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PMCAT A Disk File Cataloging Program by Patrick Michaud Version 2.5 12 December 1987 Copyright 1987 by William C. Scott PmCat A Disk File Catalog by Patrick Michaud Copyright 1987 by William C. Scott PmCat is designed to make it easy for you to keep track of the files and programs on your floppy disks and hard drive(s). Some of the features of PmCat: * Reads entire disk or diskette, including subdirectories and labels * Each file may be commented with up to 80 characters * 'Cut & Paste' comments for duplicate files * Sorts on filename, ext, size, path or date...ascending or descending * Supports "*" and "?" wildcard searches of filename or comments * Hardcopy of volumes (diskettes) or entire database * Automatic update of catalog when disks are reread. * Allows user customizing of default settings. * Writes volume label to diskette Minimum System Requirements: IBM PC/XT/AT or compatible, 256K RAM, one floppy disk drive. 640K is recommended. Hard drive and subirectories are supported. DISCLAIMER: By using this product, the user agrees that neither William C. Scott nor Patrick R. Michaud may be held liable for any damages, direct or consequential, that might arise from the use or misuse of PmCat. INSTALLING PMCAT (see page about blinking boxes and text) No special steps need be taken. PmCat contains defaults that may be altered by the user once within the program. The data files will default to the directory from which PmCat is run, as will the Pmcat.def file, containing the user specified defaults. (The defaults will be explained in detail under the appropriate heading later in the docs) USING PMCAT The following pages will explain first, how to get going from the standpoint of "How do I ....?" and later from an explanation of each of the various menu commands. We intentionally wrote the docs in the manner we have in the hopes that they could be really "useful". (I personally hate searching documentation for the *only* spot a particular item is mentioned). If our feedback indicates a majority of users dislike the repetition it will be changed to a more 'standard' sort of format in the next release. Please, do let us know. PAGE 2 How Do I ... ? Start PmCat - type 'pmcat' at the DOS prompt. There will be a title screen displayed. Follow those instructions. Specify a filename for my data - after the title screen, you will see a small window. If you wish to use the filename of Catalog.cat, press <ENTER>. If you wish to choose a filename of your own, simply type it in, and press enter. Put my catalog data on a different drive or in a different directory- When you enter your filename, enter the full pathname. If you want a file called "disk.dat" on drive C in a subdirectory called "junk"...enter "C:\junk\disk.dat" Make my filename the `automatic' (default) one - When the catalog has been read (or not, according to what you do), go to the <S>et Defaults option of the menu on the first screen you see with a menu area at the bottom. Select <F> from the next one and enter the full path (if you want it that way) and press enter. Immediately press <W>rite Defaults to save the setting to disk. Press <ESC> to return to the first menu. (more on these options later) Read the files from a diskette or hard drive - At the first menu, press pdate. You must then enter the source drive. CAUTION! If you are going to read diskettes in drive A, enter See Note on "A", likewise for B,C or others. If you enter a drive page 9 letter for a non-existent drive, it will cause an error When you are finished adding files to the catalog, press <ESC> to return to the first menu. Save my catalog to disk - at the first menu, or the second (which we haven't reached yet), select <W>rite catalog. It is recommended you do this immediately after adding files. Change catalogs - by using the <R>ead catalog option of the first menu, you can load or create a different file from the one you have been working with. Look at files I want to know about - select <V>iew from the first menu and it will move you to the second menu and open a window containing the filenames and extensions. If you have the Auto-Sort option set to 'ON' a sort will take place when you move from the first to second menu. This sort does files in alphabetic order of filenames. Auto-Sort may be turned off in the <S>et defaults area. Use the PgUp/PgDn, up/down arrows and Home/End keys to move through the displayed files. Find a specific file - from the second menu, select <F>ind, then <F> or <C>... search <F>ilenames or <C>omments. Then enter the keyword or string you wish. Wildcards searches are allowed for filename searches. (See note on searching) Find another file matching the same search pattern - select <N> from the second menu and it will take you to the next one. PAGE 3 Find the file size, date and other particulars - select from the second menu. This will open an Info Window with the statistics about the file, as well as a Comments window Enter comments about a particular file - select <C> from the second menu. If the windows are not open, this option will open both the Info Window and Comments Window and place the cursor in the Comments Window. Type in your infor- mation and press <ENTER>. Once you have made changes such as adding or deleting comments, use the <W>rite catalog option to save it to disk. Nothing is on disk until you do this, or exit PmCat. If any changes to you catalog data have been made during a session and you haven't saved them, PmCat will prompt you to do so when you exit. Delete a volume from a catalog file - chose <D> from the FIRST menu. A window displaying all volumes will be opened. Move the bar selector to the one you wish to delete and press <ENTER>. You will have to confirm that decision with a 'Y' or 'N' before going