Cream of the Crop 22/Cream of the Crop 22.iso/disk/4sightd.zip/4SIGHT.DOC

Text File | 1996-10-14 | 28KB | 552 lines

$              4Sight - Copyright 1996 by Jack Walton

% Please send comments to [e-mail] or Compuserve at 103303,1010

    4Sight will Find all of the files on any disk that match the selections
    you put into the menu, show you a catalog of the files, then let you List,
    Copy, Move, Delete, Edit or View them.

    If you selected any search options, the lines containing the text that
    you specified will be displayed in different colors. To show what it
    looks like, in this manual we preceded the headings with percent signs,
    'at' signs and dollar signs. We then used search option #1 described
    below to highlight lines that contain percent signs, search option #2
    for 'at' signs and the '\' option for dollar signs.

@SCREEN COLORS

    4Sight has three screens: the menu, the catalogs and the files. Every
    screen can be displayed with black, blue, cyan or white backgrounds. You
    can cycle through the various colors by pressing F8 when you are looking
    at each screen. The colors that you select for that screen will affect
    that screen only and remain in effect until you press F8 in that screen
    again. In the file screen (the one you are looking at now) you can
    switch betweem foreground and background highlighting for the search
    strings by pressing F9.

%Help Files

    You can get individual help for each of the major menu options, the
    catalogs, and the files, by pressing F1.

%External Processors

    Although 4Sight cannot edit files, it can jump out to an external editor
    or word processor, edit a file, then return to where it was in the File
    List. You can edit with DOS EDIT if you have DOS 5.0 or later, or with a
    word processor or editor of your choice.  If you have Windows 95 you can
    look at various types of files with QUIKVIEW or add any other viewers that
    are available to you.

    See ALT-P below for setup instructions. Also see Internal Processing for
    more information.

@THE MENU

%Navigating

    When you enter 4Sight, a menu is displayed with the cursor in the first
    field. Typing ENTER or the Down Arrow in any field will accept the
    value in that field and move to the next one. An Up Arrow will return
    to the previous one. If you are in the first field END will move the
    cursor to the last one. If you are in the last field HOME will move it
    back  to the first one. ESCAPE will exit from 4Sight back to where you
    started from. F5 will process the files that you have selected.

%Single-character fields

    In single-character fields a Right Arrow will move to the next field and
    a Left Arrow will move to the previous field. In all of the Yes/No
    fields the value that you enter will be replaced with the default value
    if you use any value except Y or N.

%Multiple-Character Fields

    When you are entering data into the multiple-character fields, a Right
    Arrow will move one character right until the end of the field is
    reached, then move to the next field. A Left Arrow will move one
    character left to the beginning of the field, then move to the previous
    field.

    In the Directory, Files, and Search fields you can delete single
    characters with the Delete key or delete the data from the cursor on
    with CTRL-T. If you want to add characters in the middle of a field,
    press the Insert key then enter the data that you want to insert.

%The Function Keys and Special Keys

   $F1
    F1 will display the help files.

   $F2
    F2 will display this document.

   $F3
    F3 will reset all of the fields in the menu back to the original values.

   $F4
    When you first enter 4Sight, pressing F4 will select the directory you
    came from. Otherwise it will select the root directory. After that, F4
    will set the fields back to the last set of values that you entered.
    Note that when you return to the menu after processing your previous
    selections those selections will always be displayed and still be in
    effect unless you press F3. Pressing F4 after pressing F3 will restore
    those values.

   $F5
    If you press F5 after you have entered your selections, 4Sight will
    search the whole disk or the designated directories for files that meet
    your specifications. While it is searching, it displays a comma for each
    directory that it scans and a dot for each file that it searches. When
    it finds one of your specified files it displays an 'F'. When it can't
    find any more files, it stops searching, sorts the files, and displays a
    list of the files, with their sizes, dates, and directories. If you press
    'I' while it is searching for files it will interrupt the search and
    display the files that it has found so far. You can then point to files
    that you are interested in and display them by pressing ENTER. After you
    have looked at those files you can either continue the search by pressing
    PageDown or go back to the menu by pressing ESCAPE.

   $ALT-F5
    See Bonus Features below.

    $F6
    See Bonus Features below

   $F7
    F7 will display the Shareware screen.

   $CTRL-F7
    CTRL-F7 will let you view or change the input buffer size.

