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DOS MASTER version 1.20 by Michael Abley Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Software and manual Copyright (c) 1990, 1991 by Michael Abley All rights reserved. No portion of this software or manual may be duplicated in any manner without the written permission of Michael Abley Release 1.004 Disclaimer of Warranty: Michael Abley makes no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, with regard to the programs or the documentation contained in this manual. Information in this manual is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of the vendor. INTRODUCTION A. Philosophy Welcome to the shareware version of DOS MASTER! You may be asking why you need yet ANOTHER file/disk manager program to clutter up your hard disk. The answer is quite simple: most of the existing packages either try to do too much, too little or are too expensive. This program was originally written because I found that 90 percent of the DOS housekeeping chores that I do are the simple procedures of copying, deleting, moving, comparing, and editing. Eighty percent of THOSE chores are just copying selected files and deleting. Unfortunately, it seems that most commercial packages feel that you should be bombarded with endless pull-down menus and pop-up screens that can often make the simple matter of copying a few files from one directory to another a challenge to the user. My basic philosophy is KEEP IT SIMPLE!, but with enough extras available to extend the usefulness of the basic utilities. The program can be 'navigated' by either keyboard or mouse. I have tried to make the operations of the program as intuitive as possible and to keep with some of the current 'conventional' key assignments for DOS programs. eg. F10 is usually Quit with many programs as is F1 for Help. B. Features of DM - split-screen, detailed and scrollable listings of all files and directories - full mouse support with easy 'point and shoot' navigation of directories and drives - copy, move, delete files including read-only, hidden and system files with two key strokes. - built in text editor with full mouse and block highlighting support + print utility.(print utility in REGISTERED VERSION ONLY) - view/browse text files with built in text search - rename directories and files - erase directories - four types of sorting of directories/drives - ability to shell out and run other programs or quit and run a selected program - will compare any two directories/disks and highlight which files are different or are the most recent. - find a file anywhere on current drive (similar to WHEREIS) - find any text in current directory - constant display of the room left on the current drive and the total size of any selected files. - command line controls, including a direct-to-editor function - help screen - runs on CGA, EGA, VGA systems new: - graphic tree display of your disk drive with easy directory navigation. - archiving utility to let you easyily PKWARE'S PKZip utility to compress, decompress or view ZIPPED files. (REGISTERED VERSION ONLY) C. Hardware requirements DOS MASTER will work on any system with 512K (640K preferred for when you are using the SHELL functions) and any color adapter. i.e. CGA, EGA, VGA. As of this version, DM does NOT support the Hercules board. The program is fully mouse supported including the Editor, but a mouse is NOT required. Personally, I find the mouse handy, especially with file selection and block highlighting in the Editor. A color monitor and hard drive is not required, but I do recommend them. I also recommend you use DOS version 3.2 or higher (until DOS 5.0 comes out, I think ver. 3.3 is best). D. Installation There's no complicated installation procedure for this program. I recommend setting up DOS MASTER in a subdirectory called simply 'DM'. Copy the program, help files and documentation to this subdirectory and then add DM to your PATH command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file (hey, why not use the editor in DM to do this?). This way, anytime you want to use DOS MASTER, all you have to do is type DM. Here's how I would install DM on a hard drive C from the A floppy drive. Type the following and hit Enter after each line: C: CD\ MD DM CD\DM COPY A:*.* To change your path command, enter DM and edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. i.e: DM /E C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT (use command line to go straight to the DM editor) now edit the path line in the file so that DM is near the front: eg. PATH=C:\DOS;C:\DM;C:\UTILITY;C:\WINDOWS;etc Please note that you may put the .EXE file and the two .HLP files that make up DM anywhere on your drive and once DM is in your path it can be launched from any directory, BUT all three files must remain together, otherwise DM will not be able to find its help files when you need them. 2. "NAVIGATION" A. The Main Screen description: When you first start DOS MASTER, you will see the Main Operational Screen which consists of the following four components: 1. the screen split down the middle with two identical lists of the contents of the directory or drive in which you started the program. The path of the directory is centered at the top of each list, and a grey (color monitors) highlight bar appears at the top of the left hand list. All files are listed in each directory along with each file's size, date and time of creation. If the file is read-only, hidden or a system file, there will be a small shaded square with a 'hole' in it next to the file name. 2. The third line from the bottom shows the disk space left on the current drive (middle screen) and if you start selecting any files (see below on how to do this), below each list will appear information on how many files you've picked and their total size in K bytes. 