on. (<ESC> will allow you to abort the process) Label a diskette - when you pdate by adding a volume PmCat will read the disk and determine if a label exists on the diskette. You may enter your own or PmCat will label it automatically as DISK% where % is the next number not already used...DISK1, DISK2, etc. Find out what volumes are contained in my catalog file - from the SECOND menu, chose <V> and an overlay window will open with the list of volume names. Press <ESC> to back up one level. See the files in a specific directory or volume - place the bar cursor on the Volume or directory name, press <D> from the SECOND menu. The Info Window will tell you if the name under the bar is a file or directory. Volumes and directory entries both show <DIR> as their size. See what directories are in my file - first perform a sort on size by selecting <S> from the SECOND menu and <A> for ascend- ing order. This will get the volumes and directories in alphabetical order at the head of the listing which is being displayed in the filename display window. Get a printed listing of my catalog - select from the SECOND menu. You may opt for including comments or not. Comments are printed on a second line and are always 80 columns to the printer...i.e., they take one line. ONLY the files at the level you are viewing when you select the print option will be printed. If you wish to print the entire catalog, make sure that there is only one file display window showing. Print only the files from a particular disk (volume) - from the SECOND menu, select <V> then place the selector bar on the volume you want, press <D> and then press . The rest of the printing is the same as above. PAGE 4 FIRST MENU S - set defaults: Change colors, default catalog name/path, titlescreen on/off, Auto-Sort on/off, etc. More detail about this option after the SECOND MENU section. Titlescreen - the title screen may be toggled on and off by pressing "T". This causes you to bypass the opening messages with Serial # display. Auto-Sort - the automatic sorting feature may be toggled on and off by pressing "S". This disables sorting when passing from the first screen to the second. Default Filename - the location and name of the default data file may be set by pressing "F" and entering your default path and filename.ext. NOTE: If you are using Drive B for a data file, then here is an example... B:MYDATA.CAT ...this will cause PmCat to look in the root directory of the disk in Drive B, for a data file named "MYDATA.CAT", and use it for information. Colors - the colors of the display may be customized according to your taste by choosing "C". Notice that as you press the UP and DOWN arrows, the label to the left of the color bar changes, representing what item will be changed. The line pointer, which is moved by using the LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys, points to the new color. The small window shows you what your color combinations will look like. Press <enter> to select the color and items pointed to. When you are satisfied with your settings, press "W" to write the new default settings to disk. These will be read in each time you run PmCat or when you select the "R" option of this menu. YOUR SETTINGS WILL BE ONLY FOR THAT SESSION UNLESS YOU <W>RITE THEM TO DISK! U - Update catalog: Read diskettes into catalog. Respond to the prompt with the appropriate drive letter. W - Write catalog: Writes catalog, which is held in memory, to disk. NOTHING IS PERMANENT UNTIL YOU DO THIS. R - Read catalog: Read an existing catalog from disk. This doesn't have to be the same one you read upon startup. V - View catalog: Takes you to the section of PmCat where you can browse through the files, enter comments and print hardcopy. D - Delete volume: Allows you to delete a volume from PmCat. This change is not permanent till you WRITE the altered catalog to disk. PAGE 5 SECOND MENU <ESC> - always moves you back to the previous step, eventually to the exit prompt. Home - takes you to the top of the files in the window (#1) End - takes you to the bottom of the files in the window (#??) PgUp - brings up the next 12 files to the window PgDn - brings up the previous 12 files to the window Up/Dn Arrows - move the selector bar up or down. Going past the first or last entry takes you to the previous or next page. W - write catalog: Performs same function as the "W" in the FIRST MENU D - Display Directory: If the item under the selector bar is a <DIR> a listing of those files in that directory are made available through the window. I - Info Window: Opens the Info Window and Comments Window. The Info Window shows the path, size, date, and filename of the file under the selector bar. Pressing "I" again will close both the Info and Comments windows. C - Comments Window: Pressing "C" will place the cursor in the comment window and enable commenting of the file under the selector bar. If the Comments Window was not open when "C" was pressed, the Info Window AND the Comment Window will be opened. After entering your comments, press <ENTER> and they will be saved. THEY ARE NOT PERMANENTLY SAVED TILL YOU "WRITE" THE CATALOG TO DISK. F - Find: You will be prompted in the Menu Area at the bottom of the screen about whether you wish to search through filenames or comments. Choose `F' or `C', whichever is appropriate. Then enter your key (word, phrase, or letter sequence) to find. PmCat will find and display the first one in the file...to go to the next match, press `N'. (see note on searching) N - Next Find: finds the next occurrence of the specified search string S - Sort: sorts files on filename, extension, date, size or path, in ascending or descending order. P - Print: If you include comments, it will require two lines per file , otherwise, one. The files that will be printed depend on where you are