The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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WinDOS Version 1.0 ------------------ A Graphical User Interface For Personal Computers. (C) Copyright 1990 By: PM Enterprises 2315 El Paseo Las Cruces, NM 88001 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises __________________________________________________TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.....................................................2 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS............................................4 INSTALLATION.....................................................4 PATHS AND BATCH FILES............................................6 USING A MOUSE....................................................8 GETTING STARTED..................................................8 MANAGING WinDOS..................................................9 Configure WinDOS.................................................9 General Options..................................................9 VideoMode........................................................9 Use Mouse........................................................9 Exploding Windows................................................10 Use Roman Font...................................................10 Dimmer Seconds...................................................10 WinDOS Colors....................................................10 Page BackGround..................................................10 Quit Icon Window & Text Color....................................10 DOS Bar & Text Color.............................................10 WinDOS Clocks....................................................11 Show Analog......................................................11 Analog Size......................................................11 Analog X-Loc & Y-Loc.............................................11 Analog Window & Hands Color......................................11 Show Digital.....................................................11 Digital Size.....................................................11 Analog X-Loc & Y-Loc.............................................11 Digital Window & Digit Elements Color............................11 Set Icon Size....................................................12 Icon X-Width & Y-Height..........................................12 Quit X-Loc & Y-Loc...............................................12 Edit Icon List...................................................12 Main Title.......................................................12 Sub Title........................................................12 Hot Key..........................................................12 Fast Or Slow.....................................................13 Icon X-Loc & Y-Loc...............................................13 Icon Window & Text Color.........................................13 DOS Command #1, #2, & #3.........................................13 Auto Run Time....................................................15 Delete Icon .....................................................15 Index............................................................16 Registration.....................................................17 1 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises _______________________________________________________INTRODUCTION Welcome to the wonderful world of WinDOS!!! WinDOS is a graphical menu program for DOS. The purpose of a menu program is to eliminate the cryptic DOS prompt ( C:\ ) we've all grown to hate. If you use a menu program you have total access to all the programs on your hard disk and you don't have to remember any commands. Once you have a menu program set up, you can select obvious actions from a meaningful list of choices. Sounds great doesn't it, well it is. Menu programs are very popular with people who need to manage a large hard disk. There are lots of menu programs to choose from. They all perform a similar task; You set them up once, and then you can forget all the details. The menu programs are usually character based. This means that everything you see on the screen is done with the standard characters that are built into your computer. Often these screens are relatively extravagant. By using some very special characters it is possible to draw windows and highlighted menu bars. Typically you choose a menu item by moving a highlight bar with the keyboard cursor keys. But let's face it, these are the nineties! You just spent anywhere between $300.00 and $1000.00 to outfit your computer with the latest EGA/VGA graphics capabilities. You don't want a program that runs just the same on a $75.00 monitor as it does on your $750.00 monitor. You want WinDOS! WinDOS always runs in graphics mode. Instead of a list of applications that looks like a government report, WinDOS gives you graphical Icons. You control the size and color of the Icons and you can put the Icons anywhere on the screen. You can set up an Icon for all of your programs. When you want to run a program you just point to the Icon with your mouse, click the mouse button and that's it, your program is running. If you don't have a mouse you can use the Icon hot-key. Just press the hot-key once and the program starts up. As soon as you exit from your application program, your right back in WinDOS where you started. WinDOS also displays a clock on your screen. You have your choice between a traditional analog (with hands) clock or a more modern digital clock. Just like the Icons, you control the size and color of the clocks. WinDOS provides a screen saver facility. The purpose of the screen saver is to prevent damage to your monitor when you walk away from the computer. The damage can occur when your screen displays the same image for long periods of time. When this occurs the image can become permanently "burned in" to