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AD-M a s t e r M e n u ADMAST version 2.11 Menuing System for IBM-PC Computer and Compatibles Now with Mouse Support by Allen Dew 604 Lakeview Road Durham, NC 27712-1340 CompuServe 73737,1345 BBS Support 919-471-6026 NOTICE ------ ADMast Menu is NOT public domain. ADMast Menu is Copyrighted by Allen P. Dew. Allen P. Dew, the author, reserves all rights to ADMast Menu. INTRODUCTION -------------- I spend a great deal of time working with new PC users, trying to get them comfortable with DOS, the PC's operating system. Learning to use word processing, database, or spreadsheet software is tough enough for newcomers to PC's without the added burden of remembering all those DOS commands. Most of the PC's have a hard disk drive. Since the software programs and files were on the hard disk, I wrote a Menu Utility program to help people navigate their way around the computer. In the mornings when the users turned on their computer, they would automatically see a menu from which they could run Lotus 123, copy some disks, dial Dow Jones for their favorite stock quotes, do a little Word Processing, etc. - all without having to remember or type any commands. Their response was gratifying, to say the least! The program later evolved into ADMast Menu. ADMast Menu allows any computer user to create customized menus that can be a "Control Center" for running application programs and frequently used DOS routines. For new users it saves a lot of frustration. For the more experienced it saves a lot of time. Applications can be run at the touch of a single key instead of typing in commands. No more forgetting commands or DOS directory names - all these are entered one time only and ADMast Menu remembers the commands for you. It will free you from the burden of remembering and typing those complicated commands and will let you concentrate on getting your work done. MAJOR FEATURES -------------- - Simple to Learn, Easy and Fast to use - Enter Menu Settings directly from program, without the need for text editor - Clear, clean and attractive screen layouts - Ability to "chain" multiple menus together - Up to 24 Menu Items with user-defined Menu Prompts, Passwords, Directory Paths, and Command Settings - Up to 10 Command Lines per Menu Item - Partial commands which can be completed at runtime - Customize the Screen Colors - Personalized Menu Title with your Own or Company name - Customize On-Screen User Notes - Clock chimes softly on the hour - Menu Screen Blanks to prevent Screen Burn-in - Protect the menu from unauthorized changes - Prevent casual users from getting out of the menu system - Menu displays amount of available space left on disk - Mouse support for choosing items (left or right button) - Point and shoot method of choosing items GETTING STARTED --------------- ADMast Menu requires DOS 3.1 or higher. In order for ADMast Menu to work properly, the following 2 files must reside in the same sub-directory of your Hard Disk: MAST.BAT - Program Command File ADMAST.EXE - ADMast Menu Program The sub-directory must be available in the PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The program also self-generates a file in the root directory or other sub-directories called ADMAST.DAT which contains all of the Menu Settings that you will enter. (If you ever want to delete all of your Settings, you can easily do so by deleting the ADMAST.DAT file.) NOTE: Once the files MAST.BAT and ADMAST.EXE have been copied onto the hard disk, you can run ADMast Menu by simply typing in the word "MAST" at the C:\> prompt. DO NOT try to run ADMAST.EXE directly. You must run MAST.BAT instead. ADMast Menu will use the environment variable TEMP to point to a place where it can create temporary files. Place the following in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to use this feature: SET TEMP=C:\TEMP The disk and directory pointed to by TEMP may be anywhere that is normally available on your computer. For network users, the TEMP directory must be available even when the network is "down" and you must have write access to the directory. The following screen will appear (fig. 1). It is from this screen that you select your Applications at the touch of a single key or if you prefer, hilite the item and press the enter key. If you have a mouse available on your computer, you can select any of the applications by clicking either the left or right buttons over the menu prompt. (Figure 1) ============================================================= = = = 01-15-1994 M a i n M e n u 8:06:10 am = = = ============================================================= = = = A - = = = = B - = = = = C - = = = = D - = = = = E - = = = = F - = = = ============================================================= = Press letter to select item = = ESC = DOS F10 = Colors = = ALT+Letter to change = ============================================================= C:\ Avail. space = 868,342 ADMAST 2.11 About the MAIN MENU: The MAIN MENU displays the current Date and also provides a digital Clock. The Clock chimes softly every hour as long as the menu is active, but may be disabled if so desired from the MODIFY screen (see below). Up to 24 Menu Selections can be entered into ADMast Menu, with their prompts appearing on this screen. Although only 6 selections appear in the illustration (fig. 1), 18 additional selections may be added. Any letter from A through X may be picked for a menu item. The menu will be adjusted to display only the items being used. Your Menu Selections can be individually Password Protected. If a selection is protected, the user is prompted to enter the password before running the selection. Whenever you finish running a program, ADMast Menu returns you to this screen so you can quickly move on to something else. To prevent "Screen Burn-in", the screen will go blank after about 2 minutes of no activity (delay can be changed from the MODIFY screen). The Time will continue to be displayed and updated. To re-display the screen, simply press the space bar or click one of the mouse buttons. The current Drive and Directory are displayed at the lower left of the screen. The amount of available space on the disk drive is displayed after the directory. ENTERING MENU SETTINGS ---------------------- To enter, modify or examine menu settings, hold down the "ALT" key and press the letter of the item you wish to select. Any of the letters from A to X may be pressed even though it is not displayed currently on the menu. For example, let's enter a menu setting for Formatting Floppy Disks. This will allow you to have a permanent menu selection for formatting disks at the touch of a single key from ADMast Menu. In our example, we'll assume the following: - We want "Format a Disk" to appear as Menu Item A on the Main Menu - This Menu Item is to be password protected using "SPECIAL" as the password. - The DOS FORMAT Command is located on a sub-directory named DOS (C:\DOS). - The DOS Format Command, "FORMAT A:", will format a disk located in Drive A. To enter these settings in Menu Item A, hold down the ALT key and press "A". press ALT-A The MODIFY Screen will appear as shown in Fig. 2: (Figure 2) ============================================================ = = = Menu Prompt : _ = = Password : = = Directory Path : = = Command Line 1 : = = 2 : = = 3 : = = 4 : = = 5 : = = 6 : = = 7 : = = 8 : = = 9 : = = 10 : = = = = ENTER = Accept ESC = Exit = = Clearing prompt will delete entire item = = F2 = Copy PGDN = quick finish F4 = Move = ============================================================ This MODIFY screen is used to enter new or to modify existing menu settings. You also can use it to examine settings which have already been entered. There are 4 fields to enter for the "Format a Disk" menu setting example. Enter them now as illustrated in Fig. 3. (Figure 3) ============================================================ = = = Menu Prompt : Format a Disk = = Password : SPECIAL = = Directory Path : C:\DOS = = Command Line 1 : FORMAT A: = = 2 : = = 3 : = = 4 : = = 5 : = = 6 : = = 7 : = = 8 : = = 9 : = = 10 : _ = = = = ENTER = Accept ESC = Exit = = Clearing prompt will delete entire item = = F2 = Copy PGDN = quick finish F4 = Move = ============================================================ In our example (fig. 3), the Menu Prompt setting is what you will see next to the letter "A" on the Main Menu screen. This can be anything you like describing what the selection does. The maximum length of Menu Prompts is 30 characters. In the illustration, the FORMAT file is on the subdirectory called C:\DOS, so we added "C:\DOS" to the Directory Path field. (Refer to your DOS manual if you need information on Directory Paths.) The Command "FORMAT A:" is the DOS command that will format a disk in Drive A. Commands can be up to 50 characters in length. You will notice that we did not enter anything for the 2nd thru the 10th Command settings. Just leave them blank if you don't need the extra commands. ADMast Menu will run every command that it finds in Commands 1-10. If you use Batch Files for a series of commands, using ADMast Menu's 10 settings can be a much better alternative. Keep pressing ENTER to skip through the rest of the command settings. As an alternative, you may press the PageDown key when you are finished entering the last command. After the 10th Command field, you will be asked if your changes are all correct. Strike the "Y" key and you will return to the Main Menu screen again. The menu prompt, "Format a Disk" will appear next to Menu Item A on the Menu as shown in Figure 4. (Figure 4) ============================================================= = = = 