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1993-12-05
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manual: Volume Label Utility 10.22.93
====================
© 1993 Erin Monaco
(Verbose narrative version)
Volume Label Utility is ShareWare. Try it for 30 days, if you find
it useful please register. Regardless please feel free to give copies
to friends, relatives, household pets and optionally your dentist or
favorite police officer. To register please send a check or money order
for $5 (US funds) to:
Erin M. Monaco
35244 Chestnut
Wayne, MI 48184
You may direct comments or suggestions to the above address. I can also
be reached via GEnie @ E.MONACO
****************************
Update: 12.06.93
- VOL_UTIL.RSC no longer neccessary as its been embedded in the program.
- Added sequential extension support.
New sequential extension support notes:
=======================================
Looking at the main dialog you will notice a few changes; 1) above
your six standard sequence buttons (1E?) you'll find text which shows
this row of buttons belongs to the filename sequence field. 2) you will
see text below that which points to another set of radio buttons... as
the text indicates these buttons are for using a sequence field in the
extension of the volume label. Since there are only three characters
in an extension you are limited to three buttons 1E1, 1E2, 1E3. These
buttons operate exactly like the original sequence buttons, the only
difference being that they affect and use the extension for the sequence
# field. As before blanks and nulls will be changed to '_' (underscores)
so VLU is able to correctly make the label. When setting a Sequence
button for the extension the # Sig display "(? Sig) is updated to reflect
the number of significant chars before the # field for... the extension
only! Selecting "1E1" (under extension) changes ? Sig to 2 Sig which means
you can use the first two characters in the extension for your own
purpose. As you probably guessed the extensions # field is also right
justified.
Note:
=====
If you have installed MultiDialog by Helmut Neukirchen you must turn
it off via the accessory. The Volume Label Utility already displays all
dialogs in a window, using MultiDialog causes two windows to be opened,
which also messes up my work around of the AES's inability to do anything
while using the Form_Do() call. That would be the exiting of a form_do
via the GEM icon.
****************************
Volume Label Utility was written in Lattice C version 5.52. It takes
advantage of GEM and as such will not run from the auto folder or with an
extension of .TOS. Volume Label Utility will however, run as an .APP, .PRG
or Desk Accessory. Regardless of your choice of the above methods the user
interface remains consistant. Please ensure that the resource file is in
the same directory as the program file.
Interaction with Volume Label Utility takes place through a series
of dialog boxes. All dialogs are confined to a single window which the
program opens. As such it should be a little more MultiTos friendly. It
is not known at this time whether the program works on any particular
machine, however having used only standard OS calls chances are good
that it will work on all machines. The code however was compiled for
a stock 68000 processor.
Upon running the program or selecting it via a DA slot you are
presented with the credits dialog. Clicking done brings you to the
main dialog. Immediately you'll say to yourself... "what the hey...?"
as well you should, for this is no ORDINARY volume labeler!!!
Thats right folks, it slices, it dices, it chops, grates and... er
ok... so it actually doesn't do all that, in fact it doesn't do any of
that. (To many 30 min. infomercials I suspect). Truth be told it only
does ONE thing... (right) lets you create volume labels.
Being the disk librarian of an Atari users group, and being a
bugger on small details I was a little upset over not having a nice
simple volume labeler. So being the macho-sist that I am I decided
"what the heck, I'll write one myself!" Somehow I suspect that great
nations have fallen due to similar decisions.
So finally, after many years of toil (ok, it was only a month)
the Volume Label Utility was hatched from the abyss of my mind. Like
any true bureaucracy, we software engineers (read programmers) in
addition to having our own little sub-culture (we're weird ok?) are
tasked to no end (and yes I do like Star Trek!) by the mere idea that
a software engineering project ("program") could be simple. WELL! We
software engineers not wanting to have anything what so ever to do
with that, are compelled to take a simple project and transform it.
With this in mind your average engineer will sit down with his/her
Coke classic, favorite CD, programming calculator, the equivalent
of the library of congress worth of programming manuals, peril
sensitive sunglasses with UV coating and his/her drug of choice...
my drug of choice being King Dons fed intravenously throughout the
entire project. Ah and last but not least our magic wands of Bill
Gates... with which all real work is accomplished. Yes in short
order your resourceful software engineer will take an otherwise
simple project and transform it into an utterly obese, never
previously encountered intelligent glob of spaghetti code. Code
with an insatiable appetite for RAM. Code making itself right at
home on your hard drive, a happy slob who delights in corrupting
the morals of your favorite word processor. Now where was I...
ah yes... the documentation!
Lets try to forget all those sophisticated and arcane buttons
on our main dialog for just one moment. In essence VLU reads and
writes volume labels. (well thats pretty simple) If your like me
reading them isn't nearly as fun as writing them so this is where
VLU takes a detour from your average labeler. Lets for a second
assume you have two hundred disks all of which perhaps belong to
a single category or library. Now it makes sense to catalog the
disks and their contents for later reference etc. It would then
also make sense to label these disks according to their library
or category. Say we have a software library with 200 utility disks
all of which we wish to label to improve cataloging. We might
choose a lable such as UTILnnnn.DSK with the nnnn being a number
starting at 0000 and incrementing by one for each successive
disk. (Ugh, thats a lot of typing!) Now you have three choices,
1) start typing. 2) write a program to automate this task which
merely asks you to insert the next disk. (Do you have your wand
of Bill Gates?) or 3) You can use Volume Label Utility! (or as
a last resort you can explain to your kid that its the latest
in interactive computer game technology and dump it on him/her,
however due to the severity of child labor laws I do not
recommend this.)
