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┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ │▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ │ │ │ InspectA Version 1.0 │ │ File & Archive Management Tool │ │ FTSC Packet & Archive Viewer │ │ │ │▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ David L. Nugent & Unique Computing Pty Limited Copyright (C) 1992 All Rights Reserved July, 1992 ┌ PRELIMINARIES ───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You use this software entirely at your own risk. The author and/or distributors are not responsible for any loss or damage as a result of using this product and will take no responsibility, consequential or otherwise for use, abuse or misuse. ┌ VERSIONS ────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ InspectA is offered in two separate flavours; the "shareware" version, and the "registered/commercial" version. The latter contains all of the features documented in this manual, whereas the less-featured shareware version may lack several items documented here. Where possible, this is highlighted in the manual, but if you use the shareware version, please read the accompanying notes which detail more fully the differences between it and the registered/commercial release. The authors wish to state that they would have liked to release the fully-featured version as shareware, but realise the unforunate fact that providing no incentive to register by offering additional features almost guarantees that there will be a very low number of registrations. If you possess the shareware version and you use this product regularly and wish to continue using it, then please support the shareware concept and reward our efforts in providing this high quality product to you for a no-obligation free trial. The future of further development of this product, including several significant enhancements and the release of an OS/2 version, and the release of other shareware products by this company is dependant on the number of registrations received! Feel free to pass on a copy of the shareware version to your friends, or upload it in its original form to any public access bulletin board system. If the version you possess is the "registered/commercial" one, then you are expressly forbidden from copying it and distributing it to others in any form. Your license to use is limited to use on one CPU at any time; operation on a LAN requires a per-workstation user site license. ┌ ABOUT INSPECTA ──────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ InspectA is a multi-purpose file management tool, but is primarily aimed at management of files on any system running a FidoNet Technology mailer and associated utilities. It incorporates the following functions: o General file management; copy, move, create delete directories & files, run other programs, view text files, determine file type, etc. o Archive management; allows viewing, adding to, deletion from, extraction and testing files in SEA ARC(tm) version 5.x, 6.x and 7,x, PKWARE's ZIP, Yoshi's LHARC/LHA, Robert Jung's ARJ, NoGate Consulting's PAK, Dhesi's ZOO format archives, and Peter Gutmann's HPACK compressed file libraries. o FidoNet common *.MSG format messages; when a .MSG file is selected for viewing from the file manager, InspectA provides the ability to read and interpret these files. o FidoNet (FTSC) type 2.X format packets; InspectA provides the ability to view raw .PKT format files, including diagnostics, some limited editing capability, allows individual messages to be exported to FTS-0001 *.MSG format, and provides "packet splitting" capability to enable more convenient handling of very large packets. o File descriptions support, as used by a 4DOS (4OS2) "DESCRIPT.ION", Waffle BBS "@FILES" or BBS "FILES.BBS" files - any method of describing files which uses a text file containing the filename followed by its description. The name of the file used, and the priority in which they may be used is set by the user. o Fast file search capability, to locate a file or files on a drive or any section of it. Wildcard searches are fully supported. o DOS command shell capability with swap to XMS, EMS or disk with command history. o Fully network aware, and uses network sharing modes for file access. ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ STARTUP ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ┌ SETUP & INSTALLATION ────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ InspectA requires a 100% IBM PC compatible computer system running MS-DOS version 3.1 or later. It is not compatible with and should never be run under any earlier release of MS-DOS. It requires approximately 240K to run, but more memory will increase performance. When running external programs and applications from within InspectA, swapping of the program memory image to XMS, EMS or disk results in less than 2K of memory consumed by InspectA while that program is running. Since XMS and EMS access are significantly faster than disk, the presence of either of these types of memory will enhance performance. 'Swapping' is turned off by default, which means that there is less delay again, but InspectA will consume approximately 240K when running external programs. InspectA also runs on almost any type of MSDOS compatible local area network and specifically supports all the popular types, including PCNET and compatible, NETBIOS based networks and Novell Netware and derivatives. InspectA uses direct screen memory access for displaying information to the screen. Under DESQview or any compatible windowing environment, it detects and uses the video "shadow" buffer, so when running under DV, set both the "Writes directly to screen" and "Virtualize text/graphics" settings to NO for the window in which InspectA is run. When running on a CGA video adapter, InspectA will attempt to prevent 'snow' which is usually attributed to direct screen access. If your CGA card (and this applies to CGA cards ONLY, not EGA, VGA or better) does not require video retrace delay to prevent a 'snowy' appearance, then use the '-vn' switch to turn this off to allow much faster video performance. EGA, VGA and SVGA extended text modes are supported. InspectA works optimally on a 132x60 SVGA text screen, and unusual window sizes within DESQview are easily accommodated. At runtime, InspectA requires three files to be present. INSPECT.EXE is the executable file, INSPECT.HLP with the on-line context-sensitive help, and INSPECT.INI contains configuration data read and loaded when INSPECT.EXE is run. The location of INSPECT.INI can be determined by a command line switch (and therefore the "INSPECT" environment variable, which can contain any valid command line switch), or it is assumed to be either in the current directory, or the directory in which INSPECT.EXE resides. INSPECT.HLP must reside in the same directory as the executable - if you rename INSPECT.EXE, also rename the help file accordingly. Both INSPECT.EXE and INSPECT.HLP can (and should) be made read-only. INSPECT.INI is created by running INSPECT.EXE with a special command line switch (-i). It reads a "definitions" file containing text commands which InspectA uses in operation, such as compressed archive handling commands, display colours, mailer information (if used in an environment which uses a FidoNet compatible mailer) and macro key definitions. ┌ QUICK STARTUP ───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The fastest way to get InspectA operational is to create its .INI file from the default settings file: INSPECT.DEF. After reviewing at least the [General] section at the top of the file, run the following command: INSPECT -i inspect.def This will create INSPECT.INI in the current directory. Move this to the same directory in which INSPECT.EXE resides (usually a directory in the PATH). If no filename is specified, "INSPECT.DEF" residing in the same directory as INSPECT.EXE is assumed. If you wish to edit and view files, you will also have to have a file viewer and editor. If not configured specifically in the .DEF file, InspectA defaults to using LIST.COM to view files and Q.EXE to edit files, and looks for these in the PATH. If you wish to use a different file viewer or editor, be sure to specify these in the .DEF file, or comment those lines out and set the environment variable "PAGER" to the name of the file viewer, and "EDITOR" to the name of your favourite editor. (The usage of these environment variables is explained in more detail later) ┌ COMMAND LINE ────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ InspectA is usually invoked directly from the MS-DOS prompt, but can easily be installed into a menu front-end program or multi-tasking application program list. InspectA may be started with no command line at all, or may optionally include: INSPECT [switches] [path] where: path If this is a directory and ends in a slash, it determines the directory which is viewed on startup. If a file or a directory without the trailing slash, InspectA sets the startup directory then invokes 'view mode' directly on the file. switches May include one or more of the following: -h or -? Displays a summary of the command line format. -d[axu] Displays the command line passed when running external programs. This can be useful for debugging purposes. One or more letters are used to specify which particular type of program execution to display: a Display command line passed to archive management programs. u Display command line passed to user defined commands defined with [FileDefs] & [KeyDefs] macros. x Display other external commands. -eX Enables the display of exit errorlevel of external programs run from InspectA. By default, InspectA ignores the exit code and returns to the files list where Shift-ENTER can be used to review the DOS screen (output from the program previously run). To have InspectA display the actual exit status - or ERRORLEVEL - returned by the program, use -eX, where 'X' is one of: a Display always e Display only when non-zero (which usually indicates and error condition -v All '-v' switches can be used in combination to achieve the desired video attributes. This switch can include: m Force black and white (monochrome) display attributes. This will be automatic if your display card is in any black and white or monochrome display mode, but must be forced in some situations. c Force colour display palette, logically the opposite of the 'm' switch. n Switches off 'snow' prevention (video retrace) when running on a CGA without that particular problem. d Forces video retrace delay. This is useful if InspectA cannot detect that your monitor needs this (ie. it doesn't look like a CGA). b Force background to blinking state. h Force background to intense instead of blinking. Use of -vb or -vh on some monitors will either fail or cause strange results, depending on your video card. Under DESQview, use of either switch tends to cause 'flicker' when switching to or from the window, and can cause an unreadable display on mono-colour screens. By default, InspectA does not set or consider the back- ground attribute state. 