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Documentation for BrowserII Copyright: ---------- ParM and BrowserII are copyrighted; they may not be sold in or together with commercial software without written approval by the authors. They may be freely distributed for a fee which will not exceed the equivalent of French Francs 15.- (this includes the cost of the diskette and the postage); they cannot be made available for downloading from a server which is a commercial operation. The general principle is that it is forbidden to make a profit through the use or distribution of these programs without our written consent. ParM V3.5 (or higher) and BrowserII V2.0 (or higher) may NOT be duplicate for other things than backup. Only Authors are autorized to give it to other persons. DISCLAIMER: ----------- We accept no responsability for the use or misuse of these programs, and for the damage they could produce. Use at your own risks. Nevertheless, we think that after several month of intensive use by four persons, thay have been tested enough to say they are safe. History: -------- We wrote BrowserII after having used for 2 years the original Browser (version 1.6A) written by Peter Da Silva. We were not fully satisfied because of some of its limitations so, as soon as we felt capable of writing a program which would overcome those limitations, we made a decision to do it. So BrowserII was born ... The Return ! We felt the overall layout and display mode of Browser were very good, so we decided to keep them, as well as the name, so that actual users of Browser would immediately feel home with BrowserII. As we never had the sources of Browser at hand, we rewrote it from scratch. Beginners claimed many times that BrowserII was difficult to use and very complicated. Really, we don't understand that since BrowserII works exactly like workbench. To copy files, you just have to select them and to drag them over the destination directory. It's power is far from other file manager tools which are able to display only to directories, and are full of useless gadgets which cluter up more than the half of the screen display. We think that menus are more adapted to commands not often used, and keyboard shortcuts quicker than gadgets for regular operations. Any way, a special window with parametrable gadgets will be taken into consideration in a next release using gadtools.library of new OS 2.0. Another advantage of BrowserII is that it is small (60 KBytes !). It has the most powerfull copy process, and doesn't include text viewers, editors, or any IFF viewers. With this phylosophy, you can use the best tools of each kind, text viewer (we use the great MuchMorePoPa 2.7 which can be made resident), IFF viewer (we use Mostra which is pure too). You are not limited with the number of parametrable menus... Finally, BrowserII is the best file manager ! Don't you think so ? Another positive thing because other don't do it, is that all disk errors are properly reported with a message (not an error number), files can be individually skipped, or opération aborted. (some tools continue to write files after a 'disk full' error. Nice isn't it!). Installation: ------------- While you can put BrowserII in any directory, you must copy parm.library and req.library in LIBS:. You must have arp.library V39 too. If you want to take advantage of the parametrable menus of BrowserII, don't forget to build a BrowserII.menu file, and to put it in S:. Gadgets: -------- BrowserII windows now have three more gadgets. The first one is the iconification gadget, just below the close gadget. If you press this gadget, two things can happen: 1. If it is the main window (the one where appears devices, volumes, and assigns), BrowserII will be iconified, that is to say that a small window in workbench screen will open, and all BrowserII windows and screen will be closed. This small window has a close gadget which enables you to quit BrowserII without uniconifying BrowserII. To uniconify BrowserII, press right mouse button. Note: For now, you cannot iconify BrowserII if it has it's own screen and if some background BrowserII processes are running. (This is because processes are initialised to put thier requesters in BrowserII screen). 