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27.May 1997
Documentation for
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
VIEWS V1.96
~~~~~~~~~~~
This program is freeware. Copyright by Tobias Winkler.
I would like to hear, if you like this program, or have any comments
or ideas about it. (You can reach me per EMail, or Fido-Netmail.)
My Fido-Net address is:
Tobias Winkler@2:2411/901.38 (Bummi-Box,Frankfurt/Oder)
By Internet-EMail I can be reached at this address:
Tobias_Winkler@p38.f901.n2411.z2.sesom.de
Or via snail mail: Tobias Winkler
G.-Hauptmann-Str. 17
15234 Frankfurt (Oder)
Germany
(By the way, I know my English isn't that good. So don't blame me for it.
Ok, I could use my native language, but wouldn't you agree that German is
one of the worst languages (at least for computers...)?)
What is ViewS?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ViewS is simply another fileviewer, aspecially made for textfiles. The
most remarkable feature is the smooth-scrolling. This means, that the lines
will not be scrolled line by line, but pixel by pixel.
At least in my opinion, this is much better when reading texts, because
tracing the current read line is easier (and so on; simply said: try it).
Of course, it has all the typical features like linewrapping, searching,
storing of position, mouse support, different textmodes...
Requirements:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Actually an 80286 with VGA-card, a keyboard (;-> maybe ViewS will even
work without...), optionally a mouse.
! 80286 "required" means only, that I used no 386+ code (as far as I can
remember now...). Theoretically you can use a 286, although I fear that the
scrolling will be anything but smooth on such a system. Nethertheless
I can't imagine, that there is any system below 386 in (real) use.
ViewS uses nothing of extended or expanded memory, but only conventional
memory.
Commandline of ViewS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
VIEWS <filename> [/|-<options>]
Filename is (of course) the name of the file which shall be viewed.
There can be some additional options, which are defined by a leading
"-" or "/".
(The "|" means "or". The "[]" means "optional".)
Up to now allowed options are:
?|H : for a commandline-help
W[+|-] : switches the linewrapping on (+) or off (-)
(If no +|- is given, + is assumed.)
Mt|f|r : sets the filemode to Text- (t), Filtered (f) or Raw-mode (r)
(Textmode is the normal mode for textfiles with
interpreting the CR,LF and Tab-codes.
Filtered textmode is like the normal textmode, but all
ASCII-codes below 32 (all "binary" codes) will be filtered
out.
In Rawmode all of these controlcodes are ignored, and
displayed as raw, linear character-stream. (Useful for
binary files.)
This mode can be changed manually while viewing (see
below).
If this option isn't defined, the kind of the viewed file
will be detected at startup.
(Raw mode for binary files, while binary files are
recognized by scanning the first 400 bytes of the file.
If there are 5 or more bytes with a value of
[0..7,11,14..25,27..31] among them, the file is taken
as binary.)
C<name> : loads the char-conversion-table named <name>
(A char-conversion-table is used, when reading a text
which is written on other systems than PC-DOS (like
Winshit or Amiga) and which contains "special"-ASCII-
characters like "öäüÖÄÜß...".)
(See config-file [ChrTab] / [DefChrTab])
A<name> : loads the color-attribute-table named <name>
(A color-attribute-table is used to highlight certain text-
passages like the *....* passages in Fido-messages.
(See config-file [AttrTab] / [DefAttrTab])
CM : this forces ViewS to use the current textmode
S[+|*]<filename> : write all selected lines into file <filename>
at exit
/S+<filename> will append to <filename>, if it
already exists,
/S*<filename> will overwrite <filename>, if it
already exists,
else
ViewS will ask you what to do, if it already exist
Statusbar of ViewS:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the lower border of the screen the statusbar of ViewS is located.
(Sorry, can't put it on the top of the screen, due to technical reasons.)
It looks like this:
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒Line: 1 - 24│T 1%│Pos: 0║Speed: 4║ Wrap ║P 1[ 0]║Sel 0 ∙∙∙∙∙∙▒
(1) (2) (3)(4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)
(1): Number of the first textline on the screen.
(2): Number of the last textline on the screen.
(3): Shows a red "T" for Text- and a red "R" for Raw-mode. (see commandline-
options /MT | /MR (above) for further information)
(4): This is the percent-value which shows where you are in the file.
(5): The first shown column of the text.
(6): This is the current set scrollspeed, which can range from 1/99 (slowest)
to 1/2 and 1 to 16 (fastest).
(The actual value is the number of lines (pixels, not textlines) which
are scrolled in each frame. (Frame is the time, when the screen is re-
freshed by the VGA-card, which is normally around 1/70 second.)
(See below => key-commands / config-file)
(7): If there is a "Wrap" shown, then line-wrapping is enabled. A "NoWrap"
shows that it is disabled.