3. The second line from the bottom is the file specification line. This line is used to let you choose what files are to be displayed in each list. eg. if you just wanted the list to show all the files on the C drive in sub-directory PROGS with the ".EXE" extension, you would edit the file specification for that list to display "C:\PROGS\*.EXE". This line can be accessed at any time by holding down the Alt key and pressing E. Also note that there appears on this line on the far right hand side "Tag special= off". This part of the screen is to tell you whether file attribute detection is turned on/off i.e. this signals whether 'special' files like hidden, read-only or system files will be 'tagged' to indicate that these files are different ('Tag special= on' places a small square next to the file name in the menu). This feature can be turned on or off and is explained in more detail under item 12 of Additional Utilities (page 18). 4. The screen's bottom line contains the function key definitions. B. Moving around: For mouse users, in most cases, the left button is used to choose something (instead of arrow keys) and the right button acts the same as pressing Enter. To SWITCH from left to right directories (or vice-versa) -mouse: single click left or right button on menu you wish to use -keyboard: use TAB key OR left/right cursor keys To move the HIGHLIGHT bar down the list of files, use - the up/down arrow keys - place mouse cursor over file name and click down with the left mouse button. - Press the FIRST LETTER of the file/directory you want to go to in the list. The HOME key sends the highlight bar to the top of the list (the 2 dots if you are not in the root directory); END key moves the bar to the end of the file list. If there are more files than will fit on the screen, a scroll bar will appear on the right of the list. For mouse users, by holding down the left button and dragging the square icon in the scroll bar the list will scroll vertically. PgUp/PgDn will move the list of files up one screen or down. - Changing directories: To move DOWN into a directory, move the highlight bar to the directory you want to 'open' or look at (recognized by the conspicuous '{-SUB-DIR-}' phrase to the right of the listed name) and do any of the following: press space bar press Enter single click the RIGHT mouse button (this is the best method, in my opinion ) or double click the left mouse button (slowly) To move UP into a directory, move the highlight bar to the two dots at the top of the menu, and do any of the above four actions. Unless you are in the root directory of the current drive, you will always see the two dots at the top of the file list. -Selecting files: To select a file (yellow highlight on color monitor) for copying, deleting, editing, etc. do any of the following: press space bar press Enter single click the RIGHT mouse button To select all the files in a directory: hold down Alt key and press S ('S'elect all) hold down right mouse button and drag slowly To select some of the files in a directory: hold down the right mouse button and drag slowly over the files you want and/or use Enter or Spacebar to make selections To deselect files: same keys and mouse action as selecting To deselect all the files in a directory: hold down Alt key and press D ('D'select) drag with right mouse. -Using input boxes (using): Whenever you are asked to supply a file name, directory name, etc., an input box appears on the screen, usually with two 'buttons' below it marked OK and CANCEL. When you are entering a new word or over typing something, remember that the input line can be edited with a number of keys. The Home key will go to the start of the line, the End key to the End. Arrow keys will move over any existing text without erasing it. The Backspace key will erase. When you are finished inputting, hit Enter to accept the default OK or use the mouse to click on OK. Note that at any time if you wish to cancel the procedure, you can do any of the following: -use tab key to move to CANCEL, then hit Enter -click mouse on CANCEL -press Escape 3. FUNCTION KEYS A. Summary of function key assignments F1 = Displays a HELP screen listing function key assignments and menu options F2 = COPIES files that have been selected or the single file that the cursor is currently on. F3 = MOVE files. i.e. First copy the file to its new destination and then erase it from its old destination. F4 = EDIT a selected ASCII text file (or, if nothing is selected, the current file that the cursor is on) F5 = VIEW any file, even executable files. F6 = SORT the directories by name, size, extension or date F7 = COMPARES the two directories or disks and highlights the different files. F8 = DELETE files or a directory (directory must be empty) F9 = displays a menu of additional utilities. F10 = Quits the program, when you're at the main operational level of DM B. Details of function keys: F1 Help: Shows the help screen. Pressing any key will return you to the main directory displays. F2 Copy file(s): To copy a single file: -Place the highlight bar on the file you wish to copy and SELECT the file with either the mouse(right button), or by hitting Enter or the Spacebar. Actually, it is not even necessary to SELECT when you are only copying ONE file. Just placing the highlight bar on the file in question