01-15-1994 M a i n M e n u 8:06:10 am = = = ============================================================= = = = A - Format a Disk = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ============================================================= = Press letter to select item = = ESC = DOS F10 = Colors = = ALT+Letter to change = ============================================================= C:\ Avail. space = 868,342 ADMAST 2.11 You can now "Format a Disk" by pressing the letter "A". Because you entered a password setting, you'll be prompted to give the password before you're able to run the selection in A. When prompted for the password, enter "SPECIAL" (the password you gave to A) and you will immediately escape from ADMast Menu and can Format the Disk. Try this example on your computer now or enter another setting of your own. You may have to change the Directory Path to the proper setting for your particular computer setup, depending on what directory contains FORMAT. Note: Passwords in ADMast Menu are not "case sensitive". This means that the user does not have to enter the password in upper/lower case as originally entered. Spaces ARE significant. CHANGING OR DELETING MENU SETTINGS ---------------------------------- To change or delete settings, go from the Main Menu to the Change screen by pressing ALT and the letter you wish to modify. The existing settings will be shown. You can edit settings by using any of the keys and re-typing what you want. Press Enter or the down-arrow to skip down to the next fields. Press the up-arrow key to skip up to the previous field. After the 10th command field, you will be asked if everything is okay. Enter "Y" to save your changes and return to the Main Menu again. To leave the Change Screen without saving any changes, simply press the ESC key at any time. If you have a need to Copy one item to another item, or Move an item to another item, you can do this with either the F2 or F4 keys. For example: You already have an item "A" which formats diskettes and you need another item "B" which does the same thing except for the drive letter. From the menu, press ALT+A to get to item "A" changes. Then press F2 to copy item "A" to item "B". If you wanted item "F" to really be item "D", press ALT+F to get to item "F" changes. Then press F4 to move item "F" to item "D". PARTIAL COMMANDS TO BE COMPETED AT RUNTIME ------------------------------------------ There are some situations where you need to give the file name or additional parameters on a command line. A good example of this is when using a word processor and you want to start the word processor and immediately be in the document for editing. The command line would normally be entered as follows: WORD LETTER.12 where WORD is the name of the program and LETTER.12 is the name of a file to be edited. In the ADMast Menu command line you would normally only put in the program name (WORD). Now you can tell the menu that you need to enter additional information at runtime. The method of indicating a partial command is to insert a percent symbol (%). This signals the menu program to prompt the user to complete the command line. In the above example, the command line in the menu item would be entered thus: WORD % At runtime, the user will be prompted with the partial command and asked to complete the command. Each of the command lines may be entered as a partial command with the percent symbol. One trick which may be used to enter any command is to put only the percent symbol on the command line. This will allow the user to run any of the DOS commands or programs. Several percent symbols may appear on a command line where more than one additional parameter is needed to be furnished at runtime. The percent symbol may be followed by additional values. The following are examples of partial command lines: DIR % /w ( wide display ) DIR % > PRN ( directory to printer ) DIR % >> files.txt ( directory to file ) COPY % > PRN ( print file to printer ) COPY % % ( fill in from and to ) PREVENTING THE DISPLAY FROM DISAPPEARING TOO SOON ------------------------------------------------- Some programs display their output to the screen and then terminate without stopping to let you see and read the display. The ADMast Menu program comes back very quickly and you haven't had time to read the previous screen. You can prevent the display from being wiped out too quickly by inserting a PAUSE command as the last command. This will give you a chance to read the display and then strike any key to return to the menu. An example follows: Menu prompt : Display directory Password : Directory Path: c:\ Command Line 1: dir % /p 2: pause 3: 4: CHANGING THE DISPLAY COLORS --------------------------- By pressing F10 from the Main Menu, you'll activate the Color Experimentation Window. Using this feature, you