2. If it is a directory window, the window will be closed, and an entry will be added in Alien Window, whether it is open or not. Alien Window can be open using F5 or menu 'Window->Open->Alien Window'. To uniconify an iconified window, just double click on the corresponding entry in alien window. You can uniconify several windows sumultaneously by selecting several entries in alien window, and double clicking on one of them. If one entry only is selected in Alien Window, the full path of the directory is displayed in the bottom border of this window. The other two gadgets are invisible. The first one is the ZOOM gadget and is the top half of the jauges, while the second one is the UNZOOM gadget and is the bottom half of the jauges. If you ask for a zoom while a the directory to be zoomed is currently scanning, the zoom is defered at the end of scan. Menus: ------ * BrowserII BrowserII -> Update menus Reloads the parametrable menus file "S:BrowserII.menu". This file is an ASCII file with the same syntax as the configuration file of ParM. One option has been added: the selected files in BrowserII will be inserted at the [] if any, with full path calculated from current window. Example: you have selected "S:" in the main window of BrowserII you have defined a menu item as follows: ITEM Sizer SHELL Sizer [] ; WaitReturn activating the menu item Sizer will be equivalent to executing the following script: Sizer S: WaitReturn Endcli > Nil: If there are no [], then the names of the selected files are simply appended to the command line. Have a look at ParM.doc for the special BrowserII option WBTF in menu items to bring workbench to front when running commands. BrowserII -> Last Error This will show you the last message which appeared in screen title bar BrowserII -> Cmd Mode -> Simple BrowserII -> Cmd Mode -> Shell BrowserII -> Command Same usage as with ParM. Command is executed in the directory of the current window. To see the influence of the current window on file path, select a file, and select 'Command' from the BrowserII menu. As BrowserII does a CD in current window before running commands, you will see in the requester the selected file, without path. Now cancel the requester, make another window of another volume the active one, and select 'Command' again. Now, you will see the full path name of the selected file. BrowserII -> Screen -> Workbench BrowserII opens its windows in the Workbench screen BrowserII -> Screen -> Custom Hi-Res BrowserII -> Screen -> Custom Interlace BrowserII opens its own screen and opens all its windows in that screen. Under workbench 2.0, the screen is made public and is named "BrowserII". Take care, public screen names are case-sensitive. For example, you can open a console in the BrowserII screen with the following syntax: "CON:0/11/640/100/Window Title/CLOSE/WAIT/AUTO/SCREEN BrowserII" This console has defered open (AUTO), will also have a close gadget (CLOSE), and will wait for you to hit close gadget before closing (WAIT). Note that if another public screen with the same name exists, BrowserII will make its screen private (this can happen if you have the strange idea to run BrowserII twice)! For now, you cannot change screen if browser background processes are running. BrowserII -> Screen -> WorkBench Colors BrowserII -> Screen -> Custom Colors Do you need an explanation ? BrowserII -> Screen Font -> Default Font BrowserII -> Screen Font -> Topaz 80 column BrowserII -> Screen Font -> Custom Font This enables you to choose your prefered screen font. Screen Font appears in title bars and in menus. This menu is disabled in workbench screen. For now, you cannot change it while browser background processes are running since screen must be closed then reopen. Here Default Fonts clones workbench screen font. BrowserII -> Window Font -> Default Font BrowserII -> Window Font -> Topaz 80 column BrowserII -> Window Font -> Custom Font This enables you to choose your prefered window font. This fonctionnality is not perfect since Default Font should be the System Default Font and it is now the screen font. We recommend use of fixed-width fonts here for optimal display. Note: In this release, big and/or proportionnal fonts are not fully supported. The select/filters requester assumes 8 pixels width fonts. This will be solved in next release, special for OS 2.0, since 1.3 doesn't support proportionnal fonts in string gadgets. Any way, even if display is not nice, everything works ok. BrowserII -> Run Mode The submenu items of this item will determine the mode according to which the files on which you double-click will be opened. If other files were selected at the time of the double-click, their names become parameters for the double-clicked file. If the file has an icon, it will automatically be run in Workbench mode. Also note that BrowserII does a CD to the active window before running a command, wether you have double-clicked the file name, or activated it through a menu selection. This is often VERY useful. BrowserII -> Run Mode -> RunBack Launches the program on which you have double-clicked as a background Process. This mode is 100% safe only if you use the NULL: device (as you know there is a well known limitation in the NIL: handler, which BrowserII will use anyway if it can't find NULL:). BrowserII -> Run Mode -> Shell Launches the program on which you have