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1991-06-29
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DOS MASTER
version 1.20
by Michael Abley
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Software and manual Copyright (c) 1990, 1991 by
Michael Abley
All rights reserved.
No portion of this software or manual may be duplicated in
any manner without the written permission of Michael Abley
Release 1.004
Disclaimer of Warranty:
Michael Abley makes no warranty of any kind, expressed or
implied, with regard to the programs or the documentation
contained in this manual.
Information in this manual is subject to change without
notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of
the vendor.
INTRODUCTION
A. Philosophy
Welcome to the shareware version of DOS MASTER! You may
be asking why you need yet ANOTHER file/disk manager
program to clutter up your hard disk. The answer is quite
simple: most of the existing packages either try to do too
much, too little or are too expensive. This program was
originally written because I found that 90 percent of the
DOS housekeeping chores that I do are the simple procedures
of copying, deleting, moving, comparing, and editing. Eighty
percent of THOSE chores are just copying selected files and
deleting. Unfortunately, it seems that most commercial
packages feel that you should be bombarded with endless
pull-down menus and pop-up screens that can often make the
simple matter of copying a few files from one directory to
another a challenge to the user. My basic philosophy is KEEP
IT SIMPLE!, but with enough extras available to extend the
usefulness of the basic utilities.
The program can be 'navigated' by either keyboard or
mouse. I have tried to make the operations of the program as
intuitive as possible and to keep with some of the current
'conventional' key assignments for DOS programs. eg. F10 is
usually Quit with many programs as is F1 for Help.
B. Features of DM
- split-screen, detailed and scrollable listings of all
files and directories
- full mouse support with easy 'point and shoot' navigation
of directories and drives
- copy, move, delete files including read-only, hidden and
system files with two key strokes.
- built in text editor with full mouse and block
highlighting support + print utility.(print utility in
REGISTERED VERSION ONLY)
- view/browse text files with built in text search
- rename directories and files
- erase directories
- four types of sorting of directories/drives
- ability to shell out and run other programs or quit and
run a selected program
- will compare any two directories/disks and highlight which
files are different or are the most recent.
- find a file anywhere on current drive (similar to WHEREIS)
- find any text in current directory
- constant display of the room left on the current drive and
the total size of any selected files.
- command line controls, including a direct-to-editor
function
- help screen
- runs on CGA, EGA, VGA systems
new:
- graphic tree display of your disk drive with easy
directory navigation.
- archiving utility to let you easyily PKWARE'S PKZip
utility to compress, decompress or view ZIPPED files.
(REGISTERED VERSION ONLY)
C. Hardware requirements
DOS MASTER will work on any system with 512K (640K
preferred for when you are using the SHELL functions) and
any color adapter. i.e. CGA, EGA, VGA. As of this version,
DM does NOT support the Hercules board. The program is fully
mouse supported including the Editor, but a mouse is NOT
required. Personally, I find the mouse handy, especially
with file selection and block highlighting in the Editor. A
color monitor and hard drive is not required, but I do
recommend them. I also recommend you use DOS version 3.2 or
higher (until DOS 5.0 comes out, I think ver. 3.3 is best).
D. Installation
There's no complicated installation procedure for this
program. I recommend setting up DOS MASTER in a subdirectory
called simply 'DM'. Copy the program, help files and
documentation to this subdirectory and then add DM to your
PATH command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file (hey, why not use the
editor in DM to do this?). This way, anytime you want to use
DOS MASTER, all you have to do is type DM.
Here's how I would install DM on a hard drive C from
the A floppy drive. Type the following and hit Enter after
each line:
C:
CD\
MD DM
CD\DM
COPY A:*.*
To change your path command, enter DM and edit your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. i.e:
DM /E C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT (use command line to go
straight to the DM editor)
now edit the path line in the file so that DM is
near the front:
eg.
PATH=C:\DOS;C:\DM;C:\UTILITY;C:\WINDOWS;etc
Please note that you may put the .EXE file and the two .HLP
files that make up DM anywhere on your drive and once DM is
in your path it can be launched from any directory, BUT all
three files must remain together, otherwise DM will not be
able to find its help files when you need them.
2. "NAVIGATION"
A. The Main Screen description:
When you first start DOS MASTER, you will see the Main
Operational Screen which consists of the following four
components:
1. the screen split down the middle with two identical
lists of the contents of the directory or drive in
which you started the program. The path of the
directory is centered at the top of each list, and a
grey (color monitors) highlight bar appears at the top
of the left hand list. All files are listed in each
directory along with each file's size, date and time of
creation. If the file is read-only, hidden or a system
file, there will be a small shaded square with a 'hole'
in it next to the file name.
2. The third line from the bottom shows the disk space
left on the current drive (middle screen) and if you
start selecting any files (see below on how to do
this), below each list will appear information on how
many files you've picked and their total size in K
bytes.
3. The second line from the bottom is the file
specification line. This line is used to let you choose
what files are to be displayed in each list. eg. if you
just wanted the list to show all the files on the C
drive in sub-directory PROGS with the ".EXE"
extension, you would edit the file specification for
that list to display "C:\PROGS\*.EXE". This line can be
accessed at any time by holding down the Alt key and
pressing E.
Also note that there appears on this line on the
far right hand side "Tag special= off". This part of
the screen is to tell you whether file attribute
detection is turned on/off i.e. this signals whether
'special' files like hidden, read-only or system files
will be 'tagged' to indicate that these files are
different ('Tag special= on' places a small square next
to the file name in the menu). This feature can be
turned on or off and is explained in more detail under
item 12 of Additional Utilities (page 18).
4. The screen's bottom line contains the function key
definitions.
B. Moving around:
For mouse users, in most cases, the left button is used
to choose something (instead of arrow keys) and the right
button acts the same as pressing Enter.
To SWITCH from left to right directories (or vice-versa)
-mouse: single click left or right button on menu you
wish to use
-keyboard: use TAB key OR left/right cursor keys
To move the HIGHLIGHT bar down the list of files, use
- the up/down arrow keys
- place mouse cursor over file name and click down with
the left mouse button.
- Press the FIRST LETTER of the file/directory you want
to