   $F8
    Pressing F8 when you are looking at the menu, a catalog or a file will
    cycle through the four text color combinations. It will remain in effect
    until you press F8 again.

   $F9
    Pressing F9 when you are looking at a file will switch the highlight
    between background and foreground. It will remain in effect until you
    press F9 again.

   $ALT-F9
    ALT-F9 will allow registered users to eliminate the shareware message.

   $ALT-C
    If you press ALT-C when you are in the directory field of the menu, that
    directory will be used for the Copy directory. (If you are a registered
    user you can press F6 to display the directories, point to the one that
    you want to use as the target, then press ENTER.  That directory will be
    displayed in the directory field when you return to the menu. If you want
    to copy files to a directory with a long name, this will be easier than
    typing it in.)

   $ALT-M
    If you press ALT-M when you are in the directory field of the menu, that
    directory will be used for the Move directory.  (Registered users can
    also use F6 as described above for the Move directory.)

   $ALT-P
    If you Press ALT-P from the menu, you will be asked for a number and the
    name of a program.  The program may be an editor, a word processor or
    perhaps a program such as WRITE that will display *.WRI files, or MSpaint
    that will display graphics files.  Do not include the extension. If the
    program is not in the DOS path, its full path name must be used. The
    program, including its path, and the full pathname of the file that you
    will process must not exceed 80 bytes.  Note that DOS EDIT and Windows 95
    QUIKVIEW are already built in to 4Sight.

    Later, when you point to a file in the file list and press P plus a number,
    4Sight will use the DOS EXEC request to spawn a copy of COMMAND.COM, then
    store the program name and the full pathname of the file you are pointing
    to into an 80-byte 'command tail' that the COMMAND.COM will use to run the
    program.

    If you call a Windows program you will return to the Windows Desktop when
    you leave the program.  When you return to DOS from there you will be in
    the 4Sight file list where you left off.

    If you call dBase to look at a DBF file you will have to enter the name
    of the DBF file after you get into dBASE. dBase will use the correct path,
    but it won't pick up the dbf name from the command tail.

%The Data Entry Fields

  %Drive
    The default value for this field is the drive you are running from. If
    you want to look at another drive type it in here, otherwise just press
    ENTER or an Arrow key.

  %Directory
    When you first enter 4Sight, the directory field will contain the root
    directory. If you want the directory that you called 4Sight from press
    F4.  After you have processed a directory, that directory and all of the
    other selections that you made will still be in effect when you return
    to 4Sight. If you want another directory you can press CTRL-T to clear
    the old value then enter another directory name, or just type over the
    old name - or use F6 as described above.

  %Subdirectories
    Subdirectories will be included unless you enter N for this field. If
    you are in the root directory the whole drive will be processed.

  %Files
    The default for this field is *.*, which will select all files. If you
    don't want them all, press CTRL-T then enter the ones you want, or just
    type over the *.*.  You may enter as many as 10 file selections in this
    field, separated by commas or blanks. S*.doc  *.txt,*.  *.lst, for
    example, would select all DOC files starting with S, then all TXT files,
    then files with no extensions, then the LST files.

  %Search String # 1
    This is the first of two text strings to search for. 4Sight will search
    all of the files that you specify for the text that you enter here.
    When you later display the file the lines containing this text will be
    displayed in color #1.  See Skip Spaces for rules about strings with
    imbedded spaces.

    4Sight is designed to search and display pure text (ASCII) files. It may
    be able to find search strings in other kinds of files and it may not,
    but in any case it won't display non-text files correctly. However, after
    you find a file, you may be able to call an external processor to look
    at it.

    When you are searching for a string, 4Sight will find files that contain
    the string much faster if you can limit the search. If you know the
    parent directory, include it. If you know all of the possible file
    types, include them. If you know about when the files were created, put
    that in the date range. If you know their maximum size put that in the
    size range. All of that data is in the file directories, which can be
    searched very rapidly.  If you don't include any limits, 4Sight will have
    to read in every file on the disk and search the whole file for the text
    string.

  $Word Options
    4Sight has 4 word options. 'W' will search for whole words, 'C' will
    look for all words that contain the search string, 'S' will find only
    words that start with the search string, and 'E' looks for words that
    end with the string.  If you enter any other character it will be
    replaced with 'C'.