2 Force display to 25 line mode. 4 or 5 Force the display to 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA or SVGA) line "high resolution" text mode. Some may find this display less readable, but the advantage is that more information can be displayed on the screen. By default, InspectA maps its display to the current screen dimentions and mode. v=?? Set special extended SVGA text mode '??'. On some SVGA cards there is provided the facility to run in non-standard, extended text modes, such as 100 or 132 columns, or run with more than the standard number of rows. Setting -vv=?? to the mode number will switch to that video mode, allowing a lot more of the display to be used. For example, a Tseng Labs ET3000 based SVGA card provides: Mode Cols/Rows 38 80 x 60 34 132 x 44 36 132 x 28 s This is used with any of the above '- v' options which changed the screen size. This will force the new mode set by InspectA to be 'sticky', and will cause the previous screen mode to be forgotten; when running external programs or after exiting InspectA, the previous screen mode is not restored. The original DOS screen is not automatically preserved or restored when this option is used. An example of how -v might be used: -v5shc forces the screen to 80 x 50 on a VGA monitor, keeps and uses that mode in running externals and on exit, sets intense background and forces use of the colour palette. -s? Selects the memory swap method which InspectA will use to page itself out of core memory when other programs are running or when a DOS command shell is invoked. If swapping is used, InspectA will consume approximately 2K of RAM when external programs or the command shell is running. '?' may be one of: X XMS memory. Requires that the system be an 80286 or above and have an Extended Memory Driver supporting XMS v2.0 or later. (e.g. HIMEM.SYS). E EMS memory. Requires that the system either have an Expanded memory card installed and run the matching EMS or EEMS driver to support it, or be an 80386 or above and run an 80386 specific memory manager, such as QuarterDeck's QEMM386 or Qualitas' 386/MAX. Better results in general are obtained on 386 systems with XMS memory using these same drivers. D Disk. Creates a paging file to disk where InspectA stores its program image. This is generally much slower, but is still handy when the amount of available memory is low. N None. This disables program image swapping completely, resulting in InspectA using about 160K of RAM when running external programs. Note that the method of swapping is also selectable by settings in the .DEF file and the "SWAP" environment variables as explained in the following section. However, a "-s" switch given on the command line will take precedence and override any effect they may have. -wX[,Y] Sets the default size of files view window. Possible values of 'X' and 'Y' are: 0 Small window (default), displays server or s or local drive details, if known, and free space statistics. 1 Large window, shows more details about or m files, including file descriptions, 2 Fullscreen mode, devotes the entire or f screen other than the top status bar and function key help at the bottom of the screen to viewing directory contents. While the first parameter 'X' is applied to the files window, the second is used for the directory tree window. If either parameter is missing, then its size is left unchanged. -m Use directory maps. Directory map files are used for fast access to a drive's directory tree, so that you can select a target directory with ease. By default, InspectA will completely rescan a drive's directory structure. Using -m optimises this so that it will maintain a directory map (called DISKMAP.IND) in the root directory of each drive logged. InspectA will therefore only rescan a drive if DISKMAP.IND is found to be out of date. -m* Create diskmap files all non-removable drives. -mDRIVES Create diskmap files on specific drives. For example, "-mCDL" will create diskmaps on drives C:, D: and L:. This is usually used in batch mode operation so that diskmaps can be periodically updated on an unattended system. After creating the diskmap, InspectA will exit. -c DIR Read (or create) runtime configuration .INI file in the named directory. By default, InspectA searches the current directory, and if not found the directory in which INSPECT.EXE resides. -i FILE This is used for creating the .INI file only. The named text file is read, and if no errors are found a .INI file is written to the directory specified by the -c switch, or the current directory if no -c is given. See the section entitled "DEFINITION FILE" for more details. -bMINS Set screen blanker timeout (if MINS=0, screen blanker is disabled). A non-zero value of MINS sets the timeout used by the screen blanker - if the keyboard is inactive for more than this number of minutes then the screen is cleared and a message displayed. To prevent screen "burn-in", the message will move around the screen periodically and its attribute will change. Note that the time at which the blanker will start has a margin of up to 59 seconds; ie. if the timeout is set to 1 minute, the screen may blank at any time from 1 to 60 seconds later. A two minute or higher timeout is recommended, and the default state of the screen blanker is disabled. -aX Sets the file attribute exclusion mask. By default, InspectA excludes files with the "system" attribute from the files list. This can be overridden with this switch, where 'X' can be one or more of the following: s Exclude files with the 'system' attribute h Exclude hidden files r Exclude read-only files a Exclude files with the 'archive' attribute e.g. "-ash" excludes hidden and system files. Specifying just '-a' with no following letters will force InspectA to display all files, regardless of attributes. ┌ ENVIRONMENT ─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If you are not familiar with environment variables, please consult your MS-DOS manual under the "SET" command. Any valid command line argument may also be placed in the "INSPECT" environment variable and automatically processed as a command line option prior the actual command line is evaluated. This includes the startup directory or file. You may also set preferences in this manner and add an appropriate "SET" command to your AUTOEXEC.BAT to make them "permanent". Other environment variables that InspectA makes use of, if set, are as follows. Note that use of any or all of these is not mandatory, and they are used only when present in the environment. SWAP This may be set to the directory used for disk swapping. If this environment variable is found to be set, the default swapping method is set to "disk" (but this can be specifically overridden using the command line). Three special values of this variable are recognised. These are (a) "XMS", for paging to XMS, (b) "EMS" for use of EMS and (c) "NO" to disable memory swapping. See above regarding the "-s" command line switch for more details. If insufficient XMS or EMS memory is available for swapping, then disk will be used, with the swap path being defined by the TMP and/or TEMP environment variables. The swapping method can also be set explicitly from the .DEF file (see "Swap" under [General]), but the choice of the most suitable method may not make this ideal on a LAN where several machines with different capabilities need to be dealt with. The SWAP environment variable is only used where the swapping method is not explicitly set in the .DEF filem but the -s command line switch overrides both. TEMP These will not affect the type of swapping used. or TMP However, if "SWAP" is not set or is set to any of the special "XMS", "EMS" or "NO" values, then these two variables will determine the default directory used when swapping to disk is used. If set, "TEMP" will be used in preference to "TMP". Note that you can set the directory explicitly and not rely on these environment variables if you use the "Swap" verb in the [General] section of the .DEF file. PAGER This nominates the program used for viewing text and binary files if not specifically set in the .DEF file. By default, this is a program called "LIST.COM". Use of Vernon D. Buerg's excellent LIST program is highly recommended, since it supports multiple view modes (text and binary) with an excellent range of flexibility and features. If you wish to use an alternative program for viewing files then you should set the PAGER environment variable or modify and 'compile' your .DEF file to suit. If the program takes the file name to view on its command line (most do) then simply set the variable to its name (e.g. SET PAGER=LESS). If the paging program is not in the standard DOS search path, then this may also nominate the full drive/path. If the paging program must use "standard input" instead of its command line - such as MSDOS's MORE command - place an exclamation mark in front of the command to ensure that