double-clicked, via a SHELL which BrowserII opens for you. This mode is 100% safe but it requires that BrowserII can have access to your favorite shell, as well as to the EndCli command ; you have to specify this in your "S:BrowserII.menu" file (see the sample BrowserII.menu file). We recommend that you make these commands resident. BrowserII -> Run Mode -> Request If this option is activated, a requester will appear before the double-clicked program is actually launched, so you can confirm or cancel. (except for Workbench) Remember though, that a program which has an icon, will be launched in WB mode il all cases. BrowserII -> Copy Mode BrowserII -> Copy Mode -> Context If you move a file, BrowserII will in fact perform a rename if the source and destination files are on the same volume. Across volumes, BrowserII will perform a copy. BrowserII -> Copy Mode -> Always Copy BrowserII will systematically make a copy of the file. BrowserII -> Copy Mode -> Always Move BrowserII will copy the file to the destination directory and then delete the source file. BrowserII -> Copy Mode -> Update BrowserII will copy the file only if the source file is more recent than the destination file, or if the destination file does not exist. BrowserII -> Copy Mode -> Don't overwrite files BrowserII will not overwrite an existing file. If there exists a destination file with the name you gave for the destination, the copy will not be performed. BrowserII -> Copy Mode -> Ask before Overwrite BrowserII asks for confirmation before overwriting. This option is naturally mutually exclusive with the former one. BrowserII -> Copy Mode -> Copy Empty Dirs This option will enable to re-create empty directories in the destination directory. It is particularly useful in its disabled mode, so empty directories are not copied. BrowserII -> Copy Flags BrowserII -> Copy Flags -> Clone All attributes of the file will be copied (date, comment, protection bits). BrowserII -> Copy Flags -> Date The destination file inherits the date of the source file. BrowserII -> Copy Flags -> Protect The destination file inherits the protection bits of the source file. BrowserII -> Copy Flags -> Comment The destination file inherits the comment of the source file. BrowserII -> Display BrowserII -> Display -> Devices BrowserII -> Display -> Volumes BrowserII -> Display -> Assigns BrowserII 's main window shows the appropriate list. BrowserII -> Options -> BrowserII -> Options -> Keep Selected After an action ( copy, delete, etc ) the selected entry is not automatically deselected. BrowserII -> Options -> Toggle selection If this option is activated, clicking on a name will alternately select and deselect it. If this option is not activated, the selected entry will not be deselected. BrowserII -> Options -> Move files into subdirectories Once this option is set, BrowserII will put the selected entries in the subdirectory un which you release the left mouse button. Otherwise it will put them in the window which contains this directory. BrowserII -> Options -> Ask before moving into subdirectories BrowserII asks for confirmation before moving the entries. BrowserII -> Options -> Asynchronous Action You will love that one or I'll eat my tie (as I never wear one, the risk is limited). When this option in on, any action requested executes in the background, and the next action can be started without a delay. Like for the multitasking, you will wonder how you could live without it before! Switching it off has been made possible mainly for debug purpose. BrowserII -> Options -> Open process status window This is not yet implemented. In a future release, each process will be able to open its own window telling what it is currently doing, and giving you the possibility to pause or cancel the process. BrowserII -> Options -> Windows AutoZoom At the end of directory scan, the window will be automatically zoomed to show as many entries as possible. BrowserII -> Options -> Windows AutoZoom dirs only Same as before but show only directories. (You must have the option "Sort by Type" set). BrowserII -> Options -> Display directory disk usage. BrowserII -> Options -> Display proportion of visible data. See documentation for jauges at the end of this file. BrowserII -> Save Config Saves all your options in the file "DEVS:BrowserII.cfg" (don't confuse it with the file "S:BrowserII.menu" which contains the definition of your personal menus). Saves the content of the Filters of the current window and Selection requesters as well. BrowserII -> Quit We did not plan for implementing this option, but a few crazy guys screamed for it, so there it is... Anyway, you won't be surprised to read that you won't be able to quit BrowserII as long as one of the Asynchronous Actions is still running. * Window Window -> Rescan BrowserII