    If your search string is 'and', for example, 'W' will find only 'and'.
    'C' will select any line containing 'andrew' or 'Brand' as well as 'and'.
    'S' will find 'and' and 'andrew', but not 'brand'. 'E' will find 'and''
    and 'brand', but not 'andrew'. But see Skip Spaces below for exceptions.

  $Ignore Case
    If you use the default value of Y, 4Sight will select all files that
    contain the search string, whether it is upper or lower case or both.
    For example, 'Andrew', 'andrew' and 'ANDREW' will all be selected for
    the search string 'Andrew'. If you change the value to N only 'Andrew'
    will be found.

  $Skip Spaces
    Sometimes it is useful to be able to ignore imbedded tabs and spaces,
    and to find search strings that start on one line and finish on the
    next line, so 4Sight gives you that option here. This option ignores
    not only spaces and tabs, but also imbedded line feeds and carriage
    returns.

    If your search string is 'John Doe', with one space between 'John' and
    'Doe', for example, 4Sight will find only files containing lines with
    'John' and 'Doe' separated by one space, if you use the default N.

    If you change the N to Y, 4Sight will ignore spaces and tabs and find
    'John      Doe', and 'John'<tab>'Doe'.  If 'John' is at the end of the
    line and 'Doe' at the beginning of the next line, 4Sight will ignore the
    line feeds and carriage returns between John and Doe and find him there
    too. But in this case only the line with 'John' will be highlighted.

    If you have chosen to skip spaces and 4Sight is ignoring line feeds
    and carriage returns, the line before the search string may be
    highlighted. This can happen only when the last characters on a line
    are the same as the first characters of the search string and the next
    line starts with the search string.  This won't happen very often.

  %Search String # 2
    This  is the second of the two text strings to search for. 4Sight will
    search all of the files that you specify for the text that you enter
    here. When you later display the file the lines containing this text
    will be displayed in color #2. Note that this field can be selected only
    if search string #1 is selected.

  $Word Options
    The same rules apply here as for string # 1.

  $Ignore Case
    The same rules apply here as for string # 1.

  $Skip Spaces
    The same rules apply here as for string # 1.

  %Select only files containing both strings
    If you use the default N, 4Sight will select all files that contain
    either string. Changing to Y will select only those with both strings.

  %Dates
    You may select a date range for the files to be selected by entering
    Y in this field. When you do so the first option will change color.
    You may select that option by pressing ENTER or move to another with
    the Down Arrow. If you select 'between', two date fields will be
    displayed, with '80 01 01' in the first one and '00 12 31' in the
    second one. (Note that 4Sight uses the 'Year Month Day' convention.)
    With any other selection just the first field will be displayed. Enter
    the dates you want to use, or press ENTER on each field to accept what's
    there. After you have entered the day, the date will be displayed as
    'January 01 1980' or 'December 12 2000', for example. If you included
    a date range in the previous selections, it will still be in effect. If
    you want to change it enter Y again. If you enter any value except
    N or Y, it will be replaced with N.

  %Sizes
    You may select a size range for the files to be selected by entering
    Y in this field. When you do so the first option will change color.
    You may select that option by pressing ENTER or move to another one
    with the Down Arrow. If you select 'between' two size fields will be
    displayed, each allowing up to 10 digits, or 8 digits with commas.
    With any other selection just the first field will be displayed. Enter
    the sizes you want to use, with or without commas. If you included a
    size range in the previous selections, it will still be in effect. If
    you want to change it enter Y again. If you enter any value except
    N or Y it will be replaced with N.

  %Help with Function Keys
    Pressing either Y or F1 will display the help text for the function keys.

@THE FILE LIST

    When you are looking at the file list (F5) there will be a pointer at
    the beginning of the first line containing a file name. You can move
    the pointer with the Up and Down Arrows.

    'L' or ENTER will list the file you are pointing to, with any search
    strings highlighted. Only the first 80 columns of a line will be
    displayed - pressing the Right Arrow will scroll one column to the
    right on lines longer than 80 columns, Tab will scroll 8 columns to
    the right.  Left Arrows and Shift Tabs will scroll left. 0 will move
    back to the beginning of the line.

    'P' followed by a number 0-9 will call any of 10 programs to edit or look
    at the files. When you exit from the program you will return to the
    file list. If the program is a Windows processor you will first go to
    the desktop, then you can return to 4Sight by returning to MSDOS. You
    can use ALT-P, as described above to set up the programs of your
    choice.

    'A' will call DOS EDIT. It assumes that it is in your DOS path.

