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****** A BUG HAS BEEN FOUND ! I CAN'T FIX IT AS YET, BUT WILL LOOK INTO IT, BUT BASICALLY THE BUG ONLY WORKS FROM WORKBENCH AND THAT IS THAT IT UNARCHIVES TO THE SYS: DIRECTORY ! SO, FOR NOW RUN IT FROM THE CLI IF YOU HAVE PROBS. I'M WORKING ON IT ASAP.... ****** Still thinking about how to fix it...sorry ! Use it from the CLI ! ****** I am closer to fixing it I think...but still use from the CLI for now.... ArchEdge V3.01 - Robert Lang 27/9/90 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The Edge in Archiving" Wow! I've actually written something useful. Many years of programming have served ME well, but this is the first time I've actually taken the plunge and let other people get the benefit from my coding. Hope you like it ! Earlier versions are pretty popular around my area, hence the reason I made it neat and decided to release. I'm calling my section of the PD market "Edgeware" and so anything addressed perhaps should be addressed to me because Edgeware is simply a nickname at the moment...and doesn't really exist as anything in the legal world. Rules, Disclaimers, and Where to find me: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm keeping all rights to this program, but allowing anyone to share it around in the format in which it was supplied to them, meaning you can't dissassemble it and change anything, or spread the code, or add your name, or anything but use it and copy it really ! I don't take any responsibility for any damage done when using ArchEdge..its PD, and so not guaranteed to do anything really! If you like it, then you can send $20 to me, and you'll receive the latest version and docs on a bootable disk, and be put on my soon-to-be-formed mailing list for notification of future releases. Alternatively, if that's too much, then just send $5 and a disk, and I'll wack ArchEdge latest version on a disk with docs, and not put you on the mailing list. (I can be bribed easily, though, so buzz me and offer anything at all that's not illegal or immoral [hahahahahaha] ) Also, please feel free to send comments, large unbouncable cheques made out to me, large amounts of spendable-in-the-20th-century cash, Porsches (REAL ones...), or anything else to me: Robert Lang (EDGEWARE) P.O. Box 127 CARDIFF NSW 2285 AUSTRALIA You can also try and ring me for a chat....049-508189....but I'm usually whizzing around from Uni to home, and so I'm hard to get hold of. If you leave a message with my Mum, then don't be assured of getting a return call if you are long distance...sorry, I just can't afford it. You can also netmail me via: Communications2000 BBS (Ph: 049-592664 or FidoNet: 3:622/495) And I would expect that is about the best option. Please send bug reports! I will be updating ArchEdge slowly, and would love to make all who use it happy, so if you find a glitch, then note it and tell me ! ABOUT ARCHEDGE and thanks: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ArchEdge is written in 68000 Assembly, now using the Macro68 Assembler. See my review on Megadisc for your info, but get it ! Its the best, and I mean buy it of course ! Keep programmers programming ! I use an Amiga 2500 which has a 44 Mb Hard Drive, 3 Mb of RAM, a 68020/68881 accelerator board (A2620), and for modemming I use a Bit Blitzer 1234E modem, GPTERMV4.0, a 1081 monitor and my Amy is pumped through a 30 watt amplifier for nice ear-bashing sound. Note that ArchEdge is proudly familiar to GPTERM and Macro68 ! How ? They are all Australian Made, proving that Aussie products have class.... Thanks to the writers of the three books, all bearing the ABACUS label: Amiga Machine Language Amiga System Programmers Guide and Advanced System Programmers Guide These books are invaluable to me, and so if you haven't got them, then there's a hint for you ! AND a special thanks to Suzanne Day, my girlfriend, who somehow puts up with me and my computer. (Falling asleep on a date for example, because I was up the night before till 4 am programming!). ArchEdge is specifically dedicated (well, they do it with books, don't they ???) to Suzanne... I could go on with thanks to my parents for making me, and make a real long Stevie Wonder speech....but I'll save you the hassle..... ARCHEDGE V3.01 DOCS (wow...at last ???) