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Text File | 1987-08-01 | 35.5 KB | 775 lines

Arcmaster by John J. Newlin -- What is Arcmaster? Arcmaster is a full-featured Archive file management system that is designed to take some of the pain out of remembering the usage syntax for Archive system programs. Specifically, Arcmaster fully supports the PKARC and PKXARC system (Copyright by Phil Katz) and the ARCA and ARC-E system (Copyright by Vern Buerg). Both of these systems are supurb implementations of file compression and decompression techniques. Use of either of these two systems results in the saving of a lot of time and money in transferring files over public phone lines and a lot of disk space on private systems. The problem is that both systems offer so many options and switches that it is difficult to remember them when you need to ARC or DeARC a set of files. Arcmaster removes that difficulty and adds a fast, powerful search feature so that you can always find that file you need even though you may have stuffed it in an .ARC file some months ago. Here are some of Arcmaster's features: - View an .ARC file directory listing at the touch of a key. - DeARC multiple files. - Selectively extract (or delete) files from an .ARC file. - Search any (or all) drives in your system for a file that resides in an .ARC file. - Browse ARCed files using Vern Buerg's outstanding LIST program. - Quickly and easily select ARC or DeARC switches and options. - Specify a target directory for file extraction. - Specify a target directory as host for created .ARC files. - Swiftly search entire system for any file. - View any file through Buerg's LIST program. -- License Terms Arcmaster is copyrighted by John J. Newlin, all rights reserved (1987). It is offered to IBM PC/XT/AT (and clones) personal computer users as Shareware. This means that you, the consumer, get to try out the proram and evaluateits usefulness before risking a purchase. User's who find it useful should remit a registration fee of $40.00 to: John J. Newlin 4060-228 Rosenda Ct. San Diego, CA 92122 I am offering two incentives to promote registration of Arcmaster. The first involves filling out the form that I have included at the end of the user's manual. If you fill in the form completely and include it with your registration, I will accept a registration fee of $30.00. In addition to saving $10.00, you avail yourself of the oppurtunity to critique the program and to make an important contribution to the design of future versions. I feel very strongly that submitted critiques will be just as important to me as the registration fees. The second incentive is that by registering with me you will recieve Arcmaster Plus, a program incorporating additional advanced features. Some of the features of Arcmaster Plus are: - Print an Archive directory listing. - Batch move, copy, deletion of files. - Renaming of files. Arcmaster may be executed on any personal computer system by that system's owner/operator for evaluation purposes. It may not be sold and it may not be used in any commercial environment without my permission. It may be copied for archival purposes and for purposes of Shareware distribution, but no fee other than for the host media may be charged. I explicity reserve all rights to the distribution and sale of Arcmaster, both in and outside of the United States. I also claim copyright of the various screens and displays embodied in Arcmaster. -- Warranty This program is provided AS IS without any warranty, expressed or implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular purpose. The author is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). -- Support I support my software! Unfortunately, I cannot support a toll free line but I will accept letters, phone calls, carrier pidgeon drops, or whatever form of communication suits you in asking for support. You can reach me at the address above or at one of these two numbers: Work - (619) 543-4072 Home - (619) 455-6225 I can also be reached via CIS EMAIL or IBMSW SIG message. My CIS user id is 71535,665. I have yet to write any non-trivial software that did not contain bugs. Maybe others can, but I know I cannot. I'm sure Arcmaster is no exception. Some of those little beasts will probably never be found by me because of my bias as the author. Therefore it is important to all who use Arcmaster to let me know of any problems. If I know about them, I can probably fix them. Ideas and suggestions as how to improve the program are also most welcome. -- Technical Information. Arcmaster was developed and initially tested on an AST Premium/286 running MSDOS 3.1 and using monochrome monitor driven by a Hercules + board. It has been beta tested on the following machines: IBM XT stock with mono board/monitor. IBM AT (8mhz) EGA board simulating mono. Leading Edge model "M" with CGA. TANDY 1000 with CGA It is written in Marshal Language Systems' Marshal Pascal (70%) and assembly (30%) using Eric Isaacson's marvelous A86 assembler. Arcmaster will support up to 400 files per directory and 200 files per Archive directory. If anyone needs