    'E' (for Editor) may be used in place of 'P0'. 4Sight assumes that you will
    have set up P0 as your primary editor.

    'V' will call \WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VIEWERS\QUICKVIEW. If it is not available on
    your system in that directory it will just blink and return to 4Sight.

    'C' will Copy the file to another drive or directory. The current copy
    directory, if one has been selected, will be displayed at the bottom of
    the screen. You may either use that directory or change it to another
    one. If the target does not exist an error message will be displayed.
    Unlike the DOS Copy command, this Copy will not copy a file to a
    different file name or extension. An error message will be displayed
    if there is insufficient space in the target drive.

    'M' will Move the file to another directory on the same drive. The current
    move directory, if one has been selected, will be displayed at the
    bottom of the screen. You may either use that directory or change it
    to another one.If the target directory does not exist, the file to be
    moved already exists in the target directory, the file is Read Only,
    or the target drive is not the same as the source drive, an error
    message will be displayed.

    'D' will delete the file. To help avoid accidental deletions, the message
    'Press Y to Delete this File' will be displayed at the bottom of the
    page.

    ESCAPE will return you to the menu in the directory that you came from.

    F10 will exit to the directory of the file that you are pointing to.

    PageDown will allow 4Sight to continue processing until it gets another
    page full of data, or will get the next page if you have backed up and
    are not at the last page.  If there is no more data to process, 4Sight
    will return to the menu.

    PageUp will back up one page at a time as far as 20 pages back. If you
    need to go farther back you will have to press ESCAPE to return to the
    menu and press F5 to start over (all of your options will still be in
    effect) and PageDowns to get to where you want to go.

    Home will move back to the first page if you have fewer than 20 pages
    of files or back 20 pages if you have more than that.

    End will move you to the last page.

@THE FILES

    You can display a file by moving the pointer to it and pressing ENTER,
    but some files may not be readable. The display is intended for ASCII
    (text) files only. Text files are usually separated by line feeds.
    4Sight can handle other files, but files created by some word processors
    contain non-ASCII characters and are not terminated by line feeds. This
    version of 4Sight cannot process those files correctly, but it can remove
    the high bit to make files that use it for formatting more readable.
    Pressing 7 will remove the high bit, 8 will restore it. You may be able
    to view files that 4sight cannot process by using a viewer. See 'P' above.
    Pressing Q or ESC will return you to the file list and allow you to select
    another file to display.

  %Scrolling
    You can scroll through an ASCII file one line at a time by using the Up
    and Down Arrows. PageUp and PageDown will scroll up and down a page at
    a time.  End will move to the end of the file and Home to the top.

    Right and Left Arrows will scroll one column right or left, the Tab key
    will move 8 columns to the right, Shift-Tab will move 8 columns left,
    and pressing 0 will move you back to the beginning of the line. Note
    that scrolling works correctly only for ASCII files. The results for
    other files, including word processor files such as WRI files will be
    unpredictable.

  %Searching
    After a file you have selected is displayed you may search for a text
    string by pressing '\'. After you enter the text, you have four choices.
    Whole? means Whole words - Y for Yes, N for No.  Case? means Ignore
    Case - Y for Yes, N for No. Spaces? means skip blanks and tabs - Y for
    Yes, N for No.  Go Top? means start at the top of the file - Y for
    Yes, N for No. If you choose No, the search will start with the page
    following the one where you are now. When 4Sight finds a line that
    contains the text, it will display the line in color #3. Pressing N
    will show the next occurrence, and so on. If you selected any search
    strings from the menu pressing O will display only the original ones,
    B will display both the original ones and the new ones. Pressing the
    spacebar will continue whichever display selections you have made.

    Note that any text that you have selected here will remain in effect for
    any files that you select later until you select another string or press
    '\' then ESCAPE.

  %Getting Out
    After you have looked at your selections, you may exit to the directory
    that you are pointing to by pressing F10, or return to the menu by
    pressing ENTER. The values that you entered will be saved and restored
    when you return to the menu. You can then use those values again or
    replace them with new values (see Deleting and Inserting above). If you
    included dates or sizes in your previous selections, you can delete them
    with N or select new values by pressing Y.  Or you can reset all
    fields to their default values by pressing F3. F4 will restore the
    previous values.

@BONUS FEATURES

    THESE FEATURES ARE AVAILABLE TO REGISTERED USERS ONLY.