rescans the content of the directory which corresponds to the active window. Since version 2.0, BrowserII scans directories asynchronously. You can iconify a directory while scanning. If you close a window while directory is being scanned, scan is aborted. Window -> Open Window -> Open -> Open Parent Opens a window for the parent directory (if any). Window -> Open -> Open Dir... Opens a particular directory, for which you type the full pathname. Window -> Open -> Open Alien Opens Alien Window. This window is called Alien and not (Iconify Window) because in a futur release, this window will receive other entries, such as LeaveOut and Aliases, to have easy access to most often used files. Window -> Select Match Selects, in the current window, the entries which match criteria which you have given. See below the paragraph on the Requesters. Window -> Select all Selects all entries in the active window. Window -> Filters Another important feature of BrowserII. Only the files which match the criteria you set will be displayed, but all will be counted (look at the bottom string on the lower border of the window). Window -> Filters -> Set... Calls the filters requester and enables you to set your filters. Window -> Filters -> Prefs Set the filter that was saved in "DEVS:BrowserII.cfg" . Window -> Filters -> No .info Hides the icon files. This filter comes on top of the other filters. Window -> Filters -> Clear Removes all filters, all files and dirs will be visible. Window -> Filters -> Invert Reverses the action of all filters, so all visible files will be hidden and vice-versa. Useful for checking wether a file which you expect to be there has not been hidden through the action of one of the filters. Window -> File info Window -> File Info -> Size in Bytes Gives file sizes in bytes. Window -> File Info -> Size in blocks Gives file sizes in blocks. Window -> File Info -> Protection Shows protection bits. Window -> File Info -> Date Shows date according to Amigados idiosyncrasies. Window -> File Info -> Disk Key Sows the disk key of the entry (i.e. the block number of the file header block). Window -> Sort by -> Window -> Sort by -> Name Window -> Sort by -> Date Window -> Sort by -> Size Window -> Sort by -> Key Sorts entries by name (alpha), date (most recent first), size (smallest first), disk key. Window -> Sort by -> Type This does not really refer to a sort type. If this option is set, files and directories are listed separately (directories first). Window -> Affect all The preferences set for the active window will be active for all windows. * Actions Actions -> Rename Renames the selected entry. If several entries are selected, you can rename them with jokers "à la ARP". If you are not familiar with this, exercise on some files of no value before using this action for good. Actions -> Makedir Creates subdirectories in the active window. You can create several of them by separating the names with a space. Example: Work Games Work/Src Warning: Games Work/Src Work would not be valid because you attempt to create a subdirectory of Work before having created Work itself. Actions -> Duplicate Makes a copy of a file, you will be prompted for a new name. Actions -> Touch Changes the date of the selected entry (entries) to the actual date. Actions -> Set Comment Will enable you to write a new comment for the entry. If there was already a comment, it will be displayed. 80 chars only, this is a limitation of AmigaDos. Actions -> Set Protect Enables you to change the protection bits of the selected entry. You cannot set the C bit, as it is not really a protection bit, it just tells you that the selected entry has a comment, but you can set this pseudo-C bit to " - ", this will delete the comment. Handle with care, it is easy to get a lot of comments gone forever in no time. Actions -> Delete Deletes the selected entries. You will (fortunately) be asked to confirm. If at least one directory is selected, "Delete" will delete only empty dirs, while "Delete All" will delete non-empty selected directories as well. The Requesters: --------------- * Filters: BrowserII tests all files against the criteria set in this requesters, and shows those for which the test is positive. Files: if Y is shown, if an entry is a file, the result is positive and the entry is displayed. If N is shown, the files will not be displayed. If ? is shown the result will depend on the pattern defined. Dirs: same thing for directories. Pattern: you can use ARP and/or AmigaDos conventions. examples: *.doc shows only the xxxx.doc files ~*.