is good enough to proceed. To copy multiple files: First select the files you want to copy by following the procedure discussed in SELECTING FILES. - Make sure that the other half of the screen shows the destination that you wish to copy the file(s) to. (See the above Navigational Aids section if you need help in doing this). - Press the F2 key or left click with the mouse on the F2 key designation at the bottom of the screen. - A pop-up box appears. If there are no changes to the path, hit Enter or click on OK. The file is copied. To change your mind, press Escape, click on Cancel with mouse or use tab key to move highlight to CANCEL and hit Enter. - If the file already exists on the destination drive, a warning box will appear. Three choices are presented. You can: 1. OVERWRITE ALL(DEFAULT): This overwrites the existing file and, if you are copying more than one file, overwrites any future files that the program may find also existing on the destination drive. 2. OVERWRITE FILE: Overwrite the existing file and, if you are copying more than one file, continue to warn you if it encounters any more files existing on the destination drive. 3. CANCEL: Cancel copying that file. Since option 1 (overwrite all) is the default, just hit Enter for this. To access the other two options, either hit the tab key and Enter, or click with the mouse on one of the other two option buttons. F3 Move file(s): Use exactly the same procedure as when copying. The only difference between this and COPYING is that the file is erased from the source directory after copying. F4 Edit a file: Move the grey highlight bar to the file you wish to EDIT and press F4. If the file is too large to fit in memory, a message will flash up. --Using the Editor All of the standard editing keys are supported. For example, Home and End move to the beginning and end of the line, the PgUp and PgDn keys scroll the screen by pages, and Ctrl-PgUp and Ctrl-PgDn move to the first and last lines of the file respectively. The cursor may also be moved to the top or bottom of the edit window with the Ctrl-Home and Ctrl-End keys. DM uses the Ctrl-Left and Ctrl-Right arrow keys to move the cursor by words, and blocks are marked with any of the Shift-Cursor keys. Notice that blocks may also be marked using a combination of the Shift AND Ctrl arrows to jump by whole words. Beyond the usual block operations, however, DM'S Editor also supports block operations on COLUMNS. To mark a block in sentence mode, place the cursor at the beginning of the block and press the Shift-Right arrow key. The marked block will be highlighted as the cursor travels over the text. Alternately, entire lines may be marked by placing the cursor at the desired starting point and pressing the Shift- Down arrow key. To mark a column, place the cursor at the upper left corner of the block and press the Shift-Right arrow key until the highlight extends to the desired right edge. Then, press Shift-Down until the bottom of the block has been reached. Regardless of which marking mode is used, the block will be captured to a 'clipboard' as soon as any non-marking key has been pressed. If either Del or Shift-Del is pressed, the block will first be captured and then deleted. To paste the block from the clipboard into the text at the current cursor location, simply press Shift-Ins. Naturally, the mouse is fully supported in the Editor and I believe its use is quite intuitive. Press and hold down the left mouse button to highlight text for deletion or copying. To highlight a column, press and hold the left button, drag it right as far as you want the column width to extend and then drag down. Let go when you have highlighted the text you want. The scroll bar on the right can be used with the mouse by clicking and holding the left mouse button on the top 'up' arrow or bottom 'down' arrow. You can also click and hold on the position square located in the scroll bar and drag it to where you want to be in the document. The same idea applies to the bottom scroll bar. This is fairly standard for most DOS text scrolling applications. - Function keys in the Editor HELP (F1): The editor has its own help screen which will appear full screen when you press F1. SAVE FILE (F3): To save a file, press F3 and input a new file name or use the old one. If you are going to over-write a previous file, you will be warned. PRINT FILE (F7): This feature in only in your registered version. To print the file at any stage of editing, press F7. A pop-up box will appear. This box supports the Tab key or the mouse. Each time the Tab key is pressed, the cursor moves from one field to the next, ie. from Normal-Condensed-OK-CANCEL-Normal-Condensed...etc. If you use the mouse, to change the option of condensed or normal printing, click on the area between the brackets for the option you're interested in. Notice that the default size is normal printing with OK highlighted, so if you want the default normal size text, just turn on your Epson compatible dot-matrix printer, position the paper and hit Enter; the file will be printed. For condensed print: - use the mouse to click on the spot between the <> to select the feature, then hit Enter or click on OK. - or tab once, to change the option, and hit Enter. To cancel the option box and return to editing: - tab the white/black highlight to CANCEL field and press Enter. - or mouse click on CANCEL. - or hit Escape. Additional notes on printing: - if the printer is off or offline, you will be warned. - as of this version, you cannot cancel printing once printing has begun. QUIT TO MAIN DM SCREEN (F10): If you have made no changes in the file or have just finished saving the file, pressing F10 will immediately close the Edit window and return you to DM's main screen. If you haven't saved prior to hitting F10, a pop-up box will appear giving you the chance to save the file before quitting. Use the mouse or tab key to make your selection. The default is to quit without saving, which is what happens if you just press F10 then Enter. NOTE: Choosing the Save before quitting option and hitting OK or Enter will overwrite the existing file and quit the Editor. You don't get a second chance to change the file name. Use F3 to do that first. Editor notes: Currently, you can add up to 500 lines of extra text to any existing file. If you try to load a file that is too big, you will receive a pleasant message. Don't panic. F5 View a file: Move the grey highlight bar to the file you wish to VIEW and press F5. --Using View View lets you scan through any file up to 16,000 lines long (which is a pretty big file when you think about it), very much like a browse utility. Page-up, page-down and the arrow keys are supported. Please note that the mouse is not supported in view. (Hey, small sacrifice for looking at big files). The scroll bars on the right and bottom are only to show you where you are in the file, so don't try dragging on the scroll bars with the mouse. If the file you are viewing does not have 80 column line breaks, you can use the right arrow key to see the rest of the text. Press Control - left arrow to return to the true left margin. The Home key moves you to the beginning of the file (NOT the first letter at the top of the screen) and the End key moves you to the last page of the file. The up/down arrow keys move the screen line by line while the PgUp and PgDn keys will move you through the file one screen at a time. I've thrown in a text search feature in View. Press F3 and you will be prompted for text to search for in the file you are viewing. If viewing a large file, be patient. Once it finds the text, if you wish to look for the next occurrence of the text string, just press F3 <Enter> again. It is important to realize that in order to avoid running out of memory when handling large files, View reads only small bits of the file as you page up or down. It doesn't read the whole file into memory in one large chunk as does the Editor. So don't be surprised that using the PgUp or PgDn keys seem slower than when using the Editor. This is why View will often let you look at files that are too large to be read for Editing. F6 Sorting directory contents: Pressing F6 will bring up a menu listing four possibilities you can choose by: -double clicking with the left mouse on your selection -single clicking with the right mouse -moving up/down with cursor keys to the desired selection and hitting Enter -moving to the selection by pressing the appropriate NUMBER of that selection and hitting Enter Note that any of the four sorting methods can be activated by the hot keys listed below. It is NOT necessary to use F6 to pull up the menu to sort if the hot keys are used. In summary, the sorting keys are: sort by: press NAME Ctrl -N EXTENSION Ctrl -X SIZE Ctrl -Z DATE Ctrl -A The default sort is by Name. All of the Sorts are carried out in ASCENDING order. Details: a) Sort by NAME: files are listed alphabetically by their first letter. This is how files are always listed when you first start DM without any command line parameters. b) Sort by EXTENSION: files are listed in alphabetical order by their three letter extension; useful for seeing all the .DOC files together in the directory. c) Sort by SIZE: files are listed in order of increasing size, smallest at the top. d) Sort by DATE: files are listed in order of their date of creation, the oldest file being at the top, newest at the bottom. If two files have the same date, they are sorted by their TIME of creation, the most recent being at the bottom. This sort really simplifies seeing which are your latest files. Note: If you have first selected files for moving, copying, etc. and then choose to sort, the selections are de-selected and ignored. Always call the sort utility FIRST before doing any comparing, copying, moving or deleting. F7 Comparing two directories/disks: This will compare the two directories or disks that are currently displayed and highlights those files that are not present in one or the other directory/disk AND if file names are the same, will compare the file dates/times and highlights which ever is the most recent file. After using F7, the selected files can then be copied, moved or deleted. This feature is very useful for updating files on a floppy after working from a hard drive. F8 Delete file(s): As with copy or move, begin by SELECTING the file or files you wish to delete. Press F8. You will be warned of the number of files you're about to erase, or the name of the file if it is only one file to be deleted. If you change your mind, you can do any of the following: - Press Escape - click on CANCEL with the mouse - tab to CANCEL and hit Enter If you try to delete Read only, Hidden or System files, a second warning will appear. HEED THIS WARNING! DOS MASTER will quite happily erase ANY file you tell it to. F9 Additional utility menu: Pressing F9 will show the menu for the additional utilities provided with DOS MASTER and explained below. If you don't want to take any action, hit Escape or click with the mouse on any area outside the menu box. F10 Quit: It's always easy to get out of DM. To quit the program, just press F10 or click on the 'F10=Quit' key at the screen bottom. 