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Cherry Picker ■ Version 2.00 August 28, 1993 JSL Software Jonathan Lang 1542 Pleasant Lane, Lafayette, Ca. 94549 Copyright 1993 All Rights Reserved BBS: (510)432-7579 [Jonathan Lang] FidoNet: Taglines and Shareware Echo ILink: Tags-R-Us and Shareware Conferences Netmail: Jonathan Lang @ 1:125/233 (Fidonet) ■ Table of Contents ■ Getting Started ............................................. 3 Introduction .............................................. 3 Notice .................................................... 3 Purpose ................................................... 3 Shareware ................................................. 3 System Requirements ....................................... 3 Installation .............................................. 3 Running as John Hancock ................................. 4 Running from the Editor Command ......................... 4 Using Cherry Picker (CP.EXE) ................................ 5 Command Line Parameters ................................... 5 R - Random ................................................ 5 S - Search ................................................ 5 B - Back .................................................. 5 N - Next .................................................. 5 E - Edit .................................................. 5 Editing Commands ........................................ 5 A - Add ................................................... 6 D - Delete ................................................ 6 Other Commands ............................................ 6 Mouse Support ............................................. 6 Using Cherry Picker Utilities (CPUTIL.EXE) .................. 7 Command Line Parameters ................................... 7 Import .................................................. 7 Append .................................................. 7 Export .................................................. 8 Search .................................................. 8 Sort .................................................... 8 Clean ................................................... 8 DupeKill ................................................ 8 Using Cherry Picker Config (CPCFG.EXE) ...................... 9 Changing Colors ........................................... 9 Tagline Window Frame .................................... 9 Selected Tagline ........................................ 9 Unselected Taglines ..................................... 9 Status Bar Text ......................................... 9 Status Bar Boxes ........................................ 9 Background Lines ........................................ 9 Defaults ................................................ 9 Tagline Style ............................................ 10 Startup Position Mode .................................... 10 Edit CP Signature (REGISTERED USERS ONLY) ................ 10 Registration Info ........................................ 10 Quitting ................................................. 10 Support, Registration and Credits .......................... 11 How I Can Be Contacted ................................... 11 How to Register .......................................... 11 Credit ................................................... 11 ■ Getting Started ■ ■ Introduction ■ Welcome to the Cherry Picker documentation. This document is supposed to help you understand how to use Cherry Picker. ■ Notice ■ With Cherry Picker, I am testing built in program integrity testing. This is to let you know if Cherry Picker has been modified, such as by a Virus. If you have any problems, or comments about it, please let me know them. Thanks! ■ Purpose ■ I wrote Cherry Picker when I realized that there were no tagline managers that currently did what I wanted. I came across a few good tagline managers, but they imposed limits on me such as 50 character taglines, and tagline files of 1200 taglines or less. They were also slow, having to load the whole file into memory before starting. Cherry Picker is an improvement on these. Cherry Picker supports: ■ Tagline files of up to 64,000 taglines. ■ Taglines up to 70 characters in length. ■ Shareware ■ Cherry Picker is a shareware program which means that it is not free. The idea of shareware is to allow the user to try the product for a limited time before actually buying it. Shareware can be freely distributed by any number of means in its unregistered and unmodified state. Cherry Picker may be used for an evaluation period of one month, after which time, you should either delete it or register it. Please consult REGISTER.DOC for information on how to register Cherry Picker. ■ System Requirements ■ An IBM compatible computer An Off-Line Mail Reader Approx. 