(o|dbg) hides the xxx.o and xxx.dbg files Min Size: if the file is smaller, it is hidden Max Size: if the file is bigger, it is hidden Newer Than: shows files with more recent date than the date entered ( Amigados Date format ) Older Than: same thing in the other direction Protection bits: shows only the files with the specified bits. Example: C H S P A R W E D - hides files which have the hide bit set + shows only files with the archive bit set * Select Match: This requester is the same as precedent one, but with one gadget more, "Affect subdirs". This enables you to virtually select files in selected directories. As we say in french, a good example is better than a long speech. Suppose you want to clear archive bit of all files you have in a disk. 1. Open volume's window. 2. Call Select Match. 3. Put Files to ? and Dirs to N. 4. Clear all protection bits and set A to +. 5. Switch on Affect subdirs. 6. Validate the requester. Result: All files which have their archive bit set are selected, but any directories are selected since you set Dirs to N. Now: 7. Hold <Shift> key while selecting all dirs of this window. 8. Call Set Protect. 9. Switch protection bits to: C H S P A R W E D _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ 10. Validate. Et voilà! Each time you click left mouse button over a BrowserII window, if you DON'T hold <Shift> at the same time, the file under the mouse pointer, if any, becomes selected, all others are deselected, and Affect subdirs bit is cleared. That is to say after each operation with affect subdirs, this option is reset (except if you allways hold shift key), and must be set again if you want to do another action with this option. Within actions with affect subdirs, if a directory pass through the filters, the action will take place also on the directory itself once it has been examined. But even if the directory doesn't pass through the filters, it will be entered, and files within this dir may be affected by the action. This is a bit different for Copy action. If a directory doesn't pass through the filters, it won't be entered, and files within this dir will never be copied. But read carefully: Empty directories may be considered useless. So you can decide not to copy them by switching off this option. But Copy process is even more powerfull. If for example, you decide not to copy empty dirs, if you copy a directory with affect subdirs and any entries of this dir pass through the filters, the directory will be considered as empty and won't be created in destination path. This makes it possible to make selective backups, without useless directories in destination volume. Jauges: ------- All windows except Alien has two jauges on their left border. The leftmost one allways displays the disk percentage of occupied space. And the second one, to the right, displays the directory disk usage or the percentage of visible data depending on the option you choose (See menu BrowserII->Options). 1. Directory disk usage If this option is selected, the rightmost jauge displays the proportion of used disk space used by this directory. For example, is you have a volume with no directories (all files are in the root directory), this jauge will say that the directory contains 100% of data present on this disk. 2. Percentage of visible data. If this option is selected, the rightmost jauge displays the proportion of visible data (in blocks) in this window (If filters hide some entries of this dir, not all entries are visible !). This is usefull for example when you hide .info files, a quick look at this jauge help you remembering that some files are not visible and you should not forget them. Jauges of main window: ---------------------- The leftmost jauge of main window is a copy of the same jauge of active window. If the active window is the main or alien, both main window jauges are empty. The other jauge will help you to determine if selected files would fit on active volume (volume of active window) if a copy/duplicate operation would be performed. Imagine you want to copy some files on a floppy disk, and you don't know if there is enough free space on this disk for your selected files. You can examine informations in bottom border of windows of course but there is an easier way. Activate the destination window (without deselecting your files), and the second jauge of main window will tell you everything: The leftmost jauge shows the actual disk usage, and the other one what it will become after the copy. Then there is two possibilities. Your files fit on the disk: no problem. Or there's not enough free space: then, the second jauge shows of how much selected files exceeds disk space by displaying a dash (-). The jauge height allways means the disk size. Note: In this release, selected directories are not entrered, so BrowserII knows size of selected files only. Block size between source and destination volumes are assumed to be the same. Function Keys: -------------- The first five function keys have the following effects: F1 : UnZoom current window. F2 : Zoom current window to see all files and dirs. F3 : Zoom current window to see all directories only. F4 : Iconify current window, or BrowserII if main window is active. F5 : Opens Alien Window. Buffer size for copy: --------------------- BrowserII will test wether destination and one of source concerned volumes are mounted, i.e. one of source and destination volume are simultaneously present to the system (a diskette with a given volume name may not be in a drive), in which case BrowserII will make use of a 200 K max buffer. If any source or destination volume is mounted (you have only one drive for instance), BrowserII will use 880 K max for buffers if enough memory is available. This way, in order to copy some files from a diskette into another one, you don't need to go through the RAM DISK. Buffers are allocated during copy, and in any case BrowserII will not use more than 80% of the available memory for its buffers. Hints and tips: --------------- * If you hold the shift key down while closing the window corresponding to a volume, all windows corresponding to directories of that volume will close at once, except iconified windows. If you want to get rid of iconified windows too, press SHIFT-ALT while closing window. * In the same way, you can iconify all directories of the same volume by 'shift iconifying' a window. * You can uniconify multiple windows at once with extended selection. * To validate and quit a filter/select requester, press shift-return. * The unmounted volumes appear in boldface. * The write-protected volumes appear in italic. * Files which have just been deleted appear in italic and are unselectable * Simple requesters are standard req.library requesters and keyboard short cuts are as follows: Left gadget : Y, V. Middle gadget : M Right gadget : N, B, Q, or ESC * Icons are directories like any other directories in standard windows, that is to say they support all actions. You can select icons and release them over directories, you can also use icons as destination of a copy, or even rename or why not protect an icon. External command BD: -------------------- An external command named BD is given with BrowserII. This is an interface between shells and BrowserII. Running BD with no arguments will run BrowserII if it is not yet running, and make BrowserII open and scan your current shell directory. You can also specify one or more directories as argument to BD. Note: BrowserII must be in your shell Path if it is not yet running. BD can also be run from workbench. If you double-click on the Tool BD, BrowserII will open the directory containing BD. But you can also have project icons with BD as default Tool. In this case, if your project has no Tool-Types, the current dir will be open, otherwise, you can edit your project Tool-Types, and specify as many directories as you want. You should also specify in the BD Tool Tool-Types the full path to BrowserII, that is to say in which directory you have BrowserII. In example given, BrowserII should be in SYS:Utilites directory. Release notes: -------------- 1.0: First Release (30-jul-91) 1.1: Bug fixes. Added DiskCopy ability. Moving a device over another device calls SYS:System/DiskCopy, and Duplicate a single device too. Cli arguments are now quoted only when needed. A lot of little invisible improvements. 1.11: Bug fixes. With parm.library 3.4 and higher, RUN modes work under 2.0. 2.0: Iconification, Zoom, Jauges, Workbench 2.0 look (under 2.0), Parametrable Fonts, ASynchronous dir scan, and bug fixes. External command BD. 2.03: Minor bug fix. 2.04: "Copy->Move" bug fix. ( won't delete source file) In progress: 2.1: WhatIs capability: reconized some file (ILBM, PPDATA, doc,...) Futur Plans: ------------ LeaveOut, Aliases, parametrable Fast Menu for gadget lovers, status windows for background processes with possibility to pause or abort operations, Tree window, File Types display, Auto commands (according to file types), and more. ShareWare / distribution : -------------------------- BrowserII and ParM are both shareware. If you use them consistently, you ought to send us a contribution or your conscience will itch. Any contributor for at least 100 French Francs (about $20) will become a registered user and will automatically receive one update. Don't fail to mention the version number of your copy. If there is no newer version, you will be put on a list and receive one update whenever it becomes available. For US people, please, send banknotes, no checks nor mandats. Many thanks to: ASDG for CED (a fantastic editor) W.S. Hawes for ARexx. Pierre Ardichvili for his kindness and his support to the Amiga Sylvain Rougier and Pierre Carrette. Send donnations and bug reports to: ----------------------------------- Sylvain Rougier Coiffure W 39 rue Carnot 86000 Poitiers France.