the phosphorus on the screen. WinDOS knows when your not using your computer. When its detects this it will completely erase the screen. When you come back and start using the computer again, the screen is automatically 2 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises restored just the way you left it. A particularly handy WinDOS feature is the automatic job scheduling facility. Each of the WinDOS Icons can have it's own automatic start up time. When an Icon's start up time matches the actual time, the Icon's program starts up automatically. This feature is great for doing things in the middle of the night when your not around. For instance you could do your hard disk backup or maybe sort a large data base. With WinDOS you no longer have to sit around waiting for those long jobs to finish, just set them up to run in the middle of the night, when you come back in the morning the job will be done. Most of all though, you will really appreciate the way WinDOS looks. WinDOS permanently eliminates those boring old blank computer screen blues. 3 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ______________________________________________HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS WinDOS requires an IBM compatible PC/XT or AT computer. You can use WinDOS with as little as 256k of memory. WinDOS is designed to work with a hard disk; however it is possible to use the program with a single floppy disk. Your computer must have either an EGA or VGA graphics card. It is important that your video card is REGISTER LEVEL compatible with a true IBM card. WinDOS will utilize any Microsoft compatible mouse that is connected to your computer. _______________________________________________________INSTALLATION Before you do anything you should make a back up copy of your original WinDOS disk. This can be accomplished in several ways - the easiest way is to use the DOS DISKCOPY command. First get yourself another disk to use for the copy; then use the following commands to copy the disk: If you have 1 floppy drive: 1. At the DOS prompt enter: DISKCOPY A: A: 2. Put your original WinDOS disk in drive A: when DOS asks for the SOURCE diskette. 3. When DOS asks for the TARGET diskette place your new disk in drive A: If you have 2 floppy drives: 1. Put your original disk in drive A: 2. Put your new disk in drive B: 3. At the DOS prompt enter DISKCOPY A: B: Now your ready to install WinDOS on your hard disk. Begin by inserting your WinDOS diskette in drive A: or drive B:. Whichever drive you choose make that drive the default by typing A: or B: at the DOS prompt. Now type INSTALL at the DOS prompt. You will see the WdSetup menu appear on the screen. Select the Install WinDOS operation from the menu. You will be asked to specify the directory where you want to install WinDOS. Enter a valid DOS directory name, if you want to 4 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises select the default directory C:\WINDOS, just press ENTER. Next you will need to select the directory where you want to keep your batch files. Enter a valid DOS directory. Again you can select the default directory C:\BAT by pressing ENTER. Don't worry if you're not sure what a batch file or a batch directory is, we'll talk about that later. As soon as you've entered the two directory names WdSetup will start installing WinDOS. You will notice a message on the screen that mentions setting the PATH variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You need to have a SET PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file that includes your WinDOS directory and your batch directory. By doing this you will be able to start WinDOS from any directory and WinDOS will be able to start any batch file in your batch directory. If your not sure what a batch file or SET PATH command is, please take few minutes to read the next section. You should understand these topics, it will make WinDOS work better for you and you will have much more control over your computer. AUTOEXEC.BAT is a simple text file located in the root directory of your hard disk. You can create a new AUTOEXEC.BAT or edit your old AUTOEXEC.BAT file with a text editor. You should go to your root directory and do this now. One other note; if you already have a SET PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and you need to add your WinDOS directory to this statement, you should put the WinDOS directory near the front of the PATH variable. Because DOS checks the PATH directories from left to right, WinDOS will load faster if it is near the front of the list. After you have edited your AUTOEXEC.BAT file you are just about ready to go. First though, you need to have the AUTOEXEC.BAT changes you just made take affect. The easiest way to do this is to simply re-boot the computer. You can do this by typing CTRL-ALT-DEL. Press all three keys at the same time. Alternately, you could turn the power of on your computer for a second, and then start it back up. Now your ready to start WinDOS. To do so type WD at the DOS prompt. 