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MANUAL ADDENDUM NEW FEATURES IN QFILER VERSION 3.1 QFILER 3.1 (QF3) is a major upgrade to QFILER versions 3.0-3.0E which had previously replaced QFILER 2.x versions. As noted below, the 3.x series are a rewrite of the 2.x series and generally add substantial new features to this popular program. The following are new to version 3.1: February 20, 1989 (version 3.1G) KATZ'S PKZIP/PKUNZIP SUPPORT ADDED. PKZIP now co-exists with whatever "ARC" utility you have installed as your default. There is no need to do anything special, since QFILER will generally guess your intentions. If you invoke your "compression" utility with Ctrl-A (intending to do anything except ADD a compressed file), then QFILER will select ARC or ZIP utilities based upon the extension of the current file. If you are ADDing to a compressed file (and have PKZIP/PKUNZIP installed in a pathed subdirectory) then QFILER will allow you to select whether you wish to "ARC" or "ZIP" marked files. If you KNOW you want to use PKZIP, then use Ctrl-Z to invoke your compression utilities-- the choices are the same, but you will not be asked whether you wish to use ARC or ZIP. Remember, you may continue to simply press ENTER when the current file is an ARC or ZIP file, and QFILER will immediately invoke the ARCZoom function. January 26, 1989 (version 3.1F) INTERNAL MOUSE SUPPORT ADDED. Virtually all QFILER options may now be selected by use of a mouse in addition to the standard keyboard commands. The following descriptions will help to explain the various mouse-active areas: The left mouse button is used to select most options. Other actions are interpreted as follows: "YES" - Left button. "NO" - Right button. "ENTER" - Left button. "ESCAPE" - Right button. A vertical "scroll bar" has been added to the right of each directory window. If there are more files in a directory than can be displayed in a single window, there is a bar displayed within this scroll bar. Its size and position gives you an idea of the relationship the displayed files have within the selected directory. You may click on this bar and slide it up and down to quickly display different files. If there is a small arrow displayed above or below the scroll bar, you may click on each to move the file selection bar towards the top or bottom of the directory, respectively. Clicking above or below the bar is similar to pressing PgUp/PgDn on the keyboard. The second line from the top of the screen (used to display the path name) may be used to rapidly scroll the window down (selection bar moves toward the top), or the line just below the directory window (displaying the directory size, tagged file size and remaining disk space) may be used to scroll the window up (selection bar moves toward the bottom). Help may be displayed by clicking on the prompt line just above the bottom menu bar. To activate any of the bottom menu bar actions, just click on the displayed word. For all other QFILER functions (function keys, alt and control keys, and normal keyboard assignments), click on the top line (used to display the volume name) and a full drop-down menu will be displayed. Within the directory window, select a file or directory by moving the mouse cursor to the desired file and pressing the left mouse button. To tag or untag a file, simply click on the selected file a second time. NOTE: to simplify some special QFILER functions, some file types are treated in a extended manner as described below: DISPLAYING DIRECTORIES ON LEFT OR RIGHT: If a subdirectory has been selected as the current file, you may click on the left half of the selected line to display the subdirectory on the left side of the QFILER screen, or on the right half to display on the right side. The ">" in the word "<DIR>" is the dividing character. ".ARC" FILES: If an ".ARC" file is the current file, clicking on the left side of the line will tag the file; clicking on the right side will invoke ARC-Zoom for extracting and listing of files within the ARC. Within ARC-Zoom, clicking left will tag the file and clicking right will list the file. If you press a key while the standard QFILER screen is displayed, the mouse cursor will "park" itself in the lower right corner of screen -- so as not to interfere with your keyboard commands. But both the mouse and keyboard are always active. Use whichever is most suited to the task you are performing. If it's not clear what you should click on the screen to perform a