DOS. SOUND can also be turned off and may have to be turned off for some "not so compatible compatibles". If your machine locks up when running Diskcat, try using the file DC5-PGM.MS as described in the last paragraph. The sounds are used to prompt you with a quiet click when you are supposed to enter data, to alert you with a beep when there is a problem, and to indicate with short low tones when the CapsLock and NumLock keys are pressed. You can change these clicks and tones to whatever you like, but the suggested values are 80 for prompt tone and .04 for the prompt duration. The other tones are multiples of these values. When you have gone through all the parameters OR pressed Esc, you are asked if you want to save the changes and thus make them permanent. If, for example, you just wanted to try different screen colors, you wouldn't need to save the changes. DC5-CAT ------- CAT lets you add a category and description to each entry in the main (.DTA) catalog file, whether disk name, subdirectory name or file name. The category field is 10 characters and the description field can be any length from 0 to 49 characters. DESCRIPTION FIELD LENGTH When a new catalog is started and CAT is run for it the first time, you will be asked what you want the maximum length of the description field to be. The longer this field is, the more disk space this file will take. The original Diskcat-1 had a description field fixed at 25 characters. This seemed too short most of the time. Later versions increased this to 36 characters. This was fine much of the time with liberal use of abbreviations, so if you feel the need to have less than 49 characters, you probably should stay with at least 36. Some long-time users of Diskcat have said that they never used CAT at all because all they wanted to do was keep track of file names. Even if you don't add descriptions, you may still find use for some of CAT's functions, such as to view a file, to make manual entries, to delete a file from the catalog and disk or to rename a file or disk. The category and description fields are stored in a file seperate from the main data file. This way, if you do not enter anything for these fields, no space is used as it would be if we had reserved room in the main file for these fields. The only space used in the main file is a pointer to the entry in the DT2 file. The rest of this section will examine each of the CAT functions. Alt-B - FIND BLANK Finds the first entry in the main catalog file that has a blank catalog and description field in the description file. (Actually, there are no blank entries in the description file. Instead, the pointer in the main file into the description file will be zero.) After the first blank entry is displayed, CAT will continue to display only the blank entries until Alt-B is pressed again, and a message to that effect will be displayed on the screen. Alt-D - FIND DISK Lets you scroll through the disk names in the catalog so that you can select the disk whose files should be displayed first. Rather than scroll through the disk names, you may enter the name of a disk directly. Alt-F - FIND FILE Lets you enter all or part of a file name to locate in the catalog. This function does not support wild cards, but you can just enter part of a file name. For example, entering DC5 as the file name will show you all the file names that begin with DC5. This function can also be used to find a subdirectory name. Alt-C - EDIT CATEGORIES Thirty-two standard category names are displayed at the top of the screen. These are there for two reasons. One is that you can use one of category names by just entering the number or the first few highlighted letters of the name, which can save you quite a few keystrokes. Another reason for standardized category names is to make sure that you are using the same wording and spelling when you want different files to be grouped under the same category when sorting by category in DC5-SORT. You can edit the standard category names by pressing Alt-C. The Tab and Shift-tab keys move you between columns and the up and down cursor keys move you up and down. When you are done, the category names will be re-sorted and saved to DC5-PGM.DTA. Some people don't realize that the names have been resorted and, when they