5 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ______________________________________________PATHS AND BATCH FILES A PATH variable is a special feature of DOS that makes it easy for you to run programs. The PATH variable tells DOS where to look for programs when you enter their names at the DOS prompt. This feature makes it possible to start a program that is in a PATH directory even when you're in a different directory. For instance, suppose you wanted to run a program named WP that is located in a directory named C:\WORD. Normally, you would need to go to that directory and then type WP. But if you had a SET PATH statement that said: SET PATH=C:\WORD then you could just type WP anywhere. It wouldn't matter what directory you were in. DOS would know to check the C:\WORD directory before it gave up looking for the program named WP. Since WP is in fact located in C:\WORD, DOS would find it and run it. You can set up more than one directory in your PATH variable. All you have to do is separate different directories with a semicolon (;). For example your SET PATH statement might appear as: SET PATH=C:\DOS;C:\BAT This command would tell DOS to start looking for a program in the current directory, if it's not found then check the C:\DOS directory, if it's still not found check the C:\BAT directory. This would continue down through all the directories in the PATH variable until the program is found or the list is exhausted. The best place to have a SET PATH statement is in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. AUTOEXEC.BAT is a special file that is located in the root directory of your hard disk. Every time you start or re-boot the computer the commands in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file are issued automatically. That's why the AUTOEXEC.BAT file is a good place to put your SET PATH statement. Put the SET PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file once and you'll never have to do it again; each time you turn the computer on it will be issued automatically. AUTOEXEC.BAT is really just a special form of a DOS batch file. A batch file is a simple text file that contains DOS commands on each line. The DOS commands are entered into the batch file with a text editor. The commands are typed in just like they would be typed in at the DOS prompt. You can run a batch file by entering the name of the batch file at the DOS prompt. For instance to run the batch file named WD.BAT you would simply type WD at the DOS prompt. When you run the batch file the commands in it are given to DOS just like if you were typing them in yourself. Batch files make it possible to issue a sequence of commands with one simple command; just enter the name of the 6 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises batch file that contains all of the commands you want executed. For instance if you were in the root directory of your hard disk and you wanted to print a file named REPORT.DOC that is located in a directory named C:\WORD\BETTY\MARCH\SALES. You could enter the command: COPY C:\WORD\BETTY\MARCH\SALES\REPORT.DOC PRN each time. Or, you could enter the previous command once in a batch file named REP-PRNT.BAT. Then when you wanted to print the file you would only need to type REP-PRNT at the DOS prompt. The savings in keystrokes can be tremendous. You really begin to take control of your computer when you combine the power of the PATH variable with batch files. The idea is to create a special directory for all your batch files, like C:\BAT. Then put C:\BAT in your PATH variable. Now you can write batch files to do your repetitive tasks. Since the batch files are located in your batch directory, which is in the PATH, you can run the batch files anytime and anywhere. It doesn't matter which directory you're in, DOS will find the batch file and run it. This process effectively extends the DOS operating system, allowing you to add your own custom commands. It is also a good idea to put all your DOS programs in a directory that is in the PATH. For instance the C:\DOS directory. This way you can run any of the DOS programs from anywhere on your hard disk. As an example, on a properly organized hard disk you might find the following statement in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file: SET PATH=C:\DOS;C:\BAT;C:\WINDOS Where all your DOS programs are in C:\DOS, all your batch files are in C:\BAT, and your WinDOS files in C:\WINDOS. Of course, you may need to add more directories to your PATH variable, it depends on your situation. Nevertheless, the above example is a good way to start your PATH variable. 7 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ______________________________________________________USING A MOUSE If you are going to use a Microsoft compatible mouse with WinDOS, you need to do a few things before you start. Most mice utilize a special mouse driver program. Typically you will load this driver either in your CONFIG.SYS file or in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. WinDOS uses the mouse driver and if you have not loaded it prior to running WinDOS, the mouse won't work. If your not sure how to load the mouse driver please check the documentation that came with your mouse, it will explain what you need to do. ____________________________________________________GETTING STARTED When you start WinDOS by typing WD at the DOS prompt, you will see WinDOS come up and begin drawing the Icons on your screen. WinDOS is shipped with an example menu configuration. Don't get upset if some of the Icons in the example menu don't work with your computer, they are just examples. Soon you will know how to set them up for your computer. The example menu contains several different screen objects. You will notice quite a few Icons placed about the screen. You will see both type of clocks, analog and digital. You will also notice the DOS bar and the DOS button at the top of the screen. If you have a mouse connected to your computer you will also see the mouse cursor displayed in the center of the screen. Operating WinDOS is extremely simple. When you want to run a program simply point to the appropriate Icon and click the left mouse button. Alternately, each Icon has a hot-key displayed in it's upper left hand corner. You can select an Icon by pressing the correct hot-key on your keyboard. It is also possible to run any DOS command directly from the DOS bar. If you press CTRL-D or click on the DOS Button, you can enter a command in the DOS bar. The command will be issued to DOS just like it would at the normal DOS prompt. You can move any of the screen objects with the mouse cursor. This is accomplished by pointing to the screen element with the mouse and then holding down the right mouse button. As long as you have the right mouse button down, you can "drag" the screen object around the screen. When you release the right mouse button the object will remain in it's new location. Any changes you make will be remembered. If you don't have a mouse you can use WdSetup to control the position of the screen objects. 