particular function, first try clicking on the appropriate word. If all else fails, the right button is your "NO" or "ESCAPE" button. PLEASE BE CAREFUL UNTIL YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE MOUSE ACTION! The mouse is very responsive, and it's easy to inadvertently select an undesired file-- especially when moving to the bottom and top menu areas. READ the displayed prompts before clicking "YES". As always, QFILER does a minimum of hand-holding. If you have a mouse installed and would prefer to just use the keyboard, you may choose to disable the mouse by selecting DOS/MISC-Disable Mouse in the drop down menus. The mouse will be ignored until you exit QFILER or enable it. DROP-DOWN MENUS ADDED. Although implemented primarily for mouse users, the drop-down menu is useful for people with those darn 101-key keyboards (the one where the function keys are all in the wrong place). To invoke the drop down menu, just press "/", then use your cursor keys to select one of the various options. ENTER will select an option and ESCAPE will return you to the standard display. QFILER NOW DEFAULTS TO 25-LINE CGA MODE. If you wish to have QFILER default to 43/50 line mode, run QFINST with "/EGA" on the command line (enter "QFINST /EGA" at the DOS prompt). After QFILER is running, you may toggle between 25 and 43/50 line modes by pressing Ctrl-D. TAGGED FILES FLAGGED. Tagged files now have a diamond character displayed in the first column so they can be more quickly identified. GREY PLUS KEY MAPPED TO F10 (TAG AND ADVANCE). The minus key is mapped to F9 -- again for convenience of those people who have keyboards where the function keys are unreachable. ALT-X MAPPED TO "Q" (QUIT AND RETURN TO DOS). As requested by a programmer-type whose fingers automatically use the Borland exit- sequence. TAGALL NOW REPORTS CORRECT NUMBER OF FILES. A program error was corrected that included subdirectories in the count of files to be tagged. QFILER AVAILABLE IN AN OVERLAID CONFIGURATION. If memory usage must be kept to a minimum, QFILER is available (on special order) in a configuration where an overlay file "QF3.OVR" is used. Program execution is only slightly slower and QFILER uses about 20K less available memory when using an overlay. If using the overlay version, you may continue to rename QFILER.EXE to QF.EXE, but do NOT rename QF3.OVR or QFILER will complain and make you tell it what the overlay file's new name is -- every time you run QFILER!. Just copy both QFILER.EXE and QF3.OVR to a pathed directory, and everything should work fine. December 20, 1988 (version 3.1E) DIRECTORIES MAY NOW (AGAIN) BE HIDDEN. This restores an option that was previously in version 2.x. Further, if you hide an already hidden file or directory, it becomes a system file or directory. We've never seen a system directory, but it does seem to work. VERSION NUMBER ON HELP SCREENS. The version number is now shown on the top line of each help screen. SMALL ADJUSTMENTS MADE. Several minor cosmetic changes have been made to recent new features. November 4, 1988 (version 3.1D) QFINST 1.5 must be used to change CGA <-> EGA/VGA EGA/VGA MODES USER CONFIGURABLE. QFILER defaults to the greatest number of lines available on your monitor. If you have EGA/VGA and the type is too small, you may change the QFILER default to 25 lines by running QFINST version 1.5 with "/CGA" on the command line. In other words, at the DOS prompt, type: QFINST /CGA You may press Ctrl-D to switch between EGA/VGA and CGA while in QFILER. QFINST should be in the same subdirectory as QFILER. "FILL" FUNCTION A LITTLE SMARTER. Before offering the option of FILLING disks, QFILER now checks the target drive for files that will be overwritten. FILL will be offered only if the disk space on the target drive appears to be insufficient to accept the files you wish to copy. PKUNPAK COMMAND LINE PROBLEM CORRECTED. The QFILER screen will no longer scroll up one line when selecting PKUNPAK, extract ALL files. INVERTED SORTS ARE MAINTAINED WHEN READING NEW DIRECTORIES. If you have selected inverted (descending) sorts, the sort will remain in inverted order more consistently when changing directories. November 1, 1988 (version 3.1C) EGA 43-LINE AND VGA 50-LINE MODES SUPPORTED. QFiler will adjust to EGA/VGA mode when loaded. If you wish to switch to CGA 25-line mode (or back to EGA/VGA), press Ctrl-D (Display Toggle). On exit, QFILER will restore the video mode active when QFILER was loaded. "FILL" FUNCTION ADDED. If