WHAT!? still with me? Ok, given the above example all you'd
have to do is edit the current filename field with your initial
label as UTIL0000.DSK, then select the 1E4 button (because you'd
like a number sequence in the range of 0 - 9999. Insert your
first disk and click the SEQ button (stands for sequence) and
viola your label is written to the disk! But thats not all...
now you'll notice the current label has been modified and it now
reads UTIL0001.DSK!!! Hey, your catchin on, thats right, now all
you have to do is insert the next disk and click on SEQ again!
If you reach 9999 you'll flip back to 0000. Pretty nifty huh?
"Okay" you say, "but what if I only have 50 disks, or maybe I
have half a million!" No problem, by selecting one of the 1E? buttons
you can choose a range from 0-99 (1E2) to 0-999999 (1E6). The numbers
will be right justified within the filename portion of the label,
this is the portion to the left of the "." with the portion to the
right of the period being of course the extension. Above the current
label is another editable field in which you can change the current
drive. To the right of the current drive you see something like (5 Sig)
this text tells you how many characters starting from the left of
the filename that you may use (characters that won't be overwritten
by the sequence number). With 1E3 selected you'll have 5 chars before
the number to do with as you please. Something like UTILS will work
fine. If you happen to just type UT and click SEQ, UT will be written
as the volume label to the current drive then the label will be
updated to UT___001. You don't have to start at zero you may start
at any number you like (not negative however). The number will be
incremented by 1 each time you select SEQ, it will roll over to zero
when the maximum number is reached... in the case of 1E3 it would be
999. And that my friend is about all there is to it.
One other important item to note is the GEM icon. Clicking this
Icon will exit the form handler so you may use the AES. When run as
a .PRG or .APP you don't have access to the menu so this isn't very
useful, however you can still click it then move the window as the
window is centered at the mouse when the program is first run. If
you use it as an Accessory, (by using the extension .ACC) this will
enable you to top other windows or access the menu. If you wish to
access the menu you should top another window if possible... because
if VLU's window is not topped it won't re-enter the form do handler
(this would effectively lock out access to the AES) As you might
now realize if you follow the above suggestion VLU will still be
running. (taking up processor time) its more pratical just to close
the acc by clicking QUIT. Then selecting it again when you need it.
If VLU's window gets buried under another and you can't get to it,
just select Volume Labeler from the menu, this will bring VLU's
window to the top. VLU does have a help button which covers the
options briefly. Oh, VLU should work in any resolution... I prefer
HiRes the low res dialogs look a little obese!
Warning! What follows is the required engineers warning message!
Warnings and other horrors: (sigh)
===========================
The Volume Label Utility is provided "As Is". By using this product
whether it has been registered or not, you expressly waive any right to
INCIDENTAL or CONSEQUENTIAL damages caused by the use of The Volume Label
Utility. In no event shall the author (Erin M. Monaco) or DataBasement
Software be liable for any damages whatsoever arising from the use or
misuse of this program. (blah, blah blah blah, blah)
(Just checking to see if you were still awake!)
In their infinite wisdom, the software techies and miscellaneous
other gurus thought it'd be amusing (read: major pain in the rear for
us software engineers) if they endowed their machines with a fine
Disk and file system! One that CLOSELY resembles a Dinosaur we all
know and love (love to hate that is!) And to further their joy they
developed the concept of disk labels (good idea)... and Guru said
"Let there be L.A.B.E.L.S!!!" (thunder and lightning) So they
developed an easy way to implement this creature called the LABEL.
and they then so named this process "Fcreate" (many ooohhs and aaahhs)
Yes now the common man may create a label!!! But it was no blessing
for as man found out he could create MULTIPLE labels! And in their
infinite wisdom GURU said "Let errors spring forth for any mortal
whose wish would be to "Fdelete" a LABEL!!!" and it was so. Many TOS
later GURU realized this flaw and said "Yea shall Fcreate but ONE
LABEL" But those unfortunate worshippers of yea old TOS were out of
luck! This engineer tried... he cast many a magik such as Frename
and even Fattrib to no avail for cursed LABEL remained unblemished.
The moral: Users of older TOS versions may end up with more then
one Volume label, the first found is the one that is displayed. There
is no way to delete a volume label through the OS, it can be done
with a disk editor but shouldn't be attempted by anyone who doesn't
know exactly what they are doing. This shouldn't be a major problem
as most labeling will be on floppies but it could happen. I decided
not to program a routine that would delete extra labels as I'd have
to do it at the sector level... perhaps in the future. In any event
VLU will notify you if it finds more then one label on a disk.
Since VLU uses the AES timer facility, users of old versions
of TOS may experience unexpected lockups when using it as a DA.
And last but not least when using the form_do call as VLU does
keystrokes may "fall through" (be sent to) the current application
when used as an accessory under older versions of Tos. (All this
kinda makes you want a new TOS huh?)
I hope you've found this manual to be informative as well as slightly
amusing. Most fun I've had WRITING a manual! :)
Erin Monaco @DataBasement Software.