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SID Docs "Break Glass In Case of Emergency" A Programmer's Plea ------------------- SID is shareware. If you find this program useful, please send $25 to: Timm Martin P.O. Box 10084 Largo, FL 34643 You may adjust that figure if you feel that it is too high or low. Even if you think that SID stinks, I would appreciate a nasty (but constructive) letter telling me how I can improve it. Please promote the shareware system by making a contribution to the authors of the shareware products you commonly use. There are many advantages to the shareware system: -- You can receive quality programs at a decent price. Had this been a commercial program, you could expect to pay at least $49.95. -- You can thoroughly examine a shareware program before reimbursing the author. Once you've purchased a commercial program, however, you're stuck with it. -- You promote the creation of a number of exciting and diverse programs that would otherwise not reach the public if commercial marketing was the only alternative. A Quick History about SID -- the directory utility WITH all the "bells and whistles"... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SID has been in development since October 1988, and has undergone nine months of rigorous testing by over a dozen people. After 28 updates, 1 complete rewrite, hundreds of hours of work, and over 527,050 bytes of C and assembler code spread over 80 modules, SID has emerged into what I hope you find is the best directory utility available for the Commodore Amiga. I welcome any comments, suggestions, or complaints that you may have about SID. It was the excellent suggestions from my beta-testers that made SID great in the first place, and I'm always looking for ways to improve SID. Personal replies to your comments can be obtained by including a self- addressed, stamped envelope. Kudos ----- There are a number of people I'd like to thank for helping me make SID what it is today: Elaine Martin for her patience, understanding, and the world's best chocolate chip cookies. Without her as the lifeblood of my existence, SID would never have been possible. Jeff Hoag for his great ideas, beta-testing, PR, and advice; for boosting my spirits when they needed boosting; and for letting me win the RC car races, even though his car was clearly faster. Mike Monaco (Dr. Assembler, also known as "The Gnat") for his pattern-matching state machine, 68000 assembler help, and combat basketball games ("it's not a foul unless you strike blood") that helped me release some of that programming stress. Jimbo Barber for his great ideas, continuous bug reports, for being my liason to the outside world, and for being my biggest critic--I really had to bust my ass to please him. John Ruckart (SYSOP of the Tsunami Wave BBS) for giving me my own SID section on the Wave so that it could be properly beta-tested, dissected, and analyzed; and for being my first shareware contributor, long before SID was officially released. David Head for finding source code when I needed it, for putting SID on the Tsunami club disk, and for his excellent suggestions in the later hours of SID development. I'd also like to thank my other beta-testers for their suggestions, comments, and support through the development of SID: Fabbian Dufoe Dave Fournier Tom Fredericks Scott Fry Allen Maroney Ed Paquette Mark Weddell And to my new official beta testers and SID supporters: Michael Ferrari Gewinner Garrison Steve McDonnell Vernon Marcum Jack Murray Ron Sudweeks Jeff Todd Michael Vandellos And to everyone who has sent in their SID shareware fee...THANKS! Disclaimer ---------- SID is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. By using SID, you agree to accept the entire risk as to the quality and performance of the program. Any liability of Timm Martin will be limited exclusively to product replacement. My Lawyer Tells Me I Need This... --------------------------------- Now, for the legal stuff. You don't need to read this unless you plan on uploading, distributing, marketing, or stealing SID... SID is © Copyright 1989 by Timm Martin All Rights are Reserved Worldwide SID is freely distributable as long as all of the following conditions are met: 1) All of the files must be included in their original form without additions, deletions, or modifications of any kind. Any such modifications must appear in separate files. 2) All copyright notices must remain intact. 3) SID may not be sold commercially alone or as a component in another product. 4) SID may not appear on shareware or public domain disks for which the consumers are charged more than a nominal disk copying fee of seven dollars (US $7) per disk. 5) SID may not appear on any electronic service which charges more than the basic access fee to download SID. 6) SID may not appear on any electronic service that claims copyrights to uploaded programs, either alone or as part of a collection. If you would like a variance to any of the above conditions, please contact me for written permission. Now, on to the program... Running SID ----------- From the Workbench Double click on the SID icon. From the CLI Enter in the CLI window: SID [dir1 [dir2]] If specified, "dir1" and "dir2" will be loaded in the directory lists. Specifying -c will load the current directory. SID detaches from the CLI, meaning that you can close the CLI window after running SID by entering "endcli" in the CLI window. Configuration ------------- You can completely customize SID to your needs and environment with the configuration file. Because the configuration changes as often as SID does, I've opted to place the instructions in the separate SID.ConfigDocs file. See that file for more details. Window Buttons -------------- Close Button, Depth Buttons, Drag Bar These operate as you would expect them to. The Drag Bar does not appear in the SID window when it opens on its own custom screen. Sizing Button Can only be used to size the window when SID is sleeping (ZZ pointer is visible) to allow you to reach icons on the Workbench screen. When SID reawakens, it will reopen its window at the previous size. Standard Colors --------------- NOTE: When I speak of the Workbench screen colors, I am speaking of the standard Workbench screen colors set by Commodore. They are: Blue ..... Color 0 White .... Color 1 Black .... Color 2 Orange ... Color 3 You may also edit and configure the colors on the SID custom screen. See "Custom Screen Colors" for more details. Directory Lists --------------- Normally, files and directories are mixed and displayed alphabetically in the lists. You can separate directories and files with the SeparateDirs= flag in the SID.config file. Active (or Source) List Denoted by orange highlighting above and below the list. All commands operate on highlighted files in the active list. Inactive (or Destination) List No orange lines. This is the destination list for two-directory commands (such as COPY and MOVE). Can select the active list by: 1) Clicking the left mouse button on the list. Will also highlight/ unhighlight any directory entries. 2) Clicking the right mouse button (RMB) anywhere in the window. The list on the side of the window where you click becomes the active list. If you click the RMB above the lists, the menus will activate. 