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╔═════════════════════════════╗
║ MENUBOOT.SYS V3.00 ║
║ (c) 1992, 1993 P. Appleton ║
║ Graphics handling routines ║
║ (c) 1993 A. Brown ║
╚═════════════════════════════╝
Page 2
Contents
Introduction.................................................3
Registration / License agreement.............................4
Installation.................................................5
Basic usage..................................................5
Use of the command line interpreter..........................6
Multiple menus...............................................8
Use of the 'SET' command.....................................9
Use of the 'NONRES' command.................................11
Use of the ON and OFF commands..............................11
Use of the BLANK command....................................12
Appendix 1 - New DEVICE statements..........................13
Appendix 2 - Error messages.................................16
Appendix 3 - System requirements / known problems...........17
Revision history / future plans.............................18
Disclaimer..................................................19
NB: Versions 3.00+ require a VGA card to run. Not having a VGA
will cause the program to abort!
Version 2.52 is the last version which will run on one of these cards,
and is available instead of version 3.00 at the same price.
Page 3
Introduction
With the variety of modern software and hardware now available,
inevitably conflicts arise between the configurations required
for different programs. MS-DOS only allows for one
configuration file to be present, and hence can lead to some
extraordinary manipulations using batch files to allow
configurable rebooting.
MENUBOOT is a device driver which adds new commands to your
CONFIG.SYS file enabling you to simply and easily build custom
menus, obviating the requirement to swap configuration files.
Commands are provided to allow the user's choice to be saved for
later use by other programs or AUTOEXEC.BAT. The following
features are provided:
Up to 20 options per menu.
Up to 255 menus (!).
User-defined menus, with selection by cursor keys or initial
letter.
Optional default and/or timeout for each menu.
User definable colours.
Cursor positioning commands.
Box drawing commands.
Uses typically 280-300 bytes of memory (optionally uses none, see
page 11 DEVICE=NONRES).
Ability to communicate with other programs via environment variables.
Graphical interface (requires VGA card or better).
Ability to suppress ALL output from device drivers as they load.
Ability to process menu from config.sys from command line, allowing
easy designing of menus without requiring a reboot.
Page 4
Registration / License agreement
MENUBOOT.SYS is shareware. That means that you are permitted to
use a unregistered copy freely for a 'reasonable time', and to
freely distribute unregistered copies, provided that all the
files making up this package are included and that MENUBOOT.SYS
is not bundled with any other package or product whatsoever.
You may not, for any reason whatsoever, distribute, sell, lend
or otherwise transfer or permit to be transferred any registered
copy of MENUBOOT.SYS, nor may you charge for an unregistered
copy apart from a nominal fee to cover the costs of duplication,
distribution and handling. You are not permitted to
disassemble, decrypt or modify MENUBOOT.SYS or any portion
thereof. No registered copy of MENUBOOT.SYS may be installed on
more than one computer, unless there is NO possibility that two
or more of these computers may be running at the same time. If
you use MENUBOOT.SYS after a short (1 month) trial period, you
MUST register. MENUBOOT.SYS shall remain at all times the
property of the author; you are permitted a limited license to
use MENUBOOT.SYS. By installing MENUBOOT.SYS onto your machine
you indicate your acceptance of the above terms and conditions.
Registration is available by payment of £15 to:
P. Appleton
Greenaway
Maltmans Lane
Gerrards Cross
Bucks SL9 8RT
England
This will entitle you to the benefits of:
Free support by mail / email of MENUBOOT.SYS.
Unlimited free upgrades (please send a disk and P&P).
No 'nag' text or similar items.
In addition, a professionally printed and bound manual is availble for
an extra £5 to registered users only (it is significantly better laid
out than this one...).
If you have an urgent problem, you can also ring me at 0742-308830
although I cannot guarrantee how long this number will be unchanged,
or preferrably email me as:
bi3pma%stg1.shef@sunc.shef.ac.uk (Internet).
Email is the fastest, easiest and (for me) prefferable way to contact me
on the whole.
Page 5
Installation
Installation of MENUBOOT.SYS is extremely simple. You should
have received three large files - MENUBOOT.DOC (which you're reading),
MENUBOOT.EXE, and MENUTEST.EXE - and several small utilities / bits &
bobs. The documentation can either be printed or left for on-line
reference if preferred, and the other files should all be copied to a
sub-directory. MENUBOOT.SYS is now a slight misnomer as it has been
repackaged in an EXE format; this allows the three previous programs to
be incorporated into a single file, although it does mean losing
backwards compatability with MS-DOS 2.x. If you run version 2.0 (!),
either:
a) Upgrade to at least MS-DOS 3.30
b) Use MENUBOOT.SYS version 1.x
To start using MENUBOOT.SYS two changes are required to your
CONFIG.SYS file:
A new line should be inserted at the begining with the
statement DEVICE=[path]MENUBOOT.EXE
A new line must be inserted at the end with the statement
DEVICE=~ (found as shift-# on UK keyboards).
That's it! At the moment, it will not do anything terribly
useful, but it will provide all the new commands. The use of
MENUBOOT to provide menus is covered in the next section.
Basic usage
-----------
First, a word on syntax conventions in this manual.
Anything enclosed in [square braces] is optional, and may be
ommitted or replaced with the relevant parameter; hence [path]
may be ommitted or replaced with (for example) C:\PDUTILS\.
Anything enclosed in <angle braces> is literal, and must be
entered exactly as-is. Also, all text not enclosed in braces is
a literal.
Anything enclosed in {curly braces} is a required parameter, and
should have the appropriate argument substituted for the text in
the curly braces.
The pipe symbol | indicates a choice of items; for example,
[MAX|OPTION|{number}] indicates that you may omit the parameter,
supply a number or one of the parameters MAX or OPTION.
OK, so, what is the format for a menu?
A menu is started by the line:
DEVICE=MENU [options]
(Note: see appendix 1 for an explanation of all the options you
may use)
Page 6
When this line is encountered, MENUBOOT will clear the screen,
display a copyright notice and any text or options you specify,
and then wait for you to choose an option (or press a key if no
options were specified). An option is specified by the line:
DEVICE=OPTION [<{>{options}<}>] {option text}
In between the OPTION statements, any configuration statements
relevant to that option should be placed.
Finally, the menu is terminated by the line
DEVICE=END
We now know enough to create a simple menu sytem for a sample
CONFIG.SYS file:
DEVICE=C:\PDUTILS\MENUBOOT.EXE
DEVICE=MENU
DEVICE=OPTION 1...I^NSTALL RAMDRIVE^
DEVICE=C:\DOS\RAMDRIVE
BUFFERS=5
DEVICE=OPTION 2...D^ON'T INSTALL RAMDRIVE
BUFFERS=15
DEVICE=END
DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS
FILES=30
DEVICE=~
Try it! Format a blank disk, making sure you transfer MS-DOS
and MENUBOOT.EXE, and type it in as your CONFIG.SYS. Alternatively, you
can dipslay it from the command line, without needing to reboot, by just
typing 'MENUTEST' which will invoke the command-line interpreter. Note
that at present this is a very si