InspectA loads it via the command interpreter, and use a '<' symbol as the LAST character. Also surround the variable by quotes to prevent MSDOS interpreting the redirection symbol immediately. The following shows how to use DOS's MORE command as file viewer: set PAGER="!MORE <" EDITOR This sets the program to edit files where no editor has been set up in your .DEF file (this is automatically invoked by pressing F4 on a highlighted file). If the environment variable is not set or the editor not otherwise set, InspectA will attempt to use an editor called Q.EXE. Semware's Shareware QEdit is an excellent choice. In the case of both PAGER and EDITOR and even their .DEF file equivalents, setting these to the full path of the program to be used will speed up loading since it is not necessary to search the path in order to locate them. INSPECT This contains permanent switches and are always evaluated before the command line switches given when INSPECT.EXE is run (therefore they may be overridden, changed or negated by command line switches). ┌ ON-LINE HELP ────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ InspectA includes an on-line help facility available at any time by pressing the F1 [Help] key. The information presented by the help system is generally more detailed than in this manual, and you should consult it if you are uncertain of what a prompt or message means. The help system is "context sensitive"; it will present help regarding the operation that you are currently attempting. To view the "Help Index", press F1 a second time and use the Up and Down arrow keys to access the first help screen in each section. To view a particular section, press ENTER, and use the PgUp/PgDn keys to scroll between help screens and sections. Press ESC to leave the help system, or press it twice if you are in the Help Index. Within the help system, the following conventions are used to identify various keystrokes: @<key> The '@' symbol preceeding a letter indicates an Alt-key sequence; the ALT key (either one on an 'extended' keyboard) should be depressed when pressing the letter. ^<key> The '^' signifies a control-key sequence. Press ther key (either one of two on an extended key- board) marked "Ctrl" while pressing the letter. #<key> Shift-key: hold down either of the keys marked "Shift" and press the key. ┌ DEFINITION FILE ─────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ A definition file is a text file in a particular format with sections and commands which configure some of InspectA's internals. Lines in a definition file can be: comments: Any line commencing with a punctuation character is assumed to be a comment and is ignored. sections: Any line commencing with a '[' character is assumed to be a section header. Valid section headers are: [General] Variables used for general operations. These will usually be different from each system on which InspectA will be installed, and you should modify these to suit. [ArchiveCmds] This section used to define archive commands for handling ARC, ZIP, ARJ, PAK, ZOO, LHA and HPACK archives. [Colours] Allows setting of screen colour/ attributes. [Colors] Alias for "[Colours]". [Descriptions] Defines a list of files which may be used to describe files in the current directory. All remaining sections are used only in the registered and commercial version of InspectA. Including them in a definitions file will display a harmless warning, but the values in them will be ignored. [KeyDefs] Defines key sequences which may be used to run external commands. [FileDefs] Allows the definition of external commands to run when selecting one or more files with ENTER instead of the default action which is to invoke file view. The following sections are only useful when used with a FidoNet compatible mail handling program. [Address] Defines one more more FidoNet style addresses (in full 5D format). [Akas] Alias for "[Address]". [DomainEquiv] Allows equating one or more strings to "normalised" domain names as assumed equivalents. This is simply a remapping sequence so that domain strings can be recognised correctly and used more reliably. [Equivs] Alias for "[DomainEquiv]". [Mailer] Describes the characteristics of a FidoNet mailer (if used). [Paths] Defines common directories used either by the FidoNet mailer, or defines directories to add to the directories index (see File Manager, Alt-I). All section headers are treated case INsensitively. ie. [COLOURS] is the same as [Colours] or [CoLoUrS]. verbs: Lines within sections have a format specific to that section (see below for details). Comments may be placed on any of these lines if preceded by a ';' character. Note that this is different from comments not placed on the same line as verbs - only a semi- colon will work. If you need to use a semicolon as part of a configuration line, proceed it with a backslash. (ie. '\;'). ┌ DEFINITION SECTIONS ─────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Following are details regarding the contents of each section in InspectA's definition file. [General] This section contains a number of verbs which set specific operationg parameters and variables. Use of this section is not mandatory since all values have default options which work on almost every system which has the default Editor and Viewer programs, or otherwise has the EDITOR and PAGER environment variables set accordingly (see above). Editor <program> If this is not specified, InspectA reads the value stored in the "EDITOR" environment variable instead. The default otherwise (if neither is set) is "Q.EXE". Viewer <program> Specify which program to use for viewing files. If not given, InspectA uses the "PAGER" environment variable, or defaults to "LIST.COM" if it is not set. Temp <path> Specifies which directory to use to extract files to. The default is the current directory, but if using CDROM drives or using drives without much free space, it is advantageous to extract elsewhere. Swap <type> <path> Specify the type of program image swapping to use and where to place the program image file if swap to disk is used exlicitly or as a fallback if not enough EMS or XMS is available. Valid types are: XMS Extended memory EMS Expanded (LIMS) memory Disk Swap to disk None Disable swapping [ArchiveCmds] The general format for lines in this section is: FORMAT CMD CMDLINE Valid FORMATs are: AR5 SEA ARC v5 format PKA PKWARE ARC variant (Squashing) PAK NoGate PAK format AR6 SEA ARC v6 format AR7 SEA ARC v7 format (Trimming) ZIP PKWARE ZIP format LZH Yoshi's LHARC v1.13de and below LHA Yoshi's LHA v2.0+ ZOO ZOO format v2.01 and less ZOH ZOO 2.10 high compression format ARJ Jung's ARJ HPK Guttman's HPACK Valid CMD types are: A or U Add file(s) X or E Extract file(s) D or K Delete file(s) T Test file(s) CMDLINE is used to specify what commands are run for the corresponding CMD type and file format. This is invariably the name of the program to run followed by the relevant command line arguments. Certain character sequences are substituted on the command line to allow for the inclusion of the archive filename, member file names etc. $a Archive name (including path). $g Archive password. $p The directory name containing the archive. $f File name - individual only. $m Multiple file names (where multiple packets to archive, extract or test). $r Multiple file names via a redirect list. The filenames are placed in a temporary file, and the temporary file name replaces the "$r". $$ '$' Character substitutions ARE case sensitive. If an unknown letter is specified, both the '$' and the following letter are stripped from the command line. Remember to use two $'s if you need to insert one. Inserting one of the following characters after the '$' in any of the above sequences will cause a change in the way path/filenames are handled: + (Plus) Strip off path portion. - (Minus) Strip off extension. = (Equals) Strip off both path and extension _ (Underline) Use the file extension only. An example might help to clarify how this works. When '$-a' is used, only the path and filename will replace into the command line. If the archive name is "C:\ARCS\MY.ZIP" then this sequence will insert "C:\ARCS\MY" into the command line, '$+p' yields 'MY.ZIP', '$=a' gives "MY" and '$_a' results in "ZIP". Note that multiple lines may be specified for any given FORMAT/CMD combinations. The archiving routines will search your system for all commands matching a given file format and command type in the order specified in the definitions file (and therefore the .INI file) and will execute the first one found. You will find that you may be able to speed up execution of archivers marginally by changing the order in the definitions file so that the programs which you actually use or prefer are first. [Colours] (or [Colors]) The basic format of control lines in this section is: CLASS FUNCTION COLOUR MONO Classes and functions are described below. Colour and mono attributes are numbers which represent foreground and background colours based on the chart below. Attributes are assigned to InspectA's text windowed based display by their logical function. Functions are further broken up into the following function groups or classes: Main Used as the base colour set (full screen) Form Used for form windows List Used for picklists Menu Used for menus Error Used for errors and message boxes Text Used for text view, editing and message display Popup Used for popup windows (popup menus/forms too) Shell Used by "shell to dos" Within each of these groups, colours are assigned to each of the functions in the table below. This table specifies what functions are valid for each class. ╒══════════════════════════════ C L A S S ═══════════════════╕ │ Main Form List Menu Error Text Popup Shell│ ╞══════════════╤═══════════════════════════════════════════════╡ │ Background │ * * * * * * * * │ │ Frame │ * * * * * * * │ │ Title │ * * * * * * * │ │ Highlight │ * * * * │ │ Field-label │ * * * * │ │ Field-data │ * * * * * │ │ Field-current│ * * * │ │ Not-avail │ * * │ │ Hidden │ * * │ │ Subtitle │ * │ │ Prompt │ * │ │ Shadow │ * │ │ Bold1 │ * │ │ Bold2 │ * │ │ Marker │ * │ ╘══════════════╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════╛ Attributes are numbers in the range 0 - 255. The following table represents the complete chart of available colours in the range 0 - 127. Attributes 128 - 255 are equivalent to 0 - 127, with the foreground colour blinking. ╒═══════════════════════ F O R E G R O U N D ═════════════════════╕ │ Lit Drk Lit Lit Lit Lit Lit │ │ Blk Blu Grn Cyn Red Mag Bwn Gry Gry Blu Grn Cyn Red Mag Yel Wht│ ╞═══╤═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╡ │Blk│ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15│ │Blu│ 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31│ │Grn│ 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47│ │Cyn│ 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 62 63 65│ │Red│ 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79│ │Mag│ 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95│ │Bwn│ 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111│ │Wht│112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127│ ╘═══╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╛ The supplied sample INSPECT.DEF contains and exhaustive list of valid colour definition lines, so you can modify these according to taste. [Descriptions] This is a simple list of filenames to use for retrieval and storage of file descriptions. This is similar and compatible with the 4DOS (and 4OS2) "descript.ion" file used to display descriptions against files and directory entries by its internal "DIR" command. When InspectA uses either of its large window modes (-w1 or -w2), it will display the file descriptions following the file name. More than one filename may be specified. InspectA will use the first file found when logging a directory for the first time. When entering a description against a file (with the "Insert" key) in a directory which contains no existing description file, the first filename specified in this list will be created. Note that a description file is only updated if the directory needs to be rescanned, when moving out of the directory or when exiting InspectA. InspectA will always keep a description with a file when using its internal COPY, MOVE and delete functions. If a description file name begins with a character which is neither a letter nor a number, use double quotation marks to indicate that this is acceptable, else it will be assumed to be a comment line in the .DEF file. For example, Waffle BBS uses a "@files" in each directory for storage of file descriptions and the name must be quoted in this manner. The format of each line in a description line is as follows: FILE.NAME<whitespace>Description Under MS-DOS, the file name is treated case insensitively. "<whitespace>" consists of any number of (at least one) tabs or spaces. The file name MUST commence in the first column of the line. Lines of text within the file which do not confirm to this format are effectively ignored. Lines which describe files which do not exist in the current directory are also ignored. You can also describe multiple files by using wildcard characters, such as '*' and '?', but such descriptions cannot be edited from within InspectA's description editing function and must be inserted manually into a description file. If more than one line describes the same file (ie. the filename is duplicated), the last one will be used. In such a case, if the description is ever updated, the duplicate entries will be removed. Multiple line descriptions are not supported. The maximum length of any description line is 512 characters (although displaying longer than the screen width is obviously impossible). [KeyDefs] This section defines keyboard to function assignments can be used to reassign the default key allocation and to augment InspectA by allowing external programs to be directly called at the touch of a key using InspectA's marked file list or the currently highlighted file as data on the command line. The first line in this section may define a different prompt for the foot of the screen from the default (which is a list of functions assigned to the function keys, F1 through F10). The first word on this line should be "KeyHelp". If you wish to start the line with filler spaces, then use quotes around the entry.. Following the optional KeyHelp line are one or more definition line, which are used to bind keys to various functions. The format of each definition line is: KEYCODE FUNCTION [CMDLINE] where: CODE is a keyboard scan code. This is usually specified in hexadecimal format preceded by the sequence "0x". Alternatively, if the file INSPECT.KEY is present, any mnemonic contained in that file can be specified as a keycode (this file simply contains a map of symbolic codes to keyboard scan code values, one per line in text format). FUNCTION This is the logical function assigned to the key, and will usually be either an internal function (from the list below), or a command line to use to run an external command in the case of a USERCMD type. Following is a complete list if codes used to designate functions: ╒══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╕ │ HELP .................................. Display help │ │ GMARK ........................ Mark/unmark all files │ │ VIEW ............................. View current file │ │ EDIT ............................. Edit current file │ │ COPY ...................... Copy current/marked file │ │ MOVE ...................... Move current/marked file │ │ MKDIR ......................... Create new directory │ │ SORT ..................................... Sort list │ │ LOG ............................... View directories │ │ EXEC .................................. Execute file │ │ DRIVE ................................. Change drive │ │ REEXEC ........................ Execute last command │ │ FINDF .................................. Locate file │ │ RESCN ..................... Rescan current directory │ │ TYPES ......................... Determine file types │ │ ADDARC ..................... Add files to an archive │ │ TESTARC ..................... Test archive integrity │ │ LIST .................. View current file, list mode │ │ QUIT ................ Exit, retain current directory │ │ EXIT ................................. Exit InspectA │ │ SHELL ........................ Shell to command line │ │ PREV ................................. Previous file │ │ NEXT ..................................... Next file │ │ PREVSCN ............................ Previous screen │ │ NEXTSCN ................................ Next screen │ │ TOP .............................. Top of files list │ │ END .............................. End of files list │ │ DESCRIBE ................. Add/edit file description │ │ DELETE .................... Delete file or directory │ │ UPDIR ........................ Move up one directory │ │ DNDIR ...................... Move down one directory │ │ MARKUP .................. Mark current file, move up │ │ MARKDN ................ Mark current file, move down │ │ MARKPGUP ............................ Mark up screen │ │ MARKPGDN .......................... Mark down screen │ │ MARKHOME ..................... Mark all files to top │ │ MARKEND ...................... Mark all files to end │ │ DOFILE .................. Act on file (default=view) │ │ MARK ............................. Mark current file │ │ ESCAPE .......................... Quit (with prompt) │ │ CHGWIN .................... Change files window size │ │ VSTATS ...................... View memory statistics │ │ DOSVIEW ............................ View DOS screen │ │ DIRIDX ......... Display/select from directory index │ │ USERCMD .................... User command (external) │ ╘══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╛ The supplied INSPECT.KEY shows the default key to function assignments and adds further examples of what can be done. CMDLINE This parameter is used only with the USERCMD function, and specifies the actual command line to execute, including arguments and command line switches. The following parameters refer to the file which is currently highlighted in the files list. $a Currently highlighted file name. $p The current directory name. $f Marked file name. $m Multiple marked file names. $r Multiple marked file names via a redirect list. The filenames are placed in a temporary file, and the temporary file name replaces the "$r". Note that only one redirection list is valid in any single command. $? Prompt for input. See below for more details. $$ '$' Character substitutions ARE case sensitive. If an unknown letter is specified, both the '$' and the following letter are stripped from the command line. Remember to use two $'s if you need to insert one literal '$'. Inserting one of the following characters after the '$' in any of the above sequences will cause a change in the way path/filenames are handled: + (Plus) Strip off path portion. - (Minus) Strip off extension. = (Equals) Strip off path and file extension _ (Underline) Use file extension only. You may notice some similarity with the "archiver commands", and in fact the rules are the same, except that '$a' accesses the file which is currently highlighted on the files list, while '$m' and '$r' access the list of files which are currently highlighted. EXCEPTIONS: If no files are highlighted and the command line includes no reference to $a, then the current file is assumed to be marked (passed in the marked files list as its single member). The macro $? allows one or more parts of the command line to be given by the user when a key is pressed of file selected. This macro is valid ONLY in USERCMD definitions and programs run via the [FileDefs] mechanism. If a '{' follows $?, the text following and all characters up to and including the next '}' are used as a prompt string. For example, $?{What is your name?} prompts for input and displays "What is your name?" above the input box. The results are placed in the command line. A default reponse may also be following the prompt text by a vertical bar, then the response: F10 USERCMD hello $?