Copyright: Copyright ® 1995 Doug Hunter


Contents

Introduction

Did you know that a number of people download a piece of software without even a general idea of what it does, or how they might find it useful?  I didn't.  But I do now, so I've revised my help file to explain things a bit more.

New Section...

  What is UUE Encoding/Decoding, and what use might it be to me.

What it Does

A really short listing of the programs capabilities.

What it does not do.

A listing of what the program does not do, including some hints for what you may see in later versions.

Menus

A Short listing of the various menu options available and what tasks they perform.

Things I've Fixed...

A short listing of those things I've found or had reported to me that I've fixed and uploaded for you to try.

Index

Glossary

Registration Information


What It Does
What It Does...

•	Decode UUE Encoded files...

•	Allows the selection of multiple files to decode and processes all of them without further user intervention.

•	Decodes files with multiple parts.  i.e. if you have a single file that was encoded into several different pieces the decoder process will reasseble those parts.

•	Uses less than 300K of memory regardless of the number of size of files selected to process.

•	Validates the File name of any file prior to decoding.  If the file name contains more than 8 characters prior to the extension, its shortened to 8 characters.  If it contains spaces, they are converted to underscores.

•	Checks for existence of files prior to decoding.  If the file to be decoded already exists, you are presented with a file save dialogue box and allowed to enter a new name for the file to be decoded or allowed to select a file to overwrite.

•	Never stops other Windows programs from executing by hogging the processor.  You should still be careful if you have communications programs that are sensitive even to small interruptions, but I've had no problems so far.

•	Encode files to UUE format

•	Allows the selection of multiple files to encode and processes all of them without further user intervention.

•	Allows you to encode files into multiple parts.  For some people this is a matter of preference, for some this is a matter of necessity.  The Options screen lets you defind how many lines should be decoded to each file and the encoding process creates as many files as necessary.


What it does not do

•	This program does not set any speed records for decoding.

Its intentional.

This program was designed such that it did not interfear with anything else you currently had running.  In order to do that I had to slow down the decoding/encoding processes.  You can control this to a point, but even at its fastest I don't believe i have the fastest encoder/decoder on the market.

•	I've eliminated everything else in this section because I couldn't think of anything else I would expect this program to do that it does not current do.  If you had other features you expected, please drop me a note so that I can either add those features or note here that they are not present.


Menus

The File Menu

The Open option (also accessible from the speedbar button at left) allows you to select one or more file you want to decode.  By default it looks for files with the extension .UUE, but this is not a requirement.  As all this program does is Decode, any file you select will cause the program to try and decode it.

•	The Preferences option will bring up the Prefrence dialogue box.

The Exit option (also accessible from the speed bar button displayed on the left) exits the application.  It may be entirely possible to exit the application *while it is decoding*.  Don't do this unless you absolutely need to exit windows.  It will leave files open and likely cause a GPF.

The Help Menu

•	The Contents option brings you to this file displaying the Contents Page.

•	The About option brings up the About UUE Ease dialogue box, giving you another look at the Icon and displaying the program's Version number.

•	The Registration option brings you to this file, displaying the page with Registration instructions.


New_Version_Changes
New Version Changes

1.1

•	I added a flag to the program so that you should no longer be able to exit the program midway through decoding a file.  I'm still working on an abort function that allows you to close down cleanly mid-decode, but at least for now you can't accidentally cause the program to crash by clicking the wrong button

•	I increased the size of the buffer I'm reading in.  Now decoding takes less time, and as far as I can test it still does not interupt other processes that are running.

•	I found a bug that occured if you go parts of a file, but not the whole thing.  If you didn't get a 'begin' line, but did get the 'end' line I was trying to close a file that I never opened (bad idea) so nothing else would decode, you'd just get a lot of zero sized files.  This should now be fixed and the program should only be closing a file if it actually opened one.

1.2

•	I fixed the Preferences screen to validate the directories entered.  Previously it wouldn't check that the entered directory ended in a \, or that the entered directory even existed.  This caused the program to appear to process an input file, producing no output.