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ok. ArchEdge can be started from the CLI (by entering its name when in the relevant directory) or the Workbench (by clicking on its icon). Either way, at this stage it opens its own CLI output windows when doing DOS stuff. If this is a hassle for CLI users, then tell me, and I'll switch off the CON: windows for the CLI execution case. ArchEdge has menus....these work the same as any of the mentioned options, and include hotkeys. They can easily be worked out yourself by pressing the right mouse button when ArchEdge is running ! When started in the CLI, then it takes options by putting them directly after the space after the ArchEdge name, following a - ! The only option at this time is the auto iconify. Type ArchEdge -i and it automatically hides away. I will add a routine to make it auto detach soon as I figure out how, but for now just put it in your startup-sequence as runback ArchEdge -i and its ready when you need it ! ArchEdge now unzips using the supplied command UNZIP. Note that it won't ZIP a file, because the Amiga Zipper is a self-contained program ! In 2.4, I added a config file. This is called "ArchEdge.config" and is located in the current directory when ArchEdge is run or in the s: directory. This will expand more, but at the moment is one line of 18 characters. There 18 characters are 3 characters each for the custom path gadgets. Eg. Here is my config file : DF0DF2DH0DH1RAMRAM And so ArchEdge takes the characters in threes and adds a : to them, so I get DF0:,DF2:,DH0:, etc....You could put RAD:, or DH2:, DF1:, whatever you like. Also, if you use a directory a lot like uploads, then put in your startup-sequence : Assign UPL: <PATH>:Uploads And put UPL in the ArchEdge.config file and it will select UPL: when you click on it ! Great ! More to come on the config side..... When started from the CLI, it has a neat little option....see further on how to UNDO one file only.... Things have changed if you saw an earlier version, mainly because I rewrote the file requester. Its more friendlier (?) now....just point and click and even drag to select multiple files if you like. You will not the effect of NODIRS by playing. With NODIRS on, you can't drag-select a directory, but if you click on a directory once and AUTO-DIR is on, it will move into the path. But if AUTO-DIR if off and NODIRS is on, there should be no way to select a Directory. Note that CLR and ALL have the effect of unselecting or selecting (respectively) everything, and READ re-reads the current path. ArchEdge now wants you to enter or select a path. Entering one involves clicking on the path gadget, the upper box at the bottom right of the main window, indicated by "From Path" and entering the pathname you want to select. You can select one by clicking on any of the device gadgets at the bottom right of the window. These are not disabled if certain devices aren't available at the moment, they simply copy RAM: or DF2: etc into the pathname box. The AUTO-DIR gadget allows entry into directories by clicking them in the file requester if it (the AUTO-DIR gadget) is on. This is there to support a later option of archiving whole directories. For the moment, a selected directory will produce unexpected results in an archiving operation, most likely it will not archiver the directory...at least that's what LHARC does. The PARENT gadget is the little '/' at the end of the path requester which takes you to the previous directory in the pathname. The POP gadget moves ArchEdge into the background up the top waiting for you to summon it do its chores. Simply click on it first with the left mouse button (to select it...) and then with the Right...and its back again with full fury ! Notice that the POP window is not auto-selected so that it won't disrupt things when using the -i option in a startup. The AUTO-PAD gadget decides if you want a file added to the end of the archive to ensure that modem transfers which sometimes cut off the end of files don't cut off something important...only my file. The file added is a little advertisement for ArchEdge created in RAM when started and deleted when finished ! The DELETE gadget allows you to delete files or directories that are selected. When clicked, you are given a warning and asked YES or NO to confirm. You can also cancel by closing the requester window. If directories are selected you get a further question as to whether you want them and their contents deleted....again close to cancel or YES or NO as desired. The OKAYS option will turn on or off the "CLICK BEGIN TO...." messages that appear when you go to do something....this makes archiving and de-archiving a lot quicker if you are careful and take note of what you are doing ! Directories appear as a separate colour to the files in the file requester, The file requester sorts the directory into alphabetical order. Archiving is done by simply clicking on the files you wish to archive, and selecting LHARC, ARC, or ZOO. If Okays is on, you will be asked to click BEGIN if the path and filename set in the "TO" boxes is correct, or close the window if you want to change or fix anything. NOTE : With OKAYS off, you won't get these warnings !!! THINK ABOUT IT !! You always get LHWARP and DELETE warnings, regardless of OKAYS. And away it will go ! Creating the archive