OS/2 Professional

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ OS/2 Professional / OS2PRO194.ISO / os2 / com / bbs / insp110p / inspect.man < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1993-05-05 | 322.6 KB | 8,058 lines

InspectA File & Archive Manager Version 1.10 For MSDOS(R) and OS/2(R) User's Guide Copyright (C) 1992-93 All Rights Reserved David L. Nugent & Unique Computing Pty Limited May, 1993 Disclaimer You use this software entirely at your own risk. The author and/or distributors are not responsible for any loss or damage as a result of using this product and will take no responsibility, consequential or otherwise for any use, abuse or misuse. Versions InspectA is distributed both commercially and in shareware form. The commercial (registered) version is identifiable by the letter 'R' following the version number in the program identification displayed when executing the main program. Unregistered shareware versions show no additional letter after the version number or the letter 'S', no licensee name or registration serial number, and during operation occasionally displays a reminder that the program is a shareware product. While the fully commercial version may include various enhancements and site specific modifications, both the registered and unregistered shareware versions are otherwise functionally identical. Licence of Use InspectA is the intellectual property of David L. Nugent and Unique Computing Pty Limited and as such is protected by international copyright laws. InspectA is distributed with a non-transferable licence of use - title and all rights attached to the software itself is retained by the author(s) and copyright holder(s). With the non-registered shareware version ONLY, you are allowed under this licence to copy the software and give it to others so that they may evaluate it, provided that it is given in exactly the same form as distributed - with all files intact and no files added. Uploading to or posting of the unregistered shareware version on a BBS or other software archive site for others for download is expressly allowed, including distribution on CD-ROM in a form ultimately intended for use by BBS systems. Renting or sub-licensing of this product is strictly prohibited. The maximum period for which you are entitled to use the unregistered shareware version for the purposes of determining whether you wish to register may not exceed thirty (30) days. After this period expires, you are required by this licence to either register InspectA or delete your working copy and cease using it. Support the shareware concept by registering this product - it all depends on your honesty! You are restricted under this licence to using InspectA on single CPU only. Versions other than the unregistered shareware version are not transferable, nor may they be copied for any reason other than for legitimate backup purposes. Operation on a LAN or other network requires a site licence agreement. Reverse engineering, patching or other modification of any of the InspectA components is specifically prohibited and automatically revokes any licence of use, implied or otherwise. Reproduction, copying or modification of this documentation is also specifically protected by this licence. Contents Introduction .............................................1 New Features in Version 1.10 ........................2 Documentation Overview ..............................5 Document Conventions ................................7 Installing InspectA ......................................9 Before you Begin ....................................9 System Requirements ............................9 Package Contents ...............................10 Running INSTALL ................................11 Running INSPECT .....................................12 How To Start ...................................12 Help! ..........................................13 Using the Mouse ................................14 Viewing & Editing ..............................15 Basic Functions ................................15 Selecting Items ................................17 Multiple Windows ...............................17 Configuration ............................................19 Command Line ...................................20 General .............................................22 Options ........................................22 Programs .......................................26 i Contents Swapping .......................................27 Video ..........................................28 Mouse ..........................................30 Colours ........................................32 Filelist .......................................33 Lists ..........................................38 Archive .............................................39 Macros .........................................43 Mailer ..............................................45 Mailer Type ....................................45 Address ........................................47 Domain Equivalents .............................48 Products .......................................49 Paths ...............................................50 Keys ................................................52 Key Descriptions ...............................56 Macros .........................................56 File Associations ...................................59 Text ................................................61 Import .........................................62 Export .........................................63 ii Contents Quit ................................................63 InspectA Functions .......................................64 File Manager ........................................64 Files display ..................................65 Functions ......................................68 Archive Manager .....................................79 FidoNet Related Functions ...........................82 FTSC Type 2 Packet Manager ..........................85 Message View ........................................91 Common Features ..........................................93 Path Selection ......................................93 Files List Selection ................................94 Directory Tree ......................................95 Drive Selection .....................................97 Networks & CD-ROM ........................................99 User Configuration .............................99 Disk Index Files ...............................100 Description Files ..............................101 External Commands ........................................102 Environment ....................................103 Environment Variables ..........................104 Redirection ....................................105 Stacked Commands ...............................105 Current Directory ..............................105 iii Contents Prompts ..................................................107 Import/Export ............................................109 [general] ......................................110 [video] ........................................115 [archive] ......................................118 [mailer] .......................................119 [paths] ........................................121 [externals] ....................................121 Miscellaneous ............................................124 Screenblanker ..................................124 Copyrights & Trademarks ..................................125 iv Introduction Introduction InspectA is a powerful and configurable file management tool with enhanced capabilities when dealing with various types of files. It is also includes extensive program launching capabilities. Its definable keyboard and file associations make it a convenient means of both navigating the file system and running applications, and is a superior alternative to the more traditional clumsy and restrictive menu systems. The amount of memory used by InspectA when running other programs is negligible when program image swapping is enabled. InspectA also provides a way of viewing various types of special files, such as compressed file archives of various formats, FTSC "type-2" packets, FidoNet *.MSG files and may be configured to use any number of other external viewing utilities to view PCX, GIF, JPG, TIF, dBase, worksheet and other types of files. InspectA incorporates many individual utilities into the one tool, such as a multiple volume or drive search by file name, maintenance of file descriptions compatible with 4DOS, file editing and viewing. Its built in command line execute function provides command history of up to the last 64 commands used. InspectA is easy to use. All commands and functions are available from an easily accessible pull-down menu system, as are all user-defined commands. The configuration utility provides a straight-forward way of changing settings to taste. InspectA 1 Introduction New Features in Version 1.10 The following list contains most of the important changes, additions and enhancements added since version 1.0: Support for SQZ compressed archive format has been added. The Files Manager interface was enhanced; InspectA now has a "desktop" interface that provides multiple file manager windows open on multiple directories at once, and the ability to iconise windows for later access. The ability to save the current windows setup was added to automatically restore a particular desktop layout with auto- rescaling to current screen size. A pull-down menu system has been added for easy access of both pre-defined and user- defined commands. The format of the list presented in file windows can now be defined and set for each window. Multiple (an unlimited number of) formats may be defined and toggled using a keyboard mappable function. The interactive configuration utility - ICONFIG - was added, making changing settings much easier and simpler than maintaining and "compiling" an external text based configuration file. File manager windows may now be resized and moved interactively. Mouse support was added, greatly enhancing the ability to use the windowed desktop to its fullest. Windows may be selected, closed, iconised, zoomed, moved and resized using the mouse pointer. Lists may be scrolled, items selected and menu selections made - virtually all functions 2 InspectA Introduction available from the keyboard may be carried out using the mouse. Network/multiuser support has been enhanced by adding support for a default configuration directory as determined by the HOME environment variable. If set, this directory is used to store user specific defaults and the windows layout file. Various problems in the handling of copy and move operations of read-only files were solved. Handling of the pre-defined "view" directory has been improved. Also, files within archives with directories are now handled seemlessly. If multiple instances of a file are extracted by selecting one (this is unavoidable in some formats), all extracted files are correctly deleted. Improved default archive handling commands have been added to the default setup. When files extracted from archives are being viewed, the default directory is now set to the original directory rather than the one in which the file was extracted. The following commands were added to the Files Manager: Configuration (runs ICONFIG), Open, Close, Zoom, Resize, Move and Iconise Window, Select Directory by name, Toggle Format of file list, Command Menu and User Command selector. The ability to write marked messages (or current message) to text format from the packet viewer was added. Sorting a list of files lexically (by word length by ascii order) was added, which provides the ability to sort a list of numeric file names in a more intuitive order. InspectA 3 Introduction Sort by file description added. Fully interactive and straight forward installation/upgrade procedure added. Support for FTSCPROC product code listings instead of using a hard-coded table of known FTSC products and capabilities. Path designations in LHA files with extended headers now works correctly. All previously "registered-only" features are now available on the shareware version. However, as incentive to register, a shareware "nag" prompt has been added and will appear at random intervals. Support for command input/output redirection using the '<', '>', '>>' symbols has been added. This applies to all instances of where InspectA runs an external command. Support for HPACK archives has been updated to the 0.78 release and that the earlier format of 0.75 and earlier is incompatible, is no longer supported. Support for self-extracting archives has been integrated into the archive manager; InspectA will now check .EXE files to see if they are archive extraction envelopes. Self-extractors for all compress except HPACK are supported (HPACK does not have a self-extractor feature). Global "hot-keys" for file view and edit have been added; unlike the standard view and edit functions, these are available from anywhere in InspectA (both INSPECT and ICONFIG via SHIFT-F3 and SHIFT-F4 respectively). InspectA now provides the ability to re- pack archives, both standard and self- extracting types, into a different format 4 InspectA Introduction or the same format. Archives containing sub-directories are fully supported provided that the compression program to which archives are converted knows how to handle them. A Virus Scan capability has been added, either stand alone to scan files in the current directory and below, or used to scan files contained in one or more archives. Virus scanning can also be carried out during archive repacking. Support for PKZIP 2.0 or compatible method (ZI2) has been enhanced to provide the ability to handle, create and extract version 1.10 and 2.0 files separately. Support for DWC archive format has been added. This release features the debut of the OS/2 version of InspectA, is compatible with OS/2 versions 1.2 or greater, fully supporting HPFS and NetWare filesystems, and may be run in a Vio window or full- screen session. The OS/2 version supports OS/2 specific filesystem information, including Extended Attributes, view and sorting files by date of creation and last access. Documentation Overview Information on using InspectA may be found in two places; the InspectA User's Guide (part of which you are now reading) and the InspectA On-line Help facility, accessible at almost any time when running InspectA using the F1 key. The User's Guide provides instructions on installing and using InspectA, advice on how to take best advantage of the powerful features offered, and reference information on specific topics in the appendixes. The On-line Help function InspectA 5 Introduction provides instant access to information about the current prompt, screen or process while using InspectA. For most uses, you will only need to read the printed or on-disk documentation if you wish to take full advantage of the more advanced facilities offered by InspectA. The on-line help facility will provide all the necessary information to assist in using all the built- in facilities of the program itself, and the program has been constructed with a user interface intended to be as intuitive as possible. The User's Guide itself is divided into several sections: Introduction & Installation; the first two chapters provide an overview of InspectA and contain instructions on installation. Using InspectA; this is a "quick start" guide, and gets the program working for you quickly, so that you can make use of it and explore all it has to offer immediately. Configuration; this chapter covers all aspects of configuration according to your requirements and taste. Functions; this section provides more detailed descriptions of the major functions available in InspectA, including the File Manager, Archive Viewer, Packet & Message Viewers and the pull-down menu system. Appendices; these provide reference material for functions and facilities available throughout various parts of InspectA and covers some aspects of operation and configuration not covered elsewhere. 6 InspectA Introduction Document Conventions This document uses the following typographic conventions: Examples Description README.TXT Uppercase (capital) letters indicate file names. ICONFIGP, ICONFIG Bold uppercase letters indicate MSDOS or OS/2 commands. text Words in italic indicate place holders for information that you must supply, for example, program arguments or an entry in a field or at a prompt. [[ option ]] Items inside double square brackets are optional. [ choice1 | choice2 ] Braces and a vertical bar indicate a choice between two or more items. You must choose one of the items unless all the items are also enclosed in double square brackets indicating that it is optional. Example text This font is used for program examples, user input, program output, information in text files and error messages within the text. Repeating ... Three ellipses following an item indicate that more items having the same form may be entered. F1, ALT-A Small capital letters indicate the names of keys and key sequences, such as ENTER and CTRL-C. A hyphen between a shift key (SHIFT, CTRL or ALT) and a letter indicates that the key must be held down while the InspectA 7 Introduction corresponding letter key is pressed. The cursor-movement keys on the numeric keypad are called ARROW keys. Individual ARROW keys are referred to by the direction of the arrow on the top of the key (ie. LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN) or the name on top of the key ( PGUP, PGDN, END and HOME). 