Cream of the Crop 1

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Text File | 1992-03-01 | 30KB | 576 lines

FM The File Manipulator Program User Manual The purpose of the File Manipulator program is to provide DOS users with an easy way to manipulate disk files. With this program you can copy, move, delete and rename files. You can also change file attributes and file dates. Subdirectory manipulations include add, delete and rename. Check disk statistics and format diskettes. You can even hide and unhide files and subdirectories. ShareWare FM - The File Manipulator, is copyright 1991 by Simple Software Solutions, all rights reserved. It is neither free nor public domain. If you use this program you are expected to register your use by paying the requested $25.00 registration fee (Georgia residents add 5% tax) to receive the latest registered user version of FM - The File Manipulator. You are hereby granted license to distribute the shareware version of FM as long as no fee is charged except for a copying fee and all the files supplied with the shareware version are included on the disk. The following files MUST be included: FM.EXE The File Manipulator Program FM.DOC This File - User documentation REGISTER.TXT Registration Form to use to register FM so you can receive the current registered version. If all of the above files are not included on your shareware disk or in the .ZIP file feel free to write Simple Software Solutions and request a shareware copy of FM for your review. We charge a copying fee of $3.00 to do this. If you specify we will send you a copy of all our shareware offerings (including FM) on disk (in .ZIP file format) for the same $3.00 shipping and handling charge. Installing and running FM FM is easy to install on your fixed disk drive. Put the program disk in your A: drive and type: copy a:fm.exe c: It is suggested that you place FM.EXE in a directory that is in your path (specified in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file). To run FM just type: fm You can run fm on a disk that is not your current drive by typing the drive letter on the command line like this: fm A: And fm will run using the A: drive instead of your current drive. The program will take a few seconds to scan the disk to obtain the subdirectory data. The amount of time depends on the amount of data on the disk. When FM is finished with its scan it will display the main display screen. The FM Screen The main screen is divided into several boxes which have their assigned functions. The information in some of these boxes changes depending on what mode the program is in. FM has two operating or display modes: The Directory Mode and the File Mode. The menus displayed on the top and bottom lines on the screen (discussed later) are different for each mode. The bottom two boxes on the screen change function between modes also. The Subdirectories Box: The left side of the screen is devoted to the subdirectory list. In Directory mode a highlight bar is in this box. Using the cursor keys you can move the highlight bar up and down to pick a subdirectory you wish to look at. If there are more subdirectories on the disk than will fit in this box they can be viewed by using the Page Up and Page Down keys. The Files Box: You may view the files in any subdirectory by highlighting that subdirectory and hitting the Enter key. This puts FM in File mode. The files will be displayed in the large box on the right. At this time a highlight bar will appear in this box which can be moved to any file with the cursor keys. If there are too many files to be listed in this box the Page Up and Page Down keys may be used to view them. The File and Disk Statistics Box: In File mode the small box in the lower left shows the information on the file highlighted. Included is the file name, size (in bytes), the file date and time, and attributes. The attributes are shown by letters: A Archive H Hidden S System R Read Only. When the program is in Directory mode this box shows the total number of directories on the disk. The Bytes Box: In Subdirectory mode the small box in the lower right shows the total free space on the disk (available storage). When in File mode this box has one of two things in it. Normally it shows how many bytes are in the files in the subdirectory. Once you start marking files this box displays the total bytes in the marked files. FM Operation As stated above, FM operates in two modes, File Mode and Directory Mode. The menus on the top and bottom lines of the screen change depending on what mode the program is in. Directory Mode In Directory mode the cursor up and down keys move the highlight bar up and down highlighting the various directories displayed in the left box. If there are more directories than will fit in the left box the Page Up and Page Down (PgUp and PgDn) keys will show more directories. Hitting the Enter key transfers FM into File Mode. FM transfers to file mode by reading the directory of the higlighted subdirectory and displaying the file names in the right box. If there are no files under the highlighted subdirectory FM will beep and remain in Directory mode. Hitting the Esc key will exit FM back to DOS. Various other functions available in directory mode are displayed as menu items across the top line of the screen. F1 Tag: Hitting the F1 key will tag the currently highlighted subdirectory. With the F1 key you can mark a set of subdirectories that you can then perform operations on. For example, you can tag several directories to be deleted. Hitting the Space Bar will also tag subdirectories. F2 Disk Summary: The F2 key gives you a summary of disk statistics. Theses statistics include the Volume ID (disk label), the total capacity of the disk in bytes, the number of bytes used by files, the number of bytes allocated for the files, and the free space available for use. Also shown is the disk utilization, the persent of the total capacity that is actually used, the percent of space still available and the utilization efficiency. Disk