4. ADDITIONAL UTILITIES The following extra options/utilities can be accessed either by mouse or keyboard. If using the mouse, click on 'F9=menu' option at the bottom of the screen. The additional utility menu will then pop-up and you make your choice by doing any of the following: -left button double clicking on the menu item -right button single click -pressing the FIRST LETTER of the menu item, then Enter -using the UP/DOWN arrow keys and then Enter To cancel this menu with no action taken, press Escape, or click anywhere off the menu. If the menu selection process is too slow for you, or you don't have a mouse (shame on you!), each utility has a two key shortcut (hot-key) sequence and is described below. eg. Alt F pulls up the routine for file searching. Please note that this won't work if you've already pulled up the menu; you either go the menu route or use the Ctrl/Alt shortcut key route. A. Summary of additional utility command keys: 1. Alt S Select all the files in a directory. 2. Alt D Deselect all the files in a directory. 3. Ctrl F Rename a selected file. 4. Alt F Search for a file anywhere on a drive. 5. Alt T Search for Text in a directory. 6. Alt M Make a new directory. 7. Ctrl D Rename a directory. 8. Ctrl C Enter text into the DOS command line and execute. 9. Alt L shell to DOS + execute any DOS commands or programs. 10. Alt P Shell to DOS and run a selected program. 11. Alt Q Quit DM and Run a selected program. 12. Alt E Edit the file specification line. 13. Alt A Turn on/off "tagging" of Hidden, Read- Only, or System files. 14. Alt G Graphic directory tree display. 15. Alt F5 View with split screen scrolling of files B. Details of additional utilities: --------------------------------------- 1. Select all the files in a directory; (Alt-S): Hold down the Alt key and press S. All files in the current directory will be selected (on a color monitor they will appear yellow on blue.) 2. Deselect all the files in a directory; (Alt-D): Hold down the Alt key and press D. All previously selected files in the current directory will be de- selected (on a color monitor they will return to white on blue from yellow on blue). 3. Rename a file (Ctrl-F): Move the highlight bar to the file in question and hold down Ctrl and press F. An input box will ask you for the new file name. Type the new name and press Enter. 4. Search for a file on a drive (Alt-F): Hold down the Alt key and press F. You will then be prompted to enter the file name that you want to find. You can enter wild card values. eg. to look for all files with .exe extension in d drive, just type D:\*.exe You can pause the program while searching by pressing the spacebar key. F10 quits and puts you back to the main program. When the program finds a file fitting your specifications, it will list the following: directory where found file name, size, date, time, attribute (Note: the attribute is only shown if the file is hidden, a read-only or a system file. I didn't think you would care to see if it was archive or not). If more files are found than fit on the screen, the program will pause and wait for you to hit either Enter to keep searching, or F10 to quit. It will search up to 10 nested directories deep, which is probably overkill since few of us create file hierarchies that go deeper than 4 levels of sub- directories. Do we ? When finished, the program lists how many files were found matching the specification. 5. Search for text in a directory; (Alt-T): Hold down the Alt key and press T. You will then be prompted to enter the text you wish to look for on the current drive. The program will then search through every file in the directory for the text. 6. Make a new directory (Alt-M): Hold down the Alt key and press M. An input box will ask you for the name of the new directory. Type in the name and press Enter or use Tab key (or mouse) to Cancel. Remember that the rules for new directory names are the same as for DOS file names. i.e. up to and including eight letters followed by a 3 letter extension. Extensions are not usually used in directory names as it means more typing when switching directories from the command line, so I advise against it unless you have good reason. After you have created the new directory, the corresponding directory list will be redisplayed showing your new sub-directory in its correct place according to the sort method you have chosen. 7. Rename a directory (Ctrl-D): First place the highlight bar on the subdirectory you wish to rename. Now hold down the Ctrl key and press D. An input box will appear with the name of the directory you have chosen to change. Just type over top and hit Enter or mouse click on OK. Remember that the highlight bar must first be on a directory to change it; nothing happens if you hit Ctrl-D while the highlight bar is on a file. 8. Enter text into the DOS command line and run a program (Ctrl-C): Pressing Ctrl C will pull up an input box so that you can enter a full line of text and shell out and run a program with any necessary parameters. This is the same as if you were not in DM and were just entering commands on the DOS command line. eg. after Ctrl-C, you could type: MYPROG /S /COLOR /MUSIC /FULLSCRN /WHOABABY /FILENAME and then press < enter > to run your favorite program MYPROG (if it had all these odd parameters!), with the settings you need. Of course, unless MYPROG was in your PATH, the program would be run from the directory you were in before you hit Ctrl-C. Once MYPROG was finished, you would be returned to DM automatically. If you wish to do several things in DOS but want DM to stay memory resident, use the following utility: 9. Shell to DOS and execute DOS commands (Alt L): Hitting Alt-L or the F9 menu item 9, activates this command which will temporarily 'shell out' of DM to DOS where you can then do anything you normally do in DOS. Remember that DM is still memory resident. Note the message at the top screen after shelling out that tells you the amount of memory left. To re-enter DM, type EXIT <Enter>. The difference between this utility and number 8, is that you stay in the DOS command line world for as long as you want, perhaps doing SEVERAL different things and you must type EXIT to return to DM. In the previous option 8, you run ONE program and are immediately returned to DM at the conclusion of that program, (See above). 