{What is your name?|Me!} Defines the action on hitting the F10 key to first prompt with "What is your name?", with a default response of "Me!", then run the program "HELLO" with the result of that input on the command line. Any of the other '$' command macros may be entered by the user (or supplied as the default response). [Address] (and/or [Akas]) If you define this and the following verbs, certain features of InspectA which relate to operation of a FidoNet compatible mailer are enabled. These features include automatic determination of source and destination addresses from mail archive names (if possible), generation of outbound file attach and file requests, and management of outbound mail for both "static" and "dynamic" (so-called ARCmail attach) systems. In the Address section, simply specify each address in full 5-D format, in the form: zone:net/node[.point]@domain Multiple address sections are supported. [DomainEquiv] This provides the ability to map any given string of characters used as a domain to a "known" domain. The purpose of this facility is to allow some tolerance in dealing with domain strings and also to map outbound domain based directory names to "real" domain names. An example table: fido fidonet fidonet.org fidonet fido.org fidonet rainbow rainbownet This equates the strings "fido", "fidonet.org" and "fido.org" to the domain string "fidonet". InspectA will do automatic substitution internally wherever it sees these strings used. If you use a "static" mailer with domain support, and the outbound directories are named differently from the actual domain name to which they correspond, you MUST link the two strings by equating the directory name (without the zone suffix) to the domain string. [Mailer] This section defines various parameters necessary for interfacing with a FidoNet technology mailer. Each line is a verb, followed by one or more parameters. The valid list of verbs are: Mailer This describes the type of mail queue used by the mailer. It can be one of: BT BinkleyTerm static outbound queue, with Bink optional zone and domain support enabled. [domain, zone, point] Opus This is equivalent to BT with neither zone or domain support. [none] FD FrontDoor ARCmail attach, with extended attributes. Equivalent verbs 'FrontDoor' and 'Intermail' are also accepted. [zone, point] InterMail or IM is functionally identical to "FD". SEAdog Also ARCmail attach type outbound support, but without extended message attributes, and no requirement for attach messages for outbound mail archives located in the "Outbound" directory. [none] One or more keywords may follow definition of the mailer type which adds to or disables certain address handling capabilities. These keywords are "zone" (enables support of zone based outbound directories), "point" (enables support for point subdirectories) and "domain" (enables support for domain based outbound queues. You can disable these features by placing a '!' prior the keyword. Default values for each mailer are shown in the above. For example, to define use of BinkleyTerm with point and zone support but not domains: "BT,!domain" PointNet For systems which require it, this allows pointnet address mapping. This facility is supported independantly from 'point' (4D) mailer capability. [Paths] This section has two purposes; to define directories used by the FidoNet mailer (if any), and also to define a set of commonly used directories that may be quickly accessed by using the "fast directory index" available from the File Manager (usually assigned to Alt-I). Netmail Defines the netmail path (and therefore the outbound queue) for ARCmail attach mailers. Postmail Defines the directory used when file attach, file request or other messages are generated. This will usually be the same as 'Netmail'. Outbound Defines the directory(ies) used to hold outbound mail archives. Multiple outbound directories can be specified, but only one is necessary, even in the case of using multiple domain/zone/point outbound queues as InspectA will locate and use these directories automatically. Inbound Defines the directory(ies) used by the mailer to place files inbound from external systems. Multiple inbound directory names are supported. ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ OPERATION ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ┌ FILE MANAGER ────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ When first invoked without specifying an archive to examine, InspectA is in "file management" mode. It displays a scrollable window with the current directory; subdirectories shown in uppercase, and files in lowercase. There are three "view modes" in the file manager. The default is a small-sized window containing the file names, sizes and dates, and on the right panel is the current disk statistics, including server/resource (if the drive is a shared network drive) total disk size and space free. Each file is displayed showing its attributes, size and date, type information, if known, and an optional description. The general format of each line in the list is: 15460 14-Dec-91 12:43 TXT h readme.inf Readme file File │ ┌─────┘ │ │ │ │ Size Last File │ File Name Description Updated Type │ Special attributes: (s=system h=hidden r=read-only ∙=archive =dir) The file size, date and time are the same as that shown by the DIR command from the DOS prompt. The time may not be present in some view modes, depending on the current screen width. In addition to the standard cursor keys for movement to navigate around the files list (Up, Down, Home, End, PgUp & PgDn), functions available from the file manager are detailed below. In the registered/registered version, all of these keys are able to be redefined, so some of the following table documents the defaults only and many may not apply or may be used for different purposes. F1 Help Accesses the help system. F2 GMark Toggles the global file marker; if all files are currently marked (marked files are highlighted and a square block appears to the left of the file name), they are all unmarked, else all files are marked. This is useful when performing global operations on all files in the current directory. F3 View Views the current file in list text/binary mode. F4 Edit Invokes the editor with the currently selected file as the file to edit. F5 Copy * Copy the current file, or all marked files. (see also F6, MOVE). F6 Move * Moves or renames the current file, or all marked files. Depending on the destination path or file specified, this will either move the files with the same names to a different place on the same or another disk, or rename the files. Note that wild card renames are also supported (ie. marked files can be renamed to *.cxx, if that is specified). Individual directories may also be renamed using this option, although this may not work on some networks (in which case, InspectA will simply report an error). F7 Mkdir * Creates a new directory. F8 Sort Provides the ability to change the default sorting order of files. Note that subdirectories are ALWAYS at the top of the list, irrespective of the current sorting method. F9 Log Logs the entire drive's directory tree, and presents a graphical view of its directory structure, and allows you to "walk" through directories and get directly where you wish to go. If you have given the -m command line switch, logging and selecting drives will automatically read and update the DISKMAP.IND in the root directory of each drive visited. This speeds up operating significantly. F10 Exec Execute. The function of this key depends on the currently highlighted file. If it is an executable file (has a .EXE, .COM or .BAT extension) it will prompt for additional command line arguments and execute that program (this can be overridden, if necessary). Otherwise, InspectA simply prompts for a program to run and a command line to use, with the currently highlighted filename the default. The "exec" prompt has a command line history which maintains the last 64 command entered. press UP for previous, DOWN for next, PGUP for first and END for the last command entered. Alt-Q Quit Alt-Q is an alias of ESC, which will exit InspectA and return to DOS. The difference between the two is that Alt-Q leaves the current screen displayed and the current directory as shown in the file manager, which is convenient if you wish to carry out some operation from the DOS command line using information displayed by the file manager. ESC Exit Exits InspectA, returns to the original drive and directory from which InspectA was invoked (if it still exists) and restores the screen). SPACE Mark Toggles the file marker for the current file. Ctl-PgUp Updir Change to parent directory. Ctl-PgDn DnDir Change to the currently highlighted sub- directory. This key is ignored unless the currently highlighted file is a directory. Ctl-R Rescan Rereads the current directory; useful in networking and multitasking environments to reread the disk when it has changed. Ctl-S Scan Examines all files in the current directory to determine the file type. The type description replaces the " ? " in the file display, or remains that if the file type cannot be determined. Ctl-E PrevCmd Brings up the "Exec" (F10) prompt with the previously executed command. CTl-F Locate Scans a directory and all subdirectories for files matching a given file specification. The specification given may include any valid file spec, including wildcard characters. On completing the scan - which can be interrupted at any time by using the ESC key - a list of matching files will be presented. Selecting any matching file moves into its directory and highlights it. Ctl-D Drive Select a different drive to examine. Displays a list of available drives and the current directory on each drive; select the new drive with arrow keys and ENTER or simply type the letter as required. Sometimes, network and other block device driver software will create "phantom" drives; ie. drives that do not exist on the system but are reserved by the driver. These will normally display as "Invalid drive", and may not be selected. Alt-A AddArc * Allows selected files to be added to an existing archive (see below for available types), or a new archive created containing those files. If adding to an existing archive, be sure to give the extension. InspectA will then be able to read it and automatically determine which archiver to use to add files to it and will not need to prompt you to select the archiver type. Alt-T TestArc Allows selected files to be tested for archive integrity. If none are highlighted, the current file is tested. Files being tested must be compressed file archives, and are simply skipped if not. If a corrupted archive is located (indicated by a non-zero error code returned by the archive program), the file is marked as "corrupt", and an asterisk will be displayed next to its file type in the files list. Alt-S Sort Alias for F8; select file sort order. Alt-I DirIdx If a directory index has been defined, it is displayed to allow fast change of directory by selection from the list. Alt-L List Alias for F3, View. Alt-E Edit Alias for F4, Edit. Alt-Z Shell Shells to MS-DOS. Use 'EXIT' to return to InspectA. DEL Delete Erase current or marked files. Pressing ENTER selects the current file, with the action dependant on the file's type: DIR Directory Selecting a directory will change to that directory and display files in that directory. *.* When externals have been defined to run based on the highlighted file's name in the [KeyDefs] section of the definitions file and a match is found, then the given action (running the external program) is done. This overrides the internal viewing modes below. TXT Text Invokes the PAGER program to examine ? Unknown the file. EXE Executable MSG *.MSG Invokes "message view" mode to examine the message. PKT Packet Invokes "packet view" mode, calling up a list of messages that it contains. ?LO Outbound 'static mailer' file attach list BDL Outbound mail file, archiver not yet determined BSY Mailer 'address busy' flag REQ Inbound or outbound file request list PRO Call in progress list BWZ Bad 'Wazoo' (file transfer) marker AR5 SEA ARA v5.X AR6 SEA ARC v6.X AR7 SEA ARC v7.X PKA PKWare's PKPAK/PKARC series (v3.61) PAK NoGate Consulting's PAK (v2.51) ZIP PKWare's ZIP (v2.00) LZH Yoshi's LHARC (v1.13d) LHA Yoshi's LHA (v2.13) ZOO Dhesi's ZOO (v2.01) ZOH Dhesi's ZOO with high compression (v2.10) ARJ Jung's ARJ (v2.22) HPK Gutmann's HPACK Invokes "archive view" mode, listing the contents of the archive for further action. From the file manager, mark & unmark functions are provided by holding down either SHIFT key and using Up, Down, PgUp, PgDn, Home and end cursor movement keys. All keys above marked with an asterisk (*) allow searching of the file system to complete the 'destination' file name. Use the F6 key when the destination specification is requested. By partially completing the destination name, you can set the place where the files are searched, and using wildcards on that line (such as *.TXT) will allow viewing only directory names and files according to that specification. To select an item to complete the "destination" entry, press F10. The full path and file name will be transferred to the destination field. ┌ FIDONET MANAGEMENT ──────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Skip this section unless you operate a FidoNet mail system, and wish to make use of the mail-file handling features of InspectA. In the registered/commercial version, you can nominate that specific directories are treated as though they are "Inbound" or "Outbound" file holding areas used by a FidoNet mailer. These directories have special properties in that they may contain files which are named according to their type and a remote system address, usually in hexadecimal. To assist in management of mail and to assist in identifying where mail packets are destined for or originated from, InspectA provides the ability to calculate the remote system address as indicated by the file name. This appears as a comment to the right of the file name in the files list; in all cases, an explicit entry in the description file will override any calculated address and will be displayed in preference. The resolution of remote addresses works most reliably with Opus/BinkleyTerm outbound holding areas, since InspectA uses the same algorithm to determine the address. Make sure that the FidoNet addresses are configured in InspectA in the same order as the mailer users! Also, be sure to suppress those parts of the addressing which your mailer cannot or is configured not to use: ie. if you run Opus, be sure to suppress zone, domain and point resolution in your "Mailer" configuration, and configure according to your BinkleyTerm domain setup and the "NoZones" setting. Note that when you use a 'static' outbound mailer such as Opus or BinkleyTerm, you should specify only the "primary" outbound area which applies to your first aka's zone and domain. All of the other outbound areas will be recognised automatically for directories which are subdirectories of the same 'root' directory as the primary one, and the directory name's extension is a hexadecimal number. Use of this facility with static mailers and various mail packing and processing software will have varying results since many of them have different ways of calculating the file name from the remote address. You will probably find that the "ARCmail 0.60" standard naming convention will be used for other systems in your default address zone only. In almost all other cases, it is impossible to work back from the file name to the destination address by any calculation. Whenever a calculated address appears to be suspect, InspectA preceeds the address with a question mark. If you have the registered/commercial version, you can circumvent this problem somewhat by using the wildcard description feature: once you find out which system a bundle of a particular name is destined for, place that name with a.".*" extension into the description file, followed by the destination address. Since the description file overrides the calculated address, the "correct" address is displayed instead of that which InspectA calculates. For example: 00000FBC.* 3:632/348.44@fidonet Even on BinkleyTerm/Opus systems, this can also be handy to identify bundles in your inbound directory, where bundle names sent from remote systems are less predictable and likely to not conform to the ARCmail 0.60 naming. When logged into one of these special directories, InspectA will enable use of additional file types, which represent what the files mean to the mailer software. These are: FLO Outbound 'static mailer' file attach list BDL Outbound mail file, archiver not yet determined BSY Mailer 'address busy' flag REQ Inbound or outbound file request list PRO Call in progress list BWZ Bad 'Wazoo' (file transfer) marker "BDL" (outbound compressed mail files) are necessarily archived files, and once a bundle is accessed or its type determined by InspectA, this type will be replaced by the archiving method. However, when initially logging an inbound or outbound directory, placing these files into a broad class helps when sorting all files by type by filename (and therefore address). ┌ ARCHIVE MANAGER ─────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ InspectA provides the ability to view multi-file archives of the types described above. To further manipulate those archives (add to, delete, extract and view), you will need the appropriate piece of software, as follows. Note that you only need one of the programs mentioned to support any type, and that some programs support more than one format. AR5 ARC.EXE, 5.12 or higher PKARC.COM, PKPAK.EXE 3.x AR6 ARC.EXE, version 6.02 or higher AR7 ARC.EXE, version 7.12 or higher ARCPLUS.EXE, version 7.12 XARC.EXE (extract only) PKA PKARC.COM/EXE 3.x,PKPAK.EXE 3.61 PAK PAK.EXE v2.51 or higher ZIP PKZIP.EXE,PKUNZIP.EXE v1.1 (also supports 2.0) ZIP.EXE (Info-ZIP Portable ZIP for DOS) 1.0 LZH LHARC.EXE v1.13 or higher LHA.EXE v2.0 or higher LHA LHA.EXE v2.X ZOO ZOO.EXE v2.01 or higher ZOH ZOO.EXE v2.10 ARJ ARJ.EXE v2.x HPK HPACK.EXE 0.75 or higher Without these programs, InspectA will still be able to examine the internal directories of these archive formats, but cannot provide any further management functions. Similar to the files list, the archive viewer provides the ability to examine the internal directory of the compressed library. The list may be scrolled using the usual cursor keys, and archive members marked and unmarked by holding down SHIFT and using Up, Down, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys. The following functions are available in Archive View mode: DEL Delete Delete current or marked files. Alt-E Extract Extract current file or all marked files to a nominated directory. ENTER Select Extract current file, then execute whatever action would be if the file was selected from the File Manager list (ie. view archive, view packet, message or file). Alt-Z Shell Shell to DOS, type 'EXIT' to return to InspectA. ┌ PACKET VIEWER ───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ On selecting a Fidonet type 2.x packet, InspectA will use its "packet view" mode. The initial screen displays the packet contents, one message per line, with packet header details on the bottom line, including: Type The packet type, which will be one of: Stoneage "Old" style type 2 packets. This type of packet is assumed to contain no valid zone and point information. 