8 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ____________________________________________________MANAGING WinDOS You have control over every aspect of your WinDOS screen. This control is administered through the program named WdSetup. You will find WdSetup in the directory that you had WinDOS installed to. If you installed WinDOS in a directory named C:\WINDOS, the WdSetup icon that see on the WinDOS example menu will start the program for you. If not, you will need to go the directory where WinDOS has been installed and then type WDSETUP at the DOS prompt. WdSetup performs three different tasks; (1) It lets you install WinDOS, (2) it lets you configure the WinDOS options, and (3), it lets you create, edit, or delete WinDOS menu icons. We've already talked about using the installation routine. We will now discuss the other two operations. ___________________________________________________Configure WinDOS The Configure WinDOS command will let you set the WinDOS general options, the WinDOS colors, and control the WinDOS clocks. ======== General Options ======== ** VideoMode ** Use this option to select the graphics video mode for WinDOS, either EGA or VGA. If you choose EGA the screen coordinates will be: Upper Left: X=0, Y=0 Lower Right: X=639, Y=349 If you choose VGA the screen coordinates will be: Upper Left: X=0, Y=0 Lower Right: X=639, Y=479 Whenever you are asked to enter a screen location or an icon size, the number you provide should be in the screen units shown above. ** Use Mouse ** Use this command to tell WinDOS whether or not to use a mouse. If you choose yes and you have a mouse, the mouse cursor will be displayed. Otherwise it will not. 9 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ** Explode Windows ** Use this option to turn exploding windows on or off. When exploding windows are on, as WinDOS draws the windows they will seem to explode out of the lower right hand corner of the screen. If you want WinDOS to re-load faster, turn the exploding windows off. ** Use Roman Font ** Use this option to choose a font for use with the menu Icons. If you select yes for this option, the icons will be created with a proportional Roman font. If you select no the the icons will be created with a plain fixed width font. This is simply a matter of taste, it's your choice. ** Dimmer Seconds ** Use this option to specify the number of seconds for WinDOS to wait before it blanks the screen. If you fail to use the computer for the specified number of seconds, the screen will be blanked until you return. If you set the screen dimmer time to zero, the screen dimmer will be disabled. ========= WinDOS Colors ======== ** Page BackGround ** Sets the color of the screen background. ** Quit Icon Window & Text Color ** Set the colors of the Quit Icon. 10 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ** DOS Bar & Text Color ** Set the colors of the DOS Bar. ======== WinDOS Clocks ======== ** Show Analog ** Use this option to turn the analog clock on or off. ** Analog Size ** Use the option to select the size of the analog clock. You may choose between small, normal, big, or huge. ** Analog X-Loc & Y-Loc ** Use these options to specify the screen coordinates of the upper left hand corner of the analog clock. Keep in mind that if the analog clock is to big for the screen coordinates you specify, it will go off the screen. ** Analog Window & Hands Color ** Use these options to set the colors of the analog clock window and the analog clock hands. ** Show Digital ** Use this option to turn the digital clock on or off. ** Digital Size ** Use this option to select the size of the digital clock. You may choose between small, normal, big, or huge. ** Digital X-Loc & Y-Loc ** Use these options to specify the screen coordinates of the upper left hand corner of the digital clock. Keep in mind that if the digital clock is to big for the screen coordinates you specify, it will go off the screen. ** Digital Window & Digit Elements Color ** Use this option to set the color of the digital clock window and the digit elements. 11 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ======== Set Icon Size ======== ** Icon X-Width & Y-Height ** Use these options to specify the size of the WinDOS Icons. You are expected to enter the width and the height in valid screen units. Keep in mind that if the Icons are to small, the text within them may overflow. If the Icons are to big, you won't have enough space to put many icons on the screen. ** Quit X-Loc & Y-Loc ** Use these options to specify the screen coordinates of the upper left hand corner of the Quit Icon. ======== Edit Icon List ======== When you select this operation you will be able to create, delete or edit old menu icons. Every menu icon has several attributes, all of which are controlled by editing the icon list. You will see a list of icons displayed when you select this operation. A menu screen can contain up to 50 icons. The icon list is displayed in five pages of ten icons each. You can select different pages with the Page-Up and Page-Down keys. Select the icon you wish to edit. Every icon has several fields. The following provides a description of each of these fields. ** Main Title ** This is the text that will be displayed with large letters in the center of the icon. ** Sub Title ** This is the text that will be displayed with small letters at the bottom of the icon. ** Hot Key ** This is the single character that will become the icon hot key. You can enter any keyboard character in this field. Note that the hot key is not case sensitive. For example, "a" is the same as "A". 