   $ALT-F5
    Normally, files are sorted by name, but registered users can press ALT-F5
    from the menu to select other options. The option that is selected will
    remain in effect until ALT-F5 is pressed again to change it.  Note that
    sorting starts over with each new subdirectory.

    The available options are:
    0 - Do not sort.
    1 - Sort by name.
    2 - Sort by extension.
    3 - Sort by date.
    4 - Sort by size.
    Any other number - no change.
    Reverse - Y = Sort in reverse order. N = forward sort.

    Names will always be displayed in A-Z order except when option 1 with
    Reverse = Y is selected.

   $F6
    If you press F6, 4Sight will sort all of the directories and subdirectories
    then display just the names of the directories that contain the files that
    you have selected, with the number and sizes of the files in each directory.
    After one pageful is displayed, pressing PageDown will display another
    pageful and so on until all of the directories have been displayed. PageUp
    will back up one page at a time as far as 19 pages back. If you need to go
    farther back you will have to press ESCAPE to return to the menu, press F6
    to start over (all of your options will still be in effect), and PageDowns
    to get to where you want to go. Home will display the first page (or 20
    pages back if there are more than 20 pages), End will display the last page
    that has been processed.

    When you move the pointer to any directory name and press ENTER you will
    return to the menu with that directory displayed in the directory field.
    You can then look at the files in that directory by pressing F5. If you
    press F10 from the directory list you will exit to the directory that you
    have selected.

@INTERNAL PROCESSING

    After you have selected the files that you want to look at, 4Sight uses
    the DOS 'find first file' request to find the first file that matches your
    specifications. It then uses the 'find next file' request to find the next
    file in the first directory. It keeps looking for files in that directory
    until it runs out of files, or finds enough files to fill the first of its
    20 screen buffers, then displays the buffer on the screen. When you press
    PageDown it continues the process of filling and displaying screen buffers
    until it runs out of files in the first directory. Then, if subdirectories
    have been requested, it repeats the process for all of the subdirectories.

    Pressing PageUp at any time will display the previous buffer, Home will
    display the first buffer, and End will display the last one filled.

    After all 20 screen buffers have filled, when you press PageDown buffers
    2 through 20 will be moved back to 1 through 19, buffer 20 will be filled
    with new data and so on. The 20 buffers will always contain the latest 20
    pages.

  %External File Processing

    When you call an external program to edit or view a file, the pointers may
    get changed by the external program and no longer be valid. So the next
    time 4Sight needs to 'find next file' after calling an external program it
    starts over at the beginning of the first directory and repeats the entire
    process until it gets to the page after the last one processed.  But this
    time it just fills the buffers without displaying them, until it gets that
    next page.  It may take a few seconds to get back to where you left off,
    especially if you have processed several dozen pages.

$INSTALLING 4Sight

    4Sight can find the files on any drive in any directory, so we recommend
    that you run from the directory where 4Sight is located until you have
    read the full documentation and you need just the Help files. 4Sight can
    find 4Sight.DOC much more quickly if it doesn't have to search the whole
    disk for it.

    In any case, you should always run 4Sight from the drive where it is
    installed.  4Sight looks in the root directory of the drive you are
    running from for 4Sight.INI which contains the current input buffer size,
    the names of your editors and word processors and your register Id.
    It won't find it if you run from another drive, and you won't be able
    to use the bonus features.

    Note: It is strongly recommended that you make a backup copy of the
      4sight.ini in your root directory so you can easily replace it
      if it gets damaged rather than having to set up all of the data
      from scratch.

$REGISTRATION

    If you find this Shareware program useful and continue to use it after a
    reasonable trial period please make a registration payment of $29.95.
    Please send your check or money order to:
                Jack Walton
                17694 Powers Creek Loop
                Silverton, OR 97381
    If you have Compuserve you can charge your registration payment to your
    Compuserve account. Just GO SWREG #12937.

    All registered users will get free technical support, upgrades and
    bonus features such as sort options and mapping. We have several more
    upgrades and bonus features planned.  Don't miss out by not registering.

    The program 4Sight.EXE and the file 4Sight.DOC are copyrighted by the
    author. The copyright owner hereby licenses you to use the programs
    given this restriction:
    There is no warranty  of any kind. The copyright owner may not be held
    liable for any damages, including any lost profits or other incidental
    or consequential damages arising out of using, or inability to use the
    program. By using either program, you agree to this restriction.