8 InspectA Installing InspectA Installing InspectA This chapter explains how to install InspectA. InspectA is distributed in a compressed format, and should be installed using the supplied installation batch file. Before running INSTALL, back up the distribution archive and make sure you have enough free disk space (roughly 400 kilobytes) to contain the distribution files. Floppy disk installation is not supported - you must install InspectA on a hard disk drive or network volume. Before you Begin Before installing InspectA on your hard disk, take a few minutes to make sure that your computer meets the minimum requirements and that the package is complete. System Requirements InspectA for MSDOS requires at least the following configuration: An IBM Personal Computer or 100% compatible running MSDOS version 3.3 or later At least 384K (kilobytes) of available memory at the MSDOS prompt. A hard-disk drive with 400K of free space. InspectA 9 Installing InspectA InspectA will give much improved performance on an 80286 or later processor and a fast hard disk sub-system. These are not, however, a prerequisite. InspectA is capable of using extended text modes available on many EGA, VGA, SVGA and XVGA screens. These also are not a pre- requisite for use, but will enhance use. For better performance in launching external applications and utilities, extended or expanded memory with the appropriate extended (XMS 2.0+) or expanded (LIMS 3.2 or 4.0) memory driver is highly recommended. Most memory managers for Intel 80386 systems have these facilities built-in. InspectA for OS/2 requires at least the following configuration: An IBM Personal Computer or 100% compatible running OS/2 1.2 or later. INSPECTP.EXE and ICONFIGP.EXE are 16-bit applications, compatible with the 80286. Sufficient free memory to run (around 450 kilobytes). A hard-disk drive with 400K or more of free space. InspectA is capable of using extended (132 column) text modes available on SVGA and XVGA screens. In order to use these modes, you must have the appropriate display drivers installed and functioning. Package Contents Check your InspectA package to see if everything is there. If any of the components are missing, contact the distributor from whom you purchased the package, or - if it is the unregistered shareware package - check with the source from which you obtained it. 10 InspectA Installing InspectA The only difference between the commercial version of InspectA and the registered shareware version is the packaging. The commercial version is provided on diskette (3.5" 720K or 5.25" 360K formats), and is accompanied by a bound manual with the following files on the diskette: ERRATA.TXT (may or may not be present) contains additions and errata to this document INSTALL.BAT is the install batch file (this is INSTALL.CMD in the OS/2 version). INSPECT.HLP is the combined help and key file, registered to you or your company's name INSPECTA.110 is a compressed archive containing the software itself, which includes INSPECT.EXE (INSPECTP.EXE in the OS/2 release) the file manager and ICONFIG.EXE (ICONFIGP.EXE) the interactive configuration utility. Other files containing default or suggested InspectA settings are also included. One or more of these may be used by the INSTALL script to set up a default configuration. The shareware version includes an additional file, INSPECT.MAN, inside the compressed archive. This is the on-disk manual. In addition, these instructions are added to README.TXT. Running INSTALL If you are upgrading from a previous version, you should first backup and delete your old INSPECT.INI. To install, copy the contents of the InspectA distribution disk or archive into a directory on your hard disk. If you have the shareware version, unpack the distribution archive to a temporary directory of your choice, including InspectA 11 Installing InspectA the inner INSPECTA.110 archive which is in ZIP format, using the command: PKUNZIP INSPECTA.110. (MS-DOS) unzip INSPECTA.110 (OS/2) On MS-DOS, please ensure that you are using a version of PKZIP greater than 1.10. On OS/2, you will need zip 1.9 or greater. Make the temporary directory the default. Type "INSTALL -H" and press ENTER to display the options available to you when installing. After running INSTALL, a default configuration is created, and InspectA is run automatically to allow you to copy the files to a convenient place on your hard drive using F5 (COPY). All settings may be later customised using the ICONFIG utility. Running INSPECT This section is a "quick start" in getting INSPECT up and running on your system. Information on how to configure it to your requirements and taste can be found in the following section entitled Configuration. How To Start After INSTALL has been run, you will find the files INSPECT(P).EXE, INSPECT.HLP, ICONFIG(P).EXE and INSPECT(P).INI in the directory used when installing. Note that the OS/2 executable and configuration file names have the letter 'P' (for "Protected Mode") added. This avoids any confusion as to which version is being run, and allows the two versions to be present and run on the same machine without requiring any special considerations. This manual refers to the MSDOS names, and if you have installed the OS/2 version, you should translate the names as follows: 12 InspectA Installing InspectA INSPECT.EXE to inspectP.exe ICONFIG.EXE to iconfigP.exe INSPECT.INI to inspectp.ini Only the window state file, INSPECT.SAV, may be shared by both versions. The configuration file used by both versions is compatible (they may read each other's config file if renamed) - however, each contains information specific to the operating system under which it was created. The directory in which the executables are placed must be named in the search path used by the operating system. You may also find it helpful to add the HOME environment variable to your DOS AUTOEXEC.BAT or OS/2 CONFIG.SYS, because this will force InspectA to use the directory to which it points for INSPECT.INI (the configuration file) and INSPECT.SAV (the window state save file). At this point, you should be able to type INSPECT to run INSPECT. If not, check to make sure that INSPECT.INI exists, either in the current directory or the directory named by the HOME environment variable (if set), or the directory containing INSPECT.EXE. If it doesn't exist, run ICONFIG to create it. Note that all three files - ICONFIG.EXE (iconfigP.exe) INSPECT.EXE (inspectP.exe) and INSPECT.HLP - must reside in the same directory. On startup, the screen first presented is InspectA's File Manager. Help! When using InspectA, the following lists some important things to remember: / If you get "lost" in the File Manager, the forward slash key invokes the pull-down menus, where all InspectA functions are readily accessible. (Pressing and releasing InspectA 13 Installing InspectA the Alt key - unless this is disabled in ICONFIG - will have a similar effect. If your mouse is active, clicking anywhere on the top line of the screen will also activate the menus.) ESC This key always means "exit". In some cases, this may also abort an operation. Think of it as "ESCaping from" what you are currently doing. F1 If you are unsure of what to do next, or what information the program is requesting from you, the F1 key may provide all the answers you may seek. Pressing it once invokes the on-line help system, which pops up a window with information relating to what you are currently doing. If you need to find more information, you can use the PGDN and PGUP keys to read related information, or press F1 again to view the help index. Using the Mouse InspectA is able to take advantage of a MicroSoft compatible mouse, if one is installed. If you wish to use the mouse, you must make sure that the mouse driver is loaded prior to running INSPECT. With the obvious exception of typing data into entry fields, almost all functions in InspectA can be performed using the mouse either directly using screen controls, or via the pulldown menu system. In lists, you can move the highlight bar by either clicking on the entry you wish to highlight, or using the SCROLL BAR to randomly access and scan entries in the list. In forms, you can select the field to enter by clicking anywhere on the field, and you can adjust the cursor position within a field by clicking on the point to place the cursor. Menus work in a 14 InspectA Installing InspectA manner similar to lists; move the selector to an item on the menu by clicking the left button once with the mouse cursor on it, and clicking it again when the selector has moved to select the item. Viewing & Editing This version of InspectA uses external programs to view and edit files, and neither is supplied with InspectA itself. You should either obtain suitable programs for these purposes, or use the editor and viewing program that you currently use. As a text editor, we can highly recommend SemWare's QEDIT, which can be found on any quality BBS. For viewing files, we recommend Vernon D. Buerg's LIST. Both of these programs are used by default, if available. OS/2 versions are available for purchase, but neither supports HPFS, and neither is available as shareware. A future version of InspectA will feature its own internal editor and file viewer. Basic Functions INSPECT is a list-based viewer which provides a "point and shoot" interface to objects being viewed. The File Manager views the file system, and allows selection of one or more files from a list which displays the contents of the current directory. InspectA recognises certain types of files; including compressed archives (ARC, ZIP, LZH, ZOO, ARJ etc.), FidoNet mail packets and messages, and files which may be executed. You can navigate through directories by placing the highlight bar on a directory name (including ".." which moves to the parent directory of the current one) and pressing ENTER, or by placing the mouse cursor over it and clicking once with the left mouse button. Alternatively, you can navigate through many directories very easily InspectA 15 Installing InspectA using the directory tree, by pressing F9. Selecting other types of files will, by default, view the file, but this behaviour can be modified by overriding this using ICONFIG. The Archive Manager presents a list of its members, which can also be selected and actions performed on them in the same way. All other built-in managers offer the same types of facility, other options available dependant on what type of file is being viewed. The cursor movement keys can be used to move around the list of files; UP moves up one file, DOWN moves down, PGUP moves up one window (or to the top of the list, if the first screen of files is currently displayed), PGDN moves down one window, HOME moves to the top of the list, and END moves to the bottom. If you are using the mouse, you can move the highlight bar to any item on the screen by moving the highlight cursor to it and clicking once with the left mouse button (clicking an item which is already highlighted selects it for viewing). To move beyond the current list of files, you need to use the SCROLL BAR which is at the right hand side of the list. At the top and bottom of the SCROLL BAR are icons which move the cursor up and down one line at a time, and will cause the list to scroll when the beginning or end of the list is reached. Clicking anywhere on the SCROLL BAR between these two icons will cause the list to reposition itself in the list according to the position of the mouse cursor on the SCROLL BAR. The position marker on the bar indicates the currently highlighted item's position in the list. As a rule, clicking above the marker moves up, and below moves down. 16 InspectA Installing InspectA Selecting Items Selection of multiple items in any list provides the facility to carry out a particular action on all of them. The current item is highlighted by pressing the SPACE key; or - to make marking of many items easier - you can move and mark at the same time, by holding down either SHIFT key, and use any of the cursor movement keys (UP,. DOWN, PGUP, PGDN, END or HOME). These toggle the mark on all items starting and including the current one up to the item to which the highlight bar is moved. The F2 key may be used to mark and un-mark all items in the list (or remark all items which were marked prior the last operation). Marking items with the mouse is also done by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking on the item to mark with the mouse cursor. The global mark/remark function is executed by holding down the ALT key and clicking the left mouse button anywhere on the list. Multiple Windows One of InspectA's most powerful features is the ability to log more than one directory and display them at once in multiple overlapping windows. While the only real limitation on the number of windows that can be open at any particular time is available memory, it may be too confusing and quite clumsy to have too many windows open at the same time on the desktop. If you enjoy this feature, learn to use the Iconise function to temporarily "put away" windows until you need them. To Open a window, press SHIFT-INS. Select the directory you wish to view in the new window by typing the name in, or by using any of the other interactive search facilities provided by the directory selection prompt. Switch between windows by using the TAB key. InspectA 17 Installing InspectA Close the current window by pressing SHIFT- DEL. This does not work on the last non- iconised window (at least one window must be open at all times). Iconise the current window by using SHIFT- NUMPAD-5 (this is the centre key marked "5" on the numeric keypad). As with Close, you cannot iconise the only open window. CTRL-ENTER "zooms" or "un-zooms" a window. Except with Open Window., these functions also have mouse control equivalents; click on the top left corner of a window to close, top right to maximise (zoom), left of the top right corner to iconise. Iconised windows can be restored by using the SHIFT-TAB key (list windows) and selecting from the list presented. Using a mouse, you can also click with the left button on the icon. Windows can also be resized using either the keyboard or mouse. Using the keyboard, press the GREY-* key and use the ARROW keys to adjust. If using the mouse, you can move a window by clicking and holding down the left mouse button when the cursor is on any point on the title bar at the top of the window. Resize by holding down the same button with the mouse cursor on the bottom right hand corner of the window. It is possible to save your window layout using ALT-F9. This saves both open and iconised windows, so it may be convenient for saving a list of directories that you use often, and selecting the icons needed at the start of each session. InspectA's -u switch also allows you to explicitly set the name of the path and file used to save and recall window information, so it may be convenient in some cases to set up windows for various uses and save them as profiles in separate files. 18 InspectA Configuration Configuration This section describes the use of InspectA's configuration utility, ICONFIG. This program may be executed either directly from the command prompt, from InspectA itself, by selection from the File pull-down menu, or directly by using ALT-C. NOTE: Because all keys available from the File Manager may be redefined, any keyboard bindings given are those which are bound by default. The user should remember this when reading this documentation. When run, ICONFIG displays the full path to the configuration (.INI) file being editing on the top line, and below, the configuration menu horizontally along the upper part of the screen. Each of the main items links to either a pull-down menu with sub-options, or a picklist containing items that may be added, deleted or modified. For ease of reference, most of the headings in this chapter reflect the menu structure used in the program itself. The LEFT, RIGHT, UP and DOWN keys may be used to navigate the menu system, or the mouse can be used to select an item either from the main configuration menu or any of the items on the pull-down menu. Unless overridden by a command line option (see below), ICONFIG uses the same method to search for its configuration file as is used by InspectA itself. It first looks in the InspectA 19 Configuration directory nominated by the HOME environment variable, and if none is found there, the current directory and then the directory where ICONFIG.EXE resides in that order. However, if the HOME environment variable is set, and no configuration file is found there but is obtained elsewhere, ICONFIG will still write it out to the HOME directory. This provides the facility to place a default .INI file in the same directory as ICONFIG.EXE on a network, and have users run ICONFIG to create their own, modelled after the network default. Command Line ICONFIG accepts the same set of command parameters as INSPECT itself. Like InspectA, it also reads the INSPECT environment variable before examining the actual command line. Command switches used by ICONFIG are: Switch Description -c dir Nominate the directory where INSPECT.INI should be read from and saved. If this directory does not contain INSPECT.INI on startup, the current and executable directory are searched, and if found, will be read from there. However, on saving changes to disk, ICONFIG will save to the new configuration file to this directory. -smethod Selects the method used for program image swapping. This overrides the method configured in the .INI file. Within ICONFIG, this only affects the Shell function ( ALT-Z from any menu, list or prompt). 20 InspectA Configuration Valid methods are: X swap to XMS E for swap to EMS D for swap to disk N suppress swapping. -voptions Sets default video options. m select monochrome palette c select colour palette n suppress 'snow' on CGA (MSDOS only) d disable CGA 'snow' suppression (MSDOS only) b allow blinking background (not intense) h allow intense background (not blinking) x use current background intense or blinking state s do not restore mode (see v, 2, 4 & 5 options) z forces mode restore (overrides 's') 2 force 25 line mode on EGA & VGA/SVGA/XVGA 4 or 5 force 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA) line mode vmode set a specific mode number (MSDOS) vRxC set display size, where R=rows, C=columns. If missing, columns is assumed to be 80 (OS/2) InspectA 21 Configuration All other options available in InspectA are simply ignored. The following two switches are specific to ICONFIG. -i file Import configuration from text file -x file Export configuration to text file. These correspond to the Import and Export items on the Text menu and are provided as command line options to allow for non- interactive use. All items which can be configured in ICONFIG can also be manipulated by exporting an existing configuration, editing the resulting text file, and importing the modified file. General This section covers most of the general items that may be set according to preference. Options Selecting this item displays a form on which general operational options can be set: Option Description Kbd Delay If you are using an AT or later model computer (286, 386, 486 etc), then the two Kbd fields may be used to set the keyboard typomatic response speeds. Earlier models of computer do not have this capability and any settings here will have no effect. Delay is the amount of time from when a key is pressed to when it starts automatically repeating while held down. A shorter delay increases the sensitivity of key 22 InspectA Configuration repeat. Options range from 250ms through 1000ms (1/4 second - 1 second). Kbd Speed Speed is the rate at which keyboard repeat generates characters. If either of the Kbd fields is set to Auto (the default), repeat key settings will not be changed by InspectA. Because there is no way to determine and save the original typomatic settings are at startup, InspectA will not attempt to reset the typomatic rate on exit or Shell. View Path This is used as a temporary holding area for files extracted for viewing from compressed archives. Only the drive letter needs to be valid in the given path, as the view path itself will be created and deleted as required. If the path already exists when needed, it will not be deleted. Dir Index If enabled, this switch causes the disk directory index to be written to disk and automatically updated whenever a directory is deleted, added or renamed within InspectA. See Directory Index in the Appendices for details. Enabling this option is equivalent to specifying -m on INSPECT's command line. Irrespective of this setting, or the -m command line switch, InspectA will still use a directory index if one exists for the drive being read. Index File This field specifies the name of the file used as the directory index. The default name is InspectA 23 Configuration DISKMAP.IND. If you run both the MSDOS and OS/2 versions on the same machine, and the filesystem being used supports long nams (HPFS or NetWare), it is better to use a different set of index files for use in each mode. Index Path This specifies a subdirectory name in which the directory files are stored. If left blank, the root (top level) directory is used. If no drive letter is given, then the subdirectory on the drive being read is used - it is created if necessary. If a drive letter is specified, then all directory index files are stored in the named directory on the nominated drive, with the first letter of the file being substituted for the drive letter. This is useful for storing and updating directory index files on read-only network drives or CD- ROM. Net Path Only If this switch is enabled, InspectA will only use the given Index Path for network and CD-ROM drives. Local logical drive indices are stored in the index file name nominated in the root directory of the drive. Archiver This selects the archive type used by default when adding to or creating archives. Filedesc These fields determine how file descriptions are stored on disk in description files. The Fill entry determines which column the description starts in. A value of 0 causes only one space to be inserted between the filename and description irrespective of the filename length. You can force upper- or lower- case for the 24 InspectA Configuration filename by selection in the Case field. If Default is selected, InspectA uses uppercase under MSDOS and under OS/2 uses the filename as it appears on disk. Filename These fields determine the appearance of filenames in the File Manager display. Cols determines the maximum width of filenames, and Case forces upper-, lower- or the default case (uppercase under MSDOS, and according to the filesystem under OS/2). Desc Cols This determines the length of the description item in the displayed files list. If set to zero, the description is considered to be of unlimited length. Dirname Case Allows upper- or lower- case to be forced for directory names as displayed in the files list. Hide Menus By default, InspectA displays a menu bar on the top line of the screen. This menu can be selected using the Alt key (press and release) or the forward slash key. This menu can be hidden until selected by enabling this option. Title Justify This determines placement of the directory title on windows. Title Fill The entry in this field is used as a fill character on the title bar. This is an ASCII code, between 0 and 255; the default of 0 causes spaces to be used. Likely candidates are 176, 177, 178 and 219. No 'Hot' Alt This disables the default action of the ALT key. In windowed environments (OS/2 PM or WPS, DESQview, Windows) the default InspectA 25 Configuration action on pressing and releasing the ALT key may cause problems. Enable Stats InspectA may optionally display disk statistics on a background window when the File Manager is active. There is a performance penality in doing so, however, and on slower systems or systems running multitasking software, the refresh required to keep this display up to date may cause InspectA to appear to run slowly. This is particularly noticable when accessing a remote (network) drive. Even if disabled, disk statistics can still be toggled on and off by using ALT-F5, or viewed with CTRL- BACKSPACE. Programs These fields determine the external edit and view programs used by INSPECT. If the Edit, View and Scan program fields are left blank, InspectA uses Q as editor (this is the usual name used by SemWare's QEDIT program), LIST (by Vernon D. Buerg) as file viewer and SCAN /NOMEM /SUB (by McAfees & Assoc) as the virus scan program. DOS version only: The Edit mem, View mem and Scan mem fields determine how memory is managed when the editor, view and scan programs are invoked. These are used to specify the maximum amount of memory - in kilobytes - used by each program. These optimise program image swapping, so that InspectA will only swap when necessary to make sure sufficient memory will be free. Two special values may also be used; '0' causes InspectA to unconditionally swap when program image swapping has been enabled, and '-1' will prevent InspectA from swapping irrespective of that setting. 