can try out various color combinations to suit your own tastes. The window displays a representation of the current Foreground, Background, and Menu Border colors. By pressing the Left or Right cursor keys, you can see up to 16 different Foreground (text) colors. Up or Down cursor keys will display the 8 possible Background colors. Page Up or Page Down will display the 16 Menu Border colors. When you find the combination you like, just press ENTER to save the color settings and return to the Main Menu. If you don't want to save the color settings, press ESC and you'll see the Main Menu with the old colors. MODIFYING MENU TITLE AND CONTROLS --------------------------------- To change the Menu Title and Menu Controls, press ALT-Z. Press ALT-Z The MODIFY Screen will appear as shown in Fig. 5: (Figure 5) ============================================================ = = = Menu Title : M a i n M e n u = = Explode menu (Y/N) : Y = = Sound chimes (Y/N) : Y = = Master password : = = Screen blank (Y/N) : Y = = Seconds before blank: 120 = = Protect ESC to DOS : N = = Protect colors (Y/N): N = = Show disk path (Y/N): Y = = = = = = = = = = = = ENTER = Accept ESC = Exit = = = = PGDN = quick finish = ============================================================ The cursor will be positioned at the beginning of the Menu Title area at the top of the screen. Use any of the editing keys to alter the title. Space over any characters you want erased from the old title. The new title will be centered automatically in the Title area. The options as seen in figure 5 are the default controls for a menu when first created. Use any of the editing keys to alter the options to your preference. . The menu display may be made to appear to explode onto the screen or it may appear instantly. The Explode menu option controls how the menu will appear. . Some people prefer to hear the chimes on each hour and others may wish for the quiet instead (computers should be seen and not heard). The Sound chimes option controls this feature. . It may be desirable to prevent others from changing the menu once it has been configured. The Master password will prevent others from changing things and also prevent others from discovering the passwords given to each menu item. Anything up to eight (8) characters may be used for the Master password. CAUTION: remember the Master password or you will not be able to access the menu controls to change anything. The Master password controls the ability to view and change any of the menu items. The Master password also controls the Escape to DOS and Change Colors features. NOTE: * If the Master password is ever lost, there is a super secret password which will reveal the Master password. Get in touch with the author if you need to know the super secret password. . The default is to blank the screen after two minutes (120 seconds) of no activity. The Screen blank feature can be set to No which prevents any blanking of the menu. . The Seconds before blank value controls how long the menu will be displayed before being blanked. Of course, the Screen blank feature must be set to Yes before any blanking will occur. Reasonable values are between a few seconds and several minutes. The value for three minutes is 180 seconds (3 x 60 seconds). . The Protect ESC to DOS feature will prevent someone from hitting the ESC key and dropping to the DOS prompt. This only works when a Master password is installed. The user will be prompted to enter the Master password correctly before being allowed to escape from the menu to DOS. An additional feature is available starting with version 2.07. You can provide a way to let someone "escape" to DOS by using the ESCAPE command on any command line on any of the 24 menu items. The following is an example: Menu prompt : Escape to C:\ prompt Password : Directory Path: c:\ Command Line 1: echo You are now out of the Menu. 2: echo Enter MAST to return to menu. 3: escape 4: Note that you can drop the user out into any subdirectory by simply placing the complete subdirectory path on the Path line. . The Protect colors feature will prevent someone from changing the color scheme. This only works when a Master password is installed. The user will be prompted to enter the Master password correctly before being allowed to change the colors. . The disk drive letter-path and available space displayed at the bottom of the menu may be turned off. This is helpful information to someone who needs to know, but may be undesireable in certain networked situations. MODIFYING ON-SCREEN NOTES ------------------------- On-Screen Notes is a facility that lets you write up to 3 lines of notes in the bottom rectangle of the Main Menu screen. This feature can be useful if you have special instructions that need to be seen by users. To activate On-Screen Notes, press ALT-Y. Press