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XMASTER.DOC
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1992-07-26
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*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
X - Master - The ULTIMATE in CONTROL for
all your
EXTENSION specific programs
v1.05
*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
An introduction of sorts...
Scenario ONE -
You own a Sound Blaster card, and you have been amassing
an enormous collection of MOD files, as well as a few ROL files, and
a few CMF's. You only have a 60mb HD, and have to keep all these
files compressed as to conserve space. Everytime you wish to play
one of the MOD's, you have to uncompress the file, play it, and then
delete it after hearing it. Kind of a pain...
Scenario TWO -
You own a VGA card and have been collecting a bunch of FLI's.
These are incredible space takers, so keeping them unarchived does
not make any sense, so you ARJ a few of them, ZIP some of the
others, and LZH the rest. Unfortunately, not one program can undo
all the aforementioned archives, so you have to continually remember
which one is compressed with which archive, or repeatedly take
directories. Even more of a pain, especially if you spell one
wrong...
Scenario THREE -
You own the ultimate multi-media machine and have the same
problems as the two people mentioned above, but since you have a
660mb HD, your problems are ten times worse! What you need is a
program which is easy to configure, will automatically choose which
unarchiver and player to use, and give you the ability to play /
view all the various extensions without the added headaches...
*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Enter X-MASTER
X-MASTER is the program you need to aid you in combatting the above
scenarios. So what is it, you might ask? X-MASTER will give you a menu
to choose which file you wish to play / view / use. If the file is
archived using one of the three most popular archivers, X-MASTER will
unarchive it for you to a place of your choosing, use the file as
directed, and then delete it once complete. In the BBS' world, there
are so many programs that do different things, but programs can usually
be classified by their three character extension (i.e. .ZIP files are
usually compressed with PKZIP by Phil Katz; .MOD files are usually Amiga
Music files which require an external program, such as MODPLAY, to
use...) Generally speaking, most people keep all there MOD's, VOC's,
FLI's, etc... in a particular directory, a default directory in other
words. X-MASTER has the following features :
■ Easy to configure
■ Support for ARJ'ed, LZH'ed and ZIP'ed files
■ Mouse support
■ An attractive display with an easy to operate menu
■ Ability to sort files by extension/name
■ Supports any and all extensions / players / viewers which
support a command line option (or not!)
■ Supports multiple directories of the same extension
■ Ability to delete files from archives without leaving
the program
■ Support for multiple players / viewers
■ Speedier than the average program by using special
AutoMagic files
■ Will unarchive the file where ever you wish including
a RAMDRIVE for added speed
■ Ability to "tag" files for playing / viewing to create
a jukebox or video show
■ Can compile several directories worth of same extension'ed
files into one big list
■ Support for 25/43/50 line modes
■ Support ZIP/ARJ file comments for describing the file
■ Supports XMS/EMS/DISK
*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Getting Started
X-MASTER was made to be a simple program to use, but it requires the
use of many external programs for all features to be implemented.
Examine the included XMASTER.CFG file, and change it to suit your
system, and file names. You might be able to use the configuration file
without any changes. The setup of the configuration file is as
follows :
drive / directory to unarchive file
location of PKZIP
location of PKUNZIP
parameters for PKUNZIP
location of LHArc
parameters for LHArc
location of ARJ
parameters for ARJ
first extension for X-MASTER to find (i.e. MOD)
location of the first extension files (i.e. C:\MODS)
second extension for X-MASTER to find ...
location of the second extension files
.
.
.
(up to forty extensions allowed!)
The lines which require filenames MUST be valid filenames,
regardless of whether or not you use the particular archiver. The
parameter lines may be blank or not (PKUNZIP normally does not require
any parameters). The location of where to unarchive files MUST be a
valid directory. If the line is blank, the current directory will be
used. Furthermore, do not put any extraneous spaces or lines between
the directory names, or file names.
The last lines of the configuration file are the extensions you wish
X-MASTER to recognize. Example : MOD, FLI, GL, GIF, VOC. The line
following the extension is the default directory where to find the
aforementioned extensions. Example : D:\TRAK, E:\VGA\FLIES, C:\PORNO,
D:\SB\VOCS... Notice that none of the directories have a trailing
backslash; trailing backslashes are not necessary, but will be ignored
if present. Put only one extension on each line, and you may have only
one default directory for each extension.
After completing the configuration file, you are halfway done. You
must now make a batch file for each extension you put in the con-
figuration file. The purpose of the batch file is to actually "use"
(play / view / whatever) the file of your selection. For example, say
you have a FLI extension in your configuration file, and to view the
FLI's, you use the program AAPLAY.EXE. The batch file would be similar
to :
rem This batch file plays FLI's using AAPLAY
E:\VGA\FLIES\AAPLAY %1
Notice that a %1 is in place of where the name of the FLI to view
usually goes. X-MASTER will pass the name of the FLI by use of DOS
parameters to the batch file. If you are unsure of how the %variable
notation works, consult your DOS manual. For most purposes, just place
a %1 where you would normally place the name of the file.
So, how does X-MASTER know which batch file to run?? Well, the name
of the batch file has to be exact for X-MASTER to find it, and it must
follow a very special format. Each batch file is named by the
extension for which it is going to be used, the word "PLAY" and then a
number starting at "1" and going through "9", ending with the .BAT
extension. For example : "FLIPLAY1.BAT" would be the first (default)
batch file to be used to view .FLI files. Always start with "1" and go
up from there. You may have up nine batch files available.
You might be wondering how you can tell the batch files apart when
your inside X-MASTER. Did you notice the "rem" statement in the batch
file given earlier? REM statements are simply "rem"arks made about the
batch file. They do nothing to alter the operation of a batch file.
If you put a "rem" statement as the first line of your batch file,
X-MASTER will show the first forty characters following the "rem "
instead of an ambiguous "Batch file #2".
*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Notes on batch files
Batch files can be very powerful, however, you must take care in
using them. If you load a program into memory, it must be taken out of
memory before it will come back to X-MASTER. This is especially
important when working with TSR programs. I personally use KEY-FAKE a
lot (stuffs keys into the keyboard buffer) but it must be taken out of