•	I fixed the registration reminder routine.  Previously the "How to Register" screen only appeared the first time you executed the program with no .INI file present.  Now it correctly presents that screen every 15th day you acually use the program.

1.3

•	Well, I never thought I'd have to admit *this*, but I made the program too efficient.  Part of the requirements I was trying to meet was a decoder that would actually decode in the background rather than taking up the processor and slowing the download of other files. Version 1.2 stopped doing this correctly.  It was processing two quickly and my download speed started going down.   In order to correct this, there's a new element on the preferences screen.  Number of lines to process between pauses.  When the program pauses it lets all the other active windows applications do their thing.

A lower value in this setting means less interfearence with other programs, and slower decoding, a higher value means a bit more interfearence, but faster decoding.  Now you can adjust it for yourself rather than depending on my preferences.

•	Since FreeAgent(tm) finally came out with their 1.0 version, I was able to try it out and I made a discovery.  FreeAgent (tm) places a line between articles made up of several equals signs.  My and several other decoders treat this as decodable data.  I've added an exception process to get around that and multipart files saved from FreeAgent(tm) should now process correctly.

•	If you are processing a large file, and downloading several smaller ones, you may find yourself wanting to add those new files to the queue to be processed.  Before I made this version this would cause the program to start processing the current list from the first file, interupting the decoding it was working on.  Now you should be able to drag and drop new encoded files onto the decoder and have them be added to the end of the queue without interupting the decoding that's already in progress.

•	Not really a program change, but something I've been informated of since the previous version.  If you are using NetScape or Mosaic to read newsgroups you are likely to run into problems.  When they read usenet messages, they are limited in the length they can load.  Thus UUE files of excessive length are truncated and your files will not decode preoperly because of this.

1.4

•	Worked on some things that people have asked for as well as things that have bugged me for a while.

•	Drag Drop now works whether the application window is open or minimized.  I don't know how I missed adding the application drag and drop code earlier, but now you can add files to the queue without having to pop the application up from its minimized state.

•	Staying minimized.  For some reason I figured it would be a good thing for the application to pop up when it finished decoding a file so that you would know that file was done being processed.  The more I used it, the more it got on my nerves, and from my e-mail I'm not the only one.  Now the application will only pop up from a minimized state once *all* of the files in the queue are processed.

•	Now this last one isn't an enhancement at all, and for registered users something that won't ever be noticed.  I cut the number of days between my nag screen poping up from 15 days down to 5.  I'm just not seeing the number of registrations that I'd hoped for (and my hopes were pretty small in the first place) so I'm going to be a tiny bit more annoying in the hopes you'll register. (Of course the fact that I need money for a new hard drive doesn't have anything to do with it<G>)

2.0!

•	I added multiple file support!  See the new help screen on Multipart files for more information.

•	UUE_EASE now Encodes as well as Decoding!  (alright, I'll quit with the exclamation points, but I'm excited.)  Check out the What it does help page for more information.

•	Added yet another new option on the prefrences window (considering the above changes I was suprised to be only adding one<g>).  See the new Preferences help page for more information.


Index

B

Bug

C

Contents

E

Exit

F

Fixes

G

Glossary

I

Index

M

Menu

Menus

Multipart_Files

N

New Stuff

New_Version_Changes

O

Open

Output Directory

P

Preferences

Prefrences

R

Register online with SWREG

Registration

Registration

S

Startup Directory

W

Warranty

What is UUE Encoding/Decoding?

What It Does

What_is_it

Whatitdoesnotdo


Glossary

F

FreeAgent (tm)

M

multiple file

O

Output Directory

P

Pause Value

Preferences

Prefrence dialogue box

S

Startup Directory

W

What is UUE Encoding/Decoding

What it does


Registration

Its Small, Its Shareware, and if you like it, I hope its registered.