don't see a new category where they added it, think that it was not added. Alt-K - KILL ENTRY Removes an entry from the catalog data files and, if the entry is a file name, will optionally delete the actual file from its disk. Alt-M - MAKE A MANUAL ENTRY Lets you add an entry to the catalog files. A manual entry may only be made for disk names. Its primary purpose is to allow you to enter the name of disk into the catalog when you can't or don't want to read the entire contents of the disk into the catalog. NOTE: Disk names do not print out in the SORT program, which is intended for printing out list of file names. (See the chapter on DC5-SORT for more information.) You can get a printed list of disk names with descriptions by using Function #5 in READ and pressing "P" at the screen that displays the disk names. Alt-N - RENAME A FILE/DISK Lets you rename a file or disk in the catalog. It also requires that the actual file be renamed on the disk, so that disk must be available. Alt-P - GET PRIOR ENTRY Displays the prior entry in the catalog. This is not necessarily the prior entry displayed. For example, if you have just looked at an entry for the last file on a disk and you go to the next entry which is the volume label of the next disk, pressing Alt-P will not take bring back that last file entry. Instead, pressing Alt-P when there is a disk name on the screen will display the previous disk name in the catalog. Likewise, pressing Alt-P when a subdirectory name is on the screen cause the previous subdirectory name for that disk (if any) to be displayed. If there isn't a previous subdirectory name for that disk, the disk name entry will be displayed. PgUp can be used in place of Alt-P and PgDn can be used to scroll forward through the file. Alt-R - REPEAT LAST Repeats the category and description field entries for the file name now on the screen. The same rules apply for the order of entries as described under Alt-P. If you want to change a word or two (or the entire field) you can still do so with the editing keys. In fact, this is a quick way to repeat the category of the previous entry and then enter a completely different description. Alt-S - SKIP DISK Allows you to skip all of the entries of the current disk and go directly to the first entry for the next disk. Remember that when the disk name of the next disk is displayed, Alt-P will return you to the disk name entry of the previous disk. Alt-V - VIEW FILE Displays the contents of a file. This can be handy when you are adding descriptions and cannot remember what a file is for. Even a .COM or .EXE, whose contents are mostly illegible machine code, may have enough readable code hidden in them to give you an idea of the purpose of the program. As a feature of CAT, BASIC programs not saved in ASCII (and therefore generally not readable) will be translated into ASCII as they are displayed with a note at the top of the screen identifying the file as being in binary. Alt-Fkey - FKEY MEMORY The function keys can be used to store and recall sets of category and description fields. The first time the function key is pressed, a message will appear that the category and description fields are being recorded to that function key. As usual, you can press Esc to cancel this function. Otherwise, the fields will be assigned to the function key and the first few letters displayed at the bottom of the screen as a reminder. The next time the same Alt-function key is pressed, the category and description fields for the entry on the screen will be filled in with the recorded information. You can press Enter twice to accept the fields, you can edit the fields and accept them or you can press Esc. If you press Esc once, CAT assumes that you want to record new information to the function key and displays the "recording" message. If you press Esc again, the information assigned to the function key is erased. Categories and descriptions can be assigned to all ten Alt-Fkeys. DC5-SORT The SORT program will sort a catalog in several different ways and send the output to a printer, the screen or to a disk file. You may choose to print all of the catalog or you can specify a range to sort and print. You may also select the fields that you would like printed and the parameters for the printer to