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EDIR A FULL SCREEN DIRECTORY EDITOR VERSION 1.00 COPYRIGHT (C) 1986 BY ROSE DEVELOPMENT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TABLE OF CONTENTS License Agreement..........................................2 Introduction...............................................3 A short course on MS-DOS disk directories..................5 Editing directories with EDIR..............................6 Installation............................................6 Operation...............................................7 EDIR command reference....................................10 Quick summary..........................................10 PgUp...................................................11 PgDn...................................................11 Home...................................................11 End....................................................11 Up-Arrow...............................................11 Down-Arrow.............................................11 Mark...................................................11 Unmark.................................................11 Cut....................................................12 Paste..................................................12 Organize...............................................12 Sort or Reverse........................................12 Trim (compress) directory..............................13 Display paste and/or safe buffers......................13 Help...................................................14 Write and quit.........................................14 Quit...................................................14 Order form................................................15 ROSE DEVELOPMENT LICENSE AGREEMENT EDIR is the copyrighted property of Rose Development. It is based on the concept of user supported software which is an attempt to provide software at a low cost to the end user. Version 1 is provided to you free of cost and may be copied and shared freely, provided that it is distributed ONLY in its original unmodified form and no fee is charged for such distribution. Version 2 and future releases cannot be distributed. You can use these versions on a single machine and copy them for backup purposes only. The latest release of EDIR can be obtained by sending a nominal contribution of $15 to Rose Development. Please use the order form at the end of this document for this purpose. Registered users will be informed about future releases and can get updates at a nominal charge. DISCLAIMER EDIR is provided "as is" without warranty on any kind. In no event will Rose Development be liable to you for any damage, including loss of profits, savings, data, time or other incidental or consequential damages arising due to use of this program. We have tried to make EDIR as "bullet proof" as possible. It has been tested on several IBM PCs, XTs, ATs and 100% compatibles with various disk configurations including double sided/double density drives, high density drives and hard drives. However, we do recommend you to test this program on your specific setup. It is always a good idea to have a recent backup of all your important disks. MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS IBM PC/XT/AT or 100% compatible MS-DOS/PC-DOS version 2.00 or higher 64K RAM Rose Development 1126 E. Algonquin Rd., 2K Schaumburg, IL 60173. (312) 397-6686 - 2 - INTRODUCTION EDIR is a full screen directory editor that allows you unlimited flexibility in manipulating MS-DOS directories. It gives you full control over the order in which the individual directory entries will be stored on the disk. It can sort directories by filename, extension, date, size or any other arbitrary order that may seem logical to you. For example, suppose the DOS 'DIR' command currently lists a directory in the following order: . <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p .. <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p PRACTICE TXT 3140 9-10-85 6:36a TEST DOC 12876 12-29-84 10:30p TEST EXE 2409 12-29-84 10:25p LIB <DIR> 11-09-86 6:05p TEST1013 RES 324 10-13-86 8:54p HELP <DIR> 11-09-86 6:10p TEST1009 RES 324 10-09-86 10:45a EDIR lets you change this order to your taste. A few possibilities are shown below: 1. Directories first, then files (in the desired order). . <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p .. <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p LIB <DIR> 11-09-86 6:05p HELP <DIR> 11-09-86 6:10p PRACTICE TXT 3140 9-10-85 6:36a TEST1013 RES 324 10-13-86 8:54p TEST1009 RES 324 10-09-86 10:45a TEST DOC 12876 12-29-84 10:30p TEST EXE 2409 12-29-84 10:25p 2. Files first, then directories (in the desired order). Note that . & .. entries must remain in place due to DOS requirements. . <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p .. <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p PRACTICE TXT 3140 9-10-85 6:36a TEST1013 RES 324 10-13-86 8:54p TEST1009 RES 324 10-09-86 10:45a TEST DOC 12876 12-29-84 10:30p TEST EXE 2409 12-29-84 10:25p LIB <DIR> 11-09-86 6:05p HELP <DIR> 11-09-86 6:10p - 3 - 3. Directories first, then files (in sorted order). . <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p .. <DIR> 11-09-86 5:52p HELP <DIR> 11-09-86 6:10p LIB <DIR> 11-09-86 6:05p TEST DOC 12876 12-29-84 10:30p TEST EXE 2409 12-29-84 10:25p TEST1009 RES 324 10-09-86 10:45a TEST1013 RES 324 10-13-86 8:54p PRACTICE TXT 3140 9-10-85 6:36a The power of EDIR comes from the