26 InspectA Configuration Note that swapping must be enabled for this to work correctly (see next section). Swapping This item applies only the the MSDOS version. The items under this heading control InspectA's program image swapping capability. Using this technique, InspectA removes itself almost completely from memory when running external programs, consuming less than 2K of memory, and providing as much memory as possible to the program being run. The Swap Path field should specify where the program image file is to be placed when attempting to swap to disk. This will be used whenever swap to disk is selected, or as a fall-back if insufficient XMS or EMS memory is available to contain the entire program image. This should be a valid path, and be guaranteed to have at least 350K free at all times, otherwise swapping will fail preventing execution of external programs with swapping. InspectA will never execute an external program unless sufficient memory is available, and if swapping is enabled, that also means that sufficient space should be available for program image swapping. If swap to disk is enabled by default, or if you have less than one megabyte of EMS or XMS free, then for performance reasons, the path specified would be best placed on a fast disk drive or RAM disk (virtual disk drive created in memory). If you have a choice of using a RAM disk or allocating that memory to XMS, it is usually much better used as XMS. Swap Type allows you to select where the program image is to be stored. This is one of: XMS Extended memory; requires an XMS 2.0+ driver InspectA 27 Configuration EMS Expanded memory; requires a LIMS 3.2 or 4.0 compatible EMS driver Disk Uses a disk file to store the program image This is the slowest of the three swapping methods None Selecting this (the default) disables program image swapping completely Selecting XMS or EMS will cause disk swapping to be used as a fall-back. Because of this, you should ensure that the path nominated in the Swap Path field is valid. Video These options relate to video handling. On some hardware, these may cause strange side- effects, so you should be careful in specifying or overriding any of the standards. While highly unlikely, it is remotely possible that you can cause damage to your video hardware by selecting the wrong options. Be sure to consult the manuals for your video card and monitor before experimenting. Entry Description Video Mode Selects the default video mode to use: Auto Use the video mode and screen size current when InspectA is started. This causes InspectA not to change screen mode, but to adapt to the existing one (this is the default). 25 Force 25 line mode. If InspectA is started when in 43/50 line mode, it sets 25 line mode before. 43/50 Sets 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA) line mode if not already in those modes on startup 28 InspectA Configuration Custom This provides the ability to switch Super-VGA and other video cards with special mode support into "extended" mode as InspectA is invoked, offering the ability to run the program in 132 column mode or make use of some other unusual text mode. Custom Mode [MSDOS] When Custom is selected in the video mode field, this is the mode number (in decimal) used. Be sure to consult the documentation for you video card before using this option. As an indication, SVGA cards based on the ET-4000 chip use modes 52, 54 and 56 for various types of 132 column mode, and those based on the Trident 8900 series chip use modes 82, 84 and 86. Custom Rows / Cols [OS/2] This option allows you to select the number of rows and columns to use on startup. The entries supplied here must be valid for your display adaptor - for full screen use, 80 or 132 columns may be used with SVGA and XVGA hardware, and the number of colums according to what is supported by the display adaptor (this depends on the availability of text display fonts). In PM or WPS windows on the desktop, only 80 columns may be used (but rows may be set to any number 1 to 255. Note that in order to use 132 columns, you must have installed the appropriate display drivers and used the SVGA utility to set up SVGADATA.PMI in your OS/2 directory. Set Mode This option is the same as specifying -vs on the command line. InspectA 29 Configuration It causes any mode changes made as a result of setting the Video and Custom Mode fields to become 'permanent', so that InspectA will leave the screen in the selected mode on exist, and when running external programs. Background This field selects background intensity or blinking. Dir Window Determines the default size of the directory window (this can be changed in InspectA using CTRL- ENTER. Screenblank This is the number of minutes of inactivity before InspectA will blank the screen. The default entry of zero disables this feature. Rescan Time On multituser or multitasking systems, the disk may be changed by other tasks. To have InspectA periodically rescan the current directory Frame (A) Sets the frame type for the active (current) window in the Files Manager. Frame (B) Sets the frame type for all inactive (non-current) window in the Files Manager. Mouse This set of fields controls InspectA's use of a MicroSoft or compatible mouse. For the mouse to become active and available for use, InspectA requires that a mouse driver also be present; these are typically supplied with the mouse itself, and you should ensure that this is loaded in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, or at some point when you computer starts and before running InspectA. 30 InspectA Configuration Under OS/2, you should have the appropriate pointer device drivers loaded in CONFIG.SYS. Fields on the mouse controls window are: Entry Description Use Mouse This is an enable/disable switch for the mouse. To enable, select Yes, to disable, select No. Mouse Pointer This field provides the ability to select the type of mouse pointer that InspectA uses. The Standard mouse pointer is a simple block, with the background and foreground colours reversed from the surrounding text. Other pointers available are Diamond (white diamond) and Triangle (yellow triangle). Chose according to preference. Mouse Speed This sets the mouse sensitivity; Auto leaves the current sensitivity unchanged (this is usually the mouse driver default), and Slow through V.Fast set the movement ratio (the ratio between distance that the mouse physically moves and the distance the pointer moves on the screen). Use the speed that you feel most comfortable with. SVGA Mouse Under MSDOS, most versions of the MicroSoft mouse driver (MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS) do not correctly support 132 column mode. Logitech mouse drivers, which do work with MicroSoft compatible mouse devices, do seem to support 132 column mode correctly. InspectA 31 Configuration Colours This selection provides the facility to re- define InspectA's colour scheme. Internally, InspectA contains two attribute "palettes". The first is used if the monitor being used supports colour, and the second is used if it supports only monochrome or black and white. Since it is possible to use a graphics adaptor that supports colour to display on a monochrome or at least two colour only display, both INSPECT and ICONFIG support -vm (monochrome) and -vc (colour) switches to force the program to use either one of the two palettes. ICONFIG provides the ability to edit both attribute palettes, irrespective of the type of display being used. On selecting the Colours option from the General menu, you are requested to select either the Colour or Black & White palette. After the palette has been selected, the colour configuration section is displayed. On the left-hand side of the screen, a chart shows a map of all possible attributes. To its right is a list of all the various attributes by description, with the colour corresponding to the currently selected attribute highlighted on the chart. Beneath both of these is a figure with a sample screen, so you can more readily see the results of your selection. To change the colour mapped to the highlighted function, press ENTER. You may then use the ARROW keys to move around the chart, and examine the sample at the bottom of the chart and watch the effect of any changes on the example screen. Pressing SPACE causes the background attribute to be toggled; either non-blinking to blinking and vice versa, or intense to dull and vice versa, according to the setting of "Intense background" in the Video section. 32 InspectA Configuration When you are happy with your choice, press ENTER to keep it, or ESC to abort selection and restore the previously used colour. You can use the ARROW keys to move up and down the list, to select and change any of the attributes used by INSPECT and ICONFIG. Once you are happy with your selection, press ESC or the right mouse button to return to the previous screen. At this point, you may either confirm that you wish to keep the current colour selection, or abandon any changes you have made. If you elect to keep your changes, they are not (yet) written to disk, but ICONFIG itself will be set to use the new colour selection. These are written to disk after the prompt on existing InspectA. After setting up the colour setup to your requirements, press ESC to exit, and confirm that you wish to use the changes made. If you select Yes and the palette you changed was the current one in use, ICONFIG will redisplay in the new palette. Because it is possible to configure colours that can result in a completely unreadable display, ICONFIG provides the facility to quickly reset all colours back to their original defaults. After selecting General - Colours and deciding which palate to modify, press F9 to reset. After confirmation, the attribute settings are reset and ICONFIG redisplayed using the original palette. Filelist This section provides the option of customising the format of directory lists presented by the File Manager. By default, InspectA uses three pre-defined formats, but you can delete these, add your own or modify them according to your needs. At least one list format must be defined; if not, InspectA will automatically use the three pre-defined formats. InspectA 33 Configuration Within INSPECT, the format of the current list window may be cycled using the ALT-F8 key. The format used in each window is also saved and restored with the window layout; you can save the current layout at any time by pressing ALT-F9. Selecting FileList from the General menu displays a list of defined formats. To Add a new format, press INS. To Delete an existing format, highlight the entry and press DEL. To Modify a format, highlight it, moving the cursor line with the ARROW keys or the mouse to select the entry, and press F2, ENTER or left mouse button. When adding or modifying formats, enter information into the form as follows: Field Descriptions Format Name Select a nominal name to use for this format. This should be descriptive of the type of format being entered. Col Scale Row Scale These fields determine the size of new windows opened in the Files Manager. Internally, window scaling is calculated on a 256 row by 256 column plane, but the actual size used is recalculated according to the size of the screen. Therefore, a scale factor of 128 rows by 128 columns will produce a window half the size of the screen width by half the size of the screen height. Vary these according to preference. Fields You can now select up to 10 fields to display horizontally across the list. Once you have selected all the fields you wish to place on the 34 InspectA Configuration list, fill all the remaining fields with "None". Available field types are: Marker This is the highlighting 'mark', used to indicate that a file has been selected. When selected, the highlighter will display from this field to the right of the list. File Name The name of the file or directory. Size Size of the file. Wr Date Date that the file was last written to. Wr Time HH:MM Time that the file was last written to. Wr Time HH:MM:SS Time that the file was last written to. Attributes These show the file's attributes. Where an attribute is not set, the corresponding letter (see below) is replaced by a dot. When set, each attribute shows a letter to indicate its meaning: s System. Files with this attribute set are normally 'special' in some way and are regarded as being essential to operation of the system; ie. IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS, which are the MSDOS operating system files loaded when the system is started. System files are automatically hidden from view and will not normally display when a DIR command is entered at the prompt. Unless overridden using InspectA's -a InspectA 35 Configuration command line switch, you will not see these files from InspectA either. h Hidden. Files with the hidden attribute are not normally displayed when an DIR command is executed. r Read-Only. The read-only attribute attempts to prevent (or at least warn against) modification or deletion of a file. Attempts to move or copy a read-only file with InspectA will product warnings, but provided that the file can be accessed by the user (ie. access is not prevented by means of a network's permission scheme), this can be overridden after confirmation. Read-only files are usually visible. a Archive. This attribute provides a simple system for determining when files have been updated or added since a previous backup. The archive attribute is automatically set by the operating system whenever a file is copied, created or written to - it will normally only be reset by a backup program. S Shareable. This attribute is not supported directly by MSDOS, but is used on Novell Networks to indicate that the file can be accessed from multiple workstations at once. The file is therefore "shareable". Most modern software written for DOS versions greater than 3.1 which is network aware does 36 InspectA Configuration not require this attribute to be set in order to allow multiple workstations to access files - the attribute is intended for use only where it can be determined that a file or group of files can be safely accessed by software which is not network aware. This attribute is not supported (nor needed) by the OS/2 version Type This is the file type. This is determined by InspectA by reading the contents of the file itself, except in the case of directories, where it is already known by virtue of the directory attribute. In most cases, InspectA will need to examine the file before it can display the correct type - which is exactly what the Scan Files function is intended to do. If a file has not yet been accessed, or if the type cannot be determined, InspectA will display a question mark " ? " in this field. Description If description files are used (see the next option, Lists), and a description is found for any particular file, InspectA displays that description in this field. You can also update (or create) the description list by using the INS key when the cursor is highlighting the file and description you wish to update. If a description is too long to fit on the screen, it is truncated at the right edge of the list. InspectA 37 Configuration The remaining fields are available only under OS/2: Cr Date Date that the file was created. Cr Time HH:MM Time that the file was created. Cr Time HH:MM:SS Time that the file was created. Acc Date Date that the file was accessed. Acc Time HH:MM Time that the file was accessed. Acc Time HH:MM:SS Time that the file was accessed. ExtAttr Size This is the size of the EA (extended attributes) for the file. A value of -1 is displayed where this cannot be determined (usually as a result of the file being open by another process). Lists InspectA can be configured to support comments for any file or directory, and store these in a separate file. This option provides a way of determining how file descriptions are stored on disk. Leaving this list of "description files" empty causes InspectA to not support file descriptions at all. Entering multiple description file names provides more flexibility in allowing InspectA to use any one of a particular set of files. Each file is tried in turn until a match is found. Use of description files supports this same facility in 4DOS , which stores file comments 38 InspectA Configuration in a file by the name of "DESCRIPT.ION". the 4DOS DIR command displays these descriptions. Similarly, BBS operators use similar files ("FILES.BBS" or "@FILES") to store this information. Note that this release of InspectA does not support comment fields in OS/2 extended attributes. This is planned for a future release. The description file simply contains each file name described, followed by one or more spaces or tabs, and a comment. The comment for any individual file must be on a single line, and can be up to 1024 bytes long (InspectA will internally truncate anything greater than this). To Add a new description file name, press INS and enter the name into the form supplied. Press ENTER or F10 to save. To Modify a name, press ENTER or F2 after highlighting the entry you wish to edit in the list. To Delete, use the DEL key. Because the order of files in this list determines the priority in which the names will be used (for example, when creating a description file in a directory which did not previously contain one, InspectA will always use the first entry in this list), ICONFIG provides the ability to reorder entries