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Text File | 1992-08-19 | 23KB | 673 lines

╔══════╗ ╔══════ ║ ║ ╔══════ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ╠══════╝ ╚═════╗ ╠═════╣ ╠══════ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ══════╝ ║ ║ ╚══════ ╚══════ ╚══════ Version 2.9 (c) Hans Paijmans 1991, 1992 PSHELL (KSHELL) Copyright Hans Paijmans 1991 NOTA BENE PSHELL is also called KSHELL and under that name is used at Tilburg University. The only difference is a different Icon and a different welcome-screen. So if you are using it at the KUB, just read KSHELL when it sez PSHELL here. DISCLAIMER All the usual disclaimers go here: use PSHELL at your own risk and don't come wailing to me if bugs in the program eat your disk, your computer and your pet canary. As far as I know there are no dangerous bugs in PSHELL and I certainly did not put a virus in it. Please read the copyright notice: althoug not too many strings are attached (pun not intended), this program is not public domain. Comments and suggestions are always welcome as are bottles with beer! See address below. (Must see the first dutchman yet who sends a bottle of beer for what he can have for free!). DIRECTIONS OF USE PSHELL was born from the conviction that ten fingers and a keyboard are better tools to perform typical housekeeping-tasks on the PC than mice and other pointing devices. Also I am addicted to 4DOS, the well-known alternative for COMMAND.COM from JP Software and many of my directories have 4DOS-descriptions attached. Alas! none of the command-line shells for WINDOWS, that I have seen, seems to support them. So I wrote another command-line shell for MS-WINDOWS, but one that should be able to read the 4DOS DESCRIPT.ION-files. But I wondered why not try out a few other enhancements, that I always miss in shells? Therefore there are quite a few original niceties in PSHELL that are not even in 4DOS, let alone in DOS itself. Note the four different ways of copying files. Besides COPY and MOVE you have BAC and UPDATE, both based on the DOS date-time stamp. BAC copies both new versions of files already existing in the target-directory AND new files, i.e. files that do not yet exist in the target. UPDATE only updates files in the target directory but does NOT add new files. And note how PSHELL handles full disks... Also rather original (at least I like to think so) is the INDES-command, that lets you manipulate files according to strings in their file-descriptions. And of course you MAY point your mouse at files and execute them by pressing a button. If you have a list of extension-application pairs, PSHELL will automatically load the application if you point at a datafile (or type the name+extension at the prompt). Put PSHELL.EXE and PSHELL.HLP somewhere in your path. If you decide to like PSHELL, add a line like RUN = E:\BIN\PSHELL.EXE in WIN.INI and it will be around when WINDOWS awakens. If you find you are not using the regular program manager so much any more, you can change the line SHELL=PROGMAN.EXE in SYSTEM.INI into SHELL=PSHELL.EXE thus freeing up the memory space used by the old PROGMAN. You can always activate PROGMAN from the Pshell-command-line. You can use the 4PSHELL.PBT to automatically run other programs when starting Windows. Even better: you can give the name of any PBT-file on the command line when starting a new PSHELL, e.g. WIN STARTUP, whete STARTUP.PBT is a batch-file. ********************************************* Use of PSHELL.INI is discontinued from PSHELL 2.09 onwards. WIN.INI is used from then on to store PSHELL data. ********************************************* Use the HELP-command to learn about the commands. A synopsis is given below, but I keep adding things and forgetting about them later. Most DOS-commands that you have become used to in the last ten years should be in PSHELL, so just try them out. SHORT TOUR of PSHELL PSHELL does not cover *all* 4DOS-commands, switches and parameters. It reflects those functions that I use regularly, but there are many very sensible functions that are not in PSHELL, because I do not happen to need them. Tell you what: send me a bottle of Belgian beer and I'll add them in for you. To gain an immediate feel for what PSHELL may do for you, do the following: 0. Copy PSHELL.EXE, PSHELL.TXT and PSHELL.HLP somewhere in your PATH. 1. Run PSHELL from windows (e.g. WIN PSHELL from the DOS-command line or by launching it from the WINDOWS program manager). ***************************************** Discontinued from version 2.09 onwards. Extensions from WIN.INI will be used. The EXT-command will only be used to check the extensions. 2. Type the PSHELL-command EXT TXT NOTEPAD (for NOTEPAD use your favorite editor. This will tell PSHELL that files with the extension TXT should be used with NOTEPAD. ***************************************** 3. Type DIR and observe the familiar DOS directory scrolling by. 4. Move your mouse-pointer to PSHELL.TXT (or any other TXT-file and doubleclick on that filename. 