If you have not registered, for version 1.4, I am asking for a registration fee of $20.00 US dollars.  At this point I can only accept payment by check or money order. If you are interested in registering this piece of software and you are on CompuServe, write to me at:

Doug Hunter 76467,1045

 or from anywhere else you can send me internet mail at:

76467.1045@compuserve.com

I'll drop you a note back telling you the current mailing address for registrations, and drop you a short series of questions about whether you want to be notified of upgrades or other tools I create.

New! CompuServe users can register online! (GO SWREG)

•	The I hate unsolicited advertizing promise

If you choose to register and you indicate that you do not want to receive notices of upgrades or other tools I create the only other communications you will receive from me will be:

•	Payment Notification:  Once payment is received I'll be sending you registration instructions.  If you send your check and do not hear from me within three weeks, you'll have to write me.  I won't write you because if you decided not to register after talking to me I don't want to pester you.

•	Bug Notification:  I've thrown everything at this piece of software that I can think of, but I've only got a couple different machines to test on.  Therefore if anyone discovers a bug that may cause damage to your hardware or software I will write to you will apologies for both the interuption and the bug.

•	Internet Mail Verification.  Since  I cannot get a return receipt reliably through the net, if I send you a message with vital information and you don't write back saying at least "got it" I'm going to be dropping you another note to verify that you got the vital message.

•	Legal "Covering Ones Posterior" type words

As I noted before, I've tested this piece of software every way I know how.  I cannot guarantee that there's nothing in this piece of software that will not interfere with other software you  have running, or that it will perfectly process any UUE encoded file you throw at it.  This piece of software is not bonded, insured, or otherwise backed with consumer  protection should something fail for the user.  Please keep this in mind before using it and be aware that the programmer does not hold himself responsible in any legal way for damages caused through proper or improper use of this software.

•	Its Broken and I can't Decode

Registered or not, I will attempt to assist anyone who is having problems running this piece of software.  Write to me at the address listed above and describe whatever problem you are having and I'll try and work on a solution for you.  As this is a hobby for me and not a living, my solution may take a while, but I can't give up my day job.  Yet<g>.


Register online with SWREG

Having reached almost 1000 downloads without a single registration and just one person who even asked how to register, I decided to take my own advice and make things easier.

If you have a CompuServe account, you can register online and have the registration fee charged against your account.

•	WinCIM

Click on the Traffic Light Icon, which should bring up a dialogue box with just one field you can type anything into.  Type SWREG into this box and hit the OK button.

Then follow the menus to registering.

•	TapCIS, ProComm, any other ASCII interface.

Get to any CompuServe prompt.  Type GO SWREG and hit return.  This should bring you to the menu which you can choose to register from.

Registration ID:   5938

Using the registation ID you should be able to zero right in on UUE_EASE 1.1 registration.


Multipart_Files
Multipart Files

•	Decoding

Depending on the program and method you use for getting UUE encoded files on to your machine, you may end up with multiple files that once properly decoded come together as one single decoded file.  Starting with version 2.0, I've implemented a process that automatically takes care of this.

I wrote the process to presume its dealing with multiple files whenever it reaches the physical end of a files its decoding without hitting an "end" statement within the file.

•	What you need to do...

First, the files that are to be decoded have to be numbered.  That's how I find the next file in sequence.  So, if the first file is MYFILE1.UUE, the program will go and look for MYFILE2.UUE as the next file to decode.

If you have more than 9 parts, make sure the file names are zero padded.

If you have MYFILE9.UUE and it continues in MYFILE10.UUE, the program won't detect it and will stop trying to find more parts.  You must name the parts MYFILE01.UUE, etc in order to decode multipart files with 10-99 parts.  If you have more than 99 parts, put another 0 in.

It doesn't matter if you select all the parts to decode and put them in the input list or not.  The decode process will actively seek out the various parts as it needs them whether they are in the input list or not.


Prefrences

•	Startup Directory: Defines what directory on your hard drive the program should initially present when you hit the open button.  If the checkbox is checked, the program intially presents the directory you have UUE_EASE.EXE placed in.

•	Output Directory: Defines what directory the program should put the files it has processed into.  If the Checkbox above it is checked the program outputs the processed files into teh same directory it read them from.

