Tech Multimedia News 4

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Text File | 1993-01-30 | 19.3 KB | 395 lines

File Magician V1.0 Copyright 1993-1994 by Terry Bullard for Windows 3.1 Welcome to File Magician!! First I must tell you a bit about myself and my company, then I'll get to the grit of the program. My name is Terry Bullard and I've been programming on the Amiga computer since 1985. I love creating utilities and have sold many to the different magazines, customed to different software companies, and have just sold out right to distributers. We are just a small company, man and wife, I do the programming and she does all the work. After we had graduated to the PC world it didn't take me long to discover that there were a few things that would make life a good deal easier when dealing with the PC. File Magician is one of the first programs I felt would benefit PC users. After talking with other Amiga users who are also PC users it was voted unanimous that the PC world needs a good file and directory program. Disk Master, Directory Opus, are the heart of the Amiga World. Now that I have joined the ranks of the PC I hope to bring you the best of both worlds, and File Magician is well on its way to that. My main goal in all programs is to make it as user friendly as possible and I do not spare the coding or time to do so. I believe that software is suppose to take the work out of whatever you are doing and should be able to to be used with little or no documentation at all. The interface should be nice and should be straight forward in what it does. I also believe that the customer is right! A lot of places (no names) automatically assume that the customer is a dummy and if the customer did this or the customer did that or the customer bought this etc., I don't! To me it means that I goofed, I should have taken that problem into account within the program. What this all boils down to is that I want to hear from you, I need your input so I can do my best in my programming. Description ~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, enough said on that subject! Now to tell a little about File Magician. File Magician has a similar interface as Disk Master v1.4 for the amiga, if you own a amiga and don't have Disk Master, get it , it is a must have. File Magician has two view windows, one is always the 'Source Window' and one is always the 'Destination' window. Source and Destination can be swapped by clicking the LMB in the window or in the path bar above the window. The clicked area will then become the 'Source' window. The 'Source' window will have a red box around it plus the little toggle bar between the windows at the top of the screen will also point to it. In the center of the screen between the two windows will be a column of push buttons. The first six buttons are for your drive configuations. The program will automatically configure to your current devices. The following buttons will perform the different functions as is explained below. Let me add at this point that File Magician is a shareware program and that it is for evaluation only. Somewhere there had to be a stopping point with File Magician as a evaluation program. File Magician can only grow from this point. I have over 50 planned functions that File Magician will have as time goes on, not counting new ideas that will be generated by time and user input. Basically File Magician has unlimited growth potential! User registation increases that potential many times over. So Just What Is File Magician? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ File Magician is a program that EVERY PC owner must have. If you own a computer, at sometime during your computer lifetime you will Have To make some type of file or directory adjustment to your hard drive or floppy disks. File Magician is designed to be as simplistic as possible in allowing you to manage your files and directories. File Magician is for all levels of users, beginning to advanced. Requirments ~~~~~~~~~~~ A computer Windows 3.1 Be Registered How To Register ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are a couple of ways to register 'File Magician'. First you can send a check or money order for $40.00 US Funds to: Bullard Software 3291 Mt. View Rd. Ferndale, Wa. 98248 OR by Trust Mail. Trust Mail ~~~~~~~~~~ Trust Mail is a term that we invented. Most places insist that first you send them money and then they will send you your requested items. You trust them to do this after you have parted with your money. With trust mail, we will send you our software first and when you receive it, we will trust that you will send us back a check or money order for it. All you need do is to pick up your phone and dial the number supplied below and then register. Don't be surprised if you get just a "Hello" instead of "Hello this is Bullard Software". I have a really hard time being so formal! After you register we will within 24 hours have 'File Magician' on its way to you, first class and postage paid by us. As our company grows with your support we will add additional lines for ordering and support. For now you can order between 5:00 P.M. and 9:00 P.M. Pacific Standard Time. Keep in mind that there is three hours difference between here and the east coast. Also I must keep Trust Mail limited to the USA and Canada. Don't get me wrong for those that don't live there, I must see how this works out first. I do hope you understand. CALL NOW: 1-(206)-384-6740 What You Get ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once you register, we will send you 'File Magician' without the dialog boxes that appear when any item is first clicked. The program will be the lastest update of File Magician. A printed manual that to begin with will be soft bound. With the planned growth of File Magician it is not feasible to have any other type of manual. The cost of re-printing such would be terribly high and unfair to pass this unneccessary cost on to you.. You would be placed on our mailing list and would be notified immediately by mail of future updates of File Magician and any new products we develop. The package will be postage paid by us. Now the Grit ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now if you haven't already loaded File Magician you are one of the select few. Who reads the docs anyhow? (g) I'll try and keep it as brief as possible, but please read below on "what you can do for us". View Windows ~~~~~~~~~~~~ File Magician has two view windows. One is the 'Source' and one is the 'Destination'. The source window will always be the one with the red box around it. The Source and the Destination window can be swapped. To activate a 'Source' window, click in the window itself or click in the path bar above the window. Once a 'Source' window is established the opposite window automatically defaults to the 'Destination' window. Often a directory will have more file and directory listings then the view window can display. Use the scroll gadget to the right of the window to view the additional listings. The bottom scroll gadget is inactive with this release but is there for future compatability. Selection ~~~~~~~~~~ The left mouse button (LMB) is used to select a file or directory. Clicking once will select the listing and the listing will be hilited. Double clicking a directory will instruct the program to enter and display to the view window that directory listing. Double clicking a file listing causes No Action with this release of File Magician. The next release of File Magician will contain a a smart mode file selection. Smart Mode will be one of the main arteries of File Magician! When a file or directory is selected it means that the next command action will be taken on all files and directories selected. Changing to a different directory will de-select automatically all of the previous selections. No action will be taken on any file or directory that has Not been selected. Title Bar ~~~~~~~~~~ The title bar is used as a action display. There the program will show you the current action that is taking place such as, copying, deleting, or moving listings, bytes free on destination and source windows, files selected and total bytes of selected files. Currently there is a 5 second timer after a title information display before it defaults back to a byte free display. This may change to something else, what I'm not sure yet. Keyboard: ~~~~~~~~~ F1 - F1 activates "help mode". When you active help mode you may then click with the LMB on any item that you need help for. A brief help message will appear in the left view window. Help mode will then deactivate itself. If you require more help you must press F1 again. To reset the left view window back to the file listings press F2. This method of help is designed for a 800x600 display. F2 - F2 will re-display the file and directory listings on the left view window. This sometimes becomes necessary when de-compressing files or using the help mode feature. F3 - F3 will re-display the file and directory listings on the right view window. ESC - Will exit the program. Buttons: ********** Drive Buttons: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first six buttons from the top of the screen are reserved for your drive devices. The program will automatically configure to the first six drive names in the list. Clicking the LMB on one of these will display the root contents to the window that is active. The view window will display yellow text as directories and white text as file. To enter a directory double click the name of the directory. Parent: ~~~~~~~ The 'Parent' button will direct the program to reassign the current directory back one directory. For instance, when you double click a directory name the program will display the contents of that directory to the view window, then you click the parent window, the program will re-display the previous directory. This command is completely harmless. The parent button only works on the 'Source' window. All: ~~~~ The 'All' command will select all the files and all the directories that are in the current directory of the 'Source' view window. If a directory has more files and directories then the view can be displayed, those files and directories will also be selected. Clear: ~~~~~~ 'Clear' will de-select any file or directory that has been previously selected. All files and directories outside of the view window will also be de-selected. Copy: ~~~~~ To use the copy function, first select a view window that you wish to become the Destination point. Next go to the opposite window and select the files or directories that you wish to copy. Press the 'Copy' button. Thats it. Copy will copy all files or directories that have been selected to the Destination device (view window). If a directory has been tagged, the program will create and copy all files and directories within the selected directory to the Destination point. This release Does Not have an option to check first to see if there is enough room in the destination area. The next registered release will. You may use the 'Byte Req' button on the Source directory before copying. Rename: ~~~~~~~ To rename a file or directory first select the item then press the 'Rename' button. A dialog box will appear. Enter in the new name excluding the full path, the program keeps track of the location of the listings internally so just the new name will be enough. Select OK. Move: ~~~~~ The move function will move all files and directories that have been selected to the location of the destination area. Moving a selected listing means that basically the file is copied to destination area and then deleted from the source area. So once a listing is moved it will no longer reside in the source area! If a directory is selected, all files and directories that are buried within that selected directory will also be moved. Delete: ~~~~~~~ The 'Delete' button will delete all selected files and directories that have been selected from the 'Source' window. All files and directories that are buried within a selected directory will Also be deleted. With this version of File Magician, when the 'Delete' is first invoked, a dialog box will appear giving you the option of aborting. A later version of the program will allow you to discontinue this option. Read: ~~~~~ The 'Read' function is a seperate program that File Magician calls to