easily. Simply hold down the SHIFT key and move in the same direction in which you wish move the entry. As the cursor moves, so the currently highlighted entry will move with it. This works with all the cursor-movement keys. Archive The Archive section provides the interface between InspectA and the archive creation/management programs themselves. While InspectA has some intrinsic knowledge InspectA 39 Configuration about the various archive formats in order to read their "directory", it does not implement any compression or decompression routines itself, but instead uses external programs to carry out these tasks. At least one command template must be defined for each operation and archive type in order for that operation to be available. The list presented when the Archive option is selected from the Main Menu shows all the defined archive operation; each member of the list represents a "command template", which consists of a program name and program command line arguments, including macros which are used to insert the archive and member file names when the program is run. To Add an entry to this table, press INS. To Delete, press DEL. To Modify or view details, press ENTER or F2 or by clicking the left mouse button on a highlighted entry. This list also provides a Clone function, where the current entry can be copied and the new entry edited. This is activated by using SHIFT-INSERT. Following is the list of fields presented during add or modify: Field Description Arcv Type Select the archive type from the list presented. Operation One of the following operation types must be selected: Extract Extract one or more files from an archive. Delete Remove files from an archive 40 InspectA Configuration Add Add files to an archive (including creating a new archive from a list of files) Test Test archive and member file integrity Extract-recursive This option use used for archive repacking, and provides teh command to extract files in their original directories (this ability is optional with the standard Extract operation). Add-recursive This is for commands which add files from the current directory and all subdirectories (if any). This is also only used by the archive re-pack option. If an archiver does not support paths (such as ARC v5.0), you must nevertheless define at least an extract-recursive command in order to repack archives of this type. Failing to provide an add-recursive command in such cases is wise, since it prevents possible loss of files when converting from an archive containing directories to one which does not. Extension This is the usual file extension assumed by the archive program for its archives. This is used to determine in an intelligent way the type of archive to create on entry of a new archive name, and also nominates the extension to use when repacking from one archive type to another. Command This is the command template. Nothing is added to this command automatically, so if you need information to be placed onto the InspectA 41 Configuration command line, you must use macros, which are substituted at runtime by the file names as required. See the following section for a complete description of macros available. Wildcard As an optimisation, InspectA treats the operations involving all files in a directory (when adding Add) and all files in an archive (for Extract and Delete) as a special case; instead of listing individual files, a Wildcard is used, indicating to the archive command that all files need to be processed. Typically, this avoids the need to run the command multiple times to process a large list of files. Various archive programs handle a Wildcard operation in different ways. Many of them assume all files if this field is empty; others require "*.*" or simply "*". Consult the archive program documentation for details. Memory [MSDOS] This field specifies the amount of memory which must be free in order to run the command. This is used by INSPECT to determine whether or not to swap its program image to XMS, EMS or disk. If sufficient memory is free to run the program without swapping, then swapping is avoided resulting in faster execution. If this field is set to 0, swapping will always be enabled for the command irrespective of the amount of free memory unless swapping has been disabled globally (see Configuration, General). It is advisable to use this setting in most cases unless you are sure of the correct memory requirements. If 42 InspectA Configuration set to -1, swapping is always prevented. Macros Archiving commands are expressed as command templates. This means that before it is executed, certain character sequences - known as macros - are replaced with the archive name, member names or file names. All macro sequences commence with the character '$'. If you wish to insert the literal character '$' into a command line for any reason, you must use two of them consecutively. The list of macro strings are as follows: Macro Replaced with $a Archive name. $p Current directory. $f File name (add) or member (delete or modify). If more than one file or member is marked, the command line will be executed multiple times with each of the marked file names substituted in turn until the list of files is exhausted. If there are no members or files marked, the current file or member is used, and the command executed only once. $m Multiple file names; if no files or members are marked, the current is used, otherwise, the names of marked files or members are used. The command is still executed multiple times if the command line would otherwise exceed the MSDOS maximum of 126 characters. InspectA 43 Configuration Note that the command line limit for OS/2 is much larger. InspectA will internally limit the length given to programs to 1024 characters, however. $r A redirect list (also called a response file), which contains the names of files or members to operate on. Many archive programs accept this format - the file is simply a list of file names to process; the file name actually substituted for '$r' is the temporary file name containing the list. $$ is replaced by $. The macros '$a', '$f', '$m' and '$r' may contain fully qualified path names. In the case of archive member files, the directory name may or may not be present. It is often convenient to not use the directory portion of these names, so the following list of modifiers may be added to these macros to either omit or only use parts. The modifier is a single character and is placed after the '$' and prior the 'a', 'f', 'm' or 'r' (note that with the macro '$r', the path name of the files placed into the redirect list are affected by the modifier, not the name of the temporary file used). Modifier Description + (plus) Remove the directory portion. - (minus) Remove the extension. = (equals) Remove both the directory and extension. 44 InspectA Configuration _ (underline) Remove the directory and file portion (leaving only the file extension). . (period) Remove any trailing dots from filenames # (hash) Use forward slash as a directory separator. As an example, given that the macro $a equals: C:\ARCHIVES\MYFILE.ZIP the following macros evaluate to: $a C:\ARCHIVES\MYFILE.ZIP $+a MYFILE.ZIP $-a C:\ARCHIVES\MYFILE $=a MYFILE $_a ZIP $#a C:/ARCHIVES/MYFILE.ZIP Note that modifiers can be used in combination. Mailer This section relates to configuration of items relating to operating InspectA along side a FidoNet mailer. If you do not operate such a mailer you do not need to use these options, and doing so will be of no advantage. Mailer Type Almost all FidoNet mailers fall into two classes in terms of how they store outgoing mail, and some mailers implement minor enhancements to the basic design to implement explicit addressing to other Zones and InspectA 45 Configuration Domains. InspectA may be used with either of these mailer types by selecting the appropriate "Outbound" storage method. Field Description Outbound This describes the method which the mailer uses to store outbound mail and files. Choices are either Static or Dynamic. Static mailers use the "outbound directory" method, which uses either a single directory or a series of directories to store compressed mail archives, packets, file attach and file request lists. The remote address of outbound mail is determined directly from the file and directory names used. Dynamic mailers use a netmail file attach to determine what file and mail is to be transmitted to a remote system. Compressed netmail is generally stored in a single directory, and the name of the mail bundle may or may not reflect the name of the remote system; in any case, the remote address is determined only by the destination system in file attach message. Zones This enables zone support in determination of outbound directories, and is only used when a static mailer is in use. Points This enables point support (.PNT subdirectories) in determination of outbound directories, and is only used for static mailers. Domains This switch should be enabled if your mailer configuration stores outbound compressed mail for 46 InspectA Configuration addresses in different domains in separate directories. This applies to both static and dynamic mailers. Pointnet This field accepts the entry of a pointnet number. Older mail utilities may not have been built to understand or implement full point addressing, but instead used a pseudo network number ("point network") and had the mailer software do the address translation as required. If you have any software that does this, entering the pointnet number here will enable InspectA to do similar translation of pointnet addresses. The name of the outbound directory is determined by entering it in the Paths section and selecting "Outbound" as the directory type. Address Every FidoNet system identifies itself by at least one address, and possibly others. The first address that a system uses is regarded as special, because it determines the behaviour of many aspects of system operation. Addresses are defined in the Address entry screen; this presents a list of currently defined addresses (if any) in the format: zone:net/node.point@domain where ".point" is optional. If your network does not use zones, this also may be omitted (but must not be if you do use zones). This also applies to the "@domain" portion. From the address list, you can Add a new address by pressing INS, Delete by pressing InspectA 47 Configuration DEL, or Modify by pressing either ENTER or F2. Because the order of addresses in this list is significant, you are also able to reorder the list by holding down either SHIFT key and using the ARROW KEYS to change the relative position of the current address. Domain Equivalents The lack of specification of domain used in FidoNet software has unfortunately led to their misuse. As domain aware software - such as InspectA - comes into use, there is a high risk of ambiguity in addresses where an invalid domain is used in messages. The unfortunate side-effect of this is to cause mail not to be routed correctly, or at all. To compensate, InspectA employs two strategies. When an address is examined, only the letters up to the first period ('.') are regarded as significant, voiding any additional data as superfluous. This is only done as a temporary measure until sub-domains are implemented in FidoNet software. Note that InspectA will never change an existing address in a message or packet as a result of this - it only uses this information as a means of 'normalising' addresses for the purposes of comparison. Secondly, InspectA provides a facility to 'remap' one domain to another to make them equivalent. Whenever the first nominated character sequence is encountered as a domain, it is automatically assumed to be equivalent to the second. While this scheme is not perfect, it can be used to effectively compensate for domain misuse. Note that because the sub-domain portion of domains are removed prior scanning for equivalents, the mapping of domains with multiple parts back to their root name equivalent is unnecessary. However, the facility to do this is present because it is expected that the need to do 48 InspectA Configuration sub-domain truncation will eventually expire and the removal of this feature in InspectA and other software from Unique Computing will occur in due course. To Add a new equivalent, press INS, Delete with DEL and modify using ENTER or F2. Technical Note: The equating of domains supports recursion of up to 16 levels, although use in this manner is probably not all that useful. You should avoid using 'circular' definitions, where one string equates to itself, directly or indirectly. This not only does it make no sense, but it can lead to some unexpected results. Products InspectA's product table is simple a list of FTSC (FidoNet Technical Standards Committee) assigned product codes. These codes are used in packet headers to determine the software which was responsible for creating the packet, and is quite useful diagnostic information. Using this table, INSPECT is able to look up the name of the software by its product code, and display that information in packet view mode. You can manually add new products, delete or modify existing ones, but the most common form of entry is to simply use the latest FTSCPROD, a file issued and maintained by the FTSC. InspectA is supplied with the latest version available as at the date of release. To read in an FTSCPROD list, press F3. This requests the name of the file to read; you can enter the name directly, change directory after pressing F9, or by using F6 to list and select files. There may also be some cause to edit records in this list to give some assistance to the way in which InspectA interprets packet headers. Older mail processors used a packet InspectA 49 Configuration header format which did not offer zone, point or domain addressing capability; newer variations have since been introduced which provide these parts of the source and destination address, and those packet formats (type 2+ and type 2.2) are automatically recognised so that the interpretation of the address is correct. However, some products in use have not yet implemented the newer packet types, yet have implemented zone and point support in a manner quite similar to those newer formats. If a product is marked "3D" or "4D" capable, INSPECT will automatically assume that packets made by products so marked contain valid address 3D or 4D addressing if neither of the newer packet formats are auto-detected. To enable these flags, highlight the product code you wish to update and press ENTER or click on it once with the left mouse button. Press END to move to the last field, and use the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys to highlight the entry you wish to select. Press SPACE to toggle on or off, as required, then press ENTER or F10 once to save, or ESC to abort changes. Certain products known to support zone and/or domain addressing are automatically updated when the FTSCPROD file is read. Paths This section allows you to define a list of directories on your system. These are used as a both means of quickly accessing them via the Select Directory function (ALT-I) and giving them descriptions, and for marking particular directories for special use by the FidoNet Mailer functions. To Add a new directory to the list, press INS. To Delete, press DEL. To view or modify, press ENTER or F2. When adding or modifying 50 InspectA Configuration a path, the following fields must be completed: Field Description Type This is the type of directory being defined. Unless you are using the FidoNet mailer functions, simply select Dir, which means that no special significance is being attached to the directory. Other options available are: Netmail This has meaning when a dynamic mailer is selected; the netmail directory contains all outbound mail and file attaches. Postmail When a dynamic mailer is in use, a directory with this attribute will be the one used to place outgoing file attach and file request messages. This would normally be the same as the Netmail directory, but need not be (which may be useful, particular on a LAN based mail system). If no Postmail directory is defined, the Netmail directory is used, so there is no point in defining this if it is the same as the Netmail directory. Inbound This defines a directory as one which your mailer uses to store files sent to it from another mail system. If this attribute is set for the currently displayed directory, INSPECT will attempt to resolve the remote address for inbound ARCmail files, so recognised by their extension. If an address can be resolved from such a file, and no other description for the file exists, the resolved address is displayed as the description. InspectA 51 Configuration Outbound An Outbound directory has a few special properties; they should be dedicated to containment of files used by the mail system and not used for any other purpose. Similar to Inbound directories, the remote address attaching to a particular file can usually be resolved from the file name (always in the case of a static mailer, and only sometimes when a dynamic mailer is used). When used with a static mailer, you should only define your primary outbound path in this manner; InspectA will determine outbound other zone and other domain directories automatically by the fact that they share the same base directory and presence of the zone extension. Path This is the actual path name, and should always be a fully resolved path, including disk drive letter. Title An optional description. If given, the description will be displayed with the path name on the title bar in the File Manager. Keys One of InspectA's most powerful features is that it provides the ability to attach external programs to any desired key, giving it the ability to act as an effective front- end shell. External programs can be integrated into InspectA to enhance its functionality because the keyboard macro facility also allows you to give information to any external program on its command line; you can mark files and have them processed one at a time, multiple files at a time, or placed into a response file and even prompt 52 InspectA Configuration the user for information when required. InspectA can then become a suitable way to use all of those powerful command line driven utilities without having to repeatedly type in the command itself. In addition to being available from the keyboard, these same functions can also be accessed from the Special pulldown menu available from the File Manager. To Add a new key definition, press INS, Delete using DEL, view or Modify using ENTER or F2. SHIFT-INSERT may be used to Clone an existing entry, to use it as a template for a new definition. CTRL-S sorts the list by key name. When adding or modifying, the following fields are presented for entry: Field Description Key The description in this field shows the key being re-defined. If a new key is being added, simply press the key combination you wish to define. Note that if you wish to abort entry at this point you must press the ESC key twice - once to satisfy this prompt and move on, and secondly to abort. To avoid keys being inadvertently being redefined when editing, you are required to press F2 to edit the key. Some keyboards may generate key codes about which ICONFIG may have no knowledge (it is familiar with only the 86-89 key "PC" and "AT" style keyboards, and the 101-key "extended" keyboard). In this case, instead of a description of the key being placed in this field, the InspectA 53 Configuration characters "0x" followed by a hexadecimal code are used. For an explanation of SHIFT, ALT and CTRL key descriptions, see below. Operation The entry selected in this field determines if the key definition invokes an external program (the default) or an internal function. If the former, then the Command field may be entered; if not, then the next field will be skipped. In addition to external commands, all internal functions available from the File Manager may be reassigned, or the same function may be set to be invoked from more than one key definition according