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-
- CHANGES AND MODIFICATIONS IN ARCTOOL VERSION 7.8
- ------------------------------------------------
-
- 1. ARCTOOL used an array method of storing it's file information, and this
- had the effect of limiting the total number of files that it could display
- to around 512. Also, this took up about 2K of stack with EACH archive that
- was opened. Completely changed this so that BOTH archives and files inside
- of archives can be displayed up to the available memory. In a typical
- system, there should be around 300K available for ARCTOOL. This means that
- you could handle a total of 2500+ archives or files. The next step would be
- to allocate the buffers in EMS which could be done.
-
- 2. Added a file counter to "READING ARCHIVES .." so that on slow systems or
- reading from floppy disks, you can tell how many files have been read so
- far. BIG archives may take a minute or so, and some folks thought that the
- system had hung.
-
- 3. Added the ability to ESCAPE out when reading archives. Previously, once
- it started, you HAD to let it finish, now pressing ESCAPE aborts.
-
- 4. Added a "MAKE SURE PRINTER IS ON.." window to the "PRINT FILE" facility
- to allow ESCAPE to be pressed to abort the printing of a file.
- Occasionally, the 'P' key would be accidentally pressed, and if it happened
- to be an EXE or COM file, the printer went crazy.
-
- 5. Reworked the whole mechanism for finding and reading the CFG file.
- Normally, the CFG file was to be stored in the same directory as AT.EXE.
- However on some systems, problems were experienced finding the file. Also,
- on systems with MULTIPLE hard drives, the CFG could have been on another
- drive completely. ARCTOOL should now CORRECTLY find the CFG file.
-
- 6. HOWEVER, JUST IN CASE, Added the "SET ATCFG=somepath" feature to allow
- the explicit definition of where the CFG file can be found.
-
- 7. Added the /D switch to allow reading the CURRENT directory ONLY without
- subs and without using the CFG file. Some folks had LONG directory names,
- and it was very painful to have to continually enter :
-
- AT \mypath\mypathsub1\mypathsub2\mypathsub3\mypathsub4\
-
- every time one wanted to view ONLY the archives in that directory. Now you
- can just enter AT /d from that directory, and all of the files in THAT
- DIRECTORY ONLY will be displayed.
-
- 8. Added the SFX=ON,OFF switch to the CFG file. This can be entered BEFORE
- and AFTER any pathname, and reading of SFX files will be activated and
- deactivated as desired.
-
- February 10, 1993
-
- 9. Added the ASSOCIATE facility. This works by keeping a list (up to 10) of
- the file extensions that are associated. i.e. the extension 'TXT' could be
- associated with the program LIST.COM and pressing return on a file with
- that extension would execute LIST.COM for that file. This is REALLY nice
- for viewing odd file types such as WORDPERFECT or LOTUS.
-
- 10. Changed the VIEW facility to allow for viewing ANSI files. Many BBS
- files contain files with ANSI codes, and viewing them is allowed by
- pressing ALT A when in the file viewer.
-
- March 29, 1993
-
- 11. Incremented VERSION to 'E'. Enough changes made to justify this.
-
- 12. Rewrote the DOC files, and added page headers and breaks.
-
- 13. Added CUSTOM VIEW feature. Allows user to use viewer of choice as an
- alternative to the internal viewer.
-
- 14. Added EDIT function on config file. Files are read in and can be tagged
- as to which are to be saved. Changed format to include path\sfx=xxx on the
- same line in the config file.
-
- 15. Add /SG switch to force ARCTOOL to read ALL LOGICAL drives for
- archives.
-
- April 12, 1993
-
- 16. Corrected bug that caused some disk caches under DOS 5.0 to pass a
- directory as as readable archive. ARCTOOL would think that the root
- directory of the drive was a single readable file. Strange problem !!! I
- modified the assembler code to check for this and problem was corrected.