The main NIGHT display list box contains a list of all the categories into which the 4500+ files on the CD-ROM are divided. The category names are both descriptive and self-explanatory. To view a list of files associated with a category, move the cursor bar to the category and press the <Enter> key or depress the <View Files> button.
You may send the category list to your printer by pressing <Alt+P> or clicking on the <Print> item on the bottom menu line. Press the <F5> key to temporarily drop to DOS. Use <Alt+R> to re-install the NIGHT directory structure to another drive.
Press the <F1> key when you need help in operating the NIGHT CD-ROM file retrieval system. Also, note that the top line of the display contains a helpful hint for the control that has the default. Use the <Tab> key to cycle the default through each of the active display controls. The F5 key is used to drop temporarily to DOS.
Depress the <View Files> button or press the <Return> key to display a list of the files in the category selected by the cursor bar. The list contains file names, dates, sizes, and textual descriptions.
Depress the <Fmt Disk> button or press <Alt+F> to format a floppy disk in drive A or B. A dialog box will appear in which you select the disk drive letter (A or B) and the disk size (360K, 1.2M, 720K, or 1.44M). NIGHT will then drop to DOS and call the DOS utility FORMAT.COM. Note that you will me informed if NIGHT is unable to locate a copy of FORMAT.COM in your DOS directory or in your DOS path.
NIGHT provides the powerful capability for the user to build his/her own file list from the 4000+ files on the CD-ROM. The list can be built as a result of a text search or by tagging files in one of the file
lists. Use the <User List> button or press <Alt+U> to display the current user list of CD-ROM files.
The NIGHT Work Area is a directory in which NIGHT will copy or decompress specific files. This is accomplished while operating in the file
list mode. Depress the <Work Area> button or press <Alt+W> to invoke the work area display. You will be informed if no files are currently in the work area and you will have an opportunity to delete
files
area when you exit that display.
NIGHT gives you the powerful capability to search all the file descriptions in a marked category for text that you provide. You can tag category names on the list by pressing the <Space Bar> or the <Right Mouse> button. When ready to conduct a search, depress the <Search> button or press <Alt+S>. You will be prompted to enter up to 24 characters of text as the target of the search. Note that the search is NOT case sensitive. During the search, a window appears that informs you of the search progress and you will be informed of how many "finds" were made during the search. I
NIGHT will search each textual description of each file in all of the categories that you have tagged. When a match is found, NIGHT will add that file name to your user list if it is not already on the list. At the end of the search, simply display your user
list to browse the list of files that matched your searh criteria.
Depressing the <Del List> button or pressing <Alt+D> will cause NIGHT to delete all the files currently residing in your work area.
The <Tag +/-> button is a toggle. If no category names are tagged when the button is depressed or when <Alt+T> is pressed, NIGHT will tag all categories on the list. Otherwise, NIGHT will remove all tags. Category names are tagged for text
search.
Depressing the <Exit> button or pressing the <Alt+X> key will exit NIGHT and return control to DOS.
When viewing the files in a category, a list box contains a list of file names and a text box displays the textual description for the selected file. A file is selected when the cursor bar highlights the file name. While viewing the file list, you can accomplish the following: i
UnPack
File(s)
Copy
File(s)
Add
View
These operations are executed by depressing the associated control button, pressing <Alt> plus the highlighted letter (<Alt+C> to copy), or by pressing <Enter> to view the file under the cursor bar. -
You may send the file list to your printer by pressing <Alt+P> or clicking on the <Print> area of the bottom menu line. You will be prompted to choose just the file names or the file names and full text descriptions and you will be reminded to ensure that your printer is on and ready for printing.
NIGHT provides the capability to decompress a compressed file to a special directory called the work area. Just move the cursor bar to the desired file and depress the <UnPk> button or press <Alt+U>. Then to manipulate the unpacked files, exit back to the main display and select the work
area.
Files on the CD-ROM may be copied to any drive:\directory in your system. Tag the files you wish to copy and depress the <Copy> button or press <Alt+C>. You will be prompted to enter the full, valid DOS path name of the destination directory.
You can view the contents of compressed files or a graphics file by moving the cursor bar to the desired file and depressing the <View> button, pressing <Alt+V>, or pressing <Enter>. If the file is compressed, the NIGHT compressed file
viewer will appear. If the file is a graphics file, you will be prompted to select from the list of three user-provided graphics viewers.