3) Clicking on the corresponding arrow buttons, slider bar, parent button, or rehighlight button. Check out SID.iff to see where these buttons are located in the SID window. Directory Entries ----------------- Files Highlighted ..... white letters on black background Unhighlighted ... black letters on white background Directories Highlighted ..... orange letters on black background Unhighlighted ... black letters on orange background To highlight an entry, click the left mouse button (LMB) on the desired entry. You can (un)highlight multiple entries by holding the button and dragging mouse. The list will scroll when you move the pointer above or below the list. To unhighlight an entry, just click on it again. Directory Buttons ----------------- Up Arrow Button Click once to display the previous entry. Click and hold to scroll. Down Arrow Button Click once to display the next entry. Click and hold to scroll. Once you've clicked on an arrow button, hold the left mouse button and move the pointer off the button. The list will continue to scroll. As you move the pointer toward the vertical center of the list, the scroll will slow down until the direction reverses when you pass the center. You can also scroll the file list by clicking the right mouse button while the pointer is over the list. Moving the pointer up will scroll the list up, and moving the pointer down will scroll the list down. The scrolling slows down as the pointer moves toward the vertical center of the list. Stop the scroll by releasing the right mouse button. Slider Bar Click once to page forward or backward. Click and hold to scroll. Parent Button A tall, skinny button hidden in window border next to each list. Click on it to load the parent of the current directory. Rehighlight Button Hidden to the left and right of the command buttons. Will highlight entries highlighted before the execution of the previous command. Any entries you've highlighted so far will remain highlighted. Path Field Located above each directory list, the Path Field contains the name of the directory. To manually enter a path name, click the left mouse button in it, type the name of the path, and press RETURN. Or press ESCape to get rid of the cursor. Can return cursor to the Path Field by pressing the left arrow for the left field, right arrow for the right field. Pressing ENTER in a blank path field will load the current directory. Previous Directory Button Hidden in the window border next to each path field. Clicking on this button will load the previous directory for this list. This is handy when you accidentally wipe out the current directory by loading another directory. Click on this button, and the previous directory will be reloaded. You can also use this to toggle back and forth between two directories. Field Editing ------------- The fields in SID are not Intuition string buttons, but rather, a modified form of SmartFieldsII by Software Ingenuity. Because of this, there are a number of powerful editing features available that are not found in regular string buttons: Cursor Movement LeftArrow .......... to the previous character RightArrow ......... to the next character SHIFT-LeftArrow .... to the beginning of the previous word SHIFT-RightArrow ... to the beginning of the next word ALT-LeftArrow ...... to the beginning of the field ALT-RightArrow ..... to the end of the field TAB ................ jump right SHIFT-TAB .......... jump left Field Editing DELete ...... delete character under cursor BACKSPACE ... delete character to left of cursor CTRL-X ...... delete entire field contents CTRL-R ...... restore deleted contents CTRL-F ...... delete forward CTRL-B ...... delete backward Clipboard Commands CTRL-C ..... copy field contents to clip CTRL-K ..... cut field contents to clip CTRL-P ..... paste clip contents into field Miscellaneous Commands CTRL-I ..... place in insert mode CTRL-T ..... place in typeover mode RETURN ..... accept data in field ESCape ..... stop current command As you can see above, SID maintains its own private clipboard, allowing you to transfer data between fields. You can also adjust the TAB jump by pressing CTRL-TAB then the number of spaces between 1 and 9. For example, CTRL-TAB then '5' will set the TAB jump to five spaces. And the desired type mode (either insert or typeover) is configurable. The standard Intuition string button editing keys are also supported. Press: Right-Amiga-X ... to delete entire field contents Right-Amiga-Q ... to restore deleted contents Directory Messages ------------------ Message Box Bottom of the window. All SID messages are displayed here. Directory Message Displayed every time an active side is selected. For example: 001/023 Files 002/004 Dirs 6.3K Free The numbers in the above example are: 001 ... (white) .... number of highlighted files 023 ... (white) .... total number of files 002 ... (orange) ... number of highlighted directories 004 ... (orange) ... total number of directories 6.3 ... (black) .... approximate number of bytes free on the corresponding device, listed in decimal K-bytes or megabytes, whichever is appropriate Loading Directories ------------------- In same list To load one of the directories listed, double click on it. In the other list...Explore Button Click on the arrow (the Explore Button) located in the center of the window. It turns orange to indicate "Explore Mode". Every directory you double-click on in the active list will be loaded in the inactive list. Click on Explore Button again to stop Explore Mode. Swapping or Copying Directories ------------------------------- There are three buttons which appear in the center of the window title bar. They are, from left to right: Copy Right to Left Button Clicking on this button will copy the directory from the right list into the left list. This is done instantly--there is no need to wait for the new directory to load. The new directory is clean, meaning no files are highlighted and the list is displayed with the first file. This will only work if the directory in the right list is valid. Swap List Button Clicking on this button will instantly swap the two directory lists. All highlighting characteristics, previous highlighting characteristics, and scroll positions are retained. The stored previous directory, however, remains fixed with the list (it is not swapped). Copy Left to Right Button Clicking on this button will copy the directory from the left list into the right list. Device Buttons -------------- Two identical sets of ten buttons located immediately under each list. The eight on the left of each set are named after different devices which may be found on your system. The remaining two are the VOL and DIR buttons. Device Buttons Originally configured as DF0 DF1 RAM RAD DH0 DH1 DH2 DH3. Clicking on one of these will activate the list above the button and load the directory of the selected device in that list. You can also specify an alternate path to be loaded when you click on a device button. That way you can give the device buttons more meaningful names such as WKB for Workbench instead of the generic DH0. See the "Button= keyword" in the ConfigDocs for more details. VOLume Button Will load the names of all mounted volumes on your system in the list above the button. This not only includes physical volumes (diskettes in the drive or hard disk partitions), but logical volumes (created with the AmigaDOS Assign command) as well. DIR Button Will reload the same directory listed in the Path Field above the