(8): This is the counter of (local) positions which are already stored.
("Local" means that these positions are only stored until you leave the
program. They are NOT stored permanently to a file, when you save the
current position with F2 or F10.)
(Read the "key-commands"-chapter for further information.)
(9): This is the number of the current stored position. (Counting begins
with zero.)
(10):This counter shows the number of selected lines.
(11):This is a simple speedbar, which shows you the current scrollspeed
(and scrolldirection) with an equivalent number of arrows.
The background-color of the status-bar can show a position-bar, which visual-
lizes the current position in the file and the length of the screen.
Messages:
~~~~~~~~~
ViewS often reports it's state and events to the user via messages.
For that purpose one or more textlines can appear below the statusbar.
Normally these lines disappear after a certain time or if you press a key.
The color of the message will flash to get your attention. You can recognize
the message-type by it's color.
A red message normally reports errors or problems. Blue messages are only
for information, while a yellow colored text shows that some work (like sear-
ching) is in progress.
A fast flashing darkgreen colored text is used, when the user is asked for
confirmation.
Some events also produce some short beeps, for example if the user stopped
a running progress, if something (like a search) was succesful or if some
other things failed... (These sounds can be disabled via the config-file, or
toggled by pressing <Alt>-<S>.)
Usage:
~~~~~~
You can use mouse or keyboard to scroll through the file.
At first the key commands:
The most important key-combination ;-)
Ctrl-Alt-Esc - This is the emergency exit. It should let you
stop the program at any point, even if it hangs.
("Hangs" means only: ViewS hangs in a buggy
routine of itself. If your system crashes, this
key-combination is useless.)
Cursor-Keys:
Up/Down - Scroll the file up/down.
Hold down the Shift-key to double the scroll-speed.
(For default, the actual scroll-speed won't jump
directly to the preset value, but the scrolling
will accelerate up to the desired speed. If the
key is released, the speed will slow down, until
zero is reached.
You can change this via the config-file as you
want.
See below => config-file)
Left/Right - Move the screen left/right. (Changes the first shown
column.)
Ctrl-Left/-Right - Move the screen a half screen-width to the left/right.
Ctrl-Home - Reset horizointal position to 0.
PageUp/PageDown - Move the file around one page up/down.
("Around", because this works exactly at normal
25x80 textmode and when [PageAccel] (in config-file)
remains at it's default value of 16.
But in different textmodes (=> size of chars) or
different [PageAccel]-values, it can scroll a bit
less than a whole page/screen.
The reason for it is the acceleration/slowdown at
scrolling, which makes it hard to reach the wanted
position exactly.
)
Ctrl-PageUp/-PageDown - This moves up/down one page, but without accelera-
ting/slowdown. The position will directly (and
exactly) jump one page up/down.
This is a much faster way for scrolling through the
file.
Home - Move to the begin of the file.
("Pos1" on german
keyboards)
End - Move to the end of the file.
(At the first use of this key, the end-position
of the file must be "searched". Of course, the
file-position of the file-end is always known,
but you don't know the number of the last line.
Therefore the file must be scanned down from the
last known linenumber (which is the end of the
current screen) and the lines must be counted.
* For very large files (above 1 MBytes or so) this
* can last some seconds. The progress of the search
* is shown in the statusbar as a percent-value.
* The search can be interrupted by pressing <Space>
* or <Esc>.
* At every next use of this function, the last line-
* number is already known, so that no further delay
* will happen.
If you save the position with F2/F10 (see below),
this information is also stored, so that the
search really is only needed at first use.
(Together with this information the size of the
file is stored, so that ViewS is able to recognize
if the last line-number gets invalid when the file
gets changed.)
Tab/Shift-Tab - Moves the file 1 byte left/right.
(This could be useful for binary files, or so...)
Ctrl- || / || - Moves the file 16 bytes left/right.
Plus/Minus - This raises/lowers the scrollspeed.
It can range from 16 (fastest) down to 1.
Before scrollspeed 1 comes scrollspeed 1/2 down to
1/99 (slowest).
1..0 - This sets the scrollspeed directly from 1 to 10.
Ctrl-1..0 - This set scrollspeed from 1/2 to 1/20.
R - If you press this key, Reader's mode will be
activated/deactivated.
Reader's mode means, that Autostop (see below =>
Alt-S) is disabled, the speed is set to a predefined
value (default: 1/25 (can be changed in config-file))
and the text will immediatley begin to scroll down.
This is great, if you want to read a large text.
Simply test your prefered scrollspeed, adjusted
for you speed of reading (scrollspeed can still
be changed in the normal way), then set it perma-
nently via the config-file.
You can still stop movement/change movedirection
with Space and Cursor-Up/-Down.