135k of free memory ■ Installation ■ Cherry Picker is relatively simple to install. Just copy all the files to a sub-directory, such as C:\BWAVE\CP Then, you need to create Cherry Picker's Virtual Array using the following command: C\>CP IMPORT [Virtual Array filename] [Your TEXT tagline file] so, the command line may look something like: C\>CP IMPORT TAGARRAY.VAR C:\BWAVE\TAGLINES.BW ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 3 ■ ■ Getting Started (cont.) ■ ■ Installation (cont.) ■ After the virtual array has been created, Cherry Picker may be used to select taglines. But, now your mail reader needs to call Cherry Picker. Cherry Picker may be called two ways. ■ Running as John Hancock ■ Many mail readers now support a wonderful tagline manager called John Hancock. Most of these mail readers will allow you to enter the commandline to execute. To use Cherry Picker in the John Hancock mode, your mail reader needs to read John Hancock's JH?.REP files. If it does, then you can call Cherry Picker from the John Hancock commandline. This is done with the following command line: CP CHOOSE [Name of Virtual Array] Thus, if using BlueWave in C:\BWAVE, and Cherry Picker and the tagline file are in C:\BWAVE\CP, and the tagline file is called TAGARRAY.VAR then the command line would look like this: C:\BWAVE\CP CHOOSE C:\BWAVE\CP\TAGARRAY.VAR ■ Running from the Editor Command ■ Some mail readers do not support John Hancock, or only support 50 or 57 character long taglines. If your mail reader is one of those, then you can run Cherry Picker from a batch file. Most, or all, mail readers allow you to specify the command to execute for the external editor. In OLX the command would likely read OLXED @R Change that command so that instead it calls a batch file like EDIT.BAT. Then, create the batch file EDIT.BAT so it reads: @ECHO OFF OLXED %1 (The reply file is passed as parameter %1) CP CHOOSE TAGARRAY.VAR %1 EXIT When you run Cherry Picker with a reply file specified after the virtual array, Cherry Picker will add the tagline directly onto the message, instead of sending it to the mail reader first. The Batch file will work as it is for systems using OLXED with just paths added to the filenames. If you are using a different editor, then you will need to modify the batch file. ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 4 ■ ■ Using Cherry Picker ■ ■ Command Line Parameters ■ Cherry Picker accepts two command line parameters that tell it what to do. C:\>CP [VIRTUAL ARRAY] <MESSAGE FILE> All Cherry Picker needs to know to run is the name of the tagline file. You can optionally add the name of the message file to the command line. If you don't supply a message file, Cherry Picker will automatically assume JH0.REP. Once Cherry Picker starts, you will have a number of commands available to you. ■ R - Random ■ Pressing R for Random when in CHOOSE MODE will cause Cherry Picker to randomly jump to any tagline in the file. ■ S - Search ■ Pressing S will cause Cherry Picker to ask you for a search string. You will be allowed to enter a string of text, and then Cherry Picker will search from the beginning of the file for the Search String. You can also use the symbols "&" and "!" to do an AND or NOT search. ('CAT&DOG' will find all taglines with the words 'CAT' and 'DOG', 'CAT!DOG' will find all taglines with the word 'CAT' but not the word 'DOG') ■ B - Back ■ B will search for the file backwards from your current position for the search string you entered with the Search command. ■ N - Next ■ N Will continue searching forward after a Search command. ■ E - Edit ■ If you press E, then you will be allowed to edit the currently selected tagline. There are a number of editing commands available while editing a tagline. ■ Editing Commands ■ <CTRL-P> - Pressing Control-P will pop up a menu of extended ascii characters, allowing you to enter characters that are not on the keyboard without having to memorize their numbers. <CTRL-BACKSPACE> - Pressing <CTRL-BACKSPACE> while editing a tagline will clear the tagline from the editing space. <CTRL-RIGHT/LEFT> - Pressing <CTRL-RIGHT> or <CTRL-LEFT> will jump the cursor to the beginning of the next word to the right or the left. <HOME/END> - Pressing <HOME> or <END> will jump the cursor to either the first or last character of the tagline. <INSERT> - Toggles Insert/Replace mode. A small cursor is used while in insert mode, and a large cursor is used in replace mode. ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 5 ■ ■ Using Cherry Picker (cont.) ■ ■ E - Edit (cont.) ■ ■ Editing Commands (cont.) ■ <ESC> - Stop editing and leave the tagline unchanged. <ENTER> - Stop editing and replace the tagline with the new one. ■ A - Add ■ A will allow you to create a new tagline which will be placed at the end of the tagline file. All the Editing Commands are usable. ■ D - Delete ■ If you find a tagline you don't like, you can delete it using the D key. Cherry Picker will ask you if you wish to delete the selected tagline. If you choose yes, then the last tagline in the file will replace the current tagline. While this will eventually leave the tagline unsorted, it is much quicker than actually packing the tagline file. ■ Other Commands ■ Along with the commands listed above, there are a few other commands available for moving around the tagline file. <UP/DOWN> - The <UP> and <DOWN> arrow keys will move the cursor up or down one tagline. <PAGE UP/DOWN> - The <PAGE UP> and <PAGE DOWN> keys allow you to move through the tagline file one page it a time. They will also move the cursor up or down a page. <HOME/END> - The <HOME> and <END> keys take you to the first or last line of the tagline file, respectively. <ENTER> - Selects the currently selected tagline and writes it to disk. <ESCAPE> - Exits the program without choosing a tagline. ■ Mouse Support ■ Cherry Picker offers full mouse support. If you have a mouse, then you can click on the menu bar at the bottom of the screen instead of pressing the options hot key. You can also scroll the screen by clicking on the scroll bar on the right of the tagline window. Clicking on the bar will take you to the the tagline that is approximately at that location. Clicking on the arrows at the top and bottom of the bar will allow you to scroll through the tagline file much as if you had pressed the up or down arrow keys. You can also click on the various buttons in the lower right of the tagline window. When you are asked various questions by Cherry Picker such as Yes or No, or Press Any Key, then appropriate buttons will appear on the lower left of the tagline window, allowing you to use your mouse to answer the questions. ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 6 ■ ■ Using Cherry Picker Utilities ■ ■ Command Line Parameters ■ Cherry Picker Utilities takes several commandline parameters. They change, depending on the mode you select, but they all have basically the same format. The first four, Import, Append, Export and Search all take the same parameters. C:\>CPUTIL [MODE] [TAGLINE ARRAY] [TEXT FILE TO WORK WITH] </O> The tagline array is your tagline file, and the text file depends on the mode you have selected. Either taglines will be read from it (Import and Append) or they will be written to it (Export and Search) You can add a /O after the textfile name to have Cherry Picker Utilities assume overwrite whenever it asks. The other three modes are Sort, Clean and DupeKill. They are all tagline maintenance modes, and require only one parameter to run, your tagline file. C:\>CPUTIL [MODE] [TAGLINE ARRAY] </S> The tagline array is, again, the name of your tagline file. All changes are written to the tagline file, so you don't need to specify any other files. You can optionally add the /S parameter for when you are sorting to tell it to do a safe sort. This requires more harddrive space then a normal sort, but doesn't work directly with your tagline file. Instead it writes a new tagline file, and replaces the old tagline file with it once the sort has been completed without errors. If you don't have the room to do a safe sort, then you should backup your tagline file first. While Cherry Picker Utilities does a good job at catching errors before damage is done, if something happens that can't be dealt with by, or there is a power outage, then the tagline file would be damaged or lost, unless you had a backup. ■ Import ■ The first mode you will have to use is the IMPORT MODE. This mode tells Cherry Picker Utilities to import the taglines from your text tagline file into the Virtual Array. If the Virtual Array file already exists, it will ask you if you wish to overwrite it. The IMPORT command line would look like: C:\>CPUTIL IMPORT TAGARRAY.VAR TAGLINES.TXT ■ Append ■ Append mode is exactly the same as Import Mode, except that Append Mode will add the taglines onto the end of the virtual array, instead of replacing it. If the virtual array doesn't exist, you will get an error. C:\>CPUTIL APPEND TAGARRAY.VAR TAGLINES.TXT The commandline is the same as it is for Import Mode, but this time instead of creating or overwriting TAGARRAY.VAR, it would append TAGLINES.TXT onto the end of it. ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 7 ■ ■ Using Cherry Picker Utilities (cont.) ■ ■ Export ■ Export Mode allows you to EXPORT the Virtual Tagline Array into an ordinary text file for sorting, and major additions. (IE: Adding two tagline files together) To use the EXPORT MODE, you would use a commandline similiar to this: C:\>CPUTIL EXPORT TAGARRAY.VAR TAGLINES.TXT This will export the taglines in Virtual Array TAGARRAY.VAR to the text file TAGLINES.TXT. If the file TAGLINES.TXT already exists, Cherry Picker Utilities will ask you if you wish to overwrite it. ■ Search ■ The search mode works exactly the same as searching in Cherry Picker does, except it searches for all the matches and sticks them into a file. If you wanted to find all your cat taglines, for example, you could search for the word "cat" and have all the matches written to CAT.TXT C:\CPUTIL SEARCH TAGARRAY.VAR CAT.TXT Notice, though, that the search string isn't on the commandline. When run in search mode, Cherry Picker Utilities will ask you for the search string. When it asks, just enter your search string (ie: CAT) and then it will find all the matches, including "It's raining CATs and dogs" and "Public Domain Tagline, write for a free CATalog" You could prevent this by adding an extra space on the end of the search string, though. ■ Sort ■ Sort mode is extremely useful in keeping your tagline file under control, or at least a reasonable resemblance of it. Sorting requires the most in the way of system resources. The more memory it has, the better, and quicker, it will work. To do a sort, you need almost as much disk space free as is used by your tagline file. If you don't have enough, sort will abort. Also, you need a decent amount of system memory to sort, but this amount varies with the number of taglines to be sorted. When sorting, it's best to either use the /S option, to have sort keep a backup of the tagline file until it's done sorting, or to backup your tagline file manually first. With the /S option, sort requires about two times the amount of space taken up by your tagline file be free. ■ Clean ■ Clean is the same as the sort command, except that it performs a duplicate kill at the same time as the sort. This is faster than sorting then doing a dupekill seperately. ■ DupeKill ■ DupeKill will go through your tagline file, and remove all the duplicates. In order for it to work correctly, the tagline file must first be sorted. When checking for duplicates, it checks only the characters A to Z, capitalized, so that taglines that are the same except for punctuation or capitalization are found, too. ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 8 ■ ■ Using Cherry Picker Config ■ An utility is included with Cherry Picker. This is Cherry Picker Config (CPCFG.EXE) and it is used to modify the colors of Cherry Picker, and install your registration data. When using Cherry Picker Config, you use the arrow keys to move the cursor up and down. ■ Changing Colors ■ When you have selected an item to change, you hold down shift while pressing the <UP/DOWN> arrow keys to change the background color, and hold down shift while pressing the <LEFT/RIGHT> arrow keys to change the foreground color. ■ Tagline Window Frame ■ This item determines the color of the frame around the tagline window. ■ Selected Tagline ■ This item allows you to adjust the foreground and background colors of the selected tagline. ■ Unselected Tagline ■ This allows you to select the foreground and background colors or the unselected taglines. ■ Status Bar Text ■ This item selects the color of the text that appears on the top and bottom of the screen while in Cherry Picker. ■ Status Bar Boxes ■ This item selects the color of the boxes that are in the lines of text at the top and bottom of the screen in Cherry Picker. ■ Background Lines ■ This lets you change the color of the lines that appear between the tagline window and the text on the top and bottom of the screen. ■ Defaults ■ This is actually two options, Color Defaults resets all the colors to the color defaults, and Black & White Defaults resets all the colors to the Black & White defaults. (The only difference is that in Black and White Defaults, the Selected Tagline appears in reverse, while in color it defaults to Yellow on Blue. ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 9 ■ ■ Using Cherry Picker Config (cont.) ■ ■ Tagline Style ■ Selecting this will allow you to select whether or not you wish to use standard or QWKstyle taglines. Standard taglines just add a "..." before the tagline (Like Bluewave, and a few others). QWKstyle adds a tearline "---" and then adds the tagline using the QWK format " ■ reader ■ tagline" QWKstyle taglines might cause problems with some readers that add their own tear line onto the message, thus leaving two tearlines. Bluewave is known to have this problem. Cherry Picker defaults to standard taglines. If you use John Hancock compatability, (JH0.REP) then this option won't make any difference. ■ Startup Position Mode ■ This allows you to select how Cherry Picker chooses which tagline to put the cursor on when it starts. You have three options, first, next and random. Selecting first will cause Cherry Picker to always start on the first tagline in your file. Selecting next will cause Cherry Picker to start on the first one, then the second one, and so on, incrementing each time it's run. Selecting random will cause it to start on a random tagline. ■ Edit CP Signature ■ This option is available to REGISTERED USERS ONLY! This option allows you remove the CP signature (CP x.xx #xx) from the tagline, or have it replaced completely with anything you want (13 characters long) ■ Registration Info ■ Once you've registered Cherry Picker, you'll want it to say that it's registered immediately. This is where you enter your registration name and code. Cherry Picker Config will show your current Registration Name and Code on the bottom of the screen, where you can edit first your registration name, and then your registration code. The Registration name is whatever name you registered it under, up to 30 characters, and the registration code is the code you got back,consisting of 5 numbers, a -, and 15 letters. Cherry Picker needs these to know it's registered. ■ Quitting ■ You have two options to exit Cherry Picker Config. You can either QUIT without SAVE, or QUIT with SAVE. If you choose QUIT without SAVE, then any old Config file will be left untouched, but if you choose QUIT with SAVE, then your new configuration information will replace the old configuration information. ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 10 ■ ■ Support, Registration, and Credits ■ ■ Where I Can Be Contacted ■ I can be contacted by mail at: Jonathan Lang 1542 Pleasant Lane Lafayette, Ca. 94549 Or, you can contact me on the following BBS: Sempervirens BBS (510) 432-7579 as Jonathan Lang I also participate in both the ILink Tagline [Tags-R-us] and Shareware conferences, along with both the Fidonet Tagline and Shareware echoes. You can also sebd netmail to me as Jonathan Lang@1:125/233 (Fidonet) If you register, you get my voice phone number to call me for support. ■ How to Register ■ It would be greatly appreciated if you register your copy of Cherry Picker. Registration helps keep shareware alive. Registration for Cherry Picker is only $10. If you want my Tagline file on disk (44,000+ taglines, ≈2megs text, ≈3megs Virtual Array) then please send me $15 to cover the disk and mailing costs. (That includes the $10 registration) To register, please print out REGISTER.DOC, fill it out and send it in. ■ Credits ■ Okay, let's give credit where credit is due. John Hancock is copyright 1992 by The Silicon Frog. Bluewave is copyright 1992 by Cutting Edge Computing. OLX and OLXED are copyrighted Mustang Software Inc. Now, I think that's everyone I mentioned. Now, for the people. Steven Lang wrote some assembly routines to speed up the sorting and dupelicate checking. Special thanks to him! His routines are about four times faster then the same thing is Pascal. It makes a big difference. Also, thanks to Nancy H. Miller, sysop of Sempervirens. She has been a help to me with this and other programs. And, of course, to everyone who has made comments or suggestions about Cherry Picker. Without you, I wouldn't kow what to add. ;-) Thank You for Supporting Shareware! ■ Cherry Picker 2.00 ■ ■ Page 11 ■