use, such as number of lines per inch and characters per inch. The SORT program will also compare two catalog files and print a comparative listing sorted by file name, highlighting differences and matches, sending the output to the screen or printer or a disk file. Because a large number of disks can be read into a catalog quickly with the READ program, this Compare function is a easy way to compare files with someone else's collection. The SORT program is intended primarily for listing all or part of a catalog to the printer or to a disk file. While it is possible to print the listing to the screen, Function #5 of DC5-READ is better suited to browsing through a catalog on the screen. TEMPORARY SORT FILES Diskcat will sort as much data in memory as possible (usually from 1500 to 2000 entries) and then will create temporary files to hold blocks of sorted data. Creating temporary files allows very large files to be sorted, but is relatively a lot slower than when all the work is done in memory. Ideally, you should use a RAM disk as the drive to put the temporary files on. The space needed for the temporary files will be about two-thirds the size of the main (".DTA") catalog file. The sort will abort if you run out of disk space. If you don't think you will have room for both your catalog files and the temporary files on the RAM disk, you should put the catalog files on another disk and allow SORT to use the RAM disk for a work area. PRINTING PART OF A CATALOG SORT will ask you for a starting and stopping point to sort on. This allows you to print out just a portion of the Catalog file. For example, if you had elected to sort by disk name, you could print out just the disks whose names started with the letters A through M by just entering an "A" as the starting point and "M" as the stopping point. You could print just the file names starting with the letter R by entering R as both the starting and stopping point. If you sorted by extension, you could just print out EXE files by entering EXE as the starting and stopping point. If you sorted by file size, you could have it print all files over 1,000 bytes by entering 1000 for the starting point and 9999999 for the stopping point. By pressing Enter for both prompts, printing will start with the first record in the catalog and go through the last record. SETTING PRINTER PARAMETERS If you choose to send output to the printer or to a disk file for later printing, you will be shown a screen of printer parameters and options. These are the same options that can be set with function #9 of the READ program. They are shown again in the SORT program so that you can verify that the settings are just as you want them and make last-minute changes if they are not. Changes made here are used only for the current printout. To make permanent changes in printer parameters, you must use function #9 of READ. For more information on how to set printer control codes in Diskcat, see "Function #9" under "DC5-READ". Review the printer parameters to make sure that the printer control codes are appropriate for your printer and that the rest of the options are as you want them. To make a change, press the "cursor up" key. The number showing total characters per line changes as you select different fields to print or as you change the left margin. LEFT MARGIN is entered in inches. Fractions of an inch for the left margin should be entered as decimal numbers. Specifying a left margin allows you to leave room for putting the printout in a binder. You will notice that when you change the left margin, the figure showing total characters per line also changes. This lets you select a combination of print size, left margin, and fields to print that will fit on your paper. TOP MARGIN in inches will be converted to a number of lines based on the number of lines per inch you choose. Before starting to print on a new page, this number of lines will be skipped. So you should align the top of the paper even with the print head. If you are using a laser printer or some other printer that will not print on the top few lines of the paper, do NOT specify that number of lines as the top margin. The top margin will be added to whatever space the printer is already skipping. The place to adjust for a forced top margin is