fact that you can manipulate the directories interactively. It is a full screen editor designed to edit directories, very similar to the full screen editors designed to edit documents. This document describes the use of EDIR to effectively organize your disk directories. - 4 - A SHORT COURSE ON MS-DOS DISK DIRECTORIES This section is not mandatory reading, but would certainly help to better understand the operation of EDIR. MS-DOS can create two types of directories on disk. The root directory has a fixed size and is always present. On the other hand, subdirectories have variable size and they may or may not be present. Subdirectories are allocated in units called 'clusters'. A cluster is simply a group of sectors. The number of sectors in a cluster is fixed and is determined by the type of the disk, e.g. a double-sided double-density disk has 2 sectors/cluster whereas the high density diskette on a PC/AT has 1 sector/cluster. Information about files and subdirectories under a certain directory is stored in directory entries. Each entry contains the following information about the corresponding file or subdirectory: filename, extension, attributes, date and time of creation, starting cluster number and file size. Each directory entry occupies 32 bytes on the disk. When a directory cluster gets full with entries, new entries are added to the directory by assigning an unused cluster to the directory. A directory entry that has never been used has a hex 00 as the first character of its filename. DOS deletes a directory entry by making the first character of its filename a hex E5. Deleted entries are not listed by the 'DIR' command. Thus deleted entries create small "holes" in a directory. When DOS needs to add a new directory entry to the directory, it writes over the first available "hole" (deleted entry), if one exists. That is why filenames seem to appear at unexpected places when you create new files in a directory that has deleted entries in it. EDIR lets you interactively manipulate the order of directory entries with the following restrictions which are necessary for the proper operation of DOS: 1. In a system disk (a disk that has DOS on it) the first two files in the root directory must be IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS (IBMIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM in case of PC-DOS). EDIR will not let you move these two files. It will actually pull out these two entries into a 'safe buffer' before letting you manipulate the directory entries. When writing the directory back to the disk, the two entries will be inserted in the right place. The same holds good for the . & .. entries in a subdirectory. 2. DOS assumes that the never used entries in a directory will always be at the end. So EDIR strips these entries before letting you manipulate the directory and reinserts them in the right place before writing it back to the disk. - 5 - EDITING DIRECTORIES WITH EDIR INSTALLATION 1. EDIR uses ANSI sequences for cursor control on the screen. So make sure that you install the ANSI.SYS device driver during boot up. ANSI.SYS is a file on your MS-DOS or PC-DOS distribution disk. Copy this file to your system disk (the disk that you use to boot up your system - floppy or hard disk) in the root directory or any other subdirectory of your choice. Then include the following line in a file called CONFIG.SYS in the root directory of the system disk. If this file does not exist at the root level, then create it. DEVICE=<full pathname of the ANSI.SYS file> For example, if your ANSI.SYS file is in a directory called \BIN then the entry in the CONFIG.SYS file will look as follows: DEVICE=\BIN\ANSI.SYS 2. Now copy the file EDIR100.EXE to a directory of your choice and rename it as EDIR.EXE. Include the directory containing EDIR.EXE in your search path. For example, if EDIR.EXE is in a directory called \UTIL on the C: drive, then you would enter the following command at the DOS prompt or include it in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file at the root level. PATH=C:\UTIL - 6 - OPERATION An editing session with EDIR consists of the following steps: 1. Call up the directory that you want to edit using EDIR. 2. Manipulate directory entries using EDIR commands. 3. Store the directory back to the disk using the EDIR write command. Note that there is only one way to write the edited directory back to the disk, i.e. by using the write command. If, for some reason, you decide not to change the directory contents, you can quit out of EDIR using the quit command. The calling syntax for EDIR is as follows: EDIR ? or EDIR [d:][path] EDIR ? gives EDIR usage information. EDIR [d:][path] opens the directory of your choice for editing. 'd:' is the target drive. It is optional and if not specified defaults to the current default drive. 'path' is the target directory pathname. It is also optional and defaults to the current default directory on the target drive. 