button. This is equivalent to clicking the cursor in one of the Path Fields and pressing RETURN. Since SID does not reload the directory after each command, it only knows about directory changes that it has made. If you suspect another program has changed the directory listed (by adding or deleting files), click on this button to reload it. If the Path Field is empty, clicking on the DIR button will load the current directory. STOP! Requester --------------- The white STOP! Requester appears in the middle of the SID window during the execution of each command. The window's sizing button works when the STOP! requester is in the window. STOP! Button Click on this to terminate the current command. All highlighted files which have not been affected yet by the command will remain highlighted. PAUSE Button Click on this to pause the current command. The button then becomes the RESUME Button which you click on to resume the command. One convenient feature about the STOP! Requester is you can select a large directory, click on STOP! as it begins to load, then copy or move files to it, load its parent, or get DISK information about it. You can perform these operations without having to wait for the entire directory to load. You can also partially load a directory by clicking the STOP! button. This is handy when loading diskette directories--you can stop the load as soon as you see the desired file. Window Sizes ------------ There are three standard window sizes: Half Size - 640 pixels wide by 104 pixels high ( 3 files visible) Full Size - 640 pixels wide by 200 pixels high (15 files visible) Lace Size - 640 pixels wide by 384 pixels high (38 files visible) You can select these sizes with the "Window" item in the "Environment" menu. A check mark will appear next to the current size. Specify Size You specify the size of the window based on the number of files that are visible in each list at one time (also referred to as the number of rows). A requester will appear asking you to enter the number of rows desired. It will list the minimum, current, and maximum number of rows possible. SID will allow you to open a window as large as possible. Using VScreen, a public domain utility by Davide P. Cervone, you can open a SID window that's 118 rows tall on a 1024-pixel-high Workbench screen! Shrink Window The SID window will iconify itself on the Workbench screen when you click on the SHRINK Button in the upper right corner of the window. Clicking on the EXPAND Button in the iconified window or pressing 'E' will return the SID window to its original size. Screens ------- Workbench Screen To save memory Custom Screen SID's own high-resolution NON-interlaced custom screen. The position of the SID window is fixed in the screen. Move the SID window in and out of view with the screen's drag bar and depth buttons. Interlace Screen SID's own high-resolution interlaced custom screen. The position of the SID window is fixed in the screen. Move the SID window in and out of view with the screen's drag bar and depth buttons. Custom Screen Colors -------------------- You can edit and configure the colors on the SID custom or interlace screen. To edit the colors, place SID on its custom or interlace screen and select "Colors" from the "Environment" menu, and the Color requester will appear. Notice that this option is not available when the SID window is on the Workbench screen. You've used color requesters before, I'm sure (Preferences, for example), so I don't think I need to go into detail with how this one works. The slider buttons adjust the red, green, and blue hues in each color. The hexadecimal value of each color is listed, and the hex value for the currently active color is highlighted. You can select which color you want to "be active" and edit by clicking in the desired color box or on its hex value, or by clicking the left mouse button anywhere in the SID window other than in the requester. The color of the pixel on which you clicked will become the active color. For example, this allows you to edit the color of the window title bar just by clicking on it. Clicking on ACCEPT will accept the colors you've selected, clicking on RESET will reset the colors to those when the requester was first displayed, and clicking on CANCEL will ignore your color selection and make the requester disappear. Entry Display ------------- SID has six different entry display modes: SIZE: <--------- File Name --------->9999999 DATE: <--------- File Name ------> MM/DD/YY TIME: <--------- File Name -----> HH:MM:SSam BITS: <--------- File Name -------> HSPARWED NOTE: <-- File Name --> <---- Comment -----> DESC: <-- File Name --> <-- Description ---> To select the desired display, click the left mouse button in the message box. The six display modes will appear under each list, and the current mode for each list will be highlighted in orange (color 3). Click the left mouse button on the desired mode, and the entries will be redisplayed instantly (exception: if you select DESC mode, the directory will be reloaded. This is because loading file descriptions takes alot longer and therefore it is not done automatically). Notice that you can select a different display mode for each list. Note from the above diagram that the file name may be truncated in every mode except the SIZE mode. If a file name is truncated, double arrows '»' will appear at the end of the name to indicate this. File Description ---------------- SID can currently identify a number of files on the Amiga: AmigaBASIC program ARC file Assignment ........... logical device created with Assign command Directory Executable Object .... program, library, etc. Font Header IFF Graphic IFF Sound IFF Music IFF Text .info Icon ........... Workbench icon image file Lattice Object LHArc file Manx Object Maxiplan Spreadsheet PageStream Document PAK file ProPage Document Superbase File Defn Superbase Query Volume ............... diskette, hard disk partition WARP file WordPerfect Text ZOO file If SID cannot identify an entry as one of the above, it will classify it as either an ASCII file or Binary file depending on whether any binary is found in the file. International characters are considered to be ASCII characters. Double Clicking --------------- Double clicking on a file will attempt to execute the proper command for that file (remember that double clicking on a directory will load it). This is handy when you are highlighting a number of entries and you want to check out a single entry without looking at all the other entries. The commands executed are: ARC file ........... LISTARC ASCII file ......... READ IFF Graphic ........ VIEW IFF Sound .......... HEAR LHArc file ......... LISTARC WordPerfect Text ... READ ZOO file ........... LISTARC all others ......... INFO Note that because PAK and WARP do not support LISTARC yet, the INFO command will be executed for these files. Output ------ When you run SID (from the CLI or Workbench), it opens a 1x1 pixel CLI window in the upper left corner of the Workbench screen. This catches the output from any program you run from SID without clicking on the OUTPUT button. AmigaDOS doesn't like it when there's nowhere to send a program's output, and your program will crash without it. Before running, however, SID checks to see if the NULL: device is mounted. If it is, it uses the NULL: device for program output, and the 1x1 pixel window is not opened. This saves you about 5K in memory, plus some system overhead that Intuition needs to maintain the output window. To use the NULL: device, copy the supplied "null-handler" file into your L: directory, and add the supplied "MountList" entry to your devs:MountList file. Then be sure to "mount null:" sometime before running SID. If you plan on using this on a regular basis, you might want to put the mount command in your startup-sequence. Note that SID does NOT require the NULL: device to run. It is merely provided for those users who wish to save a little memory and system overhead. Many new programs including RunBack are using the NULL: device as a replacement for NIL: (NIL: is not a real device and therefore cannot be used by programs which require a real device for output). Input Requester --------------- A white Input Requester will appear in the middle of the SID window for some of the commands. The requester has a single field for input and can have either two or four buttons: Accept Button This button appears on the far left and will usually take the name of the command you are executing. Click on this to accept the data you have typed. STOP! Button This button appears on the far right. Click on this to stop the command from executing. The command will stop without executing upon the remaining highlighted entries, if any. PREVious Button This button will appear for single file commands. If enabled (not ghosted), click on this button to execute the command on the previous highlighted file. The current file will be ignored. NEXT Button This button will appear for single file commands. If enabled, click on this button to ignore the current file and execute the command on the next highlighted file. As with almost everything in SID, there are keyboard equivalents to the above buttons: Accept Button ... press RETURN STOP! Button .... press ESCape PREV Button ..... press CTRL Left Arrow NEXT Button ..... press CTRL Right Arrow When entering file names in the input requester, SID will reject blank or duplicate names. Program Menu ------------ Configuration Nearly every feature in SID is configurable. A set of defaults are hardwired into the program making SID usable by itself, but if your system environment or personal tastes differ from mine, you will need a config file to change these defaults. See the ConfigDocs for more information. Edit Allows you to edit the config file with the text editor you specified to use with the EDIT command. Load Loads the configuration file. Information Displays an information requester about SID. The program version number is found here. Last Error Explains the meaning of the previous error in the message box. You can also display the last error by pressing the '?' or '/' key. Last Message Redisplays the previous important message in the message box. Currently, only the results of the BYTES command are redisplayed. System Menu ----------- Three programs are launched from this menu. Set the name and location of each program in the config file. Calculator Your favorite calculator program. Command Executes an AmigaDOS command. The Input Requester will appear, allowing you to type the command. You can string multiple commands together by typing a newline character after each command with the CTRL-N keyboard combination. The newline character will appear in the input field as a capital 'J' in reverse video. If you execute the command, SID will open the Output window to display the results. When the command has finished, a prompt will appear in the Output window, which will now act like a regular CLI window. To get rid of the window, type "endcli" (without the quotes) and press RETURN. You can force the window to close immediately after the command has executed by appending "endcli" to the end of your command line (separated from the command by a newline, of course). If a valid directory is displayed in the active list, the active directory will be made the current directory before the command is executed, otherwise SYS: will be the current directory. You can always change the current directory by preceeding your command with the AmigaDOS "cd" command. NewCLI Opens a new CLI (actually, an AmigaDOS shell) window. Type "endcli" in the window to make it disappear. Preferences Runs the Preferences program. Disk Menu --------- Fit Tells you whether the highlighted files and directories in the active list will fit in the inactive list. SID displays a message in the message box telling you whether the files will fit and how many blocks you needed or have to spare. This command takes into account the blocking factor of the device in the inactive list. For example, the same group of files requires more room on a diskette (which can fit only 488 bytes per block) than on a FastFileSystem hard disk (which can fit 512 bytes per block). Relabel Allows you to relabel the disk corresponding to the active list. The Input Requester will appear in the center of the window with the current name of the disk, asking you what you want the new name to be. DO NOT INCLUDE THE TRAILING COLON! If the relabel command is successful, the new name will replace the old name in the path field. Be aware that the actual relabelling of diskettes occurs a second or two after you issue the relabel command (this is due to AmigaDOS, not SID). Wait for the drive light to turn on AND turn off before removing the diskette. File Menu --------- Copy As The Input Requester will display the name of each highlighted file in the active list, allowing you to rename the file as it's copied. Note that you can give the copied file the same name as a file in the destination directory. In this case, that file in the destination directory WILL BE OVERWRITTEN! If you want to prevent this, set the "Copy" flag in the "Flags" menu to "Only New", in which case the Error Requester will appear for files that already exist. Create Allows you to create a blank file (usually for editing). The Input Requester will appear, asking you for the name of the file to create. You cannot specify the name of a file that already exists. Select by Date Allows you to highlight files and directories in the active list by date. The input requester will appear allowing you to type in the date range. SID is looking for two arguments, each separated by at least one blank, and each containing no imbedded blanks. The first argument is the "from" date, and the second argument is the "to" date. Both arguments are inclusive, meaning all entries (files and directories) greater than or equal to the "from" date and less than or equal to the "to" date will be highlighted. Similar to the PATTERN command, this only highlights entries--no unhighlighting is done (in other words, already highlighted files which don't fall within the specified dates will not be unhighlighted). This means that you can multiply select entries in a number of different ways--by pattern, by date, or by manually clicking on them. This command will accept dates in one of three formats: English dates You can spell out the days such as "Today", "Yesterday", "Monday", "Tuesday", etc. Only the first three characters are checked, so you can just as easily specify "tod", "yes", "mon", etc. Case is not important. Note that the days you specify are prior to the current day. For example, if today is Wednesday and you specify "Tuesday", this really means yesterday, and not next Tuesday. Also, if you