with the first file, and then adding each successive file to the archive. Easy as that. Very little error-handling is done at the moment, but in the event that you wish to stop archiving, click on the close gadget of the ArchEdge Requester and wait for the current command to finish and ArchEdge will return to its own window. The procedure is the same for ZOO, ARC, and LHARC. My suggestion is to use LHARC, as it is most effective and slowly becoming most popular, although not as fast as ZOO...so if its a quick archive you want, ZOO it. ArchEdge used to use a PD program called UNDO. Now it uses custom routines by me, with colourful outputs and the like. You can also now use ArchEdge as you could UNDO. Simply type ARCHEDGE archivename and it will decide what sort of archive the "archivename" is and unarchive it into the current directory. The whole program will not be run, and so this is good for single file stuff ! If you type ArchEdge ? you will get a little instruction screen...wow ! Its a CLI program and a WB program.... The LIST gadget works the same as the UNDO, except it lists the contents of the archive where possible, and waits for a RETURN between each archive. If OWNDIR is on, ArchEdge unarchives by making a directory with the archive name, and unarchiving into that directory, to ensure that files don't get mixed. For example, if you choose to unarchive two files "Robert.Arc" and "Suzanne.LZH" then two directories will be created in the destination path, Robert and Suzanne, and the relevant archive contents will be in the separate directories. Neat, huh? This overcomes a big problem with most archives containing README files, and so they would get lost or weird things could happen ! With OWNDIR off, ArchEdge just sends everything to the TO directory, so be warned....make sure you know what is in the archives and check that there won't be any problems ! Well, that leaves LHWARPing. Clicking the LHWARP gadget brings up all the options, and BEGIN starts it....so be warned...have EVERYTHING ready before you click begin. Notice that I rename like this : rename FILENAME.LHW to FILENAME.LHW.BAK command before the LHWARP command, this is because it locks up if it finds an existing archive of the name and path you told it to make one, so I rename your old one to protect it. I use the internal RENAME function, so you don't need RENAME command.... The options for LHWARP are best explained in its own documents....they are all there. You select the drive, and the compressing options (quick is quickest, but worst, and Freeze is best) and the bitmap options (use the bitmap for most efficient), and enter the name with full path, and away it goes ! The textfile added when AUTO-PADding is also added to LHWARP archives, and is displayed when de-archiving. At present you have no choice but to let this happen ! ArchEdge also UNLHWarps, and does this by letting you know if you click on a file with a .LHW extension! It is straight forward from there, just select the output drive and BEGIN, but again BE WARNED! The process starts immediately the BEGIN is clicked...so have everything ready. That's all I can think of. Most things can be cancelled by clicking the requester close gadget I think, and the program itself can be exited (why would you wanna do that ?) by clicking its close gadget. I don't know of any bugs existing, but then that's because of what is classically called "Programmer's Prejudice". You see, because I wrote the program, I am less likely to do something "wrong" in the views of the program than someone who knows zilch about the program. Any bugs I find will be added to the top of this document, so if there isn't any, then its all going fine ! WHAT YOU NEED: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the C: directory, you MUST have RUN, and all the archivers used by the current version of ArchEdge. (LHARC, ARC, ZOO, PAK, UNZIP, and LHWARP) You could do this by copying the commands to ram: and assigning....like makedir ram:c, copy commands c:, and assign c: ram:c so you can use both drives in your archiving work. If you want to know exactly how to do this, then ask me ! THE END! ~~~~~~~~ Well, there it is! Thanks to Bruce Paine for the actual idea of ArchEdge, and I hope you like it Bruce ! My intention is for ArchEdge to become invaluable to modem users, and I know it will with my work for TOPIK PUBLIC DOMAIN, as I frequently receive piles of archived disks, and so now I can select a batch unarchive and go and do something else while the computer works for me. Keep in touch, and have fun with Archedge ! Robert Lang. Programmer for hire :-> Feel free to let me know if you have a good idea for a PD program, if I like the idea, I'll probably do it ! Also let me if you would like to pay for a program to be written....I'm open to reasonable offers.