increased capability, contact me and I will provide you a custom version that will meet your needs. I expect Arcmaster to support the Lotus, Intel, Microsoft (LIM) Expanded Memory Specification (EMS) as soon as MLS provides the compiler support. -- Credits. Arcmaster is an interface that automates most of the command line entry typing required to utilize the supported ARC programs and LIST. Without Vern Buerg's and Phil Katz's brilliant efforts, there would be no need for Arcmaster. It does not employ any file compression or decompression techniques and does not offer any intrinsic file viewing capability. Tied together with ARCA (or PKARC), ARC-E (or PKXARC) and LIST, I believe it will save much time and effort normally required to manage .ARC files. Special thanks to Steve Marshal and the folks at Marshal Language Systems for their support. -- Installing Arcmaster. -- Hardware Requirements. Arcmaster should operate properly on any IBM PC/XT/AT or compatible having 256k of RAM or greater. It supports monochrome and color monitors and colors for the CGA/EGA are user configurable. While Arcmaster was designed primarily for a fixed disk environment, there is no reason it cannot be useful when used from a floppy disk. Testing has shown that you will need approximately 110k of free RAM above Arcmaster when it is running in order to successfully invoke the archive system programs and/ or LIST. Arcmaster takes about 80k of RAM, DOS 3.1 takes about 70k (varying greatly, depending upon loaded device drivers), so you will need at least 256k. If you usually keep RAM resident software (like SCOUT) loaded, then you'll need more. -- Software Requirements. PC DOS/MSDOS 2.0 or higher. Arcmaster was designed specifically to interface with three of five of the most popular Shareware programs available. In order that Arcmaster provide the maximum utility in managing ARC files, the following software is required: PKARC or ARCA PKXARC or ARC-E LIST PKARC and PKXARC are archiving and de-archiving utilities by Phil Katz. ARCA and ARC-E are equally excellent archive products of Vern Buerg. LIST is a superb file view/browse/list utility by Vern Buerg. It is absolutely mandatory that one of the two archival systems listed above be present when Arcmaster is operated and it is highly recommended that LIST also be included. -- The Arcmaster Configuration File. The Arcmaster distribution package includes two sample configuration files. One is named ARCMASTR.CFG and the other is named COLOR.CFG. When executed, the first thing Arcmaster does is to look in the current directory for ARCMASTR.CFG. If it finds it, it will read it and make the appropriate adjustments to the default settings. Since this file is a straight ASCII text file, it is easily user created or modified. The following paragraphs explain the various items that can be specified in ARCMASTR.CFG. -- Configuration Item Format. All items in the file follow the same format. Each line of the file starts with a keyword. Arcmaster keys on the first character of the key word so the key word may be just about anything desired as long as it starts with the correct character. The key word is followed by a space and then and "=" sign, another space and then the configurable item itself. Here is an example: beeps = off In this case the key word is beeps and the desired setting is off. This could just as correctly specified as: Bells = OFF or as: BELGRADE = On Notice that case is not important. In the case of toggled items like this example, there are only two choices, off and on - well, actually three, since you can omit the item altogether. Here's another example: arc = \somedir\myarcdir ;host dir for arc files In this example the user is defining the host directory for all newly created .ARC files. The keyword is arc and the target setting is a legal DOS path specifier. Notice that you can comment configuration commands by preceding them with a semicolon. Here are the keywords and the Arcmaster default settings: Keyword Function Default Setting ------- ---------------------- --------------- arc defines host directory load directory for created ARC files beeps determines if errors off cause beeps unarc defines host directory load directory where files extracted from an ARC file are placed squash determines whether or off not PKARC will use the new (and controversial) "squash" method of compressing files type If omitted, the PKARC omitted system is used. If set to arc, the ARCA system is use. -- Color Monitor Configuration. Setting up a CGA to your personal tastes is easy. The following format must be used in the configuration file (the values shown are the default values for Arcmastr when used with a CGA). #b = 01 ;border color #m = 1F ;main window color #t = 4F ;top and bottom logo bars color #p = 4F ;cursor bars color #g = 1E ;message window color #e = 1E ;entry window color #s = 1E ;status window color #r = 1C ;error window color #i = 1E ;time display color #d = 1E ;date display color Note that each line must begin with a pound sign character ("#") and must start in column one of the file. A one character (not case