10. Shell to DOS and run the selected program (Alt-P): The difference between this option and OPTION 8, is that DOS MASTER immediately runs the program you have selected FROM EITHER SCREEN MENU. You cannot enter any extra parameters as in the above option 8. This makes this utility less powerful, but the fastest of the 3 utilities. Press Alt and then P to 'shell out' to DOS and load and run the program you've chosen with the highlight bar. When you quit the program, you will be returned to DM. Obviously this limits the size of the program you can run, but if you run out of memory by trying to load something too big, DM will tell you and just re-display its directories with no harm done. 11. Quit DM and run a selected program (Alt-Q): Place the highlight bar on the program or batch file you wish to run (usually .EXE, .COM, or .BAT) and holding down the Alt key press Q. DOS MASTER will quit, thereby freeing up memory, and then run the program selected. 12. Edit the file specification line (Alt-E): Pressing Alt-E will let you edit the file specification line that is always displayed on the second line from the screen bottom. A faster method is to click with the mouse on the line to begin editing it. The default file specification is the current path plus '*.*' so that all files are shown. This file spec. is the same as the title displayed at the top of the CURRENT directory your highlight bar is on. Why would you want to bother changing the file specification, you ask ? For example, if for some reason you wanted to display only the files with a '.EXE' extension in the current directory for instance, this is how you could do it: Keyboard: Press Alt-E, then the End key (which will go to the end of the file spec. line) then backspace over the default '*.*' so that it reads '*.EXE'. Press Enter and voila'! Now the current directory will only show files with the .EXE extension. Mouse: You also could use the mouse by clicking on the line at the approximate point you want to edit or moving the cursor to wherever you wanted on the edit line with the mouse and typing the change. You may be interested to know that changing the file specification line is the only way to enter a HIDDEN subdirectory when you are working inside DOS MASTER (i.e. a hidden directory is one that has been given a hidden attribute by some other more nefarious DOS utility!). To open a subdirectory that's been made hidden, press Alt-E, and edit the file spec. line so that it contains the full path of the directory in question. Of course, the catch is that you must know the name of the hidden directory first. eg. if VITALDATA is the directory in C drive that is normally hidden when you do a DIR from DOS, and you wish to view the files in VITALDATA, you would edit the file spec. line to read: C:\VITALDATA\*.* and press Enter. (Of course, you can always change to the hidden directory by using the DOS CD\ command before starting DM if you wish). NOTE: As of this version, you cannot copy files into a hidden directory. 13. Turn on/off "tagging" of Hidden, Read- Only, or System files (Alt-A): Pressing Alt-A toggles this feature either on or off. This option is to enable you to turn on or off the function that allows ability to see at a glance which files in a directory are "special". i.e. whether any have the hidden, read-only, or system file attributes. Read your DOS manual if you are unsure what these attributes mean. If tagging is turned ON, when a file is read-only, hidden or a system file, you will see displayed in the directory list a small shaded square with a 'hole' in it next to the file name. The status of tagging (whether on or off) is always displayed on the main screen at the end of the file specification line as "Tag special= ON" or "Tag special= OFF". The default setting when you first start DM is for tagging to be OFF. Why would you ever want to turn off the ability to see which files are "special" ? Because the program has to check each file for its attribute with tagging on, turning off tagging can greatly increase the speed at which large directories ( > 200 files) are read on slower machines with sluggish hard drives. If you're not worried about seeing whether the file has a read- only or hidden attribute, I recommend leaving this setting off. 14. Graphic directory tree display (Alt G): Description of: This option will let you look at your entire drive in the form of a branching system that develops from left to right. By using the arrow keys you can navigate around the "tree" and at a glance see the layout of your whole drive and quickly go to any particular subdirectory you want. By hitting Enter on a dirctory, you are returned to the main program and located in the directory you chose in the tree. Details: After selecting this utility, you will be asked