were to specify "Weds", this would give you one week ago today--not today. To get today, you must explicitly specify "today" (or "tod"). AmigaDOS dates This is the dd-mmm-yy format that AmigaDOS uses, where "dd" is the day in numeric digits, "mmm" is the first three characters of the month name (case is not important), and "yy" is the last two digits of the year (such as "89" for 1989). Note that you do not have to specify a leading zero if the day is less than 10. You may also omit the year if you want the current year. Actual dates This is the mm/dd/yy format (or dd/mm/yy format if you set the SID.config flag DateMDY=NO). You can use the slash, period, hyphen, or comma as a date separator, or use no separator at all. The leading zero for the month is not required, and if you omit the year, the current year will be assumed. You may also select all dates prior to a given date by specifying a hyphen (-), "upto" (as with the AmigaDOS "list" command), or "to" as the first argument. For example, "to 11/4/89" will highlight all entries dated on or before November 4, 1989. You may select all dates after a given date by specifying a hyphen as the second argument, or the word "since" (again as with the "list" command) as the first argument. For example, "sin yes" will higlight all entried created since yesterday. As another example, "10-jun-89 -" will highlight all entries created on or after June 10, 1989. Command Buttons --------------- There are thirty command buttons located in the bottom of the SID window. Some of the commands operate independently, but most of them act upon the highlighted files and directories in the active list. If you attempt to execute a command on an invalid directory in the active list, an error message will be displayed. The commands can be categorized by which files they act upon: System Commands Do not act upon any files: MEMORY TIME List Commands Highlight or unhighlight entries in the list: ALL NONE PATTERN Directory Commands Operate on the directory corresponding to the list: DISK MAKEDIR Single File Commands Operate on each highlighted file and directory in the active list one at a time: COMMENT EXECUTE OTHER RUN XREAD DELETE HEAR PROTECT UNARC DUP INFO READ VIEW EDIT LISTARC RENAME XEDIT Multiple File Commands Operate on highlighted entries in the active list all at once: ARC BYTES PRINT SET Two List Commands Operate on both lists, moving files and directories from the active list to the inactive list: COPY MOVE Highlight Method ---------------- All highlighted entries in the active list will be unhighlighted as a command executes upon them (exception: the INFO command). If you stop the command before it can finish, all entries that it didn't get to will remain highlighted. Remember that you can rehighlight the files that were highlighted before the execution of the previous command by clicking on the hidden Rehighlight Button for that list. Directory Requester ------------------- Some commands such as COPY, DELETE, and BYTES operate on entire directories. When such a command is executed, a black Directory Requester will appear in the center of the SID window. Each time a directory is entered by one of these commands, its name will appear in the requester. Since the Directory Requester obscures the STOP! requester, it has its own set of STOP! and PAUSE buttons that operate exactly as they do on the STOP! requester. Error Requester --------------- This orange requester will appear in the middle of the SID window when an error occurs during the execution of a command. It has the following buttons: WHY? Button Will explain in the message box why the error occurred. STOP! Button Will stop the command immediately, ignoring any remaining highlighted entries. CONTINUE Button Will skip over this file and continue executing the current command. RETRY Button Will try to re-execute the command on the current file. The keyboard equivalents to the buttons are: WHY? Button ....... 'W' key or '?' and '/' key STOP! Button ...... 'S' or ESCape key CONTINUE Button ... 'C' key RETRY Button ...... 'R' key System Commands --------------- MEMORY Will display the number of bytes of CHIP RAM, FAST RAM, and total RAM available on your system. TIME Will display the current day, date, and time. List Commands ------------- ALL A single click will highlight all of the files in the active list. A double click will highlight all files AND directories in the active list. NONE Will unhighlight all files and directories in the active list. PATTERN Will highlight entries in the active list based on a pattern that you enter in the Input Requester. This supports all AmigaDOS pattern matching wildcards: #c Matches any number of repetitions of the character 'c', including none. For example: TI#M matches TI, TIM, TIMM, and TIMMMMM () Indicates that a group of characters is to be treated as a single character. ? Matches any single character, NOT including none. For example: T?MMY matches TAMMY, TIMMY, TOMMY, but not TMMY a|b Matches either pattern "a" or pattern "b". For example: #?.(C|O) matches names ending in .C or .O % Matches the NULL character. For example: DISK(S|%) matches DISK or DISKS ' Placed before a wildcard character, the apostophe indicates that you want to match the next character, not use its wildcard abilities. For example: FILE'(?') matches FILE(1) and FILE(2) instead of FILE1 You can also combine wildcards to perform even more powerful pattern matching: #(group) Matches any number of repetitions of the the group of characters enclosed in the parentheses, including none. For example: BOW#(WOW) matches BOW, BOWWOW, and BOWWOWWOW #? Matches any number of repetitions of any character, including none. This is identical to the MS-DOS asterik wildcard. For example: #?.C matches any entry whose name ends in .C H#?D will match HD, HEAD, and HARVARD (?|%) Matches any character or no character. For example: (?|%)ICK matches LICK, SICK, or ICK The PATTERN button also supports the MS-DOS asterik wildcard: * Matches any number of repetitions of any character, including none. This is the same as the AmigaDOS #? wildcard combination. For example: *.C matches any entry whose name ends in .C Note that even though all of the above examples were presented in upper case, AmigaDOS is not case sensitive, so "H#?" will match both "HI" and "hi". The PATTERN command does NOT unhighlight entries which do not fit the pattern; therefore, you can execute this command a number of times for multi-layered pattern selections. Directory Commands ------------------ DISK Displays a requester containing information about the disk corresponding to the active list: NAME ..... disk name SIZE ..... approximate storage size in K (=1024 bytes) or MB TOTAL .... total number of blocks and bytes USED ..... number of blocks and bytes used FREE ..... number of available blocks and bytes FULL ..... percent full (0% = empty, 100% = full) DENSITY .. storage density in the number of bytes per block ERRORS ... number of errors recorded for this disk STATUS ... either "Read/Write" or "Read Only" if write protected DATE ..... format date TIME ..... format time Click the RMB to display the DISK requester for the inactive list. Continually clicking the RMB will toggle back and forth between the active and inactive list. Clicking the LMB or pressing any key will make the requester disappear. MAKEDIR Creates a directory in the active list. You