in "lines to print per page." LINES TO PRINT PER PAGE is the actual number of lines printed, excluding the top and bottom margins. With this option, you can create printouts to fit the smaller IBM-style binders. As you change this number, you will see a change in the number identified as "bottom margin on 11-inch paper". This number will go negative if the total of the "top margin" plus "lines to print per page" is greater than 11" times number of lines per inch (ie: either 66 or 88). This function also allows you to adjust for a printer that forces a certain amount of space at the top and bottom of the page. For example, if your printer forces a half-inch margin at the top and another at the bottom, you would subtract that space from the total number of lines that the page can normally hold. So - 6lpi * 11" = 66 total lines per page 6lpi * .5" = -3 lines for top margin 6lpi * .5" = -3 lines for bottom mar. leaving .... 60 lines to print per page LINES AND CHARACTERS PER INCH can be specified here, but the printer control codes must be present. For example, if you select 8 lines per inch and the printer control code for 8 lpi is blank or incorrect for your printer, the results will depend on the last commands sent to the printer (if the printer has not been turned off and back on or otherwise re-initialized) or on the printer switch settings. PAUSE FOR PAPER CHANGE is only necessary for printers that cannot use fanfold paper and don't have automatic sheet feed. FIELDS TO PRINT allows you to select which fields to print and the order in which to print them. After you enter the numbers of the fields you wish to print and press Enter, you will notice a change in the total characters per line. Compare this number to the number above it that shows total character spaces available based on your specification of number of characters per inch and paper width. You may have to adjust your cpi specification or the fields to print or even the left margin if the numbers indicate that you do not have enough space to print all the fields that you specified. For example, printing a .3" margin and file name, disk name, path, category and description (fields 12367), will use 102 characters. Twelve cpi on 8.5" paper is 102 characters, so the specified data will just fit with no right margin. COMPARING TWO CATALOGS This function has two important features. The most obvious is two compare your library of files with others. The other is the ability to copy descriptions from one catalog to another based on matching file names. This can save you quite a bit of input time and effort if, for example, you are adding files to your library from another person's library and that person already has a catalog with descriptions. It also allows several people to work independently on adding descriptions to a catalog and then to combine those descriptions. When matching a file name in one catalog to another catalog that has more than one file with the same name, only the first pair is shown as being a match. The other un-paired file names in the second catalog are shown as being unmatched. When copying descriptions from one catalog to another, check first to make sure that you have enough disk space. As usual, we recommend the use of a RAM disk if possible. Otherwise, the two sets of catalog files should be on different drives to minimize disk drive head movement between files. DC5CLONE -------- CLONE creates a new catalog from an already existing catalog by displaying all of the disk names in the old catalog. You can mark each disk name with either "S" to save it to the new catalog or "E" to exclude the disk. Corresponding descriptions are also copied to the new catalog. >>>>> Before you try to CLONE a catalog, you should have a .DT2 description file for the catalog, even if the file does not have any descriptions in it. If you don't have one, run DC5-CAT and create a .DT2 file. CLONE can be used for several purposes. One is to get rid of deleted entries in a catalog. Normally, Diskcat will reuse the space freed up by deleting entries. If, however, you have deleted a lot of entries, say, by deleting several disks from a catalog, and want to reclaim that space, CLONE will do it for you. Another use of CLONE is to create a sub-catalog of your main