you have tagged one or more files, are copying to drives A: or B: (assumed to be a floppy disk), and QFILER believes the tagged files will not fit on the target drive, you will be given the option of FILLING disks. If selected, QFILER will fill the disk to within 1K of maximum capacity (selecting largest files first, then smaller files as appropriate), then prompt you to swap disks. When all tagged files have been copied, you will be offered several choices of how you wish to redisplay the source directory. NOTE: QFILER does not compare files to see if any will be overwritten, but simply disk space free. If you wish to override the FILL function, just answer "N" to the prompt displayed, and QFILER will revert to it's "normal" copy. KATZ'S PKPAK and PKUNPAK SPECIFICALLY SUPPORTED. Use QFINST to select Buerg ARCx, Katz PKARC, or Katz PKPAK as you desire. TWO OPTIONS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE ARCHIVE SUBMENU. You may now press "T" to test the integrity of an archive, or "Z" (zoom) to display the contents of an archive and list or extract individual files. While the contents of an archive are displayed, you have the following options: Up or Down - Use cursor arrow keys to select current file. F9 - Tag or UnTag the current file. F10 or T - Tag or UnTag the current file and advance. U or Enter - UnTag all files. E - Extract tagged files, or current if none tagged. L or S - Browse (using LIST) current or tagged files. Q or ESC - Quit Archive Zoom and return to the main display. The number of files in the archive are now displayed at the bottom of the archive box, along with the total size of tagged files. The files within an archive will remain displayed for action until "Q" or <ESC> is pressed. If files are extracted to the current directory, that directory will be redisplayed. FREE MEMORY (after QFILER is loaded) IS DISPLAYED at the far right of the prompt line (above the bottom menu bar) when the UnTagAll option is active (most of the time). The number will change as QFILER runs, indicating QFILER's usage of this "free" memory. YOU MAY INVERT THE SORT ORDER OF A SIDE by pressing "I" (Invert). QFILER defaults to ascending order, but "I" will toggle between descending and ascending. If a side is displayed in descending order, a small arrow will be displayed in the right corner of the top line indicating the current sort direction. QFILER remembers the current sort direction, and will display new directories in that direction. FILES ARE NOW COPIED IN LARGER BLOCKS, resulting in faster copies, with fewer disk accesses. And Qfiler is now SMALLER, taking just under 115K of memory. BUILDING OF GRAPHIC DIRECTORY TREE (PICK) IS NOW FASTER, because a file is stored in the root directory of each logical drive containing the last tree built by QFILER. If you ONLY add and remove subdirectories from within QFILER, the displayed tree will be correct. If you have made subdirectory changes ouside of QFILER (perhaps by installing a new application), or you suspect the displayed tree is incorrect, you may press "C" (Clear) when a tree is displayed, and a new tree will be built. If your printer supports the IBM character set, you may also press "P" to print a hard copy of the displayed tree. June 20, 1988 (version 3.1B) June 22, 1988 (version 3.1Ba) GOTO (JUMP) COMMAND ADDED. If you have especially large directories, you may press "G", followed by the first letter of a filename you wish to locate. QFILER will scan the current directory and position the highlight bar on the first occurrence of a file whose name begins with the character you indicated. Automatic forward and reverse scans will be performed, and subdirectory names are ignored. (Minor bug corrected by 3.1Ba) LIST INDIVIDUAL FILES WITHIN AN ARCHIVE WITHOUT EXTRACTING! An earlier QF release added the ability to extract individual files from within an ARChived file. Now you may select and view individual files (using Buerg's LIST.COM), without actually extracting them and cluttering up your hard drive. This feature is intended primarily for reading "DOC" files within an ARChive and expects Buerg's LIST to be used for the "list" utility, so those of you who have substituted other editors or browse utilities may have some problems. To use, press ALT-A (Archive utilities), followed by "L" (List). The individual files within the current ARC file will be listed. Tag those files you wish to view and press <ENTER>. All tagged files will be extracted and piped to LIST so