ALT-Y You'll see a cursor appear in the Main Menu's lower rectangle. Type up to 75 characters per line, using any of the editing keys. Space over any characters you want erased from the old notes. You will notice the note lines already contain the default Main Menu instructions. All three lines may be modified. To keep a line from re-appearing, you must blank out any characters on the line. MULTIPLE MENUS -------------- What if several people use the same PC, but each one wants his own menu? Or what if you want to set up a sub-menu for all of your utility programs? No problem! You can link Multiple Menus with ADMast Menu. The procedure for doing this is really very simple. - change any of the items to have a prompt which indicates that the item will bring up a new menu. For example: change item C to read "Utility Menu". - change the Directory Path to point to a subdirectory where the new menu data will reside. For example: change item C to read "C:\UTILITY", assuming you have such a subdirectory on your hard disk. - change the first command line to read "MAST". The following files must be in a common directory on your hard drive: MAST.BAT - the batch initiator ADMAST.EXE - the menu program For example: Menu Prompt : Utility Menu Password : Directory Path : C:\UTILITY Command Line 1 : MAST 2 : 3 : When you see the new menu displayed, one of the first things you should do is provide a way to get back to the Main Menu. Simply change any one of the new items to prompt for returning to the main menu (I usually recommend using item X to return to the previous menu). Change the Path to point to the Root directory (for example: C:\ ) and make the first command read "MAST". For example: Menu Prompt : Return to Main Menu Password : Directory Path : C:\ Command Line 1 : MAST 2 : 3 : Any menu item can thus call up another menu with up to 24 items. Each menu Must reside in a separate subdirectory. BATCH FILES ----------- Currently, ADMast Menu supports a maximum of 10 commands for a single Menu Item (in addition to the Directory Path setting). Having this many available commands per setting should normally keep you from having to create any Batch Files. If you have used batch files much in the past, you'll really appreciate this feature! For routines longer than 10 commands, a Batch File can be created using DOS's EDLIN utility or a Text Processor. See your DOS manual for more instructions on Batch Files. Use ADMast Menu to execute your Batch File by placing the Batch Filename (without the .BAT suffix) in your command setting. Note: Batch Files sometimes prevent you from returning to ADMast Menu after the file is executed. Be sure to include the command "MAST" as the last command in your Batch File so that it will return you to ADMast Menu. If you are using DOS 3.3 or higher, you should CALL your batch file which will automatically make it return to ADMast Menu. The way to CALL your batch file is to enter the command as follows: CALL XXXXXX where XXXXXX is the name of your batch file. In this case you don't need the last line in your batch file to read "MAST". Using the CALL method is preferred. You can run ADMast Menu automatically whenever you turn on your computer by including the command "MAST" as the last item in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Your DOS Manual has a section which covers the AUTOEXEC file. ADMast Menu's Program Initiation File, MAST.BAT, is a very simple batch file that initiates the program's batch sequence. If ever misplaced or altered by mistake, the MAST.BAT file can be re- created as follows: ECHO OFF ADMAST %TEMP%ADTEMP INFORMATION ON DISTRIBUTION AND UPGRADES ---------------------------------------- ADMast Menu is distributed under the consideration that people enjoy sharing software with each other. It takes some experimenting with software to see if it fits your own work environment. You are encouraged to give a copy of ADMast Menu and its documentation to anyone you like. ADMast Menu is a Free-ware program and thus there is no charge to use it. ADMast Menu is NOT public domain. ADMast Menu is Copyrighted by Allen P. Dew. Allen P. Dew, the author, reserves all rights to the program. For those of you evaluating ADMast Menu for the first time, please feel free to write to me if you have any questions or suggestions. Evaluate the program at your own pace. If you decide it doesn't suit your needs, give it away to someone else. For those of you who participate in the User-Supported concept and want to send in a few dollars to the author - THANK YOU! I plan to continue upgrading and improving ADMast Menu, especially since so many of you have encouraged my efforts. I've received good ideas from many of you that I plan to include in future versions. Thanks, Allen Dew ================= End of Documentation ===========================