space is allocated by DOS in blocks. While a file put on the disk may be only 512 bytes DOS will allocate at least 1024 bytes for the file (most hard disk drives have 2048 byte blocks). The other 512 bytes are tied up with this file even though the file does not need them. This is wasted space on the disk. The directory entry still shows only 512 bytes as the file size but 1024 (or 2048 or whatever the block size is) bytes are marked as used. If only the 512 byte file mentioned above is on the disk FM would show 512 bytes "in files" but 1024 (or whatever blocksize is) bytes allocated. The free space on the disk is the disk capacity minus the allocated amount, NOT the amount of space in files. Thus the utilization efficiency of the disk storage would be 50% in this case. F3 System Options: System options are items that do not deal with files or directories. There are three options available on system functions. Format Disks The first system option is formatting disks. Choosing this option will pop up a window giving you choices of disk letters and formatting options. You can format any disk from A: to F: except for the C: drive. This is because most hard disk systems boot from the C: drive and reformatting this drive could mean disaster for a system that boots from this drive. The options available include formatting older type disks with eight sectors per track, formatting 360K disks on a 1.2MEG drive, formatting 720K disks on a 1.44MEG drive, formatting system disks, putting a volume ID on the disk, etc. You can choose the options by moving the highlight bar to the option you want and hitting the Enter key. If you change your mind you can move the highlight bar to the option and hit the Enter key again and it will be "deselected." Warning: Some of the options are not compatable with each other. Consult your DOS manual for detailed explanations of the formatting options. When you are ready you can start the formatting by hitting the F1 key or abandon the format option by hitting the Esc key. The formatting is actually done by calling the DOS format command supplying the appropriate option switches. Therefore the DOS FORMAT.COM command must be available on your system to use this option. Set System Date/Time You can set your system date and time using the next system option. This is very simple. A window will pop up giving the current system date and time. You may edit the date and time and hit F1 to reset the system clock to the new date and time or hit Esc to abandon the option. Change Current Disk Drive This system option allows you to change the current drive. If you are looking at the C: drive and wish to change and look at the D: drive you would use this option to switch drives. Simply type the drive letter of the drive you want and FM will change to that drive and read the disk. Locate Files by Name This system option will search your entire disk for a file with a given name that you supply. When you pick this option a window will pop up asking you for the name of the file. You may use wildcards (*, ?) to specify a group of files (*.EXE, for example). The File Manipulator will then search the entire disk for files that match the name and show you the full path for each file. F4 Manipulate Directories: Function key F4 gives you options to make changes in the directory structure on the current disk. The options are add, hide (or unhide), rename and delete directories. Add a Directory To add a new directory to the disk just choose the add option and type in the (full) name of the subdirectory you wish to add. Note that if you wish to add a subdirectory under another subdirectory you must type the full path name you wish to add. For example, suppose you want to add the subdirectory A to the disk under the existing subdirectory X. You would type the full path name that you wish to add or: \X\A. Hide/Unhide Directories Subdiredtories, like files, can be hidden from view. If a subdirectory is hidden it will not be displayed by the DOS DIR command. FM will show subdirectories whether they are hidden or not. If you wish to hide a directory or unhide a hidden directory you can use the hide/unhide option. When you select this option you will be asked to choose either hide or unhide. After you make that selection you are given a choice of what subdirectories to operate on. You may hide or unhide the current (highlighted) subdirectory, all tagged subdirectories (see the F1 option above) or all untagged subdirectories. Rename a Directory Sometines we find out that the name we chose for a subdirectory is inappropriate for what we ultimately use it for. In this case we would like to rename it. We can always create a new subdirectory with the better name and copy all the subdirectory files into it and then remove the old subdirectory. But what if the subdirectory has subdirectories of its own? We will now have to recreate the entire subdirectory structure! It is much less trouble if we can just rename the subdirectory in place. This is what the rename option does. To use this option first locate the subdirectory you wish to rename and move the highlight bar to it (this makes it your "current" directory). Then execute the rename command. The name of the current subdirectory will be displayed. Type the new name of the subdirectory over the old name and hit the Enter key. The job is done. If the subdirectory has a subdirectory structure of its own under it all their paths are automatically changed. For example, if we change subdirectory \X to \Y and subdirectory A is under X (path \X\A) the new path for A is now \Y\A. Note: Do NOT attempt to change path \X\A to \Y\A directly. This will not work. Select \X and change its name to \Y and A will take care of itself. Delete Directories If you find yourself with a subdirectory you no longer need you can remove that subdirectory using the DOS RD (Remove Directory or RMDIR) command. But if there are subdirectories or files under the subdirectory you wish to remove RD will refuse to remove the subdirectory. You must first