The scroll-speed can temporarily boosted up by
holding down the cursor-key for current scroll-
direction. (Useful, if you want to skip a text-
passage.)
If you disable Reader's mode, the old speed value
and the old autostop-state will be restored and
the movement will stop.
Such "radical" position-changes like Home, End, Search, PositionRestore will
store the old position in a buffer, from where it can be restored.
(The buffer with these positions will NOT be saved when saving the current
position to the savefile.)
The corresponding keys are:
Alt-Up - Swaps the current position with the position before.
Alt-Left/-Right - Cycles through the stored positions.
Alt-Down - Jumps to the "latest" stored position if you have currently
changed to another position (with Alt-Up or Alt-Left/
-Right).
This is quite useful, if you cycle through some stored
positions, and then want to go back to the old position.
If you haven't cycled through positions, this combination
will only store the current position to the buffer, so that
the current position becomes the lastest stored position.
Esc - * Exit ViewS if no helptext is visible and no
search in progress.
* Stop searching when a search is in progress.
* Hide helptext if it is visible.
F10 - Save the current position to the savefile and exit
ViewS.
F2 - Save the current position to the savefile.
F3 - Restore the saved position from the savefile.
Ctrl-F3 - Restore any saved position from savefile, choosen
by a list.
F8 - Remove the saved position from the savefile.
Ctrl-F8 - Remove any saved position from savefile, choosen
by a list.
Ctrl-Alt -Left/-Right - Save the current position to the savefile and
jump to the previous/next file in the savefile.
Ctrl-Alt -Up - Swap the current file with the previous loaded file.
Ctrl-Alt -Down - Jump to the original loaded file.
Ctrl-F - Jump to a file (from savefile) choosen from a list.
H / F1 - This pops up the helptext. If it is already visible
the helptext will jump to the next page.
Ctrl-Up/-Down - Pops up the helptext, or scrolls it one line up/
down if already visible.
M - Show/hide last message.
S / F7 - Request a string which shall be searched case-
insensitive.
(The string will be searched down from the top of
the screen.
If the string is found, it will be marked by a
different background-color. This mark will be
removed when the string scrolls out of top
or bottom of the screen or <Del> is pressed.)
Shift-S - Search a string case-sensitive.
N / Shift-F7 - Search the next occurrence of the previously search-
ed string.
Del - Remove the search-mark.
(Next search (with <N>) will begin at screen-top.)
G - Grab searchstring from screen.
In this mode:
Left/Right/Up/Down - Move around search-mark.
Shift- Left/Right - Resize search-mark.
Enter - Grab current search-mark.
ESC - Cancel grab.
Enter - Toggle selection bar on/off.
Space - Toggle selection of currently focused line.
Ctrl-Del - Clear all selections.
Shift-W - Write all selections into a file.
Alt-W - Toggle linewrapping.
(Linewrapping means, that, if a line is longer than
the wrapwidth (which will be set to the screen-
width for default), that line will be wrapped to
the next line.)
W - Toggle WordWrap.
(Unlike the normal linewrapping, WordWrap will try
to avoid broken words --> Instead of breaking a
word exceeding the line, the word will be comple-
tely put to the next line.)
Shift-Left/-Right - Decrease/increase wrapwidth. (Press Ctrl additional-
ly for faster changes.)
Alt-T - Toggle viewmode. (Toggles between text-, and raw-
mode.) (See above => commandline-option /MT /MF and
/MR for further information)
Alt-F - Toggle binary-filter. (Will filter all binary ASCIIs
below 32 out.)
C - Select next char-conversion-table.
(See config-file [ChrTab] / [DefChrTab] for further
information.)
Shift-C - Reset char-conversion-table. (-> use normal ASCII-
table)
Ctrl-C - Select char-conversion-table from a list.
A - Select next color-attribute-table.
(See config-file [AttrTab] / [DefAttrTab] for
further information.)
Shift-A - Reset color-attribute-table. (-> no color-highlight-
ing at all)
Ctrl-A - Select color-attribute-table from a list.
Alt-S - Toggle autostop.
(If autostop is disabled, the movement won't stop
automatically at cursorkey-release. It will only
stop, when the cursorkey for the opposite direction
or Space is pressed.
If you press the corresponding cursor-key, the
speed will be boost up while you hold this key.)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alt-M - Switches to videomode with next higher number of
lines (lines: 10-61).
Shift-Alt-M - Switches to videomode with next lower number of
lines.
Alt-8 - Switch to videomode with 80 columns.
Alt-9 - Switch to videomode with 90 columns.
All These modes and every valid BIOS- and VESA-textmode
can be set directly in the config-file.
Ctrl-M - Choose videomode from a list.
Ctrl-Alt-S - Switch to next higher screen-frequency.
!! Warning: !!
