Hall of Fame/HallofFameCDROM.cdr/util2/withlist.lzh/SETENV.ZIP/README.2

Text File | 1988-05-30 | 4KB | 91 lines

   ================== File README.2 =========================

   Additional notes from a user of SETENV:

   There is a big mistake in the author's documentation. He tells you
   to create a prompt line this way:

   SETENV drv PLEASE ENTER THE DRIVE TO USE:

   In that case, the program will choke on the first space it finds in
   the command line. You must do it this way:

   SETENV drv "PLEASE ENTER THE DRIVE TO USE: "

   Note that placing a space following the colon and BEFORE the final
   quote mark will cause the cursor to be positioned one character
   after the colon, which makes for a less confusing screen for anyone
   encountering that prompt line.

   The double quote marks will not appear in the on-screen prompt.
   Note that SINGLE quote marks (meaning: ') can't be used here.

   You can place ANSI.SYS cursor positioning and screen-attribute
   commands within the prompt line. Example: you want the prompt to be
   in high intensity video. Do this:

       SETENV drv "<ESC>[1mPlease enter the drive to use: <ESC>[m"

   (where I've used:  <ESC>  above, you'd "quote" the ESC character
   onto the screen as you write the batch file)

   Another example:

     SETENV drv "<ESC>[J<ESC>[12;7H Please enter the drive to use: "

   would clear the screen and then place the prompt line beginning at
   row 12, column 8 (not 7 - because there is a space at the beginning
   of that prompt line).

   If you wanted the text that the USER is going to type (following
   the prompt line) to be in a video attribute different from the
   prompt itself, try something like this:

   SETENV drv "Please enter the drive to use: <ESC>[1m"
   ECHO <ESC>[m

   In that case the prompt would be in normal intensity, and what the
   user types will be in high intensity. Unless you want things to
   remain in high intensity, be sure to reset to normal via the second
   line shown in this last example.

   If the user decides to forget the keyboard input and hits the ENTER
   key rather than type something following the prompt, be sure to
   give him/her an "out." If the prompt line is:

   SETENV tmp "Enter the file name: "

   and the user presses <cr> instead of typing a file name, put a line
   like this into the batch file right below the SETENV instruction:

   if "%tmp%"=="" goto NOPARM
   if not "%tmp%"=="" goto PARM

   where "NOPARM" is a label in your batch file which allows you to
   terminate the batch file, or does something else you'd want to do
   if there's no keyboard input at that point. And "PARM" is another
   label used when there was indeed some keyboard input following the
   SETENV prompt.

   Notwithstanding the author's error in the doc file, this is a super-
   duper idea. At last, something that provides you with more-than-
   single-keystroke keyboard input during a batch file! The caution
   is: what if you run out of environment space because the user
   enters something like:

   C:\DIRNAME\TEMP\FILE1.TXT   ... and there isn't enough environment
   space left to hold that variable? Well, then use DOS' environment
   expansion syntax if you have the right DOS version to use it, or
   pick up the nifty program ENVSIZE.COM from a local BBS - and
   dynamically expand your environment that way. Hint - run
   ENVSIZE.COM from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, not later on in the
   computing session. If you run it later on you may not be able to
   increase the environment size by the desired amount.

   This additional verbosity supplied by Mike Arst, Seattle, WA
   (tacked onto/into an .ARC file containing SETENV version 1.1)

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