erase all files and remove all subdirectories under the subdirectory you wish to get rid of. While this is a protective feature of the RD command for those of us who know what we are trying to do this can cause the task of removing an entire subdirectory structure to be a real pain. The Delete Directories option works much quicker. With this option you highlight the subdirectory you wish to delete, choose the option and the entire subdirectory will be deleted, including all subdirectories under it and all files in it. You can even tag several subdirectories and the delete option will remove all of them. Or you can tag the subdirectories you want to keep and delete all the rest of them. A warning must be given here. If you decide to delete subdirectory X which contains subdirectory A (path \X\A) then subdirectory A will be removed also. You cannot delete X and leave A. Print Directories You can print the directories and files on your printer. There are two options to printing directories. You may print just the directories with their names, total bytes occupied and total number of files under it or you may choose to print a list of all files under each directory. If you choose to list all files it may take a large amount of time to print. If you decide to quit early hitting the Esc key will abort the printing. File Mode Hitting the Enter key in directory mode causes FM to read the file directory under the current (highlighted) subdirectory. If there are no files under the current subdirectory FM will beep and not go into file mode. In file mode FM displays a list of the files in the current subdirectory in the right box on the screen. A highlight bar will appear in that box indicating the "current" file. The file statistics box (lower left on screen) displays the directory information on the highlighted file. The bytes box (lower right) displays the total bytes in the selected files. In file mode the cursor arrow keys (up, down, right and left arrows) will move the highlight bar to the different files in the list. If there are more files in the subdirectory than will fit on the screen the PgUp and PgDn keys may be used to "page" back and forth so all files in the subdirectory may be seen. The Esc key will return you to Directory Mode. Hitting the Enter key or space bar will tag (or untag) the current (highlighted) file. Various other functions available in file mode are displayed across the top line of the screen. F1 File Selection: You may select, sort or tag files by using the options under the F1 menu. Order (Sort) Files The files list is sorted in alphabetical order by file name when FM first enters file mode. You can change the sort sequence by choosing the "Order" option. You may sort the files by file name in alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order. You may sort by file size starting with the smallest or largest file. You also may sort by file date from earliest or latest date/time. Select Files Sometimes you may want to look at only a certain subset of the files in the subdirectory. With this option you may select files by name in much the same way you would do it using the DOS DIR command. For example, if you wanted to look at only files with an extension of .DAT you could select them by putting *.DAT in for the selection criteria. Tag Files The ability to tag files is one of the most important functions in FM because you can then manipulate tagged files with one command instead of having to repeat the command for each file you want to manipulate. To put it another way, you can perform batch processing of files. You may tag or untag all files in the subdirectory, reverse the file tags (the files that were tagged are not but the files not tagged now are tagged), or tag files by name, size, date or attributes. If you tag by name you can enter any file names with wildcard characters (* and ?). For example, if you wanted to tag all file beginning with R that have extensions of .DAT you would type: R*.DAT when asked for the file names. Tagging by size will tag all files larger than the size (in bytes) you specify. If you wish to tag all files smaller than a certain size you can tag by size and then reverse tags. Similarly, tagging by date will tag all files newer than (with dates after) the date you input. Use reverse tags to tag all files before a date. Tagging by attribute will allow you to tag files with certain file attributes. You can tag all hidden files, all system files and all read only files. F2 Modify File Entries: Each file on your disk has an entry in a directory. The F2 set of options allows you to modify these directory entries. A typical directory entry consists of the name of the file, the size of the file, the date the file was last modified and the file attributes associated with the file. You may modify the file name, file date and the file attributes with FM. Change Current File Name You can change the name of the current (highlighted) file. When you select this option a window will pop up giving you the name of the current file and a second line where you may input the file name you wish to change it to. If you decide you did not wish to change the file name hit the Esc key. Change File Dates File dates can be changed for the current file, all tagged files or all untagged files. This option pops up a window with the current files date/time in it. You may then change the date and/or time. Hit F1 if you wish to change the file dates or Esc to exit without changing anything. You can change dates on tagged or untagged files. Change File Attributes Here is where you can hide or unhide files. You can also make them read only so nobody can erase them (unless they are using FM or some other more expensive utility). You can also make system files, and, last but not least, you can set the archive on or off. If the hidden attribute of a file is on the DOS DIR command will not display it when you ask for a directory. So the file is, well, hidden from view. Even though a file is hidden it can still be used. For example, you