enter the name of the directory in the Input Requester. You cannot specify a name that already exists in the active list. You can also make a directory and load it at the same time. These make/load directory commands are accessible only from the keyboard. Press: CTRL-< or CTRL-, Creates the dir you specify and loads it in the left list. CTRL-> or CTRL-. Creates the dir you specify and loads it in the right list. For example, if the left list is active and you press CTRL-<, the current directory will be replaced with the directory you create. If you press CTRL->, however, the directory you specify will appear in the left list, but will be loaded in the right list. You can automatically create a corresponding drawer icon for the new directory by setting the MakeDirIcon= flag in the SID.config file. This flag must specify a valid file name, and the name of the directory you create must be 25 characters or less so that the .info extension can be added to the file name. Single File Commands -------------------- COMMENT Allows you to attach a comment to the highlighted files and directories in the active list. If a comment already exists for an entry, it will appear in the Input Requester, allowing you to edit or delete it. Unlike AmigaDOS, SID copies comments along with their respective files, making the idea of a file comment a little more attractive. You can view a file's comment with the INFO command. DELETE Deletes all highlighted files and directories. Delete Requester After clicking on the DELETE button, a requester will appear under the active list asking you if you are sure you want to delete the highlighted files. You can either click on the DELETE button to delete the files, or the CANCEL button to cancel the DELETE command. Double clicking (very quickly) the DELETE button will bypass this requester. If you never make any mistakes, you can configure this requester to not appear. You can also toggle it on and off during the program with the "Delete" item in the "Flags" menu. Directory Delete Requester Each time the DELETE command encounters a non-empty directory, the Directory Delete Requester will appear asking you if you are sure you want to delete that directory. You can either click on the DELETE button to delete the specified directory, or click on the CANCEL button to skip that directory. The DELETE command will continue with any remaining highlighted entries. You can also configure this requester to not appear, or toggle it on and off during the program with the "Directory Delete" item in the "Flags" menu. DUP Duplicates all highlighted files in the active list (but not directories at this time). The Input Requester will appear with the name of each file selected, allowing you to enter a name for the duplicate file. You cannot specify a name that already exists in the active list. EDIT Loads the highlighted files into your favorite text editor or word processor one at a time. You specify the name and path of your text editor in the config file. The size of the file is updated in the list to reflect any changes that you may have made. EXECUTE Executes the highlighted files in the active list with the AmigaDOS "Execute" command. It is up to you to make sure that the files you selected are indeed batch files. HEAR Plays digitized sound samples with the play program that you specify in the config file. INFO Displays a requester containing information about the highlighted files and directories in the active list: NAME ..... name of the file or directory DATE ..... date file or directory was created TIME ..... time file or directory was created SIZE ..... size of file in bytes (0 for directories) BLOCKS ... number of blocks occupied by file (0 for directories) DESC ..... file description STATUS ... file protection mask and set bits (see PROTECT command) COMMENT .. file comment PREV Button Displays the INFO requester for the previous entry in the list. Next Button Displays the INFO requester for the next entry in the list. STOP! Button Stops the INFO requester display. As with all buttons in SID, there are command key equivalents: PREV Button .... press 'P' STOP! Button ... press 'S' or ESCape NEXT Button .... press any other key or click the mouse anywhere else in the window with the left or right mouse button except on top of the PREV or STOP! buttons LISTARC Lists in the READ window the contents of an archived file. SID reads the file and automatically detects which archive program to use, either ARC, LHARC, or ZOO. You specify in the config file the name and paths used by each archival program to list a file's contents. Note that PAK and WARP currently do not have the ability to list the contents of their files. If SID cannot identify the archival method used on a file, the Input Requester will appear, allowing you to type in the program to use or to cancel the command. This is handy if you select a file that hasn't been archived or if you are trying to list the contents of a file archived by a new program such as ZIP. OTHER This is a command that you configure to your own liking. It operates on all highlighted files in the active list. PROTECT Allows you to set the protection bits for the highlighted files in the active list. A requester will appear for each file, displaying the current protection mask for that file. AmigaDOS files have eight protection bits: H - Hidden ..... file will not be displayed S - Script ..... batch file can be run as a program P - Pure ....... program can be made resident A - Archived ... file has not changed since the last backup R - Read ....... file can be read W - Write ...... file can be written to E - Execute .... file can be executed D - Delete ..... file can be deleted There are eight buttons in the requester corresponding to the eight protection bits. Click on a button to change the state of that bit. You can click and hold the LMB, then move the pointer over the other buttons to change them all to the state of the first bit on which you clicked. Or, click the RMB over a button to change all of the bits to that state. Both the current protection mask and the new one that you select appear at the bottom of the requester, for example: Old: ----RWED New: -S--RWED You can revert back to the Old protection mask by clicking on the word "Old" (or anywhere near it). There are four more familiar buttons: PROTECT Button .... click to accept the pattern you've entered PREVious Button ... ignore this file, go to previous file NEXT Button ....... ignore this file, go to next file STOP! Button ...... stop the PROTECT command And the keyboard equivalents: PROTECT Button .... RETURN PREVious Button ... 'P' key NEXT Button ....... 