sensitive) command identifier immediately follows the pound sign which is then followed by a space, an equals sign, a space and then a two digit hex number. The first digit of the hex number specifies the background color and the second digit controls the foreground color. Use the following table to put together the desired background and foreground digits. Foreground colors Background colors ----------------- ------------------ 0 - black 0 - black 1 - blue 1 - blue 2 - green 2 - green 3 - cyan 3 - cyan 4 - red 4 - red 5 - magenta 5 - magenta 6 - brown 6 - brown 7 - light gray 7 - light gray 8 - gray 9 - light blue A - light green B - light cyan C - light red D - light magenta E - yellow F - white The Arcmastr distribution package contains a sample configuration file COLOR.CFG that contains the settings listed above. Just rename it to ARCMASTR.CFG to try it on a color monitor. -- The DOS Path Command It is vital for the operation of Arcmaster that you correctly set the DOS environment path string. The directory or directories containing PKARC, PKXARC (or ARC, ARC-E), and LIST must be included in the DOS path string. For example, suppose you are using ARC and ARC-E and they reside in D:\UTIL\ARC. And suppose that LIST resides in C:\GOODPROG\LISTER. You must ensure that, as a minimum, the path command looks like this: PATH=C:\GOODPROG\LISTER;D:\UTIL\ARC This is critical and is the first thing you should check if Arcmaster is not functioning properly. -- Program Names. For the sake of simplicity and because the programs that Arcmaster interfaces with are distributed using different names to indicate different versions (i.e., the latest version of list is distributed as LIST62A), I have required that the programs be named as follows: PKARC PKXARC ARCA ARC-E LIST Therefore, you must have the programs you are going to use with Arcmaster properly named and their host directories must be included in the DOS environment path string. If this is done, Arcmaster will be off and running like the champ it is. -- Operating Arcmaster. Arcmaster is easy to operate! It is almost entirely driven by one-keystroke menu options, displays a one-line explanatory message for each menu option, and offers extensive on-line help. Help is available almost anywhere by just pressing the "h" key. -- Starting Arcmaster. Just remember that you need to have accomplished four small tasks prior to running Arcmaster. Did you do these? 1. Setup ARCMASTR.CFG for your settings. 2. Ensure the archive system programs and LIST are properly named. 3. Ensure that the DOS environment PATH string includes the directories containing the archive programs and LIST. 4. Place ARCMASTR.HLP in same directory as ARCMASTR.EXE Ok, just type ARCMASTR at the DOS command line and away we go! -- The Main Arcmaster Screen. The main screen is divided into windows (or boxes, if you will). The top window displays the label of the current disk drive and the name of the active directory. The next window contains boxes which display the system time and date and the total and tagged file counts. The next ten lines are divided into to two equal size boxes. The left box contains the ten main menu selections. The right box contains a smaller box that has my Shareware notice in it. This notice will not be present in the version sent to registered owners. Below the two large boxes are four windows where various items of information are displayed. All required user entries will be made through the window labeled Entry. -- The Main Menu. There are ten menu selections to choose from. A menu item may be selected by its associated function key or by moving the cursor bar to that item and pressing return. The up and down arrow keys move the cursor up and down one item at a time. The Home key homes the cursor bar to item number 1 and the End key homes it to item number 10. As the cursor bar is moved, a one line explanatory message appears in the Entry window. Help on any menu item is available by pressing the "h" key with the cursor bar over that item. The double box area of the screen will clear and be replaced by a help message pertaining to the selected item. Arcmaster is exited by pressing ESC from the main window. The ESC key is used throughout the program to abort an operation and return to the previous operational level. -- Main Menu Selections. -- F1 - DeARC Archive Files. This selection is used for de-arcing one or more archive files. If any .ARC files are present in the current directory, the middle area of the screen will clear and a list of up to 40 .ARC file names will appear. If there are more than 40 .ARC files in the directory, you can page through them using the PgUp and PgDn keys. A cursor bar is available to move with the arrow keys to select file names. The Home key homes the cursor to the first file on the page and the End key positions it to the last file on the page. Pressing the plus (+) key will tag an .ARC file for de-arcing and the minus (-) key is used to untag. Pressing ESC will return you to the main window display. If you tagged any .ARC files for de-arcing, the Shareware notice box will be