to preference. However, the most common use of this capability will be to integrate external commands. Command If the current key definition is an External Command, then this field accepts the command name to run. This is a template macro, in which character sequences starting with '$' will be replaced by file names - see the following section on Macros for details. This field accepts multiple commands separated by the caret character '^', and you may use environment variables by surrounding the variable name with percent characters '%', as in batch files. If you need to include a literal '%' in your command line, use '%%'. For example, if you had an environment variable HOME set to D:\USERS\MYDIR, you can enter the command: 54 InspectA Configuration dir %HOME% and the following command will be used: dir D:\USERS\MYDIR The maximum length of any individual command issued to MSDOS after environment variables are expanded and macros substituted is 126 characters; when the $m macro is used, the command may be executed multiple times if substituting all file names on the one command line will not fit within that limitation. The OS/2 version limits command line length for each command to 1024 characters. The maximum length of all commands before both environment variable and macro substitution is 1024 (2048 in OS/2 mode) bytes, and after substitution is 2048 (4096) bytes; exceeding either of these will result in the command being silently truncated. Description The description field is displayed in the Special pulldown menu accessed from the File Manager. Req mem [MSDOS] This specifies the minimum amount of memory that should be free for the command to execute. If this amount of memory is free without requiring program image swapping, then swapping is skipped, usually resulting in faster execution. The special value 0 forces swapping irrespective of free memory, and -1 prevents swapping always. InspectA 55 Configuration Rescan If Rescan is enabled for a command, the current directory will be reread. Change this to Yes for any command you define which affects or changes files other than the currently highlighted file, or otherwise changes the contents of the current directory. If set to No, InspectA will only rescan if the file or directory highlighted in the current File Manager window has been modified. Key Descriptions To identify keys and key combinations, ICONFIG and INSPECT both refer to keys in a specific way. Normal keys use standard identifiers; alphabetic keys use their corresponding letter, symbols use the symbols as marked on the keyboard, function keys use F1 through F12, and keypad keys use LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN, HOME, END, PGUP, PGDN, INS, DEL, GREY-, GREY+, GREY*. Other special keys are TAB, ENTER, SPACE and BACKSPACE. Any of these keys may be modified by indicating their shift-state; that is, when one or more of SHIFT, ALT or CTRL are held down while they are pressed. ALT-KEY combinations are preceded by the '@' symbol; ALT-C becomes @c. SHIFT-KEY (when either left or right shift key is held down) combinations are indicated by a preceding '#' sign. Finally, CTRL-KEYs are preceded by a circumflex '^'. Macros Macros are used as a way of substituting the current file name or a marked file into the command line, or inserting other information as entered by the user. This allows you to use the marking facility in the File Manager 56 InspectA Configuration to integrate functions not available internally. There is a great deal of similarity between the command macros and macros available in archiving commands. Macro Replaced with $a Current file or directory $p The current directory name. $f Marked (or current, if none are marked) file name. If more than one file is marked, the command line will be executed multiple times until the list of files is exhausted. with each of the marked file names substituted in turn. If there are no files marked, the currently highlighted file is used, and the command executed only once. $m Multiple file names; if no files are marked, the current file name is used, otherwise the names of marked files are used. The command may be executed multiple times if the command line would otherwise exceed the MSDOS maximum of 126 characters, or the OS/2 limit of 1024 characters. $r A redirect list (also called a response file), which contains the names of files or members to operate on. $? Prompt for input. This macro allows one or more parts of the command line to be given by the user. If a '{' follows $?, the text following and all characters up to and including the next '}' are displayed as a prompt. For example, InspectA 57 Configuration $?{What is your name?} prompts for input and displays "What is your name?" above the input field. The results are placed in the command line and substituted for the $?, with the optional prompt and brackets deleted. A default response may also be given by following the prompt text by a vertical bar. An example: echo Hello, $?{Your name?|Me!} This defines the command; InspectA first prompts with "Your name?", offering a default response of "Me!". After accepting input, the command echo Hello <response> (where "<response>" is whatever was typed) is then run. It is quite valid to use any of the other template macros or environment variables in response to the prompt. $$ Replaced with a single '$'. The macros '$a', '$f', '$m' and '$r' contain fully qualified path names. It is often convenient to not use the directory portion of these names, so the following list of modifiers may be added to these macros to either omit or only use parts. The modifier is a single character and is placed after the '$' and prior the 'a', 'f', 'm' or 'r' (note that with the macro '$r', the path name of the files placed into the redirect list are 58 InspectA Configuration affected by the modifier, not the name of the temporary file used). Modifier Description + (plus) Remove the directory portion . - (minus) Remove the extension = (equals) Remove both the directory and extension. _ (underline) Remove the directory and file portion (leaving only the file extension). . (period) Remove any trailing dots from the file name. # (hash) Use forward slash as the directory separator. ICONFIG will allow you to define the same key twice. However, only the first defined in the list will be used. To assist in locating duplicates, the facility to sort the list has been added, by pressing CTRL-S. File Associations This section provides the ability to associate a nominated external command with a file in the File Manager. By default, file selection simply views a file using either the standard viewer, or the internal archive lister or packet/message viewer, but this may be varied by defining a file specification and an external command. A file specification is a file name that can include wildcards. These are identical to the wildcards the operating system accepts on the command line, including the characters '*' InspectA 59 Configuration (replaces many characters) and '?' (replaces a single character. When a file is selected in the File Manager, INSPECT scans this list for a match, and if found will execute the appropriate command. If not found, it will fall through to the appropriate viewing function. To Add a new file specification to the list, press INS; to Delete, press DEL; to Modify, press ENTER or F2. On adding or modifying an entry, the following fields are presented: Field Description Filespec This is the file specification to associate with the command. This may be as simple as matching on extension only (eg. *.BAT), or more complex use of wildcards, such as "STR*.C" (which matches all files with names starting with "STR" with the extensions ".C"). Command This field contains the command(s) to run. You can also make use of the template macros available in key definitions as explained in the previous section, including the $? macro to prompt the user for information. Description Enter an optional description; this is only displayed in the File Specification list as presented here. Req mem [MSDOS] This field contains the minimum amount of memory that must be free for the command to execute. If this amount of memory is already free without requiring program image swapping, then swapping is skipped, usually resulting in faster execution. 60 InspectA Configuration The special value 0 forces swapping irrespective of free memory, and -1 prevents swapping. Rescan If Rescan is enabled for a command, the current directory will be reread. Change this to Yes for any command you define which affects or changes files or the contents of the current directory. If set to No, InspectA will only rescan if the file or directory highlighted in the current File Manager window has been modified. NOTE: This option does not yet fully support long filenames under OS/2. This issue will be addressed in a future version of InspectA. Text The Text option provides the facility to export or import configuration data between text and InspectA's condensed binary format. This makes it easier to make bulk changes to an existing configuration using a plain text editor's search & replace functions, and re- reading those modifications back into InspectA's internal format. A text file exported by ICONFIG consists of sections, each containing Variable=Value pairs. The general format of one section is: [section-heading] variable1=value1 variable2=value2 . . When Importing a file, ICONFIG automatically initialises all data covered by any section before reading in any new values. If a section is not included in the text file InspectA 61 Configuration being imported, then data in that section remains untouched. This means that you can extract a full configuration, but you only need to import the complete section to which you make changes. Specific details about the variable names used can be found in an appendix to this manual. The main text configuration file sections are: Section Description [general] This section contains general configuration items, such as EMS/XMS/Disk swapping setup for DOS, temporary path for archived file viewing, and the default editor/viewer programs. [video] Contains all video and mouse related options. [archive] Contains the archive command definitions and templates. [mailer] All mailer configuration items. [paths] Contains details for system paths and their descriptions. [externals] Defines all keyboard overrides, external keyboard command definitions and file specifications used to run external programs. Import The Import option requests a file name. You can use the standard File Selection Prompt (see Appendix) to navigate your disk and locate the file you wish to import. 62 InspectA Configuration Export The Export option asks for a path/file name to export to. If the file you give already exists, confirmation to overwrite it will be requested. Quit This option requests that ICONFIG terminates and returns you to the previously running process (command prompt or INSPECT). If changes to the configuration were made, ICONFIG first asks whether you wish to retain them by saving to disk. The save file name is shown on the top line of the screen and cannot be changed. InspectA 63 InspectA Functions InspectA Functions This section provides an in-depth look at each of the major functions. File Manager When first invoked without specifying an archive to examine, InspectA is in "file management" mode. It displays at least one window showing the contents of the current directory, with subdirectories shown in uppercase, and files in lower case. To display more entries, use the PGUP and PGDN keys to move up and down keys. You may also move around the list with the mouse (if active) and using the SCROLLBAR on the right of the list. Click the left mouse button on the top or bottom dark area on the SCROLLBAR to move the file selector up or down by entry. To move in larger increments, click on the SCROLLBAR above or below the current position marker. To move directly to a new position in the list, click with the left mouse button on the current position marker and drag it to a new position on the SCROLLBAR. There are some additional controls in each window which provide the ability to manipulate, move and resize. To move, click on the title bar with the left mouse button and while holding down the button, drag the window to a new position. The keyboard equivalent is the GREY-* key, using the ARROW KEYS to move. Release the mouse button (press ENTER) when moved to the desired position. 64 InspectA InspectA Functions To resize, click on the bottom right hand corner of the window and drag the corner to adjust the size. If you are using the keyboard, press GREY-* and hold down the SHIFT key to adjust the size. Release the mouse button or press ENTER to confirm. To zoom or un-zoom the window, click the left mouse button on the up-arrow icon on the upper right corner of the window. This may also be done by using CTRL-ENTER from the keyboard. Windows may be iconised when not in use. This means that the window is temporarily collapsed, taking up less room on the desktop and appearing only as a directory name in background. To iconise, click with the mouse on the down-arrow symbol to the left of the upper right corner of the window or press SHIFT-NUMPAD-5. To restore an iconised window, click the left mouse button on the symbol on the desktop to the left of the directory name. At least one window must be open at all times, so if only one window is displayed, it cannot be iconised or closed. To close a window, click on the top left corner on the window. SHIFT-DEL performs this same function from the keyboard. To open a new window, press SHIFT-INS or use the mouse to pull down the Window sub- menu and select Open. Files display The contents of any file lists is determined by a configurable list format defined in ICONFIG. By default, InspectA automatically installs three formats: Default contains a useful amount of information for most common uses, and is similar to that used by an DOS DIR command in the MSDOS InspectA 65 InspectA Functions version, or OS/2 DIR in the OS/2 version. Brief contains just the bare essentials - the file name, type and description. Full displays most information available about a file. You can modify these formats,. delete unnecessary ones and add more. The format used for the current window can be changed by using ALT-F8, or by selecting the List Format option from the Utils pulldown menu. The meaning of file information displayed is usually obvious. The only field which may require further explanation is the Attributes field. This is a series of single characters, each position represents a single attribute for a file - a dot is displayed if the attribute is not set, but a letter is displayed if it is. The following list explains the precise meaning of each attribute. System s System file attribute. This is a special attribute used to identify special operating system files. You should avoid deleting or modifying any file with this attribute set because it will almost always be required. Hidden h This attribute indicates that a file is hidden from view in the DIR command. It will also be invisible to many programs which list the contents of the directory (the same is also true of System files). These are rarely as important as files marked with the System attribute, but are usually hidden to prevent accidental deletion. Read-only r Read-only files are visible using DIR, but cannot be modified. Files 66 InspectA InspectA Functions are marked with this attribute to prevent casual or accidental modification. Archive a Whenever a file is written to or created, this attribute is automatically set. It is usually only reset by programs which a responsible for backing up files. Using this built-in facility, it is possible to do incremental backup of only changed files, avoiding having to back up a large amount of data each time. Shareable S This attribute will only ever be seen on files which exist on a Novell Network network volume (MSDOS only). It is a special attribute used for backwards compatibility with older non- network aware applications which do not use file sharing modes to access files, but are nevertheless able to share files without conflict. File descriptions are read from one of the configured 'description list' files. If any are specified (see ICONFIG, General, Lists), INSPECT will look for each name in turn after reading all files, then match any descriptions contained in the first file successfully opened against files in the current directory. In the case of paths configured with the Outbound or Inbound attributes (see ICONFIG, Paths), when in either type of directory is current, InspectA will attempt to resolve FidoNet addressing in any recognised mail- related file types. The resolved address is displayed as a file description. InspectA 67 InspectA Functions Functions Following is a list of File Manager functions. The key assignments given are the default ones, and all functions, except where marked, are also available from the pulldown menu. F1 Help Accesses the help system. F2 Global Mark Toggles the global file marker; if all files are currently marked (marked files are highlighted and a square block appears to the left of the file name), they are all unmarked, else all files are marked. This is useful when performing global operations on all files in the current directory. F3 View Views the current file in list text/binary mode. F4 Edit Invokes the editor with the currently selected file as the file to edit. F5 Copy Copy the current file, or all marked files. (see also F6, MOVE). F6 Move Moves or renames the current file, or all marked files. Depending on the destination 68 InspectA InspectA Functions path or file specified, this will either move the files with the same names to a different place on the same or another disk, or rename the files. Note that wild card renames are also supported (ie. marked files can be renamed to *.cxx, if that is specified). Individual directories may also be renamed using this option, although this may not work on some networks (in which case, InspectA will simply report an error). F7 Mkdir Creates a new directory. F8 Sort Provides the ability to change the default sorting order of files. Note that subdirectories are ALWAYS at the top of the list, irrespective of the current sorting method. F9 Tree Logs the entire drive's directory tree, and presents a graphical view of its directory structure, and allows you to "walk" through directories and get directly where you wish to go. If you have given the -m command line switch, logging and selecting drives will automatically read and update the DISKMAP.IND in the root directory of each drive visited. This speeds up operating significantly. F10 Exec Execute. The function of this key depends on the currently highlighted file. If it is an executable file (has a .EXE, .COM or .BAT extension) it will prompt for additional command line arguments and InspectA 69 InspectA Functions execute that program (this can be overridden, if necessary). Otherwise, InspectA simply prompts for a program to run and a command line to use, with the currently highlighted file name the default. The "exec" prompt has a command line history which maintains the last 64 command entered. press UP for previous, DOWN for next, PGUP for first and END for the last command entered. ALT-F9 Save Windows Saves the current desktop arrangement to disk (in INSPECT.SAV). ALT-F8 Next Format Switches to the next file list format type. ALT-F7 Video Mode This option switches video modes if the display adaptor supports it. If the configuration file defines a "custom" mode (or, in OS/2, custom rows and colums), then this may also be switched to, whether it is active or not. ALT-F6 Set Video Mode This has the same effect as ALT-F7, but also enables the "set mode" switch, so that the previously active mode is not restored when exiting or when running external programs. 