'N' key STOP! Button ...... ESCape key Note that these protection bits are preserved by the SID copy command. READ Reads the highlighted files in the active list. SID loads the file into its own text reader. Binary characters are represented as blanks. Tabs are currently not represented. You can scroll the text by clicking on a button, pressing a key, or simply clicking the mouse: Up Arrow Button Click to display previous line. Click and hold to scroll. Down Arrow Button Click to display next line. Click and hold to scroll. Slider Bar Click to page forward or backward. Click and hold to scroll. Up Arrow ........... previous line Down Arrow ......... next line SHIFT Up Arrow ..... previous page SHIFT Down Arrow ... next page ALT Up Arrow ....... top of file ALT Down Arrow ..... bottom of file Or you can just click the left mouse button anywhere in the window to scroll the display. Click in the bottom half of the window to scroll toward the bottom of the file, or the top half of the window to scroll toward the top of the file. The scroll slows down as you move the pointer toward the vertical center of the window, until it finally reverses direction as you cross the center. PREVious Button, 'P' key Reads the previous highlighted file. NEXT Button, Window Close Button, 'N' key Reads the next highlighted file. STOP! Button, 'S' key, ESCape key Ends the READ command. RENAME Renames highlighted files and directories in the active list. The Input Requester will appear for each entry with its current name in the input field, allowing you to edit it. You cannot specify a name that already exists in the list. RUN Runs the highlighted programs in the active list. If you need to specify command-line arguments for the programs, be sure to click on the REQ button. If you need to interact with the programs from the command line, be sure to run the program in the foreground (see the "Run" item in the "Flags" menu). UNARC Unarchives the highlighted files in the active list. SID reads each file and automatically selects which archive method to use, either ARC, LHARC, PAK, WARP, or ZOO. If SID cannot identify which archive method was used, the Input Requester will appear, allowing you to specify the archive program or to cancel the command. Once the file has been identified, a CLI window is opened, allowing you to watch the progress of the unarc program. When it has finished, SID will reload the active directory to show the unarc'd files. You can unarc to the inactive list by clicking on the arrow (Explore button) in the top center of the SID window. It will turn orange to indicate the "Explore Mode." In this mode, the contents of all highlighted arc files in the active list will be unarc'd to the inactive list when you click on the UNARC button. The inactive list will then be reloaded to reflect the newly unarc'd files. VIEW Views IFF graphic files with your favorite viewing program. You specify the name and path of your view program in the config file. XEDIT Loads the highlighted files into your favorite hex editor. You specify the name and path of the editor in the config file. The size of the file is updated in the list to reflect any changes that you may have made. XREAD Displays the contents of the highlighted files in hexadecimal format as (in truncated form): 000030 69 63 65 20 6D ... 73 6F 75 72 63 ice misc.resourc The XREAD command uses the same window as the READ command, displaying sixteen bytes per line. The ASCII repesentation of those characters are listed in the far right. Binary characters are replaced with a dot. The hexadecimal equivalent of each character is listed in the middle, separated into four-byte groups. The six-digit number on the left is the address in hex of the first character in that line. Multiple File Commands ---------------------- ARC Creates an archived file containing all of the highlighted files and directories in the active list. You select the archive method to be used in the "Archive Method" item in the "Flags" menu. The Input Requester will appear asking you to enter the name of the archive file. BYTES Counts the number of bytes in the highlighted files and directories in the active list. If a directory is highlighted, the files and sub- directories contained in that directory are also counted. See the "Bytes" item in the "Flags" menu for the two counting methods possible with this command. PRINT Prints all highlighted files with your favorite print program. The program must be able to accept multiple files. In the config file, prefacing the name of the print program with "run" will cause the files to be printed in the background, allowing you to use SID immediately after executing the PRINT command. If you don't do this, SID will sleep until all the files have printed. SET Allows you to set or unset protection bits for all of the highlighted files in the active list. The requester which appears is similar to the PROTECT requester, except that each bit button has three states instead of two. For example, in the case of the Script button: NOT SCRIPT ... turn off the script bit (-) SCRIPT ....... turn on the script bit (S) ignore S ..... ignore the script bit (*) In the protection mask, a bit that is on is represented by the first letter of its name, a bit that is off is represented by a hyphen, and a bit that is to be ignored is represented by an asterik. Instead of allowing you to set the protection for each highlighted file one at a time as with the PROTECT command, the SET command sets the protection for all of the highlighted files at once. For example, to archive all highlighted files and protect them from deletion, you would choose the mask: ***A***- Note that the Archive bit will be set, the Delete bit will be cleared, and all other bits will be ignored. Otherwise, the operation of the SET requester is identical to the PROTECT requester. Two List Commands ----------------- COPY Copies highlighted files and directories from the active list to the inactive list. The directory in the inactive list does NOT need to be loaded to copy files to it. Unlike AmigaDOS, files and directories copied with SID retain their comments and protection bits. MOVE Moves highlighted files from the active list to the inactive list. If both directories are on the same device, SID will use the Rename command to move the files, speeding up the operation considerably. If the directories are on different devices, SID will copy the files from the source directory to the destination directory, then delete the files in the source directory. Files which already exist in the destination directory are not moved and will remain highlighted. SID will currently move directories only if they reside on the same device. Command-Key Equivalents ----------------------- There are keyboard equivalents for many of the SID button commands: ALL ........ CTRL-A COMMENT .... CTRL-O DISK ....... CTRL-D DUP ........ CTRL-U EDIT ....... CTRL-E EXPAND ..... E (when in shrink mode only) INFO ....... CTRL-I MAKEDIR .... CTRL-M NONE ....... CTRL-N PATTERN .... CTRL-P RENAME ..... CTRL-R SHRINK ..... CTRL-S There are also keyboard equivalents for some of the menu commands: Command .......... (System Menu) ... CTRL-! or CTRL-1 Copy As .......... (File Menu) ..... CTRL-@ or CTRL-2 Create ........... (File Menu) ..... CTRL-C Relabel .......... (Disk Menu) ..... CTRL-L Select by Date ... (File Menu) ..... CTRL-Y Plus a few other goodies: LeftArrow .......... move cursor to left path field RightArrow ......... move cursor to right path field SHIFT-LeftArrow .... make left list active SHIFT-RightArrow ... make right list active CTRL-UpArrow ....... load parent of active list CTRL-LeftArrow ..... rehighlight left list CTRL-RightArrow .... rehighlight right list Flag Buttons ------------ Located in the title bar of the SID window, each button represents the state of a configuration flag. The flag is "on" if the button is highlighted (black with orange letters), and "off" if the button is unhighlighted (white with blue letters). The initial state of these flags upon program startup can be set in the config file. REQ Button If highlighted, the Input Requester will