'path' may be specified as an absolute or relative pathname. Examples: EDIR EDIR B: EDIR B:DOC EDIR B:\UTIL\WORD EDIR BIN\MAIL EDIR \GRAPHICS If EDIR is invoked with an invalid drive or pathname, an error message is displayed and EDIR aborts itself. For a valid invocation, EDIR comes up with its normal editing screen ready for you to edit the target directory. - 7 - At this point, I suggest you to start an EDIR session with a large enough target directory (at least 30 entries) and try out the commands suggested in the following paragraphs. The normal EDIR editing screen contains one directory entry per line corresponding to each file or directory under the target directory. Each entry contains the following information about the file or directory: filename, extension, file attributes, date and time of creation, size and starting cluster number. The file attributes have the following meaning: A Archive - set whenever a file is modified D Subdirectory V Volume label - can exist only in the root directory S System file H Hidden file R Read-only file An entry that has been deleted is shown with a ? as the first character of its filename. The entry at which the cursor is placed is called the "Current Entry". The current entry (and the cursor position) can be changed by the up-arrow and down-arrow keys on your keyboard. You can page through the directory rapidly using the 'Page-Up' and 'Page-Down' keys. Also, you can get to the top or bottom of a directory very quickly using the 'Home' and 'End' keys on your keyboard. Try using these keys to view the target directory. The entries you are looking at are in the main buffer of EDIR. EDIR also has a paste buffer which is useful for moving entries within the main buffer. Let's try this with an example. Bring the cursor to an entry that you want to move. Press the key 'C' (CUT) on your keyboard. The entry pointed by the cursor is deleted from the main buffer and placed in the paste buffer. Let us look at the contents of the paste buffer now. To do this press the 'D' (DISPLAY) key. The display buffer is shown on the screen. It has only on entry at this point. Press any key except 'S' to get back to the main buffer ('S' shows you the safe buffer - entries that EDIR does not allow you to manipulate). Now move the cursor to a point where you want to insert the entry you have just cut. Press the 'P' (PASTE) key and the paste buffer will be inserted BEFORE the entry pointed by the cursor. If more than one entries are cut before pasting them back to the main buffer, then they are appended to the paste buffer (as opposed to overwriting the paste buffer). So if you wanted to group the 3rd, 14th & 22nd entries in a directory, then you would first cut them into the paste buffer using the 'CUT' command three times and then paste them at the desired location in the main buffer using a single 'PASTE' command. Try this sequence and watch the contents of the paste buffer as you progress. - 8 - Now try some sorting capabilities of EDIR. EDIR can sort directories by filename, extension, file size or date & time of creation. It can also reverse the current order of entries. Press the 'S' (SORT) key to do a simple sort by filename. EDIR displays the following prompt: Sorting sequence - <F>ilename, <E>xtension, <S>ize, <D>ate, <R>everse: Press the 'F' key and EDIR will sort the whole directory by filename. If you want to write the directory back to the disk, press the 'W' (WRITE) key. If you want to quit without writing to the disk, simply press 'Q' (QUIT) key. EDIR will ask for your confirmation in each of the above two cases. By now you should have a good working knowledge of EDIR and you should be able to explore the remaining functions simply by reading the next chapter - EDIR COMMAND REFERENCE. A short online help screen is available when you are using EDIR. To display this help screen, simply press the 'H' (HELP) key. - 9 - EDIR COMMAND REFERENCE QUICK SUMMARY: KEY COMMAND DESCRIPTION <PgUp>: Scroll page up <PgDn>: Scroll page down <Home>: Go to top of directory <End>: Go to bottom of directory <Up-Arrow>: Cursor up <Down-Arrow>: Cursor down M: * Mark U: Unmark C: Cut P: Paste O: * Organize (files/dirs/deleted entries) S: Sort or Reverse T: * Trim (compress) directory D: Display paste and/or safe buffers H: Help W: Write and quit Q: Quit * These functions are for demo only. If you use them during an EDIR session, you will not be able to store your edited directory on to the disk. To order the full featured version of EDIR use the order form at the back of this manual. - 10 - <PgUp>: Scroll page up <PgDn>: Scroll page down These keys are used to scroll through the directory one page at a time. When the top (bottom) of the directory is reached, you cannot scroll up (down) any more. <Home>: Go to top of directory <End>: Go to bottom of directory These keys are used to reach the top or bottom of the directory very quickly. <Up-Arrow>: Cursor up <Down-Arrow>: Cursor down These keys are used to move in the main buffer one entry at a time. When the top (bottom) of the directory is reached, you cannot move up (down) any more. M: Mark (Demo function) U: Unmark MARK is used to group a certain section of the directory. Once a section is marked, the CUT and SORT commands operate only on the marked section. UNMARK is used to ungroup a marked section. To mark a certain section of the directory, go to the first directory entry of the section and press the 'M' key. The current entry will be highlighted. Now move the cursor to the last entry in the section using <Pg-Up>, <Pg-Down>, <Home>, <End>, <Up-Arrow> and <Down-Arrow> keys in any order. The whole section will be highlighted as you move the cursor to the last entry. Also, if you want, you can start your marking from the last entry of the section and work your way backwards towards the first entry. Now that you have marked a particular section, what can you do with it? Well, one thing you can do is to cut the whole section using the CUT command and append it to the paste