replaced by the following sub_menu: F1 - Extract no option F2 - Extract -r option F3 - Extract -c option F4 - Extract -p option F5 - Test -t option This example is for PKXARC - a similar menu appears for ARC-E. I won't go into the specifics of each de-arcing function - Katz and Buerg both do a fine job of that in their documentation. When you make a selection, the screen will clear and either PKXARC or ARC-E will take over and de- arc ALL of the tagged .ARC files. The extracted files will be placed in the directory that you designated as the unarc directory in the configuration file. If none was specified, extracted files will be placed in the current directory. Don't forget that help is available on these functions by pressing the "h" key. Back in the ARC directory display now, pressing return will clear the filename display and replace it with a display of the selected .ARC file's directory listing. The directory is presented in the following format, 10 file names at a time: # name date time size <length> method # is an index number, date and time are file date and time, size is actual uncompressed size of the archived file, length is the compressed size of the file, and method is a two character abbreviation of the compression method used, as follows: CR = crunched PA = packed SQ = squeezed ST = not compressed QU = squashed (PKXARC only) The cursor bar is moved through the file with the up and down arrows and the PgUp and PgDn keys. In this case, the Home key homes to the top of the directory and the End key moves to the end of the listing. Now here's the neat part. If you have Buerg's LIST program, press return with the cursor bar over a file entry. LIST will be invoked, take control, and you can now browse the arced file without having to de-arc it! -- F2 - Create or Add to ARC This function is the logical reverse of the de- arc function. In this case the middle portion of the screen will clear and the display will contain file names of all files in the current directory. Simply move the cursor to the files you desire to archive and press the plus (+) key to tag them. The minus (-) key untags. You cannot tag an .ARC file but you can press return with cursor bar over an .ARC file name and view the contents of its directory and browse any file in the list with Buerg's LIST program. When you are finished viewing or tagging, press ESC. If you tagged files, you will be presented with the following sub-menu in the right-hand box: F1 - Archive no option F2 - Archive f option F3 - Archive u option F4 - Archive d option F5 - Archive m option F6 - Comment x option F7 - Comment c option Again, this is the menu for PKARC and a similar menu will appear if you're using ARCA. Consult the operating manual of either program for more specifics on these options. The "h" key provides a summary explanation of each item. When an item is selected, you are prompted for the .ARC file name. The name you enter can be a for a new, non-existing .ARC file or for one that already exists, but if it exists, it must reside in the directory you specified as the host directory for .ARC files in the configuration file. If you didn't specify one, Arcmaster will use the current directory. Remember, most of the selections available are applicable to existing .ARC files. Arcmaster can make .ARC file management much, much easier but it cannot think for you or anticipate your desires. When you make a selection, the screen will clear and you will see PKARC or ARCA swing into action. -- F3 - Selectively DeArc Files. This option provides you with the capability to enter an archive directory listing and select individual files in the directory to operate on. The screen will clear and the display will contain all (if any) .ARC files in the current directory. Move the cursor to the desired .ARC file and press return. The directory listing of that file will be displayed. You can now move the cursor to specific files and tag (or untag) those files for specific de-arcing operations. When you're through tagging, press ESC, and a sub-menu will appear in the right hand box that looks like this: F1 - Extract no option F2 - Extract -r option F3 - Extract -c option F4 - Extract -p option F5 - Delete -d option These are PKXARC options. Similar options are offered for ARC-E. Extracted files will be placed in the unarc directory specified in the configuration file or in the current directory, if unspecified. When a selection is made, the screen will clear and PKXARC or ARC-E will take over an perform the indicated operation. -- F4 - ARC Command Line Ops. This selection permits you to invoke PKARC or ARCA with wild card designators if desired. You will be prompted for the file names, dos file masks, options, switches, etc. You DO NOT type in the name of PKARC or ARCA. That will be inserted for you. The help ("h" key) function has a summary of command line items for your specified Archiver program. -- F5 - DeARC Command Line Ops. This works exactly the same as F4 above except that it invokes PKXARC or ARC-E. The same comments apply. -- F6 - Change Drive/Directory. Here you have the facility to move around