5. If everything is all right (and NOTEPAD.EXE is in your path), NOTEPAD should start with PSHELL.TXT as file. Nifty, isn't it? If you like this trick, go on reading this manual. If not, go and install X-Windows or some similar interface. DOS and MS-WINDOWS. Most commands may be typed on the PSHELL-commandline to start execution, just as you used to do when in 'normal DOS'. This works for BAT-files and PIF-files too. The DOS path-environment is copied to PSHELL and expanded when searching for an executable file. If one is found, first a CHDIR to that directory is executed. This might cause some 'where-is-that-darned- file-I-see-it-right-here-but-he-doesnt!' feelings, but you'll get over it. This only happens if the batch-file is on a different drive and a filename is given as a parameter to that batch-file. Just remember to add the drive-letter if you give filenames as parameters to batch-files. Also there are batch-files for PSHELL, with the extension of .PBT. They are found and executed *before* regular BAT-files. command line editor: ^E, ^X, ^S and ^D double as Up-arrow, down-arrow, left and right. ^A and ^F as HOME and END. Up and Down cycle through the history list. Left, Right, Home and End move in the command-line. Insert (Ctrl-V) toggles insert and changes the cursor in the bargain. Note that clicking the mouse on a word inserts that word in the comamnd-line. But if the mouse gets clicked on the command-line, the cursor just changes position. TAB, F9 and F8 may be used to cycle through the directorylist. TAB cycles through all files, beginning with the characters already typed AND shown in the last DIR operation. Note that the path-prefix is not kept in memory, so you have to type it yourself. F9 cycles through all files, beginning with the characters already typed, but reads the directory anew. F8 cycles backwards. E.g.: After DIR \PATH\*.BAK you may use a command like DEL \PATH\ab<TAB> to cycle through all files in \PATH, beginning with ab and with the extension .BAK. DEL ab<F8> however, reads your default-directory and cycles through all files that start with ab. The caret (^) may be used to combine several commands on the command line. E.g.: COPY *.* B: ^ DEL *.BAK ^ CHKDSK C: Support is added for the excellent WINBATCH batchprocessor for Windows from Morris Wilson. A shareware version can be downloaded from any well-equipped BBS. Just put WINBATCH and the batchfile (extension WBT) somewhere in your path. Of course WINBATCH will nag you for registration every first time you use it in a session. I will nag you for a bottle of beer, every time you read this. And if Morris Wilson reads this, he may send me a registered copy of his programs. BATCH-files. It had to come: PSHELL now has batchfiles of its own. Just use ASCII-files with the extension .PBT. Currently supported are: ECHO on|off|messagestring REM PAUSE message 9 parameters (%1 .. %9) IF parameter == string .... (mind the spaces around the == !) also eq, ne, gt, lt, le, ge and EXISTS filename GOTO label :label NOTA BENE: As we said PSHELL searches PBT before the BAT-extension. Therefore you may use identical names, e.g. SEARCH.PBT and SEARCH.BAT as below for the same tasks under WINDOWS and DOS. E.g.: a textfile like this: PUSHD C:\ WHERE %1 CDD D:\ WHERE %1 POPD Which (assuming 4DOS and the existence of a filefind-command for DOS, called WHERE.COM) would either use PSHELL-commands under WINDOWS and 4DOS-commands under 4DOS, but execute transparently. An 'autoexec' is possible, which executes automatically whenever a new copy of pshell is started. It is called '4PSHELL.PBT' and may be anywhere in the path. You may give other PBT-files on the commandline when starting new PSHELL's or when firing up WINDOWS itself. A PBT-batchfile should have at least one empty line at its end! NOTA BENE: if a normal DOS-batch-file conforms to the PSHELL-syntax (that is a subset of DOS), you may use it as a PBT-file, just by adding an exclamationmark. So the command SEARCH! will execute the SEARCH.BAT inside PSHELL (without shelling to DOS) if no SEARCH.PBT is found. Alternatively the command BAT ON may be given. MOUSE The mouse in PSHELL may be used to click with the left button on a string somewhere in PSHELL's window. That string will be inserted in the command-line, complete with slashes and points (only spaces will separate string). Useful to pick up a long path after a WHERE-command and put it in the command-line, or to start applications from a directory. Doubleclicking the left button will select the string and immediatly launch it. Singleclicking the right button will insert spaces in the command-line and doubleclicking the right button will also launch the command-line. NOTE: in the commandline itself, and only in the commandline, the mouse may be used to position the cursor. If you really are lazy you may click the left button on the prompt as substitute for arrow-up (previous command in history) and the right button on the prompt as arrow down. CALIBRATION If the mouse does not 'hit' the right spot, you may adjust the 'pixeloffset'- parameters in the PSHELL.INI file. The values 12 and 5 work just fine on my screen. EXTENSIONS ********************* from version 2.09 the WIN.INI extensions will be used ********************* ALIASES Pshell has room for 25 aliases of 