catalog. If you want to give someone a catalog of just certain disk names, you can create a catalog of those disks with CLONE and put that catalog on a copy of the Demo disk. Give the catalog the name of LIBRARY and others will be able to use READ's Function #5 to browse through that catalog on screen. (The Demo program will wipe out a catalog with a name other than LIBRARY and start a new one - but it warns you first.) A third use of CLONE is to salvage data from a catalog that has become corrupted somehow. Hopefully, you will never need it for this purpose, but it is there if you need it. Just type "S" next to the legitimate disk names and let CLONE try to create a good file from the bad one. [NOTE: If power goes off or your computer locks up while you are adding filename or descriptions to a catalog, the catalog will not be closed properly and consequently may be corrupted. If this happens, you should run CLONE and try to create a new catalog from the old one and delete the old file. It also pays to keep current backup files.] A fourth use of CLONE is to get all the disk names in the catalog into a sorted order. Most of the time, Diskcat will sort the disk names before showing them to you, but in a few places it may not be feasible to sort them first and you may have to scroll through the names in the same order that they are physically stored in the catalog. CLONE sorts the disk names before storing them in the new catalog. USING CLONE When CLONE is started, it will ask you for the name of the catalog file. The catalog file should be in the current directory, but it can be on a different drive. For example, you could enter "B:DC5-SAMP" (without the ".DTA"). Then you will be asked for the name for the new catalog. It must be different than the name of the old catalog. It can be on a different drive. For example: "C:TEMP". Next you will be asked for the maximum description length for the new file. If you normally do not enter descriptions, it does not matter what number you enter here, but do not enter 0. If you do not have a .DT2 file for your catalog, you must run DC5-CAT before running CLONE. Next you should be presented with a display of the names of the disks in the old catalog. Mark each name to be Saved or Excluded and press ESC when done. That's all there is to it. DC5-FIND -------- FIND lets you find which disks a file is on without having to load READ. Written entirely in assembler, FIND is small, it loads quickly and runs faster than READ. In addition, it allows you to search for text in the description fields. To use FIND, at the DOS prompt enter DC5-FIND filename.ext /catalog.dta or DC5-FIND /catalog.dta "text where filename.ext is the name of a file which you want to locate and /catalog.dta is the name of the catalog you want to search. Note that the catalog name must be preceeded by a "/". If the catalog name is omitted, FIND will default to DC5-FILE.DTA. The catalog extension of ".DTA" may be omitted. The second format is used to search for text. The catalog name must precede the text specification, since any text following the quote mark is treated as text to locate. If the catalog name is omitted, DC5-FILE.DTA will be used. You may specify a drive and path for the catalog when invoking FIND. If omitted the current drive and directory are used. If the file name is omitted, you will see this screen: DISKCAT 5 - FIND (c) Copyright Ford Software 1985 1) Search by file specification 2) Search by file description 3) Change catalogs. Q) Return to DOS Choose: If you select "1" to search for a file name, you will be prompted for a file name. You may enter a complete name or use DOS-type wildcards (* and ?). Wildcards may also be used when entering the file name on the command line in DOS. If you select "2" to search for text in the description fields, you will be prompted for the text. All file names will be displayed which contain the specified text in their category or description fields, regardless of capitalization of the text. EXAMPLES OF CALLING DC5-FIND FROM DOS: DC5-FIND MYFILE.WKS /MYCAT searches MYCAT.DTA for the file MYFILE.WKS DC5-FIND MY*.