12 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ** Fast Or Slow ** Use this option to choose between Fast WinDOS re-load or Slow WinDOS re-load. When you select fast re-load, WinDOS will remain memory resident when an icon program is run. WinDOS will use up about 100k of your computers memory when it remains resident. The advantage of fast mode is that when you exit your application program, WinDOS will not have to re-load from the hard disk. The disadvantage is that your application program will not be able to use the 100k of memory that WinDOS is using. When you select slow re-load, WinDOS will completely terminate when an icon program is run. This advantage of this method is that your application program will be able to use all of your computers memory. The disadvantage is that when you exit your application program, WinDOS will have to re-load from the hard disk. ** Icon X-Loc & Y-Loc ** Use this option to specify the screen coordinates of the upper left hand corner of the Icon. ** Icon Window & Text Color ** Use these options to set the colors of the icon. ** DOS Command #1, #2, & #3 ** These fields are where you specify the actual DOS commands that will be issued when the icon is selected. The DOS commands will be issued in order, one line at a time. The object here is to enter the commands that will start your program. For example, you might have the following three DOS commands: Command #1: D: Command #2: CD\DOCUMENTS\JANE Command #3: WP These commands would change DOS to drive D:, go down to the D:\DOCUMENTS\JANE directory, and start the program named WP. You can use command line parameters in the DOS commands. The parameter place holder is the percent sign (%). If you place the % character in any of the three DOS command fields, WinDOS will ask you for the parameter when the icon is selected. Whatever text you enter, it will replace the % character in the command that is actually given to DOS. 13 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises You can have more than one % character in a command. If this is the case you will be repeatedly prompted until all of the parameters have been input. If you don't want the icon to do anything at all when it is selected, you can place the command: -NOP in the command #1 field. This will cause all three icon commands to be ignored. If you want some of the DOS commands issued, but for example you don't want the third command to have any affect, then you can enter the DOS command: REM in the command line field. DOS won't do anything when it receives the REM command. It is possible that three commands will not be enough to do the job. If this is the case you can write a batch file to issue the DOS commands. Then you can enter the batch file name in the icon Command #1 field. For instance, you could place the commands shown in the above example in a file named WPJANE.BAT: D: CD\DOCUMENTS WP In order for this to work you need to observe the three following rules: 1. Your batch files must be located in the batch directory. This is the directory that is in your DOS path. Please read the section on PATHS and batch files if your not sure what all this means. 2. If you are using DOS version 3.3 or higher, you should invoke batch files with the CALL command. For example: Command #1: CALL WPJANE Command #2: REM Command #3: REM 3. If you are using DOS version 3.2 or lower, you should invoke batch files with the C:\COMMAND /C command. For example: Command #1: C:\COMMAND /C WPJANE Command #2: REM Command #3: REM 14 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ** Auto Run Time ** You may enter a time in this field indicating that you want the icon to be automatically selected a preset time. Use this feature when you want to run programs automatically. The time you enter will be interpreted as MILITARY time. For example 2:30 pm. is written in military time as 14:30. The format for the time filed is: HH:MM Each digit must be filled. For example 4 minutes past 7 am. is entered as: 07:04 If this field is left blank, the icon will never be started automatically. ** Delete This Icon Completely ** Select this command when you want to delete the icon completely. If this command is given, all the icon settings will be reset. 15 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises ______________________________________________________________Index AUTOEXEC.BAT 5, 6 Icon Hot Key 12 Analog Clock 11 Icon Location 13 Automatic Start 3, 15 Icon Main title 12 Batch Directory 5, 6, 14 Icon Sub Title 12 Batch Files 5, 14 Icon Width 12 Clocks 2, 11 Install 4, 9 Colors 10 Military Time 15 DISKCOPY 4 Mouse 2, 8, 9 DOS 7, 13 Move Icon 8 DOS Bar 7, 11 NOP 14 Delete Icon 15 Parameters 13 Digital Clock 11 Quit Icon 10, 12 Drag Icon 8 REM 14 Exploding Windows 10 Re-Boot 5 Fast 13 Resident 13 Fonts 10 SET PATH 5, 6, 7 Graphics 2, 4 Screen Saver 2, 10 Hardware 4 Select Icon 8 Hot-key 2, 8 Slow 13 Icon Color 13 Start WinDOS 5 Icon Commands 13 Video Mode 2, 9 Icon Height 12 WdSetup 9 16 Copyright (C) 1990 PM Enterprises _______________________________________________________Registration You are encouraged to become a registered user of WinDOS. Even though your shareware version of WinDOS included this manual, there are four benefits which only registered users will enjoy: 1. A licensed copy of WinDOS and an attractive typeset user manual. 2. Customer support directly from the authors of WinDOS. 3. Notification of WinDOS revisions and discounts on product upgrades. 4. The satisfaction in knowing that you have contributed to the shareware concept, thus ensuring that good shareware will continue to be available. If you would like to become a registered user of WinDOS, please send check or money order for $19.95 to: PM Enterprises 2315 El Paseo Las Cruces, NM 88001 An order form is not required. Simply include a short note that says "WinDOS" and that contains your mailing address. You will receive a purchase order receipt with your shipment. 17