if you want to re-scan the drive. The first time you use this utility, the drive is scanned and the tree is saved in a file called DMTREE.DIR on your root directory. This is so that the next time you want to look at your directory tree, the program doesn't have to search through and anyalyze the whole directory structure each time. The next time you want to see the tree, the program just has to read this file. If you have erase/renamed or added a subdirectory since the tree was last scanned, you should tell the program to re- scan your drive. I have made re-scanning the default because I personally am often changing directories and erasing. If you haven't made any changes since last scanned, just hit the tab key or click on "Don't scan". [Remember when you re-scan to make sure you have enough room on your drive to contain the DMTREE.DIR file.(usually < 10K)] Navigation of the Directory tree: Your numeric keypad/arrow keys can be used to move around the tree. They operate pretty much as you'd expect: KEY ACTION Home Moves to top of tree (usually the root directory). End Moves to bottom (last directory) of tree. PgUp Moves 1 screen up in the tree. PgDn Moves 1 screen down in the tree. up arrow Moves to the dir. just above that is in the same column (on the screen) as the current directory. If there is no dir. immediately above, the highlight will jump to the top of the tree, which is the root directory. down arrow Moves to the dir. just below that is in the same column as the current directory. If there is no dir. immediately below, the highlight will jump to the last dir. in the tree. left arrow Moves to the immediate left of the current directory. If a dir. doesn't exist to the left, then it goes to the dir. directly above and to the far right. right arrow Moves to the immediate right of the current directory. If a dir. doesn't exist to the right then it goes to the dir. directly below and to the far left. Enter Quits the tree and puts you back in the main program in the directory that the highlight was located on when you left the tree. F10 / Esc Quits the tree and puts you back in the main program in the same directory that you where in before running the tree utility. 15. View with split screen scrolling of files (Alt-F5) This feature has been added to enhance viewing files. Now you can view your file on one side of the screen while scrolling through the file menu on the other. As you scroll down the list of files, the corresponding file will appear in the view window next to the menu. This feature is very useful for quickly scanning through several batch files or taking a quick peek at some of your word processing documents. To access this 1/2 screen mode, you first place the grey highlight bar on (either the left or right menu) the file you wish to initially view in the directory of your choice. Now you can view in 1/2 screen by doing any of the following: 1. Hold down the Alt key and press F5 or 2. View the file as before (hit F5) then press F5 again, or 3. Press F9 to bring up the Additional Utility Menu -- press V to go to the "View file 1/2 screen.." menu item, then press Enter (or use the mouse for all this, of course). When in 1/2 screen mode, you can move the highlight bar down the list of files and as you do so, the View window will display the file. To scroll the view window and see more of the file, move to the view window. Do this by pressing either the tab, or left/right arrow keys, or click the mouse on the View window. You can then use the mouse or normal View window keys to look at your file i.e up/down/left/right PgUp, PgDn, Home, End; even the search function is active. F5 will expand to full screen. F10 will quit the view/scroll mode completely. Note that in the View window you can use the mouse to click on the small arrows you see at the left and right of the scroll bar on the bottom of the window, or click on the arrows on the top and bottom of the right edge vertical scroll bar of the View window. Also note that the red highlight bar on the top screen line switches from the View window to the file menu, depending on whether you are moving around in the View window or the file menu list. 16. Access the Archiving utility (Ctrl-S): This utility can only be used if you have a registered version of DOS MASTER., as well as PKWare Inc.'s two programs PKZIP and PKUNZIP. (PKZIP and PKUNZIP programs are available as shareware through numerous bulletin boards and shareware distribution companies). 5. COMMAND LINE OPTIONS The following command switches are typed after the DM word at the DOS command line. It doesn't matter if you type it in upper or lower case. Please note that these switches are strictly optional, since all of these features can be selected from within the program. ? or HELP = displays command line options eg. DM ? /E FILENAME = puts you immediately into edit mode on the file you have typed. eg. DM /E C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT /X = display the directories sorted in alphabetical order of their EXTENSIONS eg. DM /X /Z = display the directories sorted in ascending order by their SIZE. /D = display the directories sorted in ascending order by their creation DATE /N = display the directories sorted in alphabetical order of their base NAMES (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ The following switches are only available in the registered version of DM: /S FILENAME = search for FILENAME on existing drive eg. DM /S LETTERS.DOC -this will find the file LETTERS.DOC anywhere on the current drive. /F FILE SPECIFICATION = preload the file