70 InspectA InspectA Functions ALT-F5 Toggle File Statistics Toggles the file statistics window on or off. Whether this window is displayed or not initially depends on an option in ICONFIG. ALT-Q Quit ALT-Q is an alias of ESC, which will exit InspectA. The difference between the two is that Alt-Q leaves the current screen displayed and (under MSDOS only) the current directory as shown in the file manager, which is convenient if you wish to carry out some operation from the command line using information displayed by the file manager. ESC Exit Exits InspectA, returns to the original drive and directory from which InspectA was invoked (if it still exists) and restores the screen). SPACE Mark Toggles the file marker for the current file. CTRL-PGUP Updir Change to parent directory. CTRL-PGDN DnDir Change to the currently highlighted sub- directory. This key is ignored unless the currently highlighted file is a directory. InspectA 71 InspectA Functions CTRL-R Rescan Rereads the current directory; useful in networking and multi-tasking environments to reread the disk when it has changed. CTRL-S Scan Examines all files in the current directory to determine the file type. The type description replaces the " ? " in the file display, or remains that if the file type cannot be determined. CTRL-E Previous Command Brings up the "Exec" (F10) prompt with the previously executed command. CTRL-F Locate Scans a directory and all subdirectories for files matching a given file specification. The specification given may include any valid file spec, including wildcard characters. On completing the scan - which can be interrupted at any time by using the ESC key - a list of matching files will be presented. Selecting any matching file moves into its directory and highlights it. CTRL-D Drive Select a different drive to examine. Displays a list of available drives and the current directory on each drive; select the new drive with arrow keys and ENTER or simply type the letter as required. 72 InspectA InspectA Functions ALT-A Add/Create Archive Allows selected files to be added to an existing archive (see below for available types), or a new archive created containing those files. If adding to an existing archive, be sure to give the extension. InspectA will then be able to read it and automatically determine which archiver to use to add files to it and will not need to prompt you to select the archiver type. ALT-C Configure InspectA This option loads ICONFIG for interactive configuration. On exiting ICONFIG, INSPECT will reload the new configuration from INSPECT.INI if it has been modified.. ALT-T Test Archives Allows selected files to be tested for archive integrity. If none are highlighted, the current file is tested. Files being tested must be compressed file archives, and are simply skipped if not. If a corrupted archive is located (indicated by a non-zero error code returned by the archive program), the file is marked as "corrupt", and an asterisk will be displayed next to its file type in the files list. ALT-S Sort Alias for F8; select file sort order. ALT-I Directory Index If a directory index has been defined, it is displayed to allow fast change of directory by selection from the list. InspectA 73 InspectA Functions ALT-L List Alias for F3, View. ALT-E Edit Alias for F4, Edit. ALT-V Virus Scan The action of this key depends on whether any files are marked. If none are marked, the Virus Scan program is invoked to scan all files in the current directory and below. If specific files have been marked, these are examined and if InspectA determines that they are a valid archive, all member files are extracted into a temporary directory (see View Dir in ICONFIG) and scanned for viri. ALT-R Repack Archive Repack archives. This command may be used to convert archives to a new type, or update member files to a newer compression type. During the repacking process, you may also invoke the virus scan program to check member files for viri. This function is executed on the current file is none are marked, or all marked files. ALT-Z Shell Shells to the operating system's command interpreter. Use 'EXIT' to return to InspectA. 74 InspectA InspectA Functions DEL Delete Erase current or marked files. ENTER Action Pressing ENTER selects the current file, with the action dependant on the file's type. Note that the type of file is determined from its contents, and not from its name. DIR Directory. Selecting a directory will change to that directory and display files in that directory. MSG "FTSC-1 *.MSG" message format. Invokes "message view" mode to examine the message. PKT FTSC format packet. Invokes "packet view" mode, calling up a list of messages that it contains. EXE Executable Note that some .EXE files are actually archives with a self- extracting envelope; when InspectA detects these, it assumes the archive type rather than .EXE. TXT Text files. ?LO Outbound 'static mailer' file attach list BDL Outbound mail file, archiver not yet determined BSY Mailer/packer address 'busy' flag REQ Inbound or outbound file request list PRO Mailer call in progress list Invokes the standard list program to view the file. BWZ Incomplete file transfer marker (FidoNet mailer). InspectA 75 InspectA Functions The view mode is dependant on the type of file detected. If this cannot be determined, then the standard list program is used. AR5 SEA ARC v5.X AR6 SEA ARC v6.X AR7 SEA ARC v7.X PKA PKWare's PKPAK/PKARC series (v3.5+) PAK NoGate Consulting's PAK (v2.51) ZIP PKWare's ZIP (v1.10 or below) LZH Yoshi's LHARC (v1.13d or below) LHA Yoshi's LHA (v2.x) ZOO Dhesi's ZOO (v2.01 or below) ZOH Dhesi's ZOO with high compression (v2.10) ARJ Jung's ARJ (v2.22) HPK Gutmann's HPACK ZI2 PKWare's ZIP (2.0 or above) DWC Cooper's DWC compressor (5.01) Invokes "archive view" mode, listing the contents of the archive for further action. Note that the above are the default actions taken as a result of selecting the corresponding file types. This can be overridden by defining a file specification in ICONFIG which specifies that another external program should be run instead. CTRL-ENTER Zoom Window This toggles the list size between normal windowed mode and zoomed (full screen). SHIFT-ENTER View screen This function provides the ability to view the DOS or OS/2 screen. InspectA preserves and uses the initial screen on startup, and uses this to display output of external commands. This is useful when InspectA is used as a front-end to other 76 InspectA InspectA Functions applications, so that program output can be reviewed at any time. Unless set mode (see ICONFIG, General, Video) is enabled, InspectA will also switch back to the original video mode at startup when running external programs or viewing the DOS or OS/2 screen. If set mode is enabled, and a video mode is selected which results in the screen dimensions changing, the original screen cannot be preserved. In that case, however, InspectA will not need to switch video mode before running programs or viewing this screen. TAB Select next window If multiple windows are open on the screen, this key moves to the next window. If you have a mouse, merely placing the mouse cursor on the window you wish to select and clicking once with the left mouse button will select that window and make it current. Iconised windows are skipped. SHIFT-TAB Window list SHIFT-TAB provides a full list of available File Manager windows, including iconised ones, which are marked with a symbol on the left of the list entry. From the Window List, you can Add a window by pressing INS, Delete a window (except the last) by using DEL, or selecting any particular one by highlighting it and pressing ENTER. SHIFT-NUM5 Iconise Window For any window except the last, pressing this key combination iconises the current window and moves to the next. This is the InspectA 77 InspectA Functions same as clicking on the Minimise control on the window using the mouse. SHIFT-INS Open a new window To add a new window, press shift-ins. InspectA them prompts for a directory to start from using the standard file and directory selection prompt. On accepting the directory name, a new window is created with the standard dimensions defined for the default list format. SHIFT-DEL Close current window SHIFT-DEL closes the current window (unless it is the only open window). GREY-* Resize or move window This key is the grey asterisk key on the numeric keypad. Some earlier XT style keyboards have this key marked "PrtSc", "Prt Sc" or "Print Screen". After pressing this, a double frame is drawn around the current window; you can use the ARROW KEYS to move the frame and SHIFT-ARROW KEYS to resize. Press ENTER to keep the changes or ESC to restore the original window state. CTRL-BSPACE View disk statistics Beneath the File Manager windows, InspectA maintains another window containing the current disk, directory and file statistics. If this is obscured completely or partially by other windows it can be temporarily shifted to the top by pressing CTRL-BACKSPACE. From the file manager, mark & un-mark functions are provided by holding down either SHIFT key and using UP, DOWN, PGUP, PGDN, HOME and END cursor movement keys. 78 InspectA InspectA Functions Some of the functions above require a "destination" path or file; this involves the File Selection Prompt, discussed in length in a later chapter. / (fwd-slash) Pulldown menus The pulldown menu may be accessed by pressing the forward slash key. You may then navigate the menus in a "point and shoot" manner using the ARROW KEYS and select the function you wish to execute using ENTER. Press ESC at any time to return to the File Manager. \ (back-slash) Change directory To quickly and directly change the current window's directory to another, press the back-slash key. This invokes the standard file and directory selection prompt where the directory name to change to may be typed in directly. ? (questionmark) Toggle Menu This toggles the pulldown menu titles on/off. Archive Manager InspectA provides the ability to view multi- file archives of the types described above. To further manipulate those archives (add to, delete, extract and view), you will need the appropriate piece of software as indicated below. Note that you only need one of the programs mentioned to support any type, and that some programs support more than one format. InspectA 79 InspectA Functions FormatOS Description (Author) AR5 OS2/DOS ARC.EXE, 5.12 or higher (SEA) DOS PKARC.COM, PKPAK.EXE 3.x (PKWare) AR6 OS2/DOS ARC.EXE, version 6.02 or higher (SEA) AR7 OS2/DOS ARC.EXE, version 7.12 or higher (SEA) OS2/DOS ARCPLUS.EXE, version 7.12 (SEA) OS2/DOS XARC.EXE - extract only (SEA) PKA DOS PKARC.COM/EXE 3.x, PKPAK.EXE 3.61 (PKWare) DOS PAK.EXE v2.51 or higher (NoGate) OS2/DOS ARCPLUS.EXE - extract only (SEA) PAK DOS PAK.EXE v2.51 or higher (NoGate) ZIP DOS PKZIP.EXE,PKUNZIP.EXE v1.1 (PKWare) OS2 PKZIP2.EXE,PKUNZIP2.EXE v1.1 (PKWare) OS2/DOS ZIP.EXE 1.0, UNZIP.EXE 4.2 (Info- Zip) ZI2 DOS PKZIP.EXE,PKUNZIP.EXE v2.04g (PKWare) OS2 ZIP.EXE 1.9, UNZIP.EXE 5.0 (Info- Zip) LZH DOS LHARC.EXE v1.13 or higher (Yoshi) DOS LHA.EXE v2.0 or higher (Yoshi) OS2 LH.EXE v1.x or higher (A:WARE) LHA DOS LHA.EXE v2.X (Yoshi) 80 InspectA InspectA Functions OS2 LH.EXE v2.x or higher (A:WARE) ZOO OS2/DOS ZOO.EXE v2.01 or higher (Dhesi) ZOH OS2/DOS ZOO.EXE v2.10 (Dhesi) ARJ DOS ARJ.EXE v2.x (Jung) OS2/DOS UNARJ.EXE v2.x (Jung) HPK OS2/DOS HPACK.EXE 0.78 or higher (Gutman) NOTE: InspectA no longer supports HPACK v0.75 DWC DOS DWC.EXE vA5.01 Without these programs, InspectA will still be able to list the internal directories of these archive formats, but cannot provide any further management functions because it relies upon the programs above to perform the actual Add, Delete, Extract and Test operations. Similar to the files list, the archive viewer provides the ability to examine the internal directory of the compressed library. The list may be scrolled using the ARROW KEYS, and archive members marked and unmarked by holding down SHIFT and using UP, DOWN, PGUP, PGDN, HOME and END keys. The following functions are available in Archive View mode: DEL Delete Delete current or marked files. ALT-E Extract Extract current file or all marked files to a nominated directory. InspectA 81 InspectA Functions ENTER Select Extract current file, then execute whatever action would be if the file was selected from the File Manager list (ie. view archive, view packet, message or file). ALT-Z Shell Shell to the command interpreter, type 'EXIT' to return to InspectA. ESC Exit Archive Manager Quits the Archive Manager and returns to the File Manager. FidoNet Related Functions Skip this section unless you operate a FidoNet mail system, and wish to make use of the mail-file handling features of InspectA. In the Paths section of ICONFIG, you can nominate that specific directories are treated as though they are "Inbound" or "Outbound" file holding areas used by a FidoNet mailer. These directories have special properties in that they may contain files which are named according to their type and a remote system address, usually in hexadecimal. To assist in management of mail and to assist in identifying where mail packets are destined for or originated from, InspectA provides the ability to calculate the remote system address as indicated by the file name. This appears as a comment to the right of the file name in the list of files presented by the File Manager; in all cases, an explicit entry in the description file will override any calculated address and will be displayed in preference. 82 InspectA InspectA Functions The resolution of remote addresses works most reliably with Opus/BinkleyTerm outbound holding areas, since InspectA uses the same algorithm to determine the address. Make sure that the FidoNet addresses are configured in InspectA in the same order as the mailer users! Also, be sure to suppress those parts of the addressing which your mailer cannot or is configured not to use: ie. if you run Opus, be sure to suppress zone, domain and point resolution in your "Mailer" configuration, and configure according to your BinkleyTerm domain setup and the "NoZones" setting in BINKLEY.CFG. Note that when you use a static outbound mailer such as Opus or BinkleyTerm, you should specify only the "primary" outbound area which applies to your first aka's zone and domain. All of the other outbound areas will be recognised automatically for directories which are subdirectories of the same 'root' directory as the primary one, and the directory name's extension is a hexadecimal number. Use of this facility with dynamic mailers and various mail packing and processing software will have varying results since many of them have different ways of calculating the file name from the remote address. You will probably find that the "ARCmail 0.60" standard naming convention will be used for other systems in your default address zone only. In almost all other cases, it is impossible to work back from the file name to the destination address by any calculation. Whenever a calculated address appears to be suspect, InspectA precedes the address with a question mark. You can circumvent this problem by using the wildcard description feature: once you find out which system a bundle of a particular name is destined for, place that name with a ".*" extension into the description file, followed by the destination address. Since the description file overrides the calculated InspectA 83 InspectA Functions address, the "correct" address is displayed instead of that which InspectA calculates. For example: 00000FBC.* 3:632/348.44@fidonet Even on BinkleyTerm/Opus systems, this can also be handy to identify bundles in your inbound directory, where bundle names sent from remote systems are less predictable and likely to not conform to the ARCmail 0.60 naming. Since 4DOS or NDOS may remove descriptions of this type which do not match with a specific file, you may find it more convenient to not use a "DESCRIPT.ION" file for your outbound files, but instead define a secondary description list name and use this instead. When logged into one of these special directories, InspectA will enable use of additional file types, which represent what the files mean to the mailer software. These are: ?LO Outbound 'static mailer' file attach list BDL Outbound mail file, archiver not yet determined BSY Mailer 'address busy' flag REQ Inbound or outbound file request list PRO Call in progress list BWZ Bad 'Wazoo' (file transfer) marker "BDL" (outbound compressed mail files) are necessarily archived files, and once a bundle is accessed or its type determined by InspectA, this type will be replaced by the archiving method. However, when initially 84 InspectA InspectA Functions logging an inbound or outbound directory, placing these files into a broad class helps when sorting all files by type by file name (and therefore address). FTSC Type 2 Packet Manager On selecting a FidoNet type 2.x packet, InspectA will use its "packet view" mode. The initial screen displays the packet contents, one message per line, with packet header details on the bottom line, including: Field Description Type The packet type, which will be one of: Stoneage "Old" style type 2 packets. This type of packet is assumed to contain no valid zone and point information. 