4D Pkt Several products in Fidonet include 4D (zone and point) information in packet headers. Other than by looking at the product code, there is no certain way of determining which are 4D packets or not. InspectA uses an internal list of "known product codes" which support true 4D, and also distinguishes between two types which store zone information in different places in the packet header. Type 2+ This packet type is described in the FTSC document FSC-0039. Packets of this type always contain valid zone and point addressing information and also contain a "signature" which readily identifies them from other packet types. Type 2.2 This packet type is used by some mailers and mail handling software, and - like type 2+ - is readily identifiable by its signature. Since these package can be readily identified, the zone, point and domain information is assumed to be correct. O= Displays the origin address. This will be net/node only in the case of a "stoneage" packet, and will be 4D (zone:net/node.point) for 4D and 2+ types, and 4D (zone:net/node.point@domain) for type 2.2 packets. Note that for type 2.2 packets, domains are truncated to 8 characters. D= Displays the destination address for the packet. The same rules regarding address resolution apply. Product The FTSC product code in the packet header, together with the product description (if known) is displayed. You should refer to the FidoNet Standards Committee documents FTS-0001 "A basic FidoNet(r) technical standard", FTS-0039 "A type-2 packet extension protocol", and FTS-0045 "A new packet header format", for additional information contained in and used by "type 2" mail packets. Each line in the list represents a packet message, showing: Inf An entry in the first three places indicates that data in the packed message header is in some way corrupt or malformed. This usually indicates that one or more messages may be corrupt, or that the software used to generate the original message was in some way deficient. Entries here will indicate one of: D A malformed date. The most common of these is a missing space in a "Fido" format date, which should be of the form: "DD Mon YY HH:MM:SS". Despite how common they are, these dates are nevertheless a problem because only dates of exactly 20 characters in length can be considered valid for type 2 packet format. Most software does work around this however. L One or more fields in the header are too long. This usually does mean that a packet is partially or completely corrupt. The maximum lengths of header fields are 35 characters for 'to' and 'from' names, 20 characters for the message date, and 71 characters for the message subject. I Indicates invalid (non-7bit ascii) data in one or more header fields. Depending on where you live, this may or may not indicate that there is a problem. Some parts of Europe, in the absence of any standards for use of character sets, have opted to use IBM-PC specific characters as part of their alphabet, and so this would be considered 'normal' in that case. However, this indicator can usually show that the field's data may be corrupted and should be examined further. G Indicate that the message is "grunged" in some way. This comes about if any embedded NUL (ASCII 0)'s are discovered at any position in between the message header information and the following message or end of packet. A NUL is used to indicate the end of a message, so if a NUL is discovered at a position which is not the end of the message as expected, then the message is considered garbled and invalid. Date Date of the message, or *Invalid* if it cannot be read at all. InspectA reads and interprets a number of technically non-standard dates in addition to those formats specifically allowed by FTS-0001. It will, however flag an error on the date, even if it can be interpreted if the date format is non-compliant. From Author of the message. To Name to which the message is addressed. Subject Message subject (or if "area" mode is enabled, it shows the echomail tag for the message, or "NETMAIL" if it doesn't have one). As each message is highlighted with the cursor bar, additional information regarding each message is shown above the packet header information at the foot of the display, consisting of: [#/#] Message number of a total number of messages. Origin Shows the origin address of the currently highlighted message. Note that packed message headers do not contain zone, point or domain information, so this will show only net/node. Dest Destination address of the currently highlighted message. AREA If the message is an echomail message (ie. the message text starts with AREA:<tag> or the message body contains a ^aAREA:<tag> control line), the area tag is shown. Anything else is assumed to be netmail. Available functions from the packed message list are: ENTER Select View highlighted message, enter message view mode. Alt-H Header Displays message header information. The first screen shows the complete message header information, interpreted according to its type, together with other relevant information. Subsequently pressing Alt-H cycles through two other screens, which include a hex and ascii dump of the message header. SPACE Mark Mark a message (usually for deletion). F2 GMark Mark/unmark all messages. Ctl-A Area Toggles the display of AREA: tags for each message instead of subject. Del Delete Deletes a message (or all marked messages) from a packet. BE CAREFUL IF YOU USE THIS OPTION. When deleting the first message from a packet, InspectA will warn you that you are about to delete mail. Note that the message is not immediately deleted, and this is delayed until you allow the packet to be rebuilt. Alt-S Sort Selects the sorting criteria for messages within the packet. When used with Alt-C (set changed flag), this can be used to physically reorder messages within a packet. Alt-C Chgd Toggles the "packet changed" flag. When set, InspectA will ask whether you wish to rebuild the packet when ESC is pressed. Alt-M Export Exports one or all marked messages to *.MSG format to a directory nominated. Ctl-S Split This function provides the ability to split the current packet into one or more packets - it is especially handy for splitting very large packets for more convenient handling. Note that use of this function does not require that the entire packet can be read into memory and will work regardless of whether the packet scan has been completed or not. You can use ESC to abort the scan and then Ctl-S to split the packet. Alt-Z Shell Shell to DOS. Messages may also be marked/unmarked by holding down the shift key and using the Up, Down, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys to mark in the direction moved. ┌ MESSAGE VIEWER ──────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ When viewing messages within packets, the following keys may be used: Left Previous message Right Next message Home First message in packet End Last message in packet Up Scroll message up Down Scroll message down PgDn Scroll message down 1 screen PgUp Scroll message up 1 screen Ctl-S Toggle seen-by viewing Ctl-C Toggle hard CR viewing Ctl-K Toggle control line viewing Ctl-M Export individual messages to .MSG format SPACE Toggle mark When viewing .MSG files from the files list directly, the above keys also apply, except that only one message may be viewed at a time, and exporting to .MSG format is not available. ┌ OUTBOUND MAIL MANAGER ───────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Not available in this version. ┌ MISCELLANEOUS ───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Various other parts of the user interface are common throughout the program and do not vary irrespective of their context. The first of these is the entry window used to enter directory file or path names. In addition to simple field entry, the window also offers two additional functions: F6 Selects file list mode, so that you can browse the system interactively and select a destination file or directory directly instead of having to remember the exact name. When using this mode, ENTER on any directory entry changes to that directory. ENTER while on any non- directory entry selects the highlighted file as the target. If you wish to select a directory name, press F10 instead. Use Ctl-D to change drives. Press F9 to invoke the directory view mode (see below). F8 Allows a directory to be selected from the "Path Index", which is defined in the [Paths] section of the .DEF file (registered/commercial feature only). F9 Invokes the graphical directory tree. This may be used to easily find a particular directory by moving around a "tree" diagram instead of having to move through multiple directories to select the one you want. One the tree is displayed, the following keys may be used: Up, Down, Navigate the tree, up and down, from Left, Right, parent to child, and from the top to Home, End, bottom of the list, or up and down PgUp, PgDn by screen. Enter Select a directory. Ctl-R Rescan current drive; this forces InspectA to scan the drive and re- generate its view of the drive. Since diskmaps can get out of date due to directories being created or deleted outside of InspectA, you should do this periodically whenever you find an inconsistency between what is presented on the directory tree and the disk itself. Ctl-D Select drive. This provides a means F9 of switching the viewed drive from the directory tree display. This also displays the available disk space on each drive. <text> To locate a directory without having to scroll up and down the tree, you can simply type its name and have InspectA home in on it to locate a close or exact match. Tab Clears the current search text. Shift-Tab Search for next directory matching the search text. For example, if you have two directories named "SECRET", then typing in the letters S-E-C-R-E-T will locate the first one below the current starting position with that name. Move to the next directory of the same name by using this key. Ins Make a new directory below the one currently hightled. Del Delete the highlighted directory. The directory being deleted must contain no files or subdirectories whatsoever for the deletion to be successful. Also, you should ensure that you are not logged into it. F2 Rename the highlighted directory. You may be prevented from doing this on some networks which require special network-specific ways to change directory names. The following keys are also active if the directory tree is invoked from the files list: Space Change to the highlighted directory and refresh the files list displayed beneath the directory tree window. F10 Enables "follow-me" mode, which forces InspectA to refresh the files list displayed as you move from one directory to the next. This is similar to pressing SPACE each time a new directory is selected. This may slow things down considerably on slower systems. If the directory tree is invoked from the files pick list, the following keys may be used: F10 Switch to the files picklist. You can also switch the screen blanker on by depressing both SHIFT keys at the same time. You may need to wait a short while (usually between 2-5 seconds) after sitting at a prompt for this to work due to the "timeout" strategy used internally which is used to avoid doing too much "work" between keystrokes or time slicing to viciously under a multitasking system. ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ GENERAL ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ┌ EXTERNAL COMMANDS ───────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ On many occasions, InspectA will execute external commands, either directly from user input or from commands configured for the manipulation of archive libraries, action on selecting a file from the files list or external commands mapped to key codes. Some special rules are used in external programs and are an extension to the DOS command line. InspectA does not use the system's currently installed command interpreter, but instead will search the PATH directly for the programs to run in much the same way as the standard interpreter, COMMAND.COM, does. It checks the current directory, then all directories in the path for a named program, or uses an explicit path when one is specified. After completing execution of an external program., InspectA reports the DOS "errorlevel", or exit code, with which the program terminates. In the vast majority of cases, this will be zero. Many programs will report a non-zero exit status to indicate abnormal termination, or an error of some type. Programs intended for use in batch files will often set the errorlevel to convey information to the controlling batch file. It may be desirable on some occasions to run a program via the command interpreter. To force this, simply precede the command with an exclamation mark '!'. An exit code of zero is always reported by COMMAND.COM (this may not be true of alternative command shells, such as 4DOS or MKS). In all cases, the shell run is determined from the value of the COMSPEC environment variable. Running a DOS batch file (.BAT) or 4DOS batch file (.BTM) from InspectA will always involve running the command interpreter first. Similarly, InspectA also knows about MS-DOS internal commands, for DOS versions up to DOS 5.0. These will always be invoked via the command interpreter. ENVIRONMENT When an external program is run, it inherits a copy of InspectA's environment variables (those displayed when using the SET command by itself). Irrespective of what size environment is set in CONFIG.SYS in a SHELL= statement for the first copy of the command interpreter, DOS will only allocate only the size required to contain the current environment in sub-shells. Since batch files often use environment variables it is often convenient to allocate a larger environment for the sub-shell as well to avoid the "Out of environment space" error. To support this, InspectA allows you to specify additional switches to pass to the command interpreter if specified prior the program name. For example: !/E:1280 callit xyz Invokes the command line interpreter in the following manner (assuming that COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM): C:\COMMAND.COM /E:1280 /Ccallit xyz This has the effect of running "callit" with an environment expanded to 1280 bytes. NOTE: In versions of DOS 3.1 and prior, the /E switch specifies the number of 16-byte paragraphs, not the number of bytes. You should consult your DOS manual to determine the exact behaviour of the version that you run. VARIABLES InspectA can use environment variables directly in any command line. You can specify an environment variable in the same way as in a batch file, ie. preceded and followed by a '%' sign. This allows you to 'soft code' some commands and have the command line change according to your current environmental settings. Batch file command line variables (ie. %1 through %9) are not used nor supported. However, because of the special treatment of the '%' in environment variables, you will need to use two %'s in the place of one if you desire to include a literal '%' on a command line. As an example, let's say that you wish to execute the following DOS command: for %f in (*.txt) do list %f The effect would be to execute "LIST <name>" on all files in the current directory with the extension of .TXT. From within InspectA, this should be entered as: for %%f in (*.txt) do %PAGER% %%f assuming that the environment variable PAGER (which InspectA also uses internally as the program to invoke to view files) is set to "list". Note the double %'s. This is identical to what DOS expects in batch files when using the "FOR" command. REDIRECTION InspectA does not (yet) support I/O redirection of commands without running via the command interpreter. See your DOS manual on using the '<', '>' and '>>' from the command line for details. If you need to redirect output or input make sure that you run via the active command interpreter by preceeding the command with '!'. MULTIPLE COMMANDS InspectA supports multiple commands on the same line. This means that you can run consecutive commands from the entry of a single line. Simply separate each command to run with a reverse single quote '`'. Since the quote character is treated specially in this manner, the ability is provided to "quote" this by preceding it with a backslash to insert a literal '`'. DIRECTORY The current directory is always maintained across calls to external programs by InspectA. The initial starting directory is always restored. However, this is not the case between multiple commands separated by '`' - the starting directory is restored only after all commands in a set have been executed. It is therefore quite valid to use a "CHDIR" or "CD" command and expect that the next command after a '`' will be executed in the directory changed to. ┌ PROMPTS & COMMAND HISTORY ───────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Almost all single line prompts used for file specifications, paths or commands to execute have the facility known as "command history" where the previous (up to) 64 commands are stored and may be easily recalled using the cursor keys. Special keys used to scroll through previous entries in the command line history are: Up Scroll back to previous command. Down Scroll forward to next command. PgUp Go to first command in history. PgDn Go to last command in history. Line entry prompts assume the previous entry as the default. Simply type to destroy this (clear the field) and enter something completely new. If you wish to modify the existing text, then use any of the movement keys (Left, Right, Home and End) to indicate that you wish to edit the entry rather than replace it. Other special key functions in line editing throughout InspectA are: Home Go to start of field End Go to end of field Left Left one character Right Right one character Ctl-Left Left one word Ctl-Right Right one word Ctl-Y Erase entire field Some fields (for example, the "Execute" function, usually assigned to F10 in the main files list) are actually longer than they appear. Long entries will scroll horizontally within the field displayed on the screen so that only a portion of the entry is visible at once. ┌ COPYRIGHTS AND WARRANTIES ───────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ InspectA and its associated documentation and same configuration files are Copyright 1992 by David L. Nugent and Unique Computing Pty Limited (incorporated in the state of Victoria). No warrantee is made as to the fitness of this product for any intended purpose, nor will any responsibility be taken for any damage, consequential or otherwise arising out of use or abuse of this product. It is provided purely on an "as is" basis, with no promises or agreements regarding any future versions or releases should they ever be published. This work is protected by Australian copyright law and by the International copyright treaty. The commercial version of this program may not be re-distributed under any conditions and in any form. The "shareware" release may be re-distributed under the terms and conditions of the accompanying "LICENSE.TXT". Various copyrighted works of software and registered trademarks are referred to in the documentation, including the following: ARC is a registered trademark of System Enhancement Associates Inc. ARC+PLUS is copyright System Enhancement Associates, Inc. ARCA & ARCE are copyright by Wayne Chin and Vernon D. Buerg. PKARC, PKPAK, PKXARC, PKUNPAK, PKZIP, PKUNZIP are copyright PKWARE, Inc. PKZIP & PKUNZIP are trademarks of PKWARE, Inc. PAK is copyright by NoGate Consulting. ZOO was written by Rahul Dhesi. ARJ is copyright by Robert Jung. HPACK is copyright by Peter Gutmann. LIST is copyright Vernon D. Buerg. QEdit is copyright SemWare. MSDOS is copyright Microsoft Corporation. FidoNet is a trademark of Tom Jennings. BinkleyTerm is copyright Bit Bucket Software, Co. Opus is copyright Wynn Wagner III. SEAdog is copyright System Enhancement Associates. FrontDoor is copyright by Joaquim H. Homrighausen and Advanced Engineering Sarl. InterMail is copyright by Peter Stewart and InterZone Software ┌ CREDITS ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ We would like to thank all those involved in the development and beta testing of InspectA, for their help, persistence, support, suggestions and encouragement. Special thanks to Sandy Turner, for her support, encouragement unending patience and belief in the project.