specification when displaying the initial directories. eg. DM /F C:\*.EXE --will show all executable files 6. OTHER NOTES A. Problems, notes and other ramblings: I've never seen a program that didn't have some bugs and no doubt this one is no exception. I would appreciate being informed of any problems you might find. The program was originally written for color EGA/VGA and as of this version, I have not designed it to handle Hercules systems. It can be used on a CGA system, but it doesn't look as good. Maybe next on the list ? Naturally, there should be no problem running it from a PC, XT, 386 or 486, or from a floppy drive. While the program will show hidden files, I have not designed it to show hidden directories. Some things are just meant to be kept from prying eyes... A user encountered a bizarre problem in which the computer would lock up when entering a specific directory. After much effort I found the problem to be that one of the files was date 7-17-69. Don't ask me how her file got dated 1969, but it appears any date less than 1980 will cause problems. The solution to the lock-up would require a lot of extra code so, considering that its pretty unlikely you'll ever have this problem, I didn't bother to correct this bizarre bug. If it affects you, let me know. Maybe next version. Hints and suggestions: -I've found the fastest way to move up or down from directories is with single clicking the RIGHT mouse button on the directory name, rather than double clicking the left button or using the Enter key. -The quickest way to move to a file or subdirectory in a directory with many files/subdirectories is by pressing the FIRST LETTER of the file/subdirectory in question. I like this feature and it seems few shell programs have it. -Don't forget that to select all files in a subdirectory for copying/deletion/moving, use the Alt-S key combination; you don't need to drag the mouse through all the files. -moving from one side of the screen to the other can be done quickly with the left/right arrow keys or tab key. -Keep file attribute detection off (TAG SPECIAL= OFF) for greater speed in reading large directories. -Use the graphic tree display to get an overall view of your drive and move to a buried directory quickly. B. Acknowledgments Special thanks to my dear wife Doris for her patience and kind support through the long hours of development. Additional thanks to Connie Kohut for her help in testing and suggestions for improvement. C. Legal stuff 1. No liability for consequential damages Under no circumstances shall the author of this software be liable for any incidental or consequential damages that may arise from the use or inability to use this software. The Department of Soil Science and the University of Alberta is in NO WAY affiliated with this software or documentation. The appearance of their name in this package has been generously consented to ONLY for the purposes of a fixed mailing address. 2. Distribution The shareware version of this program can be freely distributed and I encourage you to do so, as long as the DM.DOC documentation file and help files are included. Registered users cannot distribute the program and are licensed to use DOS MASTER on a SINGLE computer only. (i.e with a single CPU at a single location). See enclosed license agreement that comes with your registered copy. D. REGISTERING DOS MASTER: Remember, the version you have is SHAREWARE ONLY! Shareware works on the try before you buy basis. Unlike the commercial software vendors who want you to fork out $400 before you can even crack the box open, I am giving you the program to try with no obligation if you don't like it. But this software is NOT FREE. I am trusting you in that once you have tried DM and continue to use it for a certain period (within 30 days) you will buy it. Buy your supporting me in this, I will continue to improve the program and add more features that people want. The fee is a modest $25 in Canadian funds (sorry, cheque or money order only, no VISA) which includes a beautifully printed manual, eligibility for upgrades, technical help, more features such as the great archiving utility, printer support in the editor, more command line options) etc. Inexpensive site licenses for government, institutions, or corporations are available. Please contact me for more information, but above all, please register. My mailing address is: Michael Abley c/o Dept. of Soil Science University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E3 fax: (403) 492-1767 Author's phone: (voice) (403) 483-1702 -after six p.m. I also encourage comments, suggestions or criticisms of this software program, so please feel free to write or fax me. E. Updates Version 1.08 - addition of Command line utility - bug fix in text search - moving/copying: if target disk is full, remaining files no longer de-selected. Version 1.10 - addition of Archive utility - addition of Graphic tree utility displaying directories on the current drive. - bug fix in the sort. Version 1.20 - addition of View utility with split screen scrolling of files - mouse support added to View utility Happy computing. Thank You! REGISTRATION FORM NAME:________________________________________________ ADDRESS:____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ CITY_______________________________ PROVINCE/STATE____________________ COUNTRY___________________________ ZIPCODE/POSTAL CODE_______________________________ COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ DOS MASTER VERSION YOU CURRENTLY HAVE:_____________ DISK FORMAT ? (3 1/2 OR 5 1/4 INCH)_______________