•	Delete UUE file once processed.  If this option is checked, the file selected to be decoded will be deleted once the decode process has completed that file. Please note that this happens regardless of whether the file was decoded correctly or whether there was anything found in the file to decode at all.

•	Pause Value.  This option is what allows you to define how much this program cooperates with other windows programs.  To get maximum cooperation, you could set this value to 1 causing the program to pause after decoding each line of the input file in order to let other windows programs have a turn.  The default is 5, which is what has worked best for me.  If you set this value to 0, the program disables all cooperation and hogs your processor to the best of its abilities.

•	Encode lines per file.  If you want your file to be encoded to multiple output files, use this option to set how many lines you want in each file.  Please note that the first file will be a bit larger as it contains the header indicating what file has been encoded.


What_is_it
What is UUE Encoding/Decoding,

and what use might it be to me.

First, let me try to give you and idea of what problem any type of encoder is trying to solve....

Years and years ago (on a light and cloudless day<g>) people needed a way to send documents, programs, graphics and other computer files to each other.  When you need to give a program to the person down the hall you just put it on a floppy and hand it to them.  When they are in another building, city, state or even country the problems become a bit harder to ovecome.

The Internets mail capabilities made it easy to send unformatted documents back and forth, but people still didn't have a way to send programs, graphics, and documents with formatting added to them by popular word processing programs.

Someone came up with the idea of somehow changing those programs, graphics and documents in some way to allow them to be sent like the unformatted documents that people were easily mailing to recipients across the globe.

This was the birth of encoding.  Various encoding methods did different things to achieve this result, but the basic premise remains the same.  There's a limited range of characters that could legitimately be passed by internet mail (or usenet postings), and graphics and programs contain characters out of that range.  Without getting down to the inherently technical details of the process, what encoders do is take the binary represetnation that makes up 3 characters in the original file and spread that out to 4 characters in the encoded file.  Technically, this could be called, encoding an 8 bit file into a 7 bit format.

This is why an encoded file is larger than the unencoded version of the same information.

So what use is this to you?

Sending files to people through the internet mail.  For example, you have a friend in another city, and you want to show them a really neat graphic you created.  Said friend is not on the same online service you are.  If you have a program to encode your graphic file, and your friend has a program to decode that file you can send it to them in one or more messages.

Getting utilities, graphics and other files out of usenet newsgroups.  from Alt.Binaries.pictures.animals to alt.binaries.sounds, there are usenet newsgroups posting encoded files on the internet every hour or every day from all over the world.  The only way you can view these graphics, listen to these sounds, or run these utilities is by having a way to decode the posts you find in the newsgroup.

So, what's UUE?  Well, I'd like to expand the acronym for you, but I haven't found an answer. (hopefully someone who does know will read this and tell me<Grin>).  But what I can tell you is that UUE Encoding and Decoding is the most prevalent encoding method used on the internet.  This utility is one of many that will enable you to encode your own files or decode those you receive.


FreeAgent (tm)

FreeAgent is a Usenet Newsgroup reader developed by Forte (there should be an accent mark above  the e, but I haven't figured out how to add one).  This program and the name FreeAgent is trademarked/copyrighted by Forte.  Its a pretty nice newsreader and available in the WINCON(?) forum on CompuServe.


multiple file

<Multipart_Files>


Output Directory

The Output Directory is the location UUE Ease expects to place files.  By default it will put the decoded files into the same directory as the UUE file was loaded from.


Pause Value

The Pause Value is the number of lines to be processed before the program allows other Windows programs to go ahead and perform whatever tasks they have pending.  The default value is 5 lines, which seems to process files at an acceptible rate without interfearing with the processing by other programs.


Preferences

<Prefrences>


Prefrence dialogue box

<Prefrences>


Startup Directory

The directory on your machine you want UUE Ease to look for files to decode.  By default it will look in the same directory as it was started from.


What is UUE Encoding/Decoding

<What_is_it>


What it does

<WhatItDoes>