in your browsing. If you are at the "Top" window, all files in PmCat will be printed. If you have selected a particular volume, then only that volume will be printed. Likewise, if you have selected a subdirectory, the files in that subdirectory will be printed. I.E., whatever can be viewed with PgUp/PgDN or Up/Dn arrow will be printed. V - Volume List: gives a display through the window of the volumes that are registered in the current catalog. PAGE 6 Buffer <- comment : Buffer -> comment : These two menu items make up a simple cut and paste function for the comments portion of the display. You can type the comments for a file once and then copy it to other occurrences of that file that might be on other disks or in a different path. Just use the left arrow to copy comments to a buffer and place the bar cursor on the uncommented file where you want the information copied to and press the right arrow. Note about searching: The search acts only on those items focused on by the present window. If you are at the first level window, a search will cover all volumes, directories, subdirectories and filenames if you search <F>ilenames, or comments associated with any of the filenames, directories, subdirectories and volumes if you select <C>omments (after selecting <F>ind ). A quirk in the program is that you can do an "instring search" (for example, look for "asi" in the word Basic) by simply typing in "asi" at the keyword prompt, IF you are searching Comments. If you are searching <F>ilenames, you must use "*asi*" ... note the leading and trailing asterisks, in order to accomplish the same thing. The double quotes I used here are not to be used in entering the keyword or character string , of course...simply type in the characters you want to look for, and augment them with the `*' or `?' wildcards...but wildcards are valid ONLY when searching filenames. Just in case you aren't familiar with "wildcards", an entry of a phrase string to look for, like, " ?asic " will look for all five letter file- names beginning with any valid character and having "asic" as the last four characters. An entry of " ?asi* " will look for any occurrence of filenames containing "asi" as the second, third and fourth characters. The decision not to incorporate wildcards in the comments searches was one of those arbitrary decisions any programmer makes. It slowed the search to an unacceptable speed...so it was decided to compromise with the "instring" type of search only. Note about sorting: The sorted display is TEMPORARY! It is retained only as long as you remain in the area of the PmCat where you view the files. The sorted display is created as an index which is held in memory. It cannot be be saved to disk at this time. This is another of those "compromises" we had make ... hope it isn't too much of a problem for you. WARNING!! If you exceed the memory limits of your machine while using PmCat, it will cause an unrecoverable error! You will lose any changes that have not been saved to disk, but disk files should not be affected. Without any memory resident software in place, PmCat will handle about 7000-8000 filenames without comments in a 640K machine. For fully commented files (using all 80 characters of the comments field) the number drops to about 3000 files. There is a display of the approximate amount of free memory available printed in the upper right corner of the screen. Till you get used to how much memory a given operation might take, just keep the free memory above 50K and all will be well. PAGE 7 ...About our marketing process... "Shareware" or "user-supported software" are terms that have come to mean different things to different people. PmCat is, as is most other shareware, copyrighted material. It IS NOT public domain software. We chose this method of distribution simply out of financial necessity. There are many disk cataloging programs already in the public domain and shareware system. If we had elected to charge $30, $40 or $50 dollars for PmCat and spent thousands of dollars in advertising, the chances are that most would never get a chance to even look at PmCat, let alone consider purchasing it. By distributing PmCat under the shareware concept, you can obtain a copy of it for free or at minimal cost through BBS's, user groups, etc. We, the end users, will ultimately be responsible for keeping open this channel for obtaining quality software at reasonable prices. (Yes even the authors of PmCat have software we have purchased through these channels) Based on the assumption you have a fair quantity of diskettes containing programs/files you would like to keep track of, you have a need for and have to this point not found *quite* what you want in a disk cataloger. I sincerely hope PmCat can fill this need for you. If it does, please take the time to sit back and consider whether or not it is worth the $10 or $15 we ask you to send for registration. If there is something about it you perceive as a flaw, please let us know. That is the only way we can improve our products to your satisfaction. Many compromises have to be made in any software. The ones we have made were considered in light of our own experiences. Your opinions will be of immense help in any case. If you wish to register PmCat and receive the benefits of doing so; a clear conscience, commission privileges and be entered on our mailing list, please send check or Money Order to the address below: William C. Scott 4726 Everhart Rd. Corpus Christi, TX, 78411 There are two levels of registration for PmCat. The only difference in the services offered by us involve a $5.00 commission for the registered owner when a new registrant sends us the serial number of his or her present copy and requests registration. We pay this commission monthly by company check to the accounts which have