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Almathera Ten Pack 3: CDPD 3
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Almathera Ten on Ten - Disc 3: CDPD3.iso
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scopedisk158
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doctoricon
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filerequester.doc
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1995-03-19
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The file requester used in Doctor Icon was created by Ray Lambert. It
is copyright 1989 by Theta Systems, Inc., Woburn, Massachusetts, and has
been used by permission in Doctor Icon. For more information about the file
requester please contact the author -- information to do so is at the end of
the file: "DoctorIcon.doc"
The file requester allows you to select file names for loading or saving
of disk files. In most respects it is "standard" (relative to the majority
of file requesters which already exist) and generally it is very intuitive.
Some extra capabilities of the file requester include the ability to make
selections at any time while the directory is being read rather than forcing
you to wait until the whole directory is read, and the ability to halt the
reading of the directory by pressing the right mouse button. When the
directory read operation is aborted, only files that have been read up to
that point will be displayed.
The top half of the file requester window contains the display area in
which file names, sub-directory names and physical and logical device names
are listed. To the right of the display area is a proportional gadget which
allows the user to scroll through the display when it contains more entries
than can fit in the display area at once. To select an entry in the display
area simply double-click on it. When a file name is double-clicked, that
file name is selected and returned to the program. When a sub-directory
name is double-clicked, the file requester will move into that sub-directory
and display the files and sub-directories which appear there. When a
logical or physical device name is doubled-clicked, the file requester moves
to the root directory of that device and displays its contents. File name
entries can be identified by the fact that their file size is displayed on
the right side of the display area. Sub-directory entries are identified by
the letters "<DIR>" on the right side of the display area. Device entries
are indentified by the letters "<VOL>" in the same position. In addition,
each entry type, file names, sub-directories and devices, are displayed in a
different color.
Below the display area are three string gadgets which contain, in order,
a wildcard specification used to filter the files that are actually
displayed (see below for a list of valid wildcard characters and
expressions), the current drawer name and the current file name. The
wildcard specification can be modified at any time -- after modification if
you press RETURN the current directory will get re-read and the files
filtered with the new wildcard. Likewise, the current directory string can
also be modified at any time -- after modification if you press RETURN the
new directory will be read in. Also, the current file name can be modified
at any time -- after modification if you press RETURN, the file name you
just entered will be the selected file name and will be returned to the
program just as though you had double-clicked on the name (this allows one
to enter a file name which does not exist yet). If you hold the SHIFT key
while pressing RETURN when the cursor is in any of these string gadgets, the
cursor will be advanced to the next logical field without any other action
taking place.
Below the three string gadgets are five buttons labeled, in order,
"Parent", "Volumes", "Re-Read", "Accept" and "Cancel". These perform the
following functions:
* "Parent": Reads the parent directory of the current directory if
there is one. If there is no parent directory (already in the root
directory) this button will be deactivated.
* "Volumes": Clicking on this gadget causes a list of logical and
physical devices and volumes to be added onto the end of the currently
displayed file list. The display will also be repositioned to show the
topmost volume in the list. Once the volume list has been added to the
display window, the "Volumes" button will become disabled (unselectable)
until you either re-read the current directory or until you read a new
directory, thus preventing more than one volume list from being added to the
file list.
* "Re-Read": Forces the file requester to re-read and re-display the
current directory.
* "Accept": Instructs the file requester that the file name which is
currently displayed in the "File:" string gadget and the directory which is
displayed in the "Drawer:" string gadget are acceptable and should be
returned to the program.
* "Cancel": Instructs the file requester that you wish to cancel this
file operation.
Wilcard Specifications
The "Mask:" string gadget in the file requester allows you to enter
wildcards which are used to filter the files that are displayed, thereby
narrowing the contents of the file list to a specific type of file. The
following wildcards are recognized:
? - matches one of any character
#x - matches one or more occurances of "x", which can be
any valid character
* - matches any number of any characters
#? - a special case of "#x" which works the same as "*"
In addition, the file requester recognizes two additional special
characters. Both _must_ appear as the first character of an individual
wildcard or they will not be recognized.
The first special character is the tilde character ("~"). This special
character instructs the file requester to display all files except the ones
which match the following wildcards. For example, "*.doc" would tell the
file requester to display all files ending in ".doc". In contrast, "~*.doc"
tells it to display all files which _do_not_ end in ".doc".
The second special character is the ampersand ("&"). This character is
used to combine multiple cooperating wildcard specifications. For example,
if you wanted to see all ".doc" files as well as all ".txt" files you could
use the following wildcard specification: "*.doc&*.txt". You may think of
this as "all .doc files AND all .txt files". Note that this character
should only appear between valid wildcards and not before the first or after
the last.
When the ampersand operator ("&") is used to combine an _inclusive_
wildcard, such as "*.doc", and an _exclusive_ wildcard such as "~foo*", care
must be taken to avoid specifying a wildcard which cancels-out files that
you want displayed.