4D Pkt Several products in FidoNet include 4D (zone and point) information in packet headers. Other than by looking at the product code, there is no certain way of determining which are 4D packets or not. InspectA uses the product codes list defined and maintained in ICONFIG to determine which product types have extended addressing capability, but which may not use either type-2+ or type2.2 extended addressing. Type 2+ This packet type is described in the FTSC document FSC-0039. Packets of this type always contain valid zone and point addressing information and also contain a "signature" which readily InspectA 85 InspectA Functions identifies them from other packet types. Type 2.2 This packet type is used by some mailers and mail handling software, and - like type 2+ - is readily identifiable by its signature. Since these package can be readily identified, the zone, point and domain information is assumed to be correct. O= Displays the origin address. This will be net/node only in the case of a "stoneage" packet, and will be 4D (zone:net/node.point) for 4D and 2+ types, and 4D (zone:net/node.point@domain) for type 2.2 packets. Note that for type 2.2 packets, domains are truncated to 8 characters. D= Displays the destination address for the packet. The same rules regarding address resolution apply. Product The FTSC product code in the packet header, together with the product description (if known) is displayed. You should refer to the FidoNet Standards Committee documents FTS-0001 "A basic FidoNet(r) technical standard", FTS-0039 "A type-2 packet extension protocol", and FTS- 0045 "A new packet header format", for additional information contained in and used by "type 2" mail packets. Each line in the list represents a packet message, showing: Field Description Inf An entry in the first three places indicates that data in the packed 86 InspectA InspectA Functions message header is in some way corrupt or malformed. This usually indicates that one or more messages may be corrupt, or that the software used to generate the original message was in some way deficient. Entries here will indicate one of: D A malformed date. The most common of these is a missing space in a "Fido" format date, which should be of the form: "DD Mon YY HH:MM:SS". Although these malformed dates are reasonably common, they nevertheless remain a problem because only dates of exactly 20 characters in length can be considered valid for type 2 packet format. Most software does work around this however. L One or more fields in the header are too long. This usually does mean that a packet is partially or completely corrupt. The maximum lengths of header fields are 35 characters for 'to' and 'from' names, 20 characters for the message date, and 71 characters for the message subject. I Indicates invalid (non-7bit ascii) data in one or more header fields. Depending on where you live, this may or may not indicate that there is a problem. Some parts of Europe, in the absence of any standards for use of character sets, have opted to use IBM-PC specific characters as part of their alphabet, and so this would be considered 'normal' in that case. However, this indicator can usually show that the InspectA 87 InspectA Functions field's data may be corrupted and should be examined further. G Indicate that the message is "grunged" in some way. This comes about if any embedded NUL (ASCII 0)'s are discovered at any position in between the message header information and the following message or end of packet. A NUL is used to indicate the end of a message, so if a NUL is discovered at a position which is not the end of the message as expected, then the message is considered garbled and invalid. Date Date of the message, or *Invalid* if it cannot be read at all. InspectA reads and interprets a number of technically non-standard dates in addition to those formats specifically allowed by FTS-0001. It will, however flag an error on the date, even if it can be interpreted if the date format is non-compliant. From Author of the message. To Name to which the message is addressed. Subject Message subject (or if "area" mode is enabled, it shows the echomail tag for the message, or "NETMAIL" if it doesn't have one). As each message is highlighted with the cursor bar, additional information regarding each message is shown above the packet header information at the foot of the display, consisting of: 88 InspectA InspectA Functions Field Description [#/#] Message number of a total number of messages. Origin Shows the origin address of the currently highlighted message. Note that packed message headers do not contain zone, point or domain information, so this will show only net/node. Dest Destination address of the currently highlighted message. Offset Shows the offset (distance in bytes from the start of file) of the current message in hexadecimal notation. This is useful when a mail processor records offsets at which it considers a message grunged or corrupted. The problem can be quickly located and eliminated Area If the message is an echomail message (ie. the message text starts with AREA:<tag> or the message body contains a ^aAREA:<tag> control line), the area tag is shown. Anything else is assumed to be netmail. Functions available from the packed message list are: ENTER View message View highlighted message, enter message view mode. InspectA 89 InspectA Functions ALT-H Packet header Displays packet header information. The first displayed window shows the complete message header, interpreted according to its type, together with other relevant information. Pressing Alt-H again cycles through two other screens, which include a hex and ascii dump of the message header and packet diagnostic information. SPACE Mark Mark a message (usually for deletion). F2 Global Mark Mark/un-mark all messages. CTRL-A Area Toggles the display of AREA: tags for each message instead of subject. DEL Delete Deletes a message (or all marked messages) from a packet. BE CAREFUL IF YOU USE THIS OPTION. When deleting the first message from a packet, InspectA will warn you that you are about to delete mail. Note that the message is not immediately deleted, and this is delayed until you allow the packet to be rebuilt. ALT-S Sort Selects the sorting criteria for messages within the packet. When used with Alt-C (set changed flag), this can be used to physically reorder messages within a packet. 90 InspectA InspectA Functions ALT-C Toggle "changed" Toggles the "packet changed" flag. When set, InspectA will ask whether you wish to rebuild the packet when ESC is pressed. ALT-M Export to message Exports one or all marked messages to *.MSG format to a directory nominated. CTRL-S Split packet This function provides the ability to split the current packet into one or more packets - it is especially handy for splitting very large packets for more convenient handling. Note that use of this function does not require that the entire packet can be read into memory and will work regardless of whether the packet scan has been completed or not. You can use ESC to abort the scan and then CTRL-S to split the packet. ALT-Z Shell Shell to DOS. Messages may also be marked/un-marked by holding down the SHIFT key and using the UP, DOWN, PGUP, PGDN, HOME and END keys to mark in the direction moved. Message View When viewing messages within packets, the following keys may be used: InspectA 91 InspectA Functions Key Description LEFT Previous message RIGHT Next message HOME First message in packet END Last message in packet UP Scroll message up DOWN Scroll message down PGDN Scroll message down 1 screen PGUP Scroll message up 1 screen CTRL-S Toggle seen-by viewing CTRL-C Toggle hard CR viewing CTRL-K Toggle control line viewing CTRL-M Export individual messages to .MSG format SPACE Toggle mark When viewing .MSG files from the files list directly, the above keys also apply, except that only one message may be viewed at a time, and exporting to .MSG format is not available. 92 InspectA Common Features Common Features Various other parts of the user interface are common throughout the program and do not vary irrespective of their context. Path Selection The first of these is the entry window used to enter directory file or path names. In addition to simple field entry in which the directory or path to use may be entered from the keyboard, the window also offers the following additional functions: F6 Files List Enters files list selection mode (see below, Files List Selection). F9 Directory Tree Press F9 to invoke the directory view mode (see below, Directory Tree). F8 Paths Index Allows a directory to be selected from the "Path Index", which is defined in the Paths list in ICONFIG. ENTER Select File/Directory Pressing enter (F10 is also an alias) confirms entry. If the field is empty, Files List mode will be invoked, showing InspectA 93 Common Features all files in the current directory. If the file or directory is not acceptable for some reason, an error message will be displayed and you will be returned to the path selection prompt. ESC Abort Aborts/cancels entry and returns to the original context. Files List Selection File selection offers the ability to browse the directory structure to select the file or directory you wish to action. By supplying a wildcard specification at the Path Selection prompt, you can also limit what you see to only those files which match the wildcard, or directories. For example, if you enter: D:\FILES\*.BAT then the only files that will be displayed are those with the extension "BAT" and all directories, starting in the directory D:\FILES. Pressing ENTER on any directory entry changes to that directory. ENTER while on any non- directory entry selects the highlighted file as the target. If you wish to select a directory name, press F10 instead. Use CTRL-D to change drives (see below, Drive Selection). F9 invokes the graphical directory tree (see below, Directory Tree) ESC aborts file selection and returns to the Path Selection prompt. 94 InspectA Common Features You can also type in letters to locate the file name with the closest match. TAB clears all letters previously entered. Directory Tree This may be used to easily find a particular directory by moving around a "tree" diagram instead of having to move through multiple directories to select the one you want. The Directory Tree is either derived by scanning all directories on a drive when it is invoked, or it may be optionally read from disk if the option to use a Directory Index is enabled in ICONFIG (General, Options). If the current directory on a drive is not present in the directory index read from disk, InspectA will ask if you wish to rescan the drive to update the index file. When the tree is displayed, the following keys may be used: Key Description UP/DOWN Navigate the tree, up and down, from one branch to the next. RIGHT Parent to child or next sibling if not child exists. LEFT Child to parent. HOME Top of list (root directory) END Bottom of the list. PGUP/PGDN Up or down by screen. ENTER Select a directory, return to caller. InspectA 95 Common Features CTRL-R Rescan current drive; this forces InspectA to physically scan the drive and re-generate its view of the drive. Since disk index files can get out of date due to directories being created or deleted outside of InspectA, you should do this periodically whenever you find an inconsistency between what is presented on the directory tree and the disk itself. Note that INSPECT's -m command line switch provides a way of updating these automatically on all non- removable drives. CTRL-D/F9 Select drive. This provides a means of switching the viewed drive from the directory tree display. See Drive Selection below for more information. <text> To locate a directory without having to scroll up and down the tree, you can simply type its name and have InspectA home in on it to locate a close or exact match. TAB/SHIFT-TAB Search for next directory matching the search text. For example, if you have two directories named "SECRET", then typing in the letters S-E-C-R-E-T will locate the first one below the current starting position with that name. Move to the next directory of the same name by using this key. INS Make a new directory below the one currently highlighted. DEL Delete the highlighted directory. The directory being deleted must contain no files or subdirectories whatsoever for the deletion to be successful. Also, you should ensure that the directory being deleted is 96 InspectA Common Features not your current directory (you can change if necessary by using the SPACE key). F2 Renames the highlighted directory. You may be prevented from doing this on some networks which require special network-specific ways to change directory names. The following keys are also active if the directory tree is invoked from the files list: SPACE Change to the highlighted directory and refresh the files list displayed beneath the directory tree window. F10 Enables "follow-me" mode, which forces InspectA to refresh the files list displayed as you move from one directory to the next. This is similar to pressing SPACE each time a new directory is selected. This may slow things down considerably on some systems. If the directory tree is invoked from the files pick list, the following keys may be used: F10 Switch to the files picklist. Drive Selection The Drive Selection list is a pop-up available directly from the File Manager (CTRL-D), from the Directory Tree, or from the Path Selection prompt from the directory or file selector windows. This presents a list of available drives; the current directory is shown next to each drive letter, as well as available disk space. If the drive is a non-removable type (ie. a InspectA 97 Common Features floppy disk), InspectA does not attempt to read the disk to determine the current directory and free space, but instead displays the word "<floppy>". If the drive is on a network or CD-ROM, an asterisk is displayed between the drive letter and directory name. To select a drive letter, move the cursor using the ARROW KEYS or mouse, or press the key corresponding to the drive letter. Press ENTER to select. ESC cancels drive selection. 98 InspectA Networks & CD-ROM Networks & CD-ROM InspectA is fully network compatible; it is both aware of and explicitly supports use on a network, including all NETBIOS and SHARE based networks and Novell Netware. This section lists some of the considerations you may wish to take into account when setting up InspectA for use by multiple users. NOTE: Use of InspectA on a network by multiple users simultaneously requires a multiple-user site licence. User Configuration Users on a network should share a single copy of INSPECT.EXE and ICONFIG.EXE, but may elect to share a common configuration file, or maintain a separate one with personal preferences. In the first case (a shared configuration), place INSPECT.INI into the same directory as the executable file. For personal setup, you must also set the HOME environment variable on each workstation (or for each user) to point to a unique location on the network drive or to a local workstation drive and have each user run ICONFIG. This will force the public version of INSPECT.INI to be read as a template, but the output will be placed into the personal directory and read from there whenever INSPECT or ICONFIG is run. Any changes subsequently made to the configuration will be stored in the user's personal INSPECT.INI. You need not have separate configurations simply to account for hardware differences; ie. colour vs. monochrome monitor, 25 line vs. 43/50 line. InspectA automatically takes hardware capability into account on startup. InspectA 99 Networks & CD-ROM If you need to override this (for example, if you run a colour capable video card with a monochrome monitor in a colour video mode) then you can change InspectA's behaviour by using command line switches. Disk Index Files Because network volumes and CD-ROM drives may not be writable, you may need to take this into account for items which are normally written to and maintained on the drive itself; namely the disk directory index file used by the Directory Tree selector. ICONFIG provides a way to get around the problem by providing an option to use a particular path for storage of the directory index. These are found in General, Options: Index Path If a drive and directory is given here, all directory index files are placed in the nominated directory, with the first letter of the index file name is substituted for the drive letter. Note that if no drive letter is given, disk index files on all drives are stored in a subdirectory of the given drive. Net Path Only If this switch is enabled, InspectA will only use the Index Path for network and CD-ROM drives. Local logical drive indices are stored in the index file name nominated in the root directory of the drive. You may need to take the following into consideration: If all workstations share the same drive mappings, you would benefit by placing directory index files on a network volume, readable and writeable by all users on the network. Whenever any user makes, deletes 100 InspectA Networks & CD-ROM or renames a directory, the shared index file for the drive is updated for all users. If workstations use different mappings, then maintaining shared index files on the network would cause some collisions in what each workstation considers is on any particular drive. In this case, you could set the Index Path to a local drive, so that each workstation maintains their own image according to their logical drive mappings on the network, or have each workstation/user which uses a particular set of mappings also use a different name for the directory index file. A better scheme, where InspectA maintains a single directory index for each network volume (not related to logical drive assignment), is being considered. Description Files InspectA does not yet support placement of a description file on any other drive or directory other than the one being read. This facility applies more to CD-ROM media than to networks, but in any case, most CD-ROM drives are supplied with a description file in the directory and are in a format which may be used directly by InspectA. The only disadvantage is that because this file is read-only, it cannot be updated or changed. This will be addressed in a future version of InspectA. InspectA 101 External Commands External Commands InspectA executes external commands, either directly from user input or from commands configured for the manipulation of archive libraries, action on selecting a file from the files list or external commands mapped to the keyboard or selected from the Special pulldown menu. Some special rules are used in external programs and are an extension to the command line. InspectA does not use the system's currently installed command interpreter, but instead will search the PATH directly for the programs to run in much the same way as COMMAND.COM (MSDOS) and CMD.EXE (OS/2) do. It checks the current directory, then all directories in the path for a named program, or uses an explicit path when one is specified. After completing execution of an external program., InspectA may optionally report the "errorlevel", or exit code, with which the program terminates. Many programs will report a non-zero exit status to indicate abnormal termination, or an error of some type. Programs intended for use in batch files will often set the errorlevel to convey information to the controlling batch file. It may be desirable to run a program via the command interpreter. To force this and override InspectA's internal search facility, precede the command with an exclamation mark '!'. An exit code of zero is always reported by COMMAND.COM (this may not be true of alternative command shells, such as 4DOS, MKS or CMD.EXE). In all cases, the shell run is determined from the value of the COMSPEC environment variable. Running a DOS batch file (.BAT) or 4DOS batch file (.BTM) from 102 InspectA External Commands InspectA will always involve running the command interpreter first. Similarly, InspectA also knows about MS-DOS and OS/2 internal commands, for DOS versions up to DOS 5.0, and OS/2 2.1. When given without a preceding path or drive, these commands will always be invoked via the command interpreter. Environment [MSDOS] When an external program is run, it inherits a copy of InspectA's environment variables (those displayed when using the SET command by itself). Irrespective of what size environment is set in CONFIG.SYS in a SHELL= statement for the first copy of the command interpreter, DOS will only allocate only the size required to contain the current environment in sub-shells. Since batch files often use environment variables it is often convenient to allocate a larger environment for the sub-shell as well to avoid the "Out of environment space" error. To support this, InspectA allows you to specify additional switches to pass to the command interpreter if specified prior the program name. For example: !/E:1280 callit xyz invokes the command line interpreter in the following manner (assuming that COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM): C:\COMMAND.COM /E:1280 /Ccallit xyz This has the effect of running "callit" with an environment expanded to 1280 bytes. NOTE: In versions of DOS 3.1 and prior, the /E switch specifies the number of 16-byte paragraphs, not the number of bytes. You should consult your DOS manual to determine InspectA 103 External Commands the exact behaviour of the version that you run. Environment Variables InspectA allows use environment variables directly in any command line. You can specify an environment variable in the same way as in a batch file, ie. preceded and followed by a percent '%' symbol. This allows you to 'soft code' some commands and have the command line change automatically according to your current environmental settings. This applies both to the program name itself and its arguments. Batch file command line variables (ie. %1 through %9) are not used nor supported. However, because of the special treatment of the '%' in environment variables, you will need to use two %'s in the place of one if you desire to include a literal '%' on a command line. As an example, let's say that you wish to execute the following command (this works on the command line): for %f in (*.txt) do list %f The effect would be to execute "LIST <name>" on all files in the current directory with the extension of .TXT. From within InspectA, this may be entered as: for %%f in (*.txt) do %PAGER% %%f assuming that the environment variable PAGER (which InspectA also uses internally as the program to invoke to view files unless one is configured) is set to "list". Note the double %'s. This is identical to what DOS and OS/2 expect in batch (command) files when using the "FOR" command. 