40 chars each. The first part (the alias itself) can be no longer than 5 characters; the expansion is maximal 40 long. Aliases consist of a single word and do not accept parameters. They are expanded only if they are typed as a single word on the command-line after the prompt or read from a PBT-file. Aliases beginning with % are treated as systemvariables (see below). Remove aliases by adding a minus sign in front. SYSTEM VARIABLES Pshell knows a number of system variables. They have the general form %qxyz (the procent is obligatory). %_BAT returns ON or OFF (see command BAT). %_CWD current drive and directory in the format d:\directory %_DATE current date in the format yyyy-mm-dd %_YESTERDAY the yesterday-variable (see commands). %_TIME current time in the format hh:mm:ss %_DISK current disk as character (e.g. C ) %_DOW day of the week (mon, tue, wed etc.) %_SYSDIR Windows systemdirectory (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM ). %_WINMODE returns ENHANCED, STANDARD or REAL. Aliases that consist of % followed by no more than four characters are treated as system variables. System variables are used in IF- and ECHO-statements. SHORT LIST OF COMMANDS. ------> Refer to the Help-function of PSHELL if the following is not clear. ALso the excellent HELP of 4DOS might clarify many things, which is invoked by typing: 4HELP Invokes 4DOS help, if it exists somewhere in your path and has the name HELP. ALIAS [[-][alias "expansion]] Without parameters: displays list of aliases. With parameters in the form ALIASNAME=EXPANSION creates an alias with that meaning. The double quote is obligatory if the expansion has spaces or slashes inbedded. e.g.: ALIAS dw "dir *.bak /w Use the minus sign to remove aliases ALIAS -dw which removes that alias from the list. BAC source [destination] Works like COPY, but only copies new files and files, which are younger than the files on the destination drive. BAT [ON][OFF] BAT ON enables the execution of all BAT-files as PBT-files. BAT OFF switches this option off. BAT without parameters shows the current status. BAT ON acts as if all BAT-commands are followed by an exclamation mark. The status of BAT will be kept in the INI-file. BEEP [integer] Look, you're not gonna believe this, but it beeps. And if you add a number it beeps many times! CHDIR, RMDIR, MKDIR dirname work as expected (by me, that is). Of course the shorter forms CD, MD and RD are also supported. CDD d:dirname changes both path and disk. CLS clears screen. COPY source [destination] may be used and changes will be reflected in the descriptions. Switches like /V, /B, /A etc. not supported at the moment (I never used them anyway. Note that both 'COPY CON filename' and 'COPY filename PRN' work as expected. Of course COPY allows you to change disks if one gets filled. DEL filename Deletes file. DESCRIBE filenaam [Description] will enable the user to add 4DOS descriptions to files in the directory. Wildcards are allowed. The description string may be entered on the command-line: in this case start it with double quotes if more than one word. DIR [dirname] [switch] Displays directory. Default is sorted on name or according to PSHELL.INI. /w - for wide display. /a - displays attributes in stead of comments. /e - sort on order of entry (like DOS) /t - sort on time. /s - sort on size. /d - sort on description. /n - sort on name. EXCEPT (filespec [filespec....]) command filename ... (one of that 4DOS-goodies) Just put filespecs inside parenthesis and give a disk-command. e.g. EXCEPT (*.EXE *.COM) COPY *.* B: It works by first setting the attributes of the files between the parenthesis on HIDDEN and READONLY, executing the command and setting the HIDDEN and READONLY off again. NOTE: files of that filespec, which were hidden or read-only to begin with, are changed to NOT hidden and NOT readonly! EXIT [/S]. To kill the 4PSHELL just type EXIT on the command-line. Another way is clicking left upper corner (as with all windows applications). EXIT /S causes the current parameters of prompt, directory-sort and screen to be saved in a PSHELL.INI, which resides in C:\. EXT [[-] [ext filename]] To check which extensions are enabled for auto-execution. FIND filespec string Searches files for an occurring string. Returns filename or both filename and lines in which the string occurrs. Use /I to Ignore case, /F if you only need the filename. Pshell adds the search-string to every filename, so you will not forget what you asked. FREE D: displays free space and total capacity on disk. GLOBAL Executes an internal command over all directories under the default. Try 'GLOBAL DEL *.