read a text file. The reason that I have done this is for future expandability! I can think of a zillion different things that a read program should do and I'm sure that you can too. So for ease of development I'm doing it this way. Currently the read function is set to read text files only. It will read anything but only text files will display properly. The file size of the text file is not important, there isn't a byte limitation. There are three button controls 'PageUp', 'PageDown', and 'Quit', also several keyboard controls are present. F1 = a brief help screen PageUp = up a screen page U = same PageDown = down a screen page Space = same Enter = same D = same ESC = exit read function Q = same For best results read only one file at a time. Multiple selections are possible but uses a lot of extra memory and it starts multiple instances of the read program. Possibly in future versions I might be able to make Windows be a bit more behaved. PkUnzip: ~~~~~~~~ PkUnzip will decompress any .zip file that has been selected in the 'Source' window. The decompressed files will sent to the destination area. The PkUnzip program must reside within an assigned directory, the dos directory for instance. File Magician will call PkUnzip and start a shell for PkUnzip to do its work. After the files have been decompressed press either F2 or F3 to re-evaluate the destination view window. F2 = the left view window and F3 = the right view window. This will display the new contents of the destination window. This is neccessary because of Windows behavior that I'll hopefully be able to fix in the future. If you don't have PkUnzip, you should be able to obtain a copy of it from your local dealer, user group, or BBS. It is a fine program and I strongly recommend that you register it promptly. COMPRESSION Functions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ File Magicians next registered update will have compression functions for Lzh, Arj, and PkZip. It will have functions for compressing and de-compressing files and will have configuration options that you can set within File Magician's Configuration. If you are unsure of how to configure these programs, a default generic configuration will be supplied. Byte Req.: ~~~~~~~~~~ This function will total the bytes of all selected listings. If a directory is selected, all the bytes of all the files that are buried within that selected directory will be totaled and displayed on the title bar at the top of the screen. This function is very handy to use before moving or copying files to another device and just to know how large a directory might be. MakeDir: ~~~~~~~~ 'MakeDir' will create a directory in the location that the 'Source' window is displaying. Push the 'MakeDir' button, a dialog box will appear. Enter in the name of the new directory that you wish to create. Press 'OK' Config: ~~~~~~~ This command will activate the configuration program. With this version of File Magician the configuration program takes no active part in running File Magician. It is only present to show you what configuring File Magician might be like. With the next registered upgrade you will be able to configure different functions of File Magician like the compression utils, Warning boxes, palettes, etc. The configuration program will save a data file that File Magician will read when it starts up. Configuration will only need to be run once if your unsatisfied with the defaults and then again if you desire any changes that you have previously made. Here like the read program this function has been made a seperate program, not only for future expandability but also to save on program size. You can run the configuration program seperately if you wish where you can't with the read program. Run: ~~~~ The 'Run' function will attempt start any program that has been selected. 'Run' works on: .pif , .bat, .exe (dos or windows), .com (dos or windows), files. A little care must be used when using this command, it is not harmful but currently it has no way of checking to see how much memory an external application will use. Good judgement and a knowledge of how much memory your computer has and how fast your computer is makes a large difference with the results of this function. Personally I haven't had too much trouble using a 486(25) with 4 megs of memory and I was actually surprised on just what it would handle. What You Can Do For Us!!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Success of any software program depends on distribution and a good program. We feel that we have a excellent program that everyone needs but getting an evaluation copy of File Magician to everyone is impossible unless we have your help. We need you to upload the evaluation copy of File Magician to any BBS that you might call that doesn't have it already, or to pass out a copy to friends, club groups or anyone that you know that has a PC. Secondly, register now, and get your friends to register now. Registering not only just pays the bills but it gives programmers incentive to create more and better programs at a lower price, it keeps older experienced programmers in the shareware field. Only you can make it happen!! Upload Description: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following description might be a bit much, but sometimes it takes a little to grab people attention (grin). FM.zip - File Magician V1.0 - for Windows 3.1 A Heavy Hitting program that ranks right up there with the runaway hit 'Disk Master' for the Amiga. Full screen with Dual View Windows, too much to list. A must have for all PC Users!! A Excellent File Management Program! Shareware. Ideas ~~~~~ I like nothing better then hearing ideas from people! If you have an idea that you think File Magician should do, write it down either on disk or paper and send it to my address. Its far easier for me to implement something that has a basic guideline that I can refer back to. (In calling voice the concept is lost.) If I use anyones idea, you will be acknowledged in the Documentation for File Magician! But You must be a registered user. Thanks for Taking the Time.. Terry Bullard 3291 Mt. View Rd. Ferndale, Wa. 98248 (206)-384-6740 for ordering