* /MYCAT searches MYCAT.DTA for files starting with MY DC5-FIND *.WKS /MYCAT.DTA searches MYCAT.DTA for files ending with .WKS DC5-FIND /MYCAT.DTA uses the MYCAT.DTA catalog and displays a function menu. DC5-FIND MYFILE.WKS searches DC5-FILE.DTA for the file MYFILE.WKS DC5-FIND MYFILE.WKS MYCAT.DTA searches DC5-FILE.DTA. Since no "/" precedes the intended catalog name, it is not recognized and FIND uses the default catalog name. DC5-FIND MYCAT.DTA searches DC5-FILE.DTA for a file named MYCAT.DTA (No "/" before a name indicates the name is a file name, not a catalog.) DC5-FIND "Some text searches DC5-FILE.DT2 for the string Some text DC5-FIND "Some text" searches DC5-FILE.DT2 for Some text". (The closing quote mark is taken as additional text for which to search.) DC5-FIND /MYCAT.DTA "Some text searches MYCAT.DT2 for Some text DC5-FIND "Some text" /MYCAT.DTA searches DC5-FILE.DT2 for the string Some text" /MYCAT.DTA. (All characters following a quote mark on the command line are taken as text for which to search.) If the screen fills with matching file names FIND will pause before advancing to the next screen until you press Enter. When there are no more matching file names, FIND will pause until you press Enter and then return to the opening screen. To examine the catalog in more detail, either use function 5 in the READ program or run the SORT program. Using the SORT program, you can print a list of files matching specified categories, for example. See the sections for those programs for more information. To make DC5-FIND easier to invoke, you can change the name to something shorter, but remember that changing it to FIND.COM may conflict with DOS's FIND.EXE program. Also remember that the file name extension must remain as ".COM". DC5-CNVT -------- This section is only applicable to users of earlier versions of Diskcat prior to Diskcat-5, version 1.0. The catalog data file structure is completely different from earlier versions of Diskcat. DC5-CNVT is a conversion utility that will convert catalog files from the old format to the new file format. Before running Convert, you must first Purge your DC4 data file using the Purge function from the main menu of DC4-READ. This will get rid of any entries in the catalog that had been marked for deletion. If you see "///////" in your converted file when running Diskcat- 5 or have any other problems with a converted file, it is probably because you did not Purge first or COPY the file over with the "/A" as described next. After Purging, you must use DOS's COPY command with the "/A" parameter to reduce the size of the data file in the DOS directory, as discussed in the DC4 documentation. (See "COPY" in your DOS manual for more information about the "/A" parameter.) Example: After purging a catalog file named OLD-CAT.DTA, you return to DOS and enter COPY /A A:OLD-CAT.DTA B:OLD-CAT2.DTA /A. Now you can run DC5-CNVT, using B:OLD-CAT2.DTA as the file to convert. Old Diskcat data files contained straight text, but Diskcat-5, in order to allow a much greater amount of information in less space, stores much of its data in compacted binary. This means that you can no longer TYPE the file from DOS or edit it with a word processor. However, you can create additional data files that are in straight text using SORT's ability to print to a file or by putting a directory listing file on a disk from within READ. NOTE: If you did not actually purchase a copy of Diskcat 4 from Ford Software, we cannot guarantee that this conversion program will work. We have no control over versions of the program that did not come directly from us. Directory Listing Labels and Inserts Inserts: The following is a sample of the directory listing Insert. These Inserts are designed to be printed on regular paper, cut out and inserted into a disk jacket for reference: Files for WP UTIL Filename Ext --Size-- --Date-- Category Description CHOP1-2 .DOC 1,920 05-11-85 Word Proc. Documentation file for CHOP1-2. CHOP1-2 .EXE 15,488 05-11-85 Word Proc. Subdivides text files DICTIONA. 