could hide a program file so it does not show on the directory but you can still execute the program by typing its name on the command line. By setting the hidden attribute off you can make a file that was hidden visible again. Note that it makes no difference to FM whether a file is hidden or not. FM will display all files in its directory listings. The expanded information in the lower left box will show the hidden attribute on. If the read only attribute of a file is on you cannot modify or erase the file. Obviously, you would not want to make your checkbook file or other data files read only. But you might want to make a program file or a static data file read only to prevent someone from tampering with it or accidentally erasing it. A good file to make read only is the DOS COMMAND.COM file. That way you won't accidentally erase it and not be able to boot the computer. This attribute affords a good way of protecting valuable files from accidents. A word of warning about FM: The FM erase file option will erase ANY file. Even read only files. FM assumes that you know what you're doing. As best as we can tell DOS ignores the system attribute on files. The implication is that the file so marked belongs to the DOS operating system and is used by DOS for something. There are only two files that we know of that DOS marks as system files. COMMAND.COM is not one of them! The two system file names vary from version to version of DOS but they are usually IBMIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM (or IBMBIOS.COM, etc.). These two files are also hidden and read only. In fact, every file attribute is on for these files. At any rate, FM allows you to turn the system attribute on and off. Unlike the system attribute, the archive attribute is important. It is used by the DOS BACKUP command to determine what files have been changed since the last backup. It is also used by the XCOPY command to keep up with which files it has coppied. DOS supplies the ATTRIB command to set the archive attribute but you can do the job with FM. F3 File Manipulation: This option is where FM, the File Manipulator, gets its name. Among the "manipulations" you can do to files are copy, move, erase and run a program file. Copy Files You can use FM to copy files from one place or disk to another. When you select this option a window will pop up requesting that you enter the destination path. This is where you wish to copy the files to. For example, if you wish to copy some files to the A: disk you would type: A: here. If you wish to copy the files to another subdirectory enter the complete destination path. Hit the Enter key to begin or the Esc key to abandon the copy. Next you will be given the choice of copying all files on the subdirectory, just the current (highlighted) file, all tagged files or all untagged files. FM checks the destination disk to see if there is enough free space to put each file on the disk before it does the copy. Move Files FM will also move files from one place to another. This option operates just like the move files option except once each file is copied it is then removed (erased) from the source (current) directory. You can move the current file, all files, all tagged files or all files not tagged. FM will check to see that the files can be moved to the destination before it starts to copy them. If there is not enough room FM will issue an error message and stop. It will not erase a file that has not been copied. Erase Files You may erase files using FM. FM will erase all files, just the current file, all tagged files or all files not tagged. WARNING: Normally files marked read only cannot be erased. This is not true of FM. If FM sees that a file is read only it will turn the read only attribute off and proceed to erase the file. Be careful when using FM to erase files on a DOS disk to be sure you don't erase the DOS system files! Run a Program File To run another program from FM move the highlight bar to highlight the program file you wish to run and choose this option. The program you picked will run immediately. When you exit the chosen program you will return to FM. Print Directory This option allows you to print a list of the files in the current subdirectory. You may abort this print by hitting the Esc key. Quick Keys: (Registered Version Only) Once you are used to using FM you will find that having to pull down the option menus with the function keys wastes keystrokes and slows you down. At this point you are ready to start using the quick keys. By holding down the Alt key and hitting one of the letter keys you can go directly to the option you wish to use without going through the function key, cursor down, enter key sequence first. The following is a list of quick keys you can use with the registered version of FM: Directory Mode Alt A Add a Directory Alt C Change Disk Drive Alt D Delete Directory Alt F Format Disks Alt H Hide/unhide Directories Alt P Print Directories Alt R Rename a Directory Alt T Change System Time/Date File Mode Alt A Change File Attributes Alt C Copy Files Alt D Change File Dates Alt E Erase Files Alt M Move Files Alt N Change File Name Alt O Order (Sort) Files Alt P Print File List Alt R Run a Program File Alt S Select Files Alt T Tag Files Disclaimer and Warranty This program is distributed as is with no warranties expressed or implied. Note that many of the options in this program will erase, move or otherwise modify files and directories on your disk. Care should be taken when using this program to avoid accidentally destroying data. In other words, make sure you know what you are doing! The author of this program and Simple Software Solutions disclaim any responsibility for any damage or loss of data resulting from the use or misuse of this program. Please feel free to write us concerning any problems or suggestions for improvement in this software. Send inquiries to Simple Software Solutions, P.O. Box 1658, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30246. Be sure to include your return address.