Adding files from the current category list to your user list is easy. Just tag the files you wish to add and depress the <List> button or press <Alt+L>. Remember, NIGHT will not add a file to the list if it is already on the list...no duplicates allowed.
This control is a toggle. If no files are tagged, all files will be tagged and, conversely, if a file is tagged then all tags are removed.
While viewing the user-defined file list, you can accomplish the following:
UnPack
File(s)
Copy
File(s)
View
Search
Delete
These operations are executed by depressing the associated control button, pressing <Alt> plus the highlighted letter (<Alt+C> to copy), or by pressing <Enter> to view the file under the cursor bar. -
You may send the file list to your printer by pressing <Alt+P> or clicking on the <Print> area of the bottom menu line. You will be prompted to choose just the file names or the file names and full text descriptions and you will be reminded to ensure that your printer is on and ready for printing.
Press the "Srch" button to start a search of the user-defined list. All files on the list with a description that contains a match of the entered target string will be tagged at the end of the search.
You may delete file names from your user-defined list by moving the cursor bar to the file name you wish to remove and pressing the Del key.
You may view a compressed text or graphics file by moving the cursor bar to the desired file and depressing the <View> button, pressing <Alt+V>, or pressing the <Enter> key. NIGHT will decompress the file to a special area and then call FBROWSE to a view text file or the selected graphics viewer to view a graphics file.
The compressed file viewer list box contains a list of the files contained in the target compressed files. You may view a graphics or text file. {
Press <Alt+P> or click on the <Print> item on the bottom menu line to send a list of the compressed files to the printer.
The displayed list box contains a list of all files currently residing in the user work area. You may perform the following functions: M
Print
Execute
Copy
View
Unpack
When you exit the user work area, you will be queried as to whether or not you wish to clear the work area by deleting all the files in the area.
Depress the <Print> button or press <Alt+P> to send a list of the files in the work area to the printer. Make sure the printer is on and ready.
You can execute an .EXE or a .COM file from NIGHT by placing the cursor bar over the desired file and depressing the <Execute> button or pressing <Enter>. NIGHT will exedute the program for you and when you exit the program, you will be returned to NIGHT.
Use the <Copy> button (or <Alt+C>) to copy ALL files in the user work area to a drive:\directory of your choice. You will be prompted to enter a valid DOS path to the destination directory you desire and then NIGHT will copy ALL the files currently in the work area to that directory.
You may view a text or a graphics file by moving the cursor bar to the target file and depressing the <View> button, pressing <Alt+V>, or pressing <Enter>. NIGHT will automatically determine if the file is a graphics file and if so, you will be prompted to select a viewer before NIGHT invokes the viewer.
Sometimes compressed files have a compressed file stored inside. In that case, you might find a compressed file in the work area after decompressing a file to the area. If so, you may unpack the file by moving the cursor bar to the file and depressing the <Unpack> button or pressing <Alt+U>. NIGHT will unpack the file into the work area and re-display the file list.
The built-in NIGHT text file browser is not limited by file size but is limited to 32,767 file lines. The following commands are available when browsing a text file.
F3 - Autoscroll down
F4 - Autoscroll up
F5 - Go to a specified line number
F7 - Toggle line number display
F8 - Search for text
F9 - Mark end/begin of text block
Ctrl+H - Clear marked block
Ctrl+L - Continue search
Ctrl+P - Print marked block
Ctrl+W - Write marked block to file
DnArrow - Increase autoscroll rate
UpArrow - Decrease autoscroll rate
The mouse is used in the following way:
Left button - Move bar to line
Right button - Mark block begin/end
Double-click - Clear marked block
The autoscroll function automatically scrolls the text one line at a time at a user-adjustable rate. Use the down arrow to increase the scroll rate and the up arrow to decrease it. Autoscroll can be terminated by pressing F3, F4, Space Bar, or the Esc key.
Help is obtained by pressing the <F1> key at any time while running NIGHT or by clicking on or pressing the <Help> button found in almost all of the night displays. And you can use the <F1> key while in the help window to toggle back and forth between this topic and the current help topic. D
The NIGHT on-line help system is context sensitive, which means that the help window will always be related to the control having the focus when help is called. For example, if you use the <Tab> key to give the main display <Search> button the focus then the help window will have a descrption of that control's function. <
The help system is also cross-refrenced. A cross-refrence is highlight in the help text and you can use the <Tab> key to select the next cross-reference item, if one exists. Pressing the <Enter> key or double clicking on a cross-reference will cause the help system to display help for the cross-reference topic.
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