appear for each command you execute, allowing you to change the command or its arguments. The text you enter in the requester will be saved for the next time you execute that command. This can be handy for temporarily changing a command without having to edit and reload the config file. OUTPUT Button If highlighted, a CLI window will open for every program you run from SID, allowing you to view the output from that program. This includes programs launched by commands such as ARC, UNARC, VIEW, etc. The OUTPUT option is handy when you run SID from the Workbench, as there is no CLI window in which the output will be displayed. Flags Menu ---------- A number of other configuration flags can be toggled in the "Flags" menu. The initial values upon program startup of these flags are also configurable. A check mark appears next to the flag's current value. Note that you can change the state of multiple flags by keeping the right mouse button pressed while clicking the left mouse button to make your flag selections. This extended-menu selection technique works only with the "Flags" menu. Archive Method The archive method that you wish to use to archive files with the ARC command. You can select from ARC, LHARC, PAK, WARP, and ZOO. Byte Count Actual The BYTES command will display the actual number of bytes in the highlighted files and directories. This is calculated by just summing the size of each file selected. The directories themselves are ignored, but the files within highlighted directories are added to the count. Occupied The BYTES command will display the number of bytes the highlighted files and directories occupy on the disk. This takes into account the blocking factor of the disk (the number of bytes that can fit into each block). This will be larger than the figure you would get with the Actual selection because: 1) each file requires one block for its directory header, 2) each file requires a whole number of blocks even though it may not entirely fill up the last block, and 3) each directory requires one block for its entry. Copy Overwrite Will overwrite existing files in the destination directory when you copy files with the COPY command. Only New Will only copy files which do not exist in the destination directory. Uncopied files will remain highlighted. Delete Whether or not the Delete Requester will appear each time you click on the DELETE button. The Delete Requester asks you if you are sure you want to delete the selected files (see DELETE command). It's handy to be able to prevent the requester from appearing during sessions where you do alot of deleting. Directory Delete Whether or not the Directory Delete requester will appear for each non-empty directory selected for deletion by the DELETE command. The Directory Delete requester asks you if you are sure you want to delete the specified directory (see DELETE command). Error Stop Whether the Error Requester will appear for errors which occur during the execution of commands. Diskette Whether the root directory of a diskette inserted into any drive will automatically be loaded into the active list. This feature is handy when you want to scan a bunch of diskettes. There are three possible flag settings: AutoLoad The directory of an inserted diskette will always be loaded into the same list (the active one). Load/Switch The directory of an inserted diskette will load into the active list, then the inactive list will be made the active list. This means the diskette directories will be loaded alternating left and right. Ignore The directory of an inserted diskette will not be loaded automatically. Hidden Files Even though AmigaDOS doesn't support the Hidden protection bit, SID will. If set to "Hide", SID will not display files whose Hidden protection bits are set. You can set these bits with the PROTECT or SET commands. This feature is provided for those of you who don't want to be bothered with files you rarely need to access. By hiding files and directories, you can eliminate alot of clutter such as ".info" files. Note that selecting "Show" from the "Hidden Files" menu item doesn't automatically display hidden files. The flag takes effect on the very next directory load. If you wish to display hidden files in the current directory, click on the DIR button to reload the directory. Path Whether the directory name will be replaced with its absolute path name. For example, DF1: would be replaced with the name of the diskette, such as "Workbench1.3:". When you have two diskettes with the same name, SID cannot distinguish between the two, and therefore you would need to turn off the absolute path and reference the disks by device, such as DF0: and DF1: In this case, you would need to select the "As Specified" subitem. Run Whether programs launched from SID using the RUN command will be launched in the background or foreground. Background Immediately frees SID for further use. Foreground SID sleeps until the launched program has finished executing. Use this option along with the OUTPUT window to interact with a program that requires command-line input. Limits ------ There are no physical limits to this program. SID supports an unlimited number of files per directory and an unlimited directory depth. Everything is dynamically allocated as needed to conserve memory and to eliminate restrictions. However, there are some AmigaDOS restrictions which limit SID: Disk Name .......... 30 characters File Name .......... 30 characters (enforced in AmigaDOS v1.3) File Comment ....... 70 characters Path Name .......... 255 characters (curse that BCPL!) AmigaDOS Command ... 255 characters Known Problems -------------- SID has problems with early versions of TxED and NewZAP. This has to do with the non-standard parsing routines these programs used. These problems have been corrected with TxED Plus and the newer version of NewZAP, as SID works fine with these. Also, I know for a fact that many features do NOT work with Workbench v1.2. You must be using Workbench v1.3 to use SID! A number of people have complained about the size of SID. In the early days of development as SID began to grow, I had to decide just who my target audience was going to be. Since there were already a number of good, small DU's available, I decided to make create SID especially for power users, for whom 100K of disk space and 200K of RAM is a drop in the bucket (though I do know some 512K/single-drive people who are using SID!) Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You --------------------------------- There are a number of features still on the drawing board for SID. Registered users will be notified when these changes have been made and will be given the opportunity to acquire major upgrades long before they are available nationally. Planned features include: -- interactive configuration editor -- second set of user-defined buttons -- directory queue to store and quickly retrieve directories -- completely revamped text reader with search and horizontal scrolling -- DUP directories -- print queue -- search disks for a specified file -- search files for a specified string -- copy, edit, erase, and format disks -- compare and sort files -- macros and a command recorder for repetitious operations -- ARexx interface If there's something else you'd like to see, please let me know! SID Docs v1.06 12/02/89 © Copyright 1989 Timm Martin All Rights Reserved Worldwide /*-- END --*/