you may browse through them. Exit LIST, and you'll be back in QFILER. WARNING: If Buerg's LIST.COM is not used, selecting this option will have unpredictable results. DIRECTORY POSITION MAINTAINED WHEN DELETING FILES. The highlight bar will be positioned either on the file immediately before or after a deleted file. Previously, the first filename was highlighted after deleting one or more files. If you have marked files and choose to delete only the current file, your markings will be lost, but the highlight bar will be above or below your deleted file. FILES MAY BE COPIED FROM A WRITE-PROTECTED DISKETTE. A program error prohibited copying files from a diskette that had a write-protect tab attached.This error has been corrected. SET-BLOCK ERRORS EXPLAINED. You should NEVER execute a TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) program from within a program that allows you to "shell" to DOS. To do so messes up the way DOS manages your memory. QFILER is no exception. Except that in QFILER's case, QF does some memory management before executing a external program (or "shelling" to DOS). If you execute a TSR program and return to QFILER, QF determines that something has messed up the memory it thought it had available to it and complains of a "SET-BLOCK" error. Sorry... this is something that occurs outside of QF's control and there's nothing QF can do to recover gracefully. Don't do that! February 14, 1988 (version 3.1A) EXPLICIT SUPPORT FOR BOTH BUERG AND KATZ ARCHIVE UTILITIES. You may select which of these two popular user-supported archive utilities you wish to use though the use of QFINST (Buerg is the default). If PKARC has been selected, then the selection of Ctrl-A, A (Add or Update an ARC), will result in fewer calls to PKARC since multiple files are communicated to it by QFILER. ADDITION OF INDIVIDUAL FILE EXTRACTING from an ARC'd file. Selection of Ctrl-A, E (Extract files from an ARC) now offers the choice "<A>ll or <I>ndividual files?". Pressing "I" will display a window in which all the files of the selected ARC are displayed. You may select one or more files to be extracted and the drive/directory to which they should be written. QFILER will send the appropriate commands to your selected ARChive utility and extract only those files you have tagged. SINGLE KEY INVOCATION OF LIST AND FINDIT. Although you may continue to invoke both LIST and FINDIT by using the "List" submenu, the single keystroke keys "S" and "F" have been mapped to perform these functions without having to press "L" first. "S" = Show a file (using Buerg's LIST). "F" = Find file(s) (using FINDIT). COMPOSITE VIDEO MONITOR SUPPORT has been added. Just run QFINST with a /M on the command line, then write the changes to QFILER. This solves the problem of a composite video monitor attached to a color video card by substituting normal mono "colors" for the default color table and runs QFINST in monochrome as well. REFRESH OF SCREEN AFTER ARCA/ARCE. In most cases, the proper target directory of an ARC-Add/Update or ARC-Extract will be shown even if your selected target drive is other than the current drive/directory. Files are no longer "UnTagged" after an ARC-Add/Update. "NOVICE" MODE ADDED. QFILER includes several advanced and potentially dangerous features especially in the hands of a novice computer user. There is now a procedure whereby Corporate Micro Managers or Trainers can disable a number of these more advanced features. (You are licensing those corporate copies, aren't you?) If QFINST is run with a /NOVICE on the command line, you will be shown the current level of QFILER and may toggle modes between Novice and Intermediate. Selection of the Novice mode will result in the following: Set/Clear Attribute Bits (sht-F1/F2) disabled. Hide/Unhide (sht-F3/F4) disabled. Protect/UnProtect (sht-F5/F6) disabled. Set File Time/Date (sht-F9) disabled. Shell to DOS (ctrl-S) disabled. System/Hidden/ReadOnly files are NOT displayed and consequently may neither be copied nor deleted. EXIT TO CURRENT DIRECTORY added through the use of Ctrl-Q. In summary, <ESC> and <Q> will exit QFILER and return to the original directory -- Ctrl-Q returns to the directory currently active and displayed on the QFILER screen. SIZES NOW DISPLAYED "CORRECTLY". Well, they weren't really wrong before, but they are now shown as a multiple of 1000 bytes rather than 1024 bytes. In other words, an empty DS/DD floppy will show 362K free and be less confusing. FLASHING POINTER RESTORED. It's tricky, but if someone REALLY wants to go back to the QF2.x-style flashing pointer instead of the inverse video for current and tagged files, it now happens automatically if you run QFINST and set the tagged color to the same as the current color. Suggest gray on blue for current (same as the normal display); white on blue for both tagged and tagged+current. Write the new defaults and rerun QFILER.You should now see a flashing pointer in the left margin. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VERSIONS 2.X AND 3.X QFILER version 3.x (QF3), is a major upgrade to previous 2.x versions of the program the last version being 2.3F, released in the late summer of 1987. All of the features of the earlier versions have been retained or improved, plus some major new features added. The changes are summarized below, separated into two groups; Minor things that are slightly different, and Major those features that are either new or substantially different from previous versions. MINOR CHANGES MARK / UNMARK is now TAG and UNTAG. This change was made to allow the use of [M] to be used for Move. You will have to get used to pressing [T] instead of [M] to tag-all-files. To ease the confusion somewhat, when selecting an option that operates on either current or tagged files, you may press either [T] or [M] to select all-tagged-files. For example, to copy all tagged files you could press the sequence [C]-[T]/[M]-[Y] meaning "copy all tagged files yes, do it". HELP is now displayed on the non-active side of the screen, and is contained in two screens. When the first screen is displayed (showing function key assignments), press [N] to see the next screen (alt- and control-key assignments) or [ESC] to return to the normal display. When the next, or second screen is displayed, press [P] to view the previous screen. Prompts are at the bottom of the help screen. YES/NO questions now have a default value which may be accepted by pressing [ENTER]. The default will be indicated by the bracketed letter, for example [Y]/N which will be interpreted as YES if you press either [Y] or [ENTER]. To abort an operation, press [ESC], which will be interpreted as NO. CURRENT FILE POINTER (the triangle with flashing cursor) is gone and has been replaced (on a color monitor) with a moving colored bar. Tagged files are normally shown in inverse video. If the moving bar is placed on a tagged file, the characters will flash indicating the file is both marked and current. ARCHIVE BIT is now shown as a small "a" next to file time. QF3 will now set the archive bit on all copied files. In addition, shift-F1 can be used to set the archive bit on selected files, while shift-F2 may be used to clear the archive bit on selected files. "DOT" and "DOUBLE-DOT" FILES are no longed displayed as the top two files in a subdirectory, and are replaced with a single "PARENT DIR" entry. Selecting the "PARENT" entry and pressing F3 or F4 will move "up" one level in your subdirectory tree. You may move immediately to the "PARENT" of the current directory by pressing alt-F3 (to display on the left) or alt-F4 (on right). COMPLETELY EMPTY directories (such as on a newly-formatted floppy disk) will be displayed with the message "NO FILES" displayed in the middle of that side. DELETION of HIDDEN, READ-ONLY and SYSTEM files now require operator confirmation before deletion. Attempted deletion of SYSTEM files will also result in a warning and second operator confirmation before the deletion will be performed. (Too many folks who had never seen IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM before, decided to "clean up" their hard drives with some disastrous results!) CRITICAL ERRORS, such as selecting a floppy drive with no disk inserted, are now trapped more consistently and reported as "selected drive does not respond...". USE OF ARCE and ARCA will result in the current side being reread and redisplayed after the ARChive utility has been run the assumption being that something has now changed in the current directory. The currently selected file will remain selected. ESCAPE pressing the [ESC] key will usually abort an operation. You may "quit" QF3 by pressing either [Q] or [ESC]. DRIVE/DIRECTORY COMMAND LINE CHOICES will now be immediately displayed the QF3 signon screen will not be displayed and no beep will be played. For example, invoking QF3 by entering "QF A C:" at the DOS prompt will result in the root directory of A: being displayed on the left side, and the