the drives and/or directories in your system. Enter a valid directory path name and Arcmaster will make that directory the current directory. To change drives, enter the drive letter and a colon (:) alone (i.e., D:) and Arcmaster will change to the default directory on the specified drive. Or enter both the drive and target directory name (i.e., C:\GOODPROGS\LEVEL2). Pressing return without typing anything in will command Arcmaster to return to the drive and directory from which you loaded and executed it. Pressing ESC aborts the command and returns main menu cursor control. -- F7 Search for ARCed File. Now we are into some neat stuff! Arcmaster can find any archived file anywhere in your system. You will be prompted for a file name. Enter the full file name with extension. Arcmaster will then search every .ARC file it finds on the current drive for the target file. If it finds it, the middle area of the screen will clear and you will see some portion of the .ARC file's directory listing with the bar cursor on top of the file you wanted to find!!! You can now press return and call Vern's super LIST program to browse that file. Press ESC to leave that display and the search will continue until all .ARC files on the drive have been searched. If you desire to search a specific drive, precede the file name with the drive character and a colon (i.e., D:TARGET.DAT). Remember the drive sequence list item you put in the configuration file? Enter the target file name with a star and a colon (i.e., *:TARGET.DAT) and Arcmaster will search the drives you placed in that list in the order that you placed them. I think this feature alone is well worth the price of Arcmaster. -- F8 - Search for Any File. More neat stuff! This works just like the F7 selection except that now you can search for any file anywhere in your system. Enter a target file name using the same rules as given above. When the file is found, the middle portion of the screen will clear and a portion of the directory the file was found in will appear with the cursor bar sitting on top of the target file!! Want to view it? Press return and let LIST do its magic! -- F9 - Display Files. Use this selection to bring up a display showing up to 40 file names from the current directory. You can page up and down through the directory and view any file by pressing return with cursor bar highlighting its name. -- F10 - Change Config Settings. I think that you will find this feature very handy. It allows you to dynamically change four of the key items that you placed in the configuration file. This selection will bring up a sub-menu in the right hand box that looks like this: F1 - Change ARC Directory F2 - Change DeARC Directory F3 - Change ARChive System F4 - Change Squash Setting The first option permits you the flexibility to change the target directory for ARC operations and the second lets you re-set the destination directory for de-arc extraction operations. You probably won't need option 3 - it let's you switch between the PKARC and ARCA systems. This is a good time to talk about Phil Katz's exclusive "squash" compression technique. Phil has done a brilliant job of implementing fast, accurate file compression/de-compression techniques in his two programs. He recently added a new technique that is very efficient called "squash". Unfortunately, "squashed" files are not compatible with Vern's outstanding system and so BBSes and services like CIS discourage use of .ARC files containing entries that have been "squashed". Phil's latest version provides a command line option (-oct) that suppresses use of "squash" when archiving files. It also forces use of the more standard time/date stamping format. If you have a version PKXARC that DOES NOT support the -oct switches, then place the command squash = on in ARCMASTR.CFG. I know this seems the reverse of what it ought to be but when this option is set to "on", Arcmaster will NOT insert the -oct switch into the command line. If you have Phil's latest version, you can go either way. Just remember that the Arcmaster setting of squash = on forces Arcmastr to omit the -oct option and you should have no trouble. This selection lets you change it while Arcmaster is running. -- Arcmaster Registration Form Remember, if you fill out this form in its entirety, you may register for $30.00. Registrants will receive Arcmaster Plus on disk. ------------------------------------------------------- Name:_______________________________________ Address:____________________________________ City:_______________________________________ State:______________________________________ Zip:________________________________________ What do you like about Arcmaster? Please take as many lines as necessary to express your opinion: What don't you like about Arcmaster? How could Arcmaster be improved? Computer type/name_______________________________________ Operating System____________ Total memory on board_______________________ Monitor/board type______________________________________ Favorite ARC system (PKARC OR ARCA)_____________________ Thank you very much for considering Arcmaster!