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1988-01-18
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Version 2.2 of RN.COM and DR.COM
Original DR.COM
---------------
"Our best free utility ever" was how PC Magazine described Michael
Mefford's DR.COM program. It was published in the August, 1987
(Volume 6, Number 14) issue. DR will list the files in a directory
sorted by time, date, filename, or file extension (it will even
list them in the order that DOS does!). If the list includes more
than 21 filenames, you can scroll through them using the cursor
keys.
Once the files are listed, DR will rename, move, delete, or list
any selected file. You select a file by moving a 'bouncing bar'
(inverse video filename display) with the cursor keys. A file can
also be selected by typing the first character of the file's name.
The first time an 'A' is typed, for example, the bar moves to the
first filename that begins with the letter 'A'. Successively
pressing the 'A' key will take you forward through all the
filenames that begin with the letter 'A'. When the last file
starting with 'A' has been reached, DR will beep at you when you
press the 'A' key.
Original RN.COM
---------------
Two issues later, PC Magazine published Mr. Mefford's companion
program RN.COM. RN is a directory manager in the same sense that
DR is a file manager. RN displays your hard disk directories in a
tree list, sorted alphabetically. The 'bouncing bar' technique
seen in DR is used to make selections, only this time you are
selecting directories. Again, you can use the cursor keys or
'first letter' Search to make your selections.
RN lets you rename, create, and delete directories. You can also
change the file attributes of all files in a particular directory.
By calling up RN with a '/I' option, RN's directory information is
kept resident in memory, making invocation almost immediate.
The nicest feature of RN is that you can highlight a directory name
and then by pressing the Return key (or F10), call DR to list the
files in that directory. Together, the utilities make a GREAT directory
management tool.
Modifications
-------------
The original programs worked with both monochrome and color
systems. The screen attributes were simply reversed to produce the
highlighting 'bouncing bar'. On my color system (I use bright
green on black for text entry), the filename in the highlighted
area was difficult to read. I found that using a red bar with
bright white letters made it much easier to read the filenames.
The files RN12_C.COM and DR22_C.COM will display the red bar on
color-equipped systems. For monochrome systems, Mr. Mefford's
original attribute handling works best; use the programs RN11_M.COM
and DR22_M.COM. Before using the programs, rename RN12_x.COM to
RN.COM and DR22_x.COM program to DR.COM.
After getting used to the power and speed of Vernon Beurg's LIST
program, I was disappointed with the scrolling speed of DR's built-
in View feature. Being a born tinkerer and hacker, I modified DR
so that it ran a copy of COMMAND.COM and called LIST.COM to list
the highlighted file.
Once that feature was working, I found myself using RN/DR often to
clean up my hard disk, getting rid of unwanted files. Because I
tend to archive a lot of my files, it seemed like every time I used
RN/DR, I was dropping back to DOS so that I could run PKARC and
PKXARC. Clearly what was needed was a way to call PKARC and PKXARC
without dropping back to DOS.
After making the call to LIST.COM work, it turned out to be fairly
easy to modify DR once more, adding calls to PKARC and PKXARC. You
can list all the files in an archive by pressing F6. To unARC all
the files in a selected archive, press F5.
DR.COM, LIST.COM, PKARC.COM, and PKXARC.COM must all be in a
PATH'ed directory (or directories) in order to be found when
called.
PKWARE's PKARC and PKXARC programs were used because they work so
much faster than SEA's original ARC program. If you are currently
using ARC, I would suggest changing to the PK programs.
Ziff-Davis and Michael Mefford retain the copyrights to the original
source code for both RN and DR. The author releases the
modifications to the public domain.
If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to leave me a
message via FIDO mail at Net 120, Node 27 (Bill Deblase's OPUS BBS,
Grand Rapids, MI) or on Compuserve, ID 71620,1035. I'd be happy to
supply the source code for anyone who may be interested.
A list of modifications to RN and DR appears at the end of this
document.
The following is a complete command list for each program. For a
complete description of the original programs, see the PC Magazine
Volume 6, Numbers 14 and 16.
Invocation: DR [d:][directory][/E][/S][/D][/T][/O]
options: d: = drive other than currently logged drive
directory = specific directory name
/x = Sort switches
E = by file extension
S = by file size
D = by file date
T = by file date
O = original DOS ordering (default)
KEY ACTION
----- --------
Cursor keys, A-Z, 0-9 Move highlight bar, selecting files
HOME Moves bar to top of list
END Moves bar to bottom of list
Ctrl-PgUp Moves bar to top of list on screen
Ctrl-PgDn Moves bar to bottom of list on screen
F1, Retrn, Ctrl-L Spawn LIST.COM to list selected file
F2, Ctrl-D Delete selected file
F3, Ctrl-R Rename selected file
F4, Ctrl-M Move selected file
F5, Ctrl-X Spawn PKXARC.EXE to unarc all files in
selected archive
F6, Ctrl-V Spawn PKARC.EXE for Verbose list of
files in selected archive
F7, Ctrl-N Sort file list by filename
F8, Ctrl-E Sort file list by file extension
F9, Ctrl-S Sort file list by file size
F10, Ctrl-T Sort file list by file date
Ctrl-C Toggle confirming prompt for Delete
and Rename
ESC Quit DR
Invocation: RN [d:][/I]
options: d: = drive other than currently logged drive
/I = Keep disk data installed in memory
KEY ACTION
----- --------
Cursor keys, A-Z, 0-9 Move highlight bar, selecting directories
HOME Moves bar to top of list
END Moves bar to bottom of list
Ctrl-PgUp Moves bar to top of list on screen
Ctrl-PgDn Moves bar to bottom of list on screen
F1 ChDir to selected directory
F2 Rename selected directory
F3 MkDir (under selected directory)
F4 RmDir