current directory of drive C: being displayed on the right side. ALL OTHER COMMAND LINE SWITCHES have been removed. See QFINST below for information on how to modify QF3 to fit your favorite configuration. SPEED of operations, especially sorts, has been improved. In many cases, it may be done without you noticing anything has occurred! BOTTOM MENU OPTION-LETTERS are now highlighted (on a color monitor). Each of the options may be selected by either pressing the key letter, or by changing the selected option by pressing the spacebar or tab key, then pressing [ENTER]. A FILE MAY BE COPIED TO A DIFFERENT NAME by pressing alt-C. You will be prompted for a new file name. If a file exists with the new name, the copy will not be performed. MAJOR CHANGES SORT CHOICES (name, extension, size, date, and unsorted) are now "remembered" when selected and will remain in effect for both sides of the screen until changed. The current sort choice is displayed at the top right corner of each side to show how that side is sorted (no display means unsorted). QF3 now defaults to sorted-by-filename instead of unsorted. If you wish to change this default, you may see QFINST below. In addition, if you change the sort option on a side, the currently selected file will remain selected after the sort and will be highlighted in the middle of the screen. MOVE has been added to the bottom option menu. If a true move can not be performed (where both the source and target directories are on the same drive) then the user is given the option to perform a "pseudo-move" a copy, followed by a delete. Move has been extended to DOS 2.1 users. DIRECTORY MASKS may be entered by pressing shift-F10. QF3 defaults to all files (*.*), but you may enter some other mask, or return to the default (press shift-F10, then [ENTER] without entering a new mask). If the current mask is not *.*, then it will be displayed at the top left corner of each side. Masks remain in effect until changed. For example, if you wish to display only "BAK" files, press shift-F10 and enter " *.BAK". Only those files whose extensions are "BAK" will then be displayed until you enter a different mask. PICK has been added to the bottom option menu. Selection of this option will display an alpha-sorted, visual tree of subdirectories on a drive displayed on the non-current side of the screen. You may scroll through the directories, then press [ENTER] to display the selected directory on the opposite side of the screen. Pressing cursor-right and cursor-left will move the tree display to the opposite side of screen. The currently displayed directory will be highlighted in the tree. ARChive UTILITIES OTHER THAN BUERG'S ARCE, ARCA and ARCV may be used by running QFINST (see below) and changing the default, then creating QFARCE.BAT, QFARCA.BAT, and QFARCV.BAT files with appropriate replaceable parameters to invoke your favorite ARChive utility. QFINST, a QF3 configuration utility, has been furnished so that you can easily change several of QF3's defaults to your liking. You may change: SORT CHOICE Select sort by file name, extension, size,date or unsorted. Normally by file name. FILE MASK Normally all files (*.*). ARChive UTILITY Buerg's ARCA, ARCE and ARCV or Katz's PKARC and PKXARC.QFILER optimizes it's interface with your selected utility. Normally Buerg's utilities. DIRECT SCREEN WRITES Normally QF3 will write directlyto video memory, but if you wish to redirect through BIOS calls (at a substantial loss of speed), you may. CHECK SNOW ON CGA Turn ON if you wish direct screen writes to be made only during horizontal retrace intervals (reducing "snow"on most CGA monitors). Normally OFF (since EGA's are becoming more common). CONFIRM EXIT If you wish to confirm you really want to return to DOS after pressing the [ESC] or [Q] key. Normally quit-to- DOS is NOT confirmed. QF3 COLORS You may select new colors for the various combinations of QF3 foreground/background colors resulting in some really garish screens, or to optimize for your particular monitor. If you really get things messed up, you can easily restore the original default color combinations. A QF3 program that has been modified by running QFINST will have a message displayed on the second of the "help" screens indicating that it has been user modified. QFILER (c) copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 by Jamestown Software 2508 Valley Forge Drive Madison WI 53719 BBS: 608-271-3685 Quantity purchase and site license information: 608-271-2090