!! All these functions will change internal !!
!! settings of your VGA-card. This could !!
!! theoretically damage very uncommon graphiccards !!
!! or monitors. !!
!! As far as I know, this can't happen with any !!
!! modern system, but I WILL NOT BEAR ANY !!
!! RESPONSIBILITIES FOR ANYTHING WHAT COULD !!
!! HAPPEN! !!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alt-C - Toggle mousecursor.
(Shows or hides the mousecursor.)
Alt-L - Toggle display of linenumbers and lineoffsets in
statusbar.
Alt-P - Toggle position-bar ("behind" the statusbar)
(see Statusbar above, for information)
Alt-S - Toggle sound (beeps) on/off.
Ctrl-B - Toggle background-display. (If enabled, every
position on the screen, where is no character of the
file, will have a "▒" instead of " ".)
Ctrl-T - Toggle tabulator-display.
(This doesn't disable the "interpretation" of tab-
code (ASCII 9), but shows tabulator-spaces by a
different color and a "▒" instead of " ".)
Alt-K - Toggle the original keyboard-handler.
ViewS uses it's own keyboard-interrupt-handler.
This means, that for default the old (system-)
keyboard-handler is deactivated, so that you can
neither activate any keyboard-controlled TSR, nor
boot via Ctrl-Alt-Del.
You can make ViewS call the old keyboard-handler
additionally to avoid the problems.
But another problem is, that on slow systems the
old keyboard-interrupt could slow down ViewS what
could result in an unsmooth scrolling.
(Try it; If there are problems left it deactivated)
Ctrl-R - Redraw the screen. (This is more or less a useless
debugging-feature.)
Following is actually for internal debugging info:
Ctrl-I - Toggle statusbar with internal info.
Ctrl-Alt-F - Toggle timeshare.
(Shows how much of the time, while the VGA-card
redraws it's screen (around 1/70s), is used by
ViewS.
This time is shown by a blue border-color, starting
at the top of the screen. As closer it gets to the
screen-bottom as more time is used by ViewS.)
Mouse-usage:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
For default, vertical mousemovements (up/down) will change the speed,
while the speed is as higher as further the mousecursor is away from
the middle of the screen. Movement will stop, when the mousecursor is
around the screen-middle.
Horizontal movements (left/right) with left mousebutton pressed will
result in direct changes of the horizontal textposition (first shown
column). If you move the mouse to the left/right, the text will move
to the right/left.
The interpretation of mousemovements can be changed in many ways via
the config-file:
For vertical movement you can define:
- Analog mode , (the default, see above)
- Digital mode, where a certain distance from the screen-middle will
result in movement with normal scrollspeed (as if
cursorkey is pressed) (the scrollspeed doesn't depend
on distance to screen-middle, but is constant)
- No , which simply means, that vertical movements will be
ignored.
(See config-file [MsVertMode])
For horizontal movement available modes are:
- Absolute , where the horizontal position of the text directly
depends on the position of the mousecursor.
- Absolute Reversed, as Absolute, but mouse move to the left/right will
make the text move to the right/left.
- Relative , moves the text left/right as far the mouse was
moved left/right (after corresponding button was
pressed)
- Relative Reversed, as Relative, but left/right exchanged. (This is
the default mode.)
- No => horizontal movements will be ignored.
(See config-file [MsHorizMode])
Additionally the size of the zone at the screen-middle, where the vertical
movement will be stopped, can be set seperatly for Analog and Digital mode.
(See config-file [MsDistA] , [MsDistD])
You can define a button for vertical and another for horizontal movement,
which must be pressed for action. (Default: No button for vertical; Left
button for horizontal) (See config-file [MsVertBttn] , [MsHorizBttn])
And last but not least you can set the mouse-button(s) for exitting
ViewS. (Default: left and right button together)
(See config-file [MsEndBttn])
Config-file:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many features of ViewS can be adjusted by it's config-file VIEWS.CFG
which must be "compiled" by VIEWSCFG.EXE.
(I decided to "compile" VIEWS.CFG by VIEWSCFG.EXE, because interpreting
the textfile VIEWS.CFG directly by ViewS itself would increase the size
of ViewS and slow down it's startup.
In the compiled version (which is added to the ViewS-executable file)
the program only needs to read a binary file without any interpretation,
what is much faster and smaller.)
If you change VIEWS.CFG and forget to compile it with VIEWSCFG.EXE ,
ViewS will give you a warning-message.
For further information, please read the VIEWS.CFG (text-)file where
every option is documentated.
(Ok, I could put the complete CFG-file in this file. But this would
useless and only increase the size of the package.
But if you think I should repeat the CFG-documentation here, please
send me a message and I'll see (for the next version)...)
So, that's all for now. THNX for listening :-).
Bye,
TW.