*' to get the general idea. (NO! Don't take me serious!). HELP [keyword] starts WINDOWS help-system on PSHELL. (Also F1). You may add a keyword that you want help on. HISTORY displays last fifteen commands entered. INDES[i] "string" command filename... The command INDES has been added, which enables the selection of files which have a certain string in their 4DOS description-part (INDES is case-sensitive, INDESI is not). So INDES "foobar" DEL *.BAK means "delete all *.bak-files with 'foobar' somewhere in the description. and INDES NOT "foobar" DEL *.bak means "delete all *.bak-files, except those with 'foobar' somewhere in the description... Try it! It effectively makes the filenames 40 characters longer! INI Saves INI-file without having to use EXIT/S. KILL processnumber. Kills the window with that processnumber. See the warning under PS! KD dirname Which means 'KillDir'. KD recursively deletes all files and directories under and inclusive the given directory. LOAD command Loads and minimizes a windows-program as an Icon. MAX processnumber Maximizes the window with that processnumber MEMORY displays free RAM-memory. MIN processnumber Minimizes the window with that processnumber MOVE source [destination] Like COPY, but deletes files in the source-directory after copying them. If within a drive, a 'rename' is done, which is MUCH faster. NEW [filespec] Looks for files, newer than 'yesterday', where yesterday is the last time NEW was executed. That date is stored in the PSHELL.INI in the [checknew] section, so you will have to execute NEW at least one time 'blind'. PUSHD dirname Pushes the current directory on a stack and does a CD to dirname. POPD reverses PUSHD: i.e. a directory name is popped off the stack and a CD to that directory is executed. PROMPT Behaves more or less as the DOS prompt-command. The prompt is saved to PSHELL.INI when quitting PSHELL with EXIT /S Prompt accepts a string, which may end with a number of $(character) combinations. These characters are $ The $-sign itself. _ The underscore inserts a carriage/linefeed d The current date e The ASCII escape character. g The > sign l The < sign n default drive letter P Path in uppercase p path in lower case s The space character A string may be placed before the first $-character. Example PROMPT This is an idiotic prompt$_$t$s$P$g will create the following prompt: This is an idiotic prompt 12:02:11 D:\\PSHELL> PS Gives a list of active windows with processnumbers. NOTA BENE: The processnumbers are not static, but change after minimizing, maximizing and other actions. Always do a PS immediatly before using KILL, MIN, MAX or REST. REDIRECTION Use > and >> as in dos. The first creates a new file and directs Pshell-output in it; the second appends it after an existing file. REN filename1 filename2 Renames files (wildcards allowed). Changes will be reflected in the descriptions. Parameters not supported at the moment. REST processnumber Restores the window attached to the process to its original size. SET may be used to examine DOS environment variables (not to SET them!) STOP[!] Quits WINDOWS without first having to discuss it with the progam manager. You have to enter 'Y' in uppercase to confirm. STOP! quits Windows without confirmation (you might have to close some open WINDOWS-applications by hand). TREE displays tree of directories under current directory. TYPE filename and LIST are identical. They support wildcards. Press ESC to cancel the typing of the current file, ctrl_C to quit. S to stop scrolling, any key to start again. I know it's slow, but you may scroll back too. /S added to TYPE and LIST. It suppresses weird characters and adds CR/LF's, so that you may TYPE executables and other non-ASCII-files. /c - switch added to TYPE to add CR to lines, which don't have one. /W trims bit 8 (useful for some wordprocessor-files). UPDATE source [destination] added, which works somewhat like BAC; copies only younger files over older files, but does not add new files. VER Displays the version numbers of PSHELL, MS-DOS and MS-WINDOWS. WHERE filenaam. Searches default disk (under the current subdirectory) for file(s) YESTERDAY [yyyy:mm:dd] Lets you give the date to use as 'yesterday' in the NEW-command. Sorry, it doesn't check for correctness and you have to give it as yyyy:mm:dd, or it won't work. Also exit PSHELL with EXIT /S to store it in the INI-file, because subsequent NEW will reset that date to the current date. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Although everybody is invited to copy PSHELL for private use, the program is NOT public domain. ********************************************************************* The management of the cica.indiana.edu site in Berkeley, USA, forced me to retract a statement in this place, in which I forbade racists, fascists, criminals etc., to use my software. I guess they wanted to use it too. ********************************************************************* If you are using PSHELL on a regular basis, please send me (voluntarily) say 50 US dollars, or 75 Dutch guilders or Deutsche Mark or something like that. You 'll get a registered version without the Bromberg-notice. If you became curious it has served its purpose. Giving this program away for free in a package deal, in which other products are sold, is considered commercial use and is explicitly prohibited without written permission from me. Just keep thinking "OK, so this guy made something. How would I like to be treated if I were in his place?" If somebody wants to use my program commercially, just contact me. We will work out something. Suggestions and donations are welcome at Hans Paijmans Elzenstraat 1 5183 VS Waalre Holland email: PAAI@KUB.NL (bitnet).