104 InspectA External Commands Redirection InspectA fully supports input output redirection via the use of '<', '>' and '>>' symbols. Stacked Commands InspectA supports multiple commands on the same line. This means that you can run consecutive commands from the entry of a single line. Simply separate each command to run with a circumflex character '^'. Since this character is treated specially in this manner and you may rarely need to use this in a command line, the ability is provided to quote this by preceding it with a backslash ("\^") to insert a literal '^'. If you have errorlevel reporting enabled (the -ea or -ee command line switch), only the errorlevel of the last command executed will be reported. If for some reason InspectA is unable to execute a given command, execution of the stacked commands will stop at the point execution failed and the error reported. Current Directory [MSDOS only] The current directory is always maintained across calls to external programs by InspectA. The initial starting directory is always restored. However, this is not the case between multiple commands separated by '`' - the starting directory is restored only after all commands in a set have been executed. It is therefore quite valid to use a "CHDIR" or "CD" command and expect that the next command after a '`' will be executed in the directory changed to (if it succeeds). Because the current directory under OS/2 is processed based, this does not work in a similar manner under OS/2. If you need to InspectA 105 External Commands change directory before running a command under OS/2, you will have to create a command file containing the CD command and then run the command. 106 InspectA Prompts Prompts Almost all single line prompts used for file specifications, paths or commands to execute have the facility known as "command history" where the previous (up to) 64 commands are stored and may be easily recalled using the cursor keys. Special keys used to scroll through previous entries in the command line history are: Key Description UP Scroll back to previous command. DOWN Scroll forward to next command. PGUP Go to first command in history. PGDN Go to last command in history. F2 View command stack in popup list. Line entry prompts assume the previous entered text as the default. Simply type to destroy this (clear the field) and enter something completely new. If you wish to modify the existing text, then use any of the horizontal cursor movement keys (LEFT, RIGHT, HOME or END) to indicate that you wish to edit the entry rather than replace it. Other special key functions in line editing throughout InspectA are: InspectA 107 Prompts Key Description HOME Go to start of field END Go to end of field LEFT Left one character RIGHT Right one character CTRL-LEFT Left one word CTRL-RIGHT Right one word CTRL-Y Erase entire field Some fields (for example, the "Execute" function, usually assigned to F10 in the main files list) are actually longer than they appear. Long entries will scroll horizontally within the field displayed on the screen so that only a portion of the entry is visible at once. 108 InspectA Import/Export Import/Export ICONFIG provides a text import/export facility for configuration information. This section provides descriptions for the verbs used in the exported configuration file. The configuration file itself is in text (human readable) format, with information grouped into sections. Each section is marked by a section heading - typically a single word surrounded by square bracket symbols "[]" and optionally followed by a blank line. Each configuration line within a section consist of a Verb=Variable pair. Verbs assume meaning within the context of the current section - verbs from one section may or may not be valid when used in another section, but if they are, they almost always mean something different. Variables may be of various types, and which type is dependant on the verb; typically it is numeric, a 'string' (series of characters), or a 'complex' variable with multiple fields or entries separated by commas or spaces. Some verbs may be specified only once within the section; two or more statements using the same verb may either be invalid or result in the second value overriding the first. Other verbs may appear multiple times, and may allow multiple values to be given. Where allowed, multiple values accumulate into a set. If a value includes embedded space or commas, the value itself must be quoted in double quotation marks. InspectA 109 Import/Export [general] General items, not falling into any other category. rescan=<numeric> Specifies the number of minutes which the keyboard should be idle after which the current directory will be ""rescanned" (reread and displayed). A zero value disables this feature. Useful for multi- tasking systems and networks. editor=<string> Names the editor program. If blank, InspectA uses the EDITOR environment variable, or if that is not set, attempts to invoke "Q" (SemWare's QEDIT) as editor. editmem=<value> [MSDOS] Amount of memory required by the editing program. As with all "memory" fields, a value of 0 causes unconditional program image swapping, and -1 causes the program to be run without swapping. Any other value makes program image swapping conditional on there not being sufficient memory to run the program. viewer=<string> Names the file viewer program. If blank, InspectA uses the PAGER environment variable, or if that is not set, attempts to invoke "LIST" (Vernon D. Buerg's LIST program) as viewer. 110 InspectA Import/Export viewmem=<value> [MSDOS] Amount of memory required by the viewing program. See "editmem=" for more information virusscan=<string> Specifies the name of the file to use for virus scanning. The default command is scan /NOMEM /SUB, which is compatible with McAfee & Assocs SCAN program. scanmem=<value> [MSDOS] Determines the amount of memory required by the virus scan program. viewdir=<path> Directory used to store archive members while viewing. swapdir=<path> [MSDOS] Directory used to store the program image file when swap to disk is activated. swaptype=<type> [MSDOS] Valid values of <type> are XMS, EMS, Disk and None. kbddelay=<numeric> Keyboard repeat delay. -1 is Auto (don't adjust), 0=250 milliseconds (1/4 second), 1=500ms, 2=750ms, 3=1000ms. InspectA 111 Import/Export kbdspeed=<numeric> Keyboard repeat rate. -1 is Auto (don't adjust), Values range from 0=30 characters per second (fastest) to 31=2 cps (slowest). dirmaps=<boolean> Enables creation of directory index files; if "No" (or "False" or "Disabled"), directory index files are only used if present, but drives without must be scanned completely each time they are logged. diskmapfile=<filename> Specifies a file name to use for directory indices. The default is "diskmap.ind". diskmappath=<path> Specifies the directory where directory index files are stored. If blank, the default is in the root directory of the indexed drive. If no drive letter is specified, then the directory is created on the drive being indexed; otherwise the directory given is used to store index files for all drives. netpathonly=<boolean> If "Yes" (or "True", or "Enabled"), the value for "diskmappath=" is used only for logging network and CD-ROM drives, otherwise the root directory is used to store index files for local drives. 112 InspectA Import/Export prefermethod=<numeric> This field determines the default archiver to use when interactively adding files to an archive. The value -1 indicates no preference. listformat=<complex> <desc>,<rowscale>,<colscal>,<"fieldlist"> This entry defines a files list format. <desc> A brief description of the format. <rowscale>, <colscale> A number between 1 and 255 indicating the number of rows and columns that a new window of this type should use by default. A value of 255 indicates the full screen length of width. <fieldlist> This is a series of 10 numbers indicating a field type. Refer to the section on Configuration for a discussion of these fields. A value of 0 indicates that the entry is unused. descfile=<filename> Describes the name(s) used for storage of file name descriptions. prefermethod=<number> Nominates the default archive type as an index. InspectA 113 Import/Export listpad=<number> Number of columns to pad filenames inserted into file description lists. listcase=<number> Determines the case of filenames inserted into file description lists. 0 indicates default, 1 is lowercase, 2 i s uppercase. displaypad=<number> Number of columsn allocated for file names in the files list display. displaycase=<number> Case of filenames displayed in the File Manager; 0 is default, 1 is lowercase, 2 is uppercase. dircase=<number> Case of directory names displayed in the File Manager. hidemenu=<boolean> Determines the initial state of the pull- down menu title bar. titlejustify=<number> Indicates the style of justification of the file window title; 0 is centered, 1 indicates left justification, 2 right justification. 114 InspectA Import/Export titlefillchar=<numeric> This is the ascii value of the title fill character (must be between 0 and 255). disablehotalt=<boolean> Indicates the status of the 'hot' ALT key action. statswindow=<boolean> Indicates the default (startup) state of the directory statistics window. [video] Video related items. intense=<numeric> 0=Auto (don't change), 1=Blinking background colours, 2=Intense non- blinking. hires=<numeric> InspectA's default video mode; 0=Auto (don't change), 1=Force 25 line mode, 2=Force 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA) lines, 3=Custom (use mode specified by "videomode="). videomode=<numeric> [MSDOS] If "hires=" value is 3, this is the video mode number to set. Usually useful only on SuperVGA systems - consult your VGA adaptor documentation for information. InspectA 115 Import/Export customrows=<numeric> [OS/2] Nominates the number of rows to set when "custom mode" is selected. customcols=<numeric> [OS/2] Nominates the number of columns to set when "custom mode" is selected. setmode=<boolean> If "Yes", the video mode set by the value of the "hires=" verb (if not "Auto") is assumed permanently and is not restored before running external programs or invoking a shell to the command interpreter. dirwin=<size> Determines the default size of the Directory Tree window accessible from the File Manager (via F9). This is one of Small, Medium or Large. blanktime=<numeric> Screen blank time - this is the number of minutes that the keyboard must be idle before the screen blanker is activated. frametype=<numeric> This determines the type of frame used for the active window in the Files Manager. -1 means no frame, and values 1-6 specify different frame types. 116 InspectA Import/Export inactiveframetype=<numeric> This determines the type of frame used for all inactive window in the Files Manager. mouse=<boolean> Determines whether the mouse is to be made active or not. If "Yes", then mouse functions are activated if there is a mouse driver available. SVGAmouse=<boolean> Determines whether the mouse is to be made active or not in any extended SVGA text mode. mousecursor=<type> Specifies the type of mouse cursor to use; valid types are "Standard", "Diamond" and "Triangle". mousespeed=<numeric> Changes the mouse speed and sensitivity according to preference; 0=use default, 1=slow, 2=medium, 3=fast, 4=very fast. attr-colour=<numeric list> attr-mono=<numeric list> These set the screen attributes for colour and monochrome video monitors. Up to 64 individual settings for the various attribute types, in the same order as they appear in ICONFIG's attribute list (General, Colours). Because the list contains embedded spaces, it must be surrounded by double quotes. InspectA 117 Import/Export [archive] Defines archiving commands; the means by which the Archive Manager is able to manipulate compressed archives. There is only one valid verb in this section, but it may be specified multiple times. For simplicity, each individual archive command should be defined on a separate line. cmd=<complex> where the <complex> field is in the format: <type>,<op>,<abbrev>,<wildcard>,<reqmem>,<cmd template> The meaning of these sub-fields are: <type> Type archiver type. Valid types are AR5, AR6, AR7, ARJ, HPK, LHA, LZH, PAK, PKA, SQZ, ZIP, ZOH and ZOO. <op> Must be one of Add, Delete, Extract or Test. This determines what the command being defined does. <abbrev> This is the usual file extension used by archives of the type being described. This is only used to "guess" the intended archive type when creating a new archive. <wildcard> Specifies what to use as a wildcard when the entire contents of a directory are being added, or the all member files are being tested or extracted. This is an optimisation to prevent having to call the archiver multiple times. <reqmem> This determines the amount of free memory which must be available to the archiving command. It is 118 InspectA Import/Export used to determine whether or not the program image should be swapped out to XMS/EMS/Disk. This is unused by the OS/2 version. <cmdtemplate> Specifies the template for the command which is being defined; this always contains special '$' tokens which represent macros to be replaced by archive and file names when used. [mailer] This section defines mailer characteristics. mailertype=<type> Type is one of "None", "Static" or "Dynamic". outbound=<attributes> Attributes determine the type of addressing supported by files in the mailer's outbound queue. Any of the following may be specified; multiple are allowed: "Domains", "Zones", "Points". pointnet=<number> Specifies the 'fake' network number used if you need to support 3D style point addressing. address=<ftnaddr> <ftnaddr> is a FidoNet style address, in zone:net/node[.point][@domain] format. You can specify multiple address, either on the same line separated by InspectA 119 Import/Export spaces, or on separate lines following multiple occurrences of the verb "address=". equate=<string>,<string> Equates one domain string to another. The first string is the one to equate - whenever it is found to be used as a domain designation, InspectA internally replaces it with the second string. product=<complex> Describes a product code. Each definition consists of the following fields: <code>,<name>,<os>,<type>,<author>,<addres s>,<flags> <code> This is the product identification code which is placed in FTSC-1 packet headers. <name> The product name. <os> The operating system(s) under which the product runs. <type> The type of product; usually "packer", "mailer" or both. <author> The name of the product's author. <address> The FidoNet address at which the product's author may be contacted (via FidoNet). <flags>Special flags used to determine whether or not extended zone and point information in packet headers made by this particular product can be 'trusted' should the packet header type not be of a recognised 'enhanced' type. 120 InspectA Import/Export [paths] This section defines a list of directories. These may be used by the mailer functions for special operations, but may also be defined to place them on the list of paths which may be selected from the Paths Index feature. dir=<complex> Fields in the variable is defined as follows: <type>,<path>,<description> <type> This is one of <blank> (no entry), "Netmail", "Postmail", "Inbound", "Outbound" or "Nodelist". A blank field means no special attributes. See the documentation on ICONFIG for a more detailed list of meanings attached to the other types. <path> Is the name of the directory being defined. <description> An optional description used for the directory. [externals] This section defines the interface between InspectA and external programs. key=<complex> where <complex is> <key>,<op>,<flags>,<reqmem>,<cmd>,<descriptio n> InspectA 121 Import/Export <key> This is a pneumonic which describes the key being mapped. It may also specify the scan + ASCII codes for the key in hexadecimal and preceded by "0x". Shifted keys are preceded by '#', control keys by '^' and alt keys by '@'. <op> Defines what the key does; this is an internal code that designates function. A '0' or blank in this field defines an external command. <flags>If set to 1 in an external command definition, the logged directory will be rescanned. <reqmem> The amount of memory that the external command requires. If 0, program image swapping will be used unconditionally, if -1 never, otherwise image swapping is not used unless needed to free sufficient memory to run the program. This entry is ignored in the OS/2 version. <cmd> This is the command template for external commands. '$' macros can be used in much the same way as in archiving commands except that the macros themselves have different meanings; $f refers to each marked file individually, $m all marked files, $a as the currently highlighted file. <description> Describes what the command does. file=<complex> Defines a program to run when a file matching the specification given is selected. <complex> consists of: 122 InspectA Import/Export <spec>,<flags>,<reqmem>,<cmd>,<description> where <filespec> This is the file specification used to match to a selected file. It may contain wildcard characters, '?' and '*'. For the remaining fields, see above, under key=. InspectA 123 Miscellaneous Miscellaneous Screenblanker InspectA includes a built-in screen blanker, which is intended to prevent monitor burn-in caused by constantly displaying the same screen; the lighter areas tend to erode the surface in the video tube in some types of monitors. Over a long period, the effect becomes quite noticeable, and can cause severe problems with the displayed image. While this is most pronounced on older monochrome monitors, it has been known to occur in even some of the newer SuperVGA compatible display units. You can also switch the screen blanker on by depressing both SHIFT keys at the same time. You may need to wait a short while (usually between 2-5 seconds) after sitting at a prompt for this to work due to the "timeout" strategy used internally which is used to avoid doing too much "work" between keystrokes or time slicing too viciously under a multi-tasking system. 124 InspectA Copyrights & Trademarks Copyrights & Trademarks InspectA and its associated documentation and same configuration files are Copyright 1992- 1993 by David L. Nugent and Unique Computing Pty Limited. No warrantee is made as to the fitness of this product for any intended purpose, nor will any responsibility be taken for any damage, consequential or otherwise arising out of use or abuse of this product. It is provided purely on an "as is" basis, with no promises or agreements regarding any future versions or releases should they ever be published. This work is protected by Australian copyright law and by the Burne International Treaty on Copyrights. The commercial version of this program may not be re-distributed under any conditions and in any form. The "shareware" release may be re-distributed under the terms and conditions of the accompanying "LICENCE.TXT". Various copyrighted works of software and registered trademarks are referred to in the documentation, and where applicable these are held and owned by their respective copyright holders, including the following list of products: ARC is a registered trademark of System Enhancement Associates Inc. ARC+PLUS is copyright System Enhancement Associates, Inc. ARCA & ARCE are copyright by Wayne Chin and Vernon D. Buerg. PKARC, PKPAK, PKXARC, PKUNPAK, PKZIP, PKUNZIP are copyright PKWARE, Inc. InspectA 125 Copyrights & Trademarks PKZIP & PKUNZIP are trademarks of PKWARE, Inc. PAK is copyright by NoGate Consulting. ZOO was written by Rahul Dhesi. ARJ is copyright by Robert Jung. HPACK is copyright by Peter Gutmann. DWC is copyright by Dean W. Cooper. LH is copyright by A:WARE and Peter Fitzsimmons. LIST is copyright Vernon D. Buerg. QEdit is copyright SemWare. MSDOS is copyright Microsoft Corporation. FidoNet is a trademark of Tom Jennings. BinkleyTerm is copyright Bit Bucket Software, Co. Opus is copyright Wynn Wagner III. SEAdog is copyright System Enhancement Associates. FrontDoor is copyright by Joaquim H. Homrighausen and Advanced Engineering Sarl. InterMail is copyright by Peter Stewart and InterZone Software OS/2 is a trademark of International Business Machines. 126 InspectA