33,536 09-15-84 Word Proc. PC-Spell data file. FOG-FIND.COM 15,360 06-11-84 Word Proc. Measures writing complexity index FOG-FIND.DOC 7,576 06-11-84 Word Proc. Documentation for FOG-FIND.COM INDEX .COM 39,123 03-05-84 Word Proc. Builds an index for a document INDEX .DOC 9,876 03-05-84 Word Proc. Documentation for INDEX.COM INDEX .EXE 19,712 03-05-84 Word Proc. Goes with INDEX.COM PC-SPELL.BAS 1,280 09-15-84 Word Proc. Spelling checking program PC-SPELL.DOC 3,328 09-15-84 Word Proc. Part of PC-SPELL PC-SPELL.SOR 640 09-15-84 Word Proc. PC-SPELL.UNI 768 09-15-84 Word Proc. SORTDIC .BAS 896 09-15-84 Word Proc. Part of PC-SPELL TALLY .DOC 5,632 10-30-84 Word Proc. Counts chars., words, lines TALLY .COM 11,762 10-30-84 Word Proc. in text files. TEXT2 .COM 16,128 06-06-85 Word Proc. Removes extra blank lines TEXT2 .DOC 4,762 06-06-85 Word Proc. WORDEDIT.DOC 18,944 10-13-83 Word Proc. Documentation for WORDEDIT WORDEDIT.EXE 11,789 10-13-83 Word Proc. Labels: A typical label is printed using compressed print and 8 lines per inch vertical spacing. The top line shows the disk name and description, if a description has been entered in DC5-CAT. The bottom line shows the type of disk, number of files and free space. DISKCAT-5 Disk file Catalog Program ==================================================================== DC5-CAT.EXE DC5-CNVT.EXE DC5-FILE.DT2 DC5-FILE.DTA DC5-PGM.DTA DC5-READ.EXE DC5-SORT.EXE -------------------------------------------------------------------- FORMAT: DS, 9 Sec. NUMBER OF FILES: 7 FREE SPACE: 7 Kb On the next label, the dividing lines, and the bottom line showing disk information were left off by Diskcat-5 in order to get all the files names onto one label. BASIC AIDS B-SIMPLE.BAS B-SIMPLE.DOC BASBUG.BAS BASCONV.BAS BASCONV.DOC BASICDOS.BAS BASICREF.BAS BASICREF.DOC COMPILER.ERR COMPRESS.BAS COMPRESS.DOC COREFIX.BAS CR-LF.TXT DITHRING.TXT FC.BAS GS-RENUM.EXE GS-UNNUM.EXE GS-VAREN.EXE GS-XXXXX.DOC HIRESCOL.BAS KB_FLAG.BAS KEYIN.ASM KEYIN.EXE LBAS.DOC LBAS.EXE LBL-BAS.BAS LBL-SAMP.BAS LINEBUG.BAS LINEBUG.DOC MONITOR.BAS MONITOR.DOC PAL80.BAS POKEPEEK.TXT PROFILE.BAS PROFILE.DOC PROFILE.MEM READBAS.BAS SAVEBAS.BAS SAVEBAS.DOC SCR-MAP.BAS SQUISHER.BAS SQUISHER.DOC STARTBAS.BAS TRACE.BAS TRACE.DOC UN-COMPQ.DOC UN-COMPQ.EXE UN-NEW.DOC UNP-IBM.DOC UNP-IBM.EXE On the next two, printed using compressed print and 8 lpi, there are too many files for one label, so the overflow has been written to a second label. ADVANCED Program and information for advanced users. ================================================================ -DIRLIST 87ERROR.ASM 87ERROR.COM 87ERROR.DOC 87ERROR.OBJ ADDRIVE.COM ADDRIVE.DOC ALIGH.BAS ALTER.COM ALTER.DOC ANSI&2K.SYS ANSIKEYS.DOC ASCII.COM AST-TEST.COM BDNCHM.TXT CALC.DOC CALC.EXE CIPHER.BAS CLEARRO.COM CLEARRO.DOC CMP.COM CMP.DOC COMSPEC4.ASM COMSPEC4.COM CORELOOK.COM CPMDOSXR.DOC DEBUG.TXT DEBUG7.LQR DEFRAG.BAS DEFRAG.DOC ENVINUSE.COM ENVIRO.PAT ENVIRON.DOC ENVIPAND.DOC ENVIPAND.SYS FORTXREF.BAS FORTXREF.EXE FORTXREF.FOR HEBREW.ASM HEBREW.COM LOOKMEM.COM MAP.COM MAP.DOC MEMORY.COM MEMORY.DOC MORERAM.ASM MORERAM.COM MORERAM.DOC PARINT.COM <<more>> PARROT.BAS QUIKUP.COM QUIKUP.DOC QUIKUPQD.COM REBOOT.DOC REBOOT.EXE SETKEY.DOC SETKEY.EXE SETRO.COM SETRO.DOC SETVAR.COM SETVAR.DOC SPEED.ASM SPEED.COM SYSTAT.COM SYSTAT.DOC TEE.COM TEE.DOC TESTDRV.BAS UNDO.BAS UNDOBKUP.BAS ---------------------------------------------------------------- FORMAT: DS, 9 Sec. NUMBER OF FILES: 70 FREE SPACE: 19 Kb The same directory listing is printed on the next label using superscript print and 12 lpi in order to get all the file names onto one label. ADVANCED Program and information for advanced users. -DIRLIST 87ERROR.ASM 87ERROR.COM 87ERROR.DOC 87ERROR.OBJ ADDRIVE.COM ADDRIVE.DOC ALIGH.BAS ALTER.COM ALTER.DOC ANSI&2K.SYS ANSIKEYS.DOC ASCII.COM AST-TEST.COM BDNCHM.TXT CALC.DOC CALC.EXE CIPHER.BAS CLEARRO.COM CLEARRO.DOC CMP.COM CMP.DOC COMSPEC4.ASM COMSPEC4.COM CORELOOK.COM CPMDOSXR.DOC DEBUG.TXT DEBUG7.LQR DEFRAG.BAS DEFRAG.DOC ENVINUSE.COM ENVIRO.PAT ENVIRON.DOC ENVIPAND.DOC ENVIPAND.SYS FORTXREF.BAS FORTXREF.EXE FORTXREF.FOR HEBREW.ASM HEBREW.COM LOOKMEM.COM MAP.COM MAP.DOC MEMORY.COM MEMORY.DOC MORERAM.ASM MORERAM.COM MORERAM.DOC PARINT.COM PARROT.BAS QUIKUP.COM QUIKUP.DOC QUIKUPQD.COM REBOOT.DOC REBOOT.EXE SETKEY.DOC SETKEY.EXE SETRO.COM SETRO.DOC SETVAR.COM SETVAR.DOC SPEED.ASM SPEED.COM SYSTAT.COM SYSTAT.DOC TEE.COM TEE.DOC TESTDRV.BAS UNDO.BAS UNDOBKUP.BAS ----------------end-of-author's-documentation--------------- Software Library Information: This disk copy provided as a service of The 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. 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