acquired credits during the month. A list of the registered owners may be obtained from Audio Enterprises at any time for a $3.00 charge. If however, a person registers with us and asks that their name NOT be included on such ' statements, it will not be. The street addresses or any other personal data will NOT be sent...only the name, city and state of registered owners. We keep a customer file with the registered owner and his/her serial number. That serial number stays with that owner through any and all updates and revisions of PmCat. The only exception is when someone wants to upgrade their registration status from non-commission to commission. If done after an initial registration for $10.00, the fee for that process is $7.50. Then a copy of the latest version of PmCat will be sent with a new registration/serial number. (The $10 registration causes a copy of the latest version to be sent and it contains Audio Enterprises' registration number.) Please be sure to include the serial number from the copy you have when registering, so that we may credit the correct person with the registration commission. PAGE 8 Copyright Notice - PmCat, copyright 1987 by William C. Scott PmCat is NOT public domain software. You may use, copy and distribute it freely, but you MAY NOT RESELL PmCat. A modest fee for copying may be charged, not to exceed $3.00 exclusive of the cost of disk, mailer and postage. Distribution under the "Shareware" concept is encouraged. You are not legally bound to register your copy of PmCat, although we hope the incentives offered will encourage you to do so. This documentation MUST be included in any distribution of PmCat, PLEASE. IMPORTANT!! Read the NOTE on the registration form for an additional incentive for registration of PmCat. TICKLE, which is the subject of that note, is not Public Domain. It is copyrighted software that is not to be copied and given away. It is simply our way of saying "Thanks" to you for supporting PmCat. Note on drive error: If you pick a non-existent drive to read from, PmCat will handle it gracefully. But if you fail to close the drive door or place a disk in the selected drive, you will see the familiar DOS message asking Abort, Retry, Ignore? ... simply place a disk in the drive and close the drive door and press [R] ... PmCat will recover and the screen will be restored when you change menus. Otherwise, you will end up in DOS with no cursor ... no harm done, but you will lose any new information that hasn't been saved to disk. Type [PMCAT] and press <ENTER> to restart the program...it will reset itself properly. Note about blinking text and boxes: If you find the boxes and text on the main screen, windows or menu are blinking, and you don't want them to, go to the Set Defaults option and set the pointer to the corresponding BACKGROUND color ON THE LEFT HALF OF THE COLOR BAR. Any of the 16 colors may be chosen for text, but the background allows only the 8 base colors. The other 8 blocks (the right half) will produce the same color background, but the text and box borders will blink. Some like to use this option to make the Select Text (in the selector bar) blink. PAGE 9 TITLESCREEN (Optional) | | Read Catalog | | __________________________________| | [First Menu] - <R>ead catalog: read/change catalogs | | <V>iew catalog: moves to second menu | | <W>rite catalog: saves catalog in memory to disk | | <D>elete volumes: allows deletion of individual volumes | | pdate catalog: add to catalog in memory or update existing | volumes. Auto-sort (if on) <S>et defaults: displays a menu for defaults | | <T>itlescreen: toggles titlescreen display on/off | | <A>uto-sort: toggles auto-sort function on/off | | <F>iles: sets the default filename | | <C>olors: allows changing default screen colors | | <W>rite defaults: saves default settings to disk | | [Second Menu] - nfo window: displays file statistics, opens Comments window <C>omments window: opens Info Window and Comments window, puts you ready to enter comments <W>rite catalog: saves catalog to disk. <F>ind: finds first occurrence of search string <N>ext find: finds next occurrence of search string rint: prints hardcopy of catalog file <V>olumes: displays list of volumes contained in catalog <D>irectory: displays listing of files in selected dir or vol. buffer <- comments: the LEFT ARROW copies the comments to a "holding area" buffer -> comments: the RIGHT ARROW copies the comments held in the buffer to the comments field on which the bar cursor rests. Pressing <ESC> is always your `panic' button. It will take you back one step, from wherever you are. It also returns you to the FIRST menu from the SECOND menu and eventually back to DOS. PAGE 10 PmCat REGISTRATION Form Version 2.0 Check or money order payable to: William C. Scott 4726 Everhart Rd. Corpus Christi, Tx., 78411 DATE:______________ NAME:______________________________________________ ADDR:______________________________________________ CITY:_______________________________________ STATE:____ZIP:_________ Version # of PmCat you currently have:__________ (date on Title Screen) ID# of current copy of PmCat you have: __________________ Where did you obtain PmCat?______________________________________________ (This helps us to know where to place future versions, first) Full registration: w/commissions ___ @ ($15.00) __________ Simple registration: wo/commissions ___ @ ($10.00) __________ Update of simple to full registration ___ @ ($7.50) __________ (you must have previously registered) Request for list of registered users ___ @ ($3.00) __________ Update to latest version (Previously registered users only) ___ @ ($3.00) __________ (New copy with your ID#) SUB-TOTAL __________ Texas residents add 7.50% Sales Tax __________ ____________________________________________________ TOTAL __________