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1993-09-21
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The Night Owl Publisher's CD-ROM File Retrieval System
Copyright 1993
All Rights Reserved
Night Owl's Publisher, Inc.
1611 Falconer Stillwater
Jamestown, NY 14701
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 The Night Owl INSTALL Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3 The Night Owl Directory Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4 Operating the NIGHT Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5 The Main NIGHT Displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5.1 Main NIGHT Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.2 The NIGHT Help System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.3 NIGHT List Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6 Main NIGHT Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6.1 Viewing File Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.1.1 Unpacking Compressed Files . . . . . . . . . . 5
i
1 Introduction
Welcome to the Nightowl CDROM File Retrieval System. You have just
purchased the most up-to-date single source of Shareware, Freeware and
Public Domain software available on one CDROM. Many hours of work have gone
into making the Nightowl CDROM as enjoyable and user friendly as possible.
Your CD contains many thousands of compressed files. Nearly 660 Mb to
be more precise. They are all Shareware, Freeware or Public Domain. Night
Owl's Publisher takes great pains to insure that no commercial software
appears on the ROM. Please tell us if you find any commercial software on
this CD!
The NIGHT program and accompanying files allow you to easily search
for, find, examine, and copy the desired file(s) from this cornucopia of
software. On-line context sensitive help, mouse support and many other
features are included to help you in this process. We believe (and have
been told by others) that it is this is the best CD-ROM file retrieval
system in the world today! We are interested in your suggestions to help
keep it that way.
Contact us at:
Night Owl's Publisher Inc. Office 716/484-3066
1161 Falconer Stillwater Rd. FAX 716/483-3920
Jamestown, NY 14701 BBS 716/483-3925
2 The Night Owl INSTALL Program
Before you attempt to operate the NIGHT program, you must run the Night
Owl Publisher's INSTALL program first. And before you run INSTALL, we
strongly advise you to read the INSTALL user's manual, which resides in the
text file named INSTALL.DOC.
If you have read INSTALL.DOC and have completed the installation of
NIGHT, then please continue reading this manual prior to operating NIGHT.
3 The Night Owl Directory Structure
The Night Owl Install program creates the following directory structure
on your hard disk (X denotes the drive you chose):
X:\NIGHT
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X:\NIGHT\TEXT
X:\NIGHT\WORK
X:\NIGHT\EXEC
The main directory, X:\NIGHT, contains the main night system files.
The two most important to you are NIGHT.EXE, the main program, and
NIGHT.INI, the initialization file. You normally won't need to access
NIGHT.INI unless you wish to change one or more of the graphics file viewer
paths you entered during the installation process.
The night TEXT directory will contain a number of text index files if
you elected to copy these files from your Night Owl CD-ROM in order to speed
up NIGHT operations, otherwise it will be empty.
The WORK directory will only contain files if you elect to unpack or
copy files to the Night work area when operating NIGHT and the UNZIP only
contains files temporarily when unpacking a compressed file for viewing.
4 Operating the NIGHT Program
NIGHT.EXE can be found in the main NIGHT directory. To run NIGHT,
simply change to that directory and execute NIGHT. If your NIGHT
installation proceded properly, then NIGHT should load and present you with
the main display. If NIGHT fails to load, it will issue an error message
desribing the problem.
5 The Main NIGHT Displays
NIGHT has been designed to be intuitively easy to operate. Full mouse
and keyboard support are integrated into all the displays and context
sensitive help is always available via the <F1> key. All of the NIGHT
functions are accessed from the one of the main displays.
The top line of a NIGHT display contains a helpful hint that
corresponds to the control that currently has the focus. The <Tab> key is
used to change control focus. The hint line will change as the control
focus is changed.
The bottom line of the night display contains labeled mouse sensitive
zones. The control focus can be changed by clicking on the <Tab for Hint>
zone.
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5.1 Main NIGHT Controls
All night functions can be activated through the keyboard or the mouse.
