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1989-05-18
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PUFF Version 3.07
A Pop-Up File Facility
April 1989
David Mitchell
INTRODUCTION
PUFF is a directory and file browser which pops up on demand. It takes
up between 29 and 42K of memory when resident (depending on installation
options). It runs under DOS 2 or 3 on any model PC and will work on both
Mono and Color adapters. Once installed you pop it up at any time by
pressing the hot-key which by default is Alt-D. This gives you the
ability to browse directories and both ASCII and non-ASCII files within
other programs such as word processors, spread-sheets, debuggers
or even at the DOS prompt. It's intended to be very easy to use and
contains several screens of on-line help via the F1 key so you shouldn't
need to read this document to use it!
PUFF makes it possible to do things like:
o browse the source of a program while debugging it
o check the name of a file in a directory before loading it into a
spread-sheet
o quickly move up and down a directory tree looking for a file
o check when you last saved a particular file
o copy part or all of one file into an editor or word processor
o see how much room there is on a diskette before saving a file on it
o erase, copy or rename files at any time
o and lots more!
There are three reasons why PUFF may not be able to pop up when you want
it to:
1. the application that's currently running is not asking for a
keystroke. PUFF won't pop up in long-running "batch" programs like
compiles or assemblies.
2. the current display is in a graphics mode. PUFF can only pop up in
text modes.
3. at the time you ask PUFF to pop up, DOS is busy. PUFF checks to make
sure that nothing dangerous (such as file I/O) is going on when you
ask it to pop up.
Despite all my efforts, PUFF is still not entirely crash-proof. See the
section on "Things to Avoid" for more details.
SUMMARY OF CHANGES
PUFF Version 3 is a major rewrite of PUFF. Many new features have been
added and a few have been dropped. Here's a summary:
General Changes:
o support for larger screens (43-line etc)
o some support for enhanced keyboard (although PUFF doesn't know names
such as F11, F12 etc, they can be set as the hot-key)
o better bw80 support (treated as Mono not Color)
o all PUFFSET customizing functions now included
o the directory/file buffer is now 6 or 12K
o the PUFF box can be quickly moved to screen corners using Home, End
PgUp and PgDn keys
o when pasting, line feeds can be ignored or pasted
o the normal cursor is suppressed when PUFF is popped up
o PUFF now always pops up on the current DOS screen (can't force Mono
anymore)
o PUFF no longer supports 40-column screens
o it's got bigger!
In Directory Browse:
o new popup menu of commands via "?"
o attributes can be shown (instead of size)
o date/time are properly country-dependent
o sorting is almost twice as fast
o original DOS order can be restored
o new commands allow copy, erase and rename of files (and rename of
directories and moving of files)
o can now switch directly to another directory via 'N' command
o customize options menus available directly via 'O' command
o can now make and remove subdirectories
o can now directly invoke and editor of your choice, provided PUFF was
popped up from the command line (new I command)
o can now set current DOS drive and directory to the same as PUFF's
(new K command)
A number of commands have had to change "name":
D does Directory Refresh (was R for Refresh) since R is Rename
T forces TEXT mode file browse (was A for ASCII) since A now
toggles Attribute/size display
In File Browse:
o new popup menu of commands via "?"
o can now switch directly to another file via 'N' command
o customise options menus available directly via 'O' command
o browsing is almost twice as fast
o searching is almost twice as fast
o search string can always be entered in hex or text
o search can be case sensitive or not as required
o in text mode, the cursor moves as in a normal editor
o can now safely browse past column 255
A number of commands have had to change "name":
T goes from HEX to Text mode (used to be A for ASCII)
A switches to ASCII rather than EBCDIC when in HEX mode (was
T for Translate) since T goes to Text mode
R does repeat search (was N for Next) since N goes to New file
INSTALLING PUFF
When invoked, PUFF looks for its profile in the current and root
directories of the current drive. The profile, a file called PUFF.PRO,
can be created or tailored using PUFF itself (see the section
"Customizing PUFF"). Use SUBST, EXT, SRCHDIR or a similar program if you
want to put it somewhere else. If PUFF can't find its profile it uses
default values.
The PUFF command looks like this:
PUFF [hotkey] [initvu] [/n][/e][/s][/b][/l][/q][/x][/h]
or
PUFF ?
The second form will give you a brief description of PUFF and the syntax
of the first form.
All the parameters in the first form of the command are optional. The
first, the hot-key, is Alt-D by default but PUFF will accept:
a-x where x is any letter a-z (26 Alt keys)
c-x where x is any letter a-z (26 Ctrl-keys)
fn where n is any number 1-10 (10 Function keys)
a-fn where n is any number 1-10 (10 Alt-Function keys)
c-fn where n is any number 1-10 (10 Ctrl-Function keys)
s-fn where n is any number 1-10 (10 Shift-Function keys)
The default hot-key can be changed by creating a new PUFF profile. See
the section "Customizing PUFF" for details. Function keys F1 and F2 have
special uses inside PUFF so they should not be used as hot-keys.
The second parameter, initvu, lets you specify the name of a file which
PUFF will display on first popping up (rather than displaying the main
menu). Note PUFF will treat anything it doesn't recognise as a hot-key
as an initvu specification. If your initvu option could be mistaken for
a hot key (e.g. "F2") then you must specify the hot-key too. If the name
matches a set of files (e.g. it contains an asterisk), then PUFF will
popup in directory browse.
The /r option lets you remove a copy of PUFF that is already resident.
This can be useful in BAT files that invoke programs incompatible with
PUFF, as a way of ensuring that PUFF is not present.
If you attempt to install PUFF when it already resident PUFF will not
re-install itself but will tell you what the hot-key of the already
installed version is.
The /n (Normal) option restricts PUFF to the top 25 lines of the screen.
This reduces memory requirements by about 4K.
The /e (EGA) option allows PUFF to use up to 50 screen lines (on an EGA,
VGA or MCGA), but increases memory requirements by about 4K.
The /s (Small) option forces PUFF to use only 6K of buffer space,
reducing its memory requirements at the cost of performance.
The /b (Big) option makes PUFF use 12K of buffer space, by doubling the
sizes of PUFF's directory and file buffers. This allows PUFF to handle
directories with up to 555 files. If there are less than 275 files then
PUFF does not have to re-read the directory when returning from a file
browse, improving performance considerably. The extra file buffer makes
scrolling through a file faster too, since the file is read in 4k rather
than 2k chunks.
The /l (Loud) option makes PUFF install itself noisily, producing a
banner which gives its version number and buffer sizes
The /q (Quiet) option makes PUFF install itself quietly, without any
banner or messages.
The /x (eX