Each main display will have at least two labeled control buttons. One of
which is labeled "Exit", and always returns to the main NIGHT display. Use
the <Exit> button, or <Alt+X> to exit NIGHT to DOS. To exit any display
back to the previous display, press the <Esc> key.
To use a button control without a mouse, press the <Tab> key until the
desired control labeled is highlighted and then press the <Space Bar>. To
activate a button with the keyboard, press the <Alt> key simultaneously with
key that corresponds to the highlighted button label letter. For example,
to view a file list from the main NIGHT display, press <Alt+V>.
The <Enter> key and mouse double-click actions are used in conjunction
with NIGHT list boxes to signal action on the currently selected list item.
For example, to view files in a specific category in the main NIGHT display
list box, move the cursor bar to the desired category and press <Enter>. Or
double-click on the category name with the left mouse button.
5.2 The NIGHT Help System
Context sensitive help is available via the <F1> key or the current
display <Help> button. A sizeable, movable help window will appear that
contains text that corresponds to the display control that has the focus
when help is called. Help on using help can be accessed by pressing the
<F1> when viewing the help window. You may resize and move the help window
and it will remain in the last location throughout your NIGHT session.
5.3 NIGHT List Boxes
Most NIGHT main displays have a box that contains a scrollable list of
items. For example, the list box in the main NIGHT display contains a list
of file categories and the box in the "View Files" display contains a list
of file names. Each list box contains a cursor bar which can be moved
through the list with the keyboard keypad keys (Dn/Up/PgDn/PgUp/End/Home) or
the mouse and which indicates the currently selected item. Note that each
list box contains a scroll bar that indicates the current position of the
cursor bar in the list and can by used with the mouse to move through the
list. The <Enter> key acts upon the currently selected item.
6 Main NIGHT Functions
All NIGHT functions are accessed through the main NIGHT display.
Functions like the "View Files" and "Search" operations use the selected
category while functions like "User List" and "Work Area" are independant of
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the selected category5.0. Access a main function by using the <Tab> key to
highlight the desired functin button and pressing the <Space Bar>. Or you
can click on the button with your mouse or press <Alt> plus the key that
corresponds to the highlight character in the function button label.
6.1 Viewing File Lists
NIGHT CD-ROM files are divided into descriptive categories and you can
view the list of files in any category by moving the cursor bar to the
desired category and pressing <Enter> or clicking on the "View Files"
button. The file list display that appears contains two main boxes. The
left box contains a list of the file names in that category and the right
box contains a textual file description that corresponds to the currently
selected file. Moving the cursor bar through the file list allows you to
browse the files and their descriptions.
Most of the files on your Night Owl CD-ROM are compressed files;
usually ZIP files. You may view a list of files contained in any compressed
files by pressing the <Enter> key with the cursor bar over the desire file.
This will activate the NIGHT compressed file viewer.
Files may be tagged (marked) for "Copy", "UnPk", or "List" operations.
To tag/untag a file, move the cursor bar to the file name and press <Space
Bar>. Or you may tag/untag a file with the mouse by pointing at the file
name and pressing the right mouse button. Tagging is a toggle operation
which means if the file is tagged when <Space Bar> is pressed then the file
is untagged and vice versa. All files on the list may be tagged/untagged in
one operation by pressing the the "Tag +/-" button.
6.1.1 Unpacking Compressed Files
Any compressed file in the file last may be unpacked (decompressed) to
the directory of your choice. Select a file to unpack with the cursor bar
and press the <UnPk> button or <Alt+U> to commence the unpacking. A window
will appear that prompts you to enter a valid DOS directory as the
destination for the unpaked files. The default is the NIGHT work area, the
\NIGHT\UNZIP directory. If you wish to examine and/or operate on the
unpacked files through NIGHT, then you should accept the default and unpack
to the work area.
Multiple files may be unpacked by tagging files but this is not
recommended since there may be files of the same name in different
compressed files which will overwrite previously decompressed files.
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