buffer. This is a much easier way of cutting consecutive entries from the main buffer as opposed to cutting individual entries one at a time. Something else you can do with a marked section is to sort it. When you use the SORT command after marking a section, the command operates only on the marked section and leaves the rest of the directory untouched. Even after the sort is completed the section is kept marked for you to observe the result and perform any further operations on the section (for example, more sorts, or CUT, or even expand or shrink the section using the cursor control keys). Whenever you want to unmark a marked section, just press the 'U' key. - 11 - C: Cut P: Paste The CUT command cuts the directory entry pointed by the cursor and appends it to the paste buffer. If there is a marked section within the directory, the whole section is cut and is appended to the paste buffer. The contents of the paste buffer can be observed at any time using the DISPLAY command. The PASTE command inserts the contents of the paste buffer BEFORE the current entry (the entry pointed by the cursor). O: Organize (Demo function) The ORGANIZE function rearranges the main buffer in the following order: files, directories, deleted entries. This command is useful if you like to look at your files and directories in separate groups. It also places all the deleted entries at the end, thus combining all the small "holes" into a big one. This ensures that all the new files created in the future will be appended at the end of the directory instead of creeping up randomly within the directory. If you do not like the files/directories/deleted entries order for some reason, you can easily reorder the entries by doing a block CUT and PASTE. Note that the organize command operates on the main buffer only. So if you have any entries in the paste buffer and want them to be part of the reorganization, you must first paste them into the main buffer. S: Sort or Reverse This command is used to sort or reverse the order of directory entries in the complete main buffer or a marked section within the main buffer. If there is no marked section when this command is invoked, then the complete main buffer is sorted. Otherwise only the marked section is sorted and is left marked for you to observe the results or perform more operations on it. When you press the 'S' key to do a sort, EDIR displays the following prompt: Sorting sequence - <F>ilename, <E>xtension, <S>ize, <D>ate, <R>everse: You must now type the first letter of the sorting option of your choice, viz. sort by filename, extension, file size, date & time or reverse. Sorts are always done in the ascending order. Hence, to sort in the descending order, you must first do a normal sort followed by a reverse operation. Note that the SORT command operates on the main buffer only. So if you have any entries in the paste buffer and want them to be part of the sort, you must first paste them into the main buffer. - 12 - T: Trim (compress) directory (Demo function) This function can sometimes compress a directory into fewer clusters freeing up valuable disk space. The idea behind the TRIM function is as follows: To add new entries to a directory that is already full, DOS assigns an unused cluster to that directory. Thus DOS provides the basic mechanism to expand a directory. However, DOS does not have the mechanism to salvage a directory so as to reclaim unnecessary directory space. As an example, consider a disk with 2 sectors/cluster (i.e. 1024 bytes/cluster). So each cluster can accommodate 32 directory entries. Now consider a directory that has one cluster and is full with 32 entries. Suppose you create a new file in this directory. To add this 33rd entry into the directory, DOS assigns an unused cluster to the directory and writes the new entry as the first entry in the new cluster. Now if you delete ANY entry from the directory, there are only 32 valid entries left. Theoretically, these 32 entries can fit into one cluster. But DOS does not pack these entries into one cluster in order to free up the other cluster. The TRIM function does exactly that. When you invoke the TRIM function, EDIR will ask you for a confirmation. If you say yes, EDIR will pack the directory into fewer clusters if possible and will display the number of clusters that will be freed during a write to the disk. Thus TRIM may be very useful when you are trying to fit those last few bytes on a disk. Note that TRIM internally uses the ORGANIZE function and so the directory will be rearranged in the files/directories/deleted entries order every time you use the TRIM function. Also note that the root directory cannot be trimmed because it has a fixed size as defined by DOS. If you try to trim the root directory, EDIR will produce an error message. D: Display paste and/or safe buffers When you invoke the DISPLAY function, EDIR first displays the contents of the paste buffer. It then asks you to press the 'S' key if you want to look at the safe buffer or any other key to switch back to the main buffer. The safe buffer contains entries that cannot be moved, e.g. the DOS system files in the root directory and the . & .. entries in any subdirectory. - 13 - H: Help This command displays a help screen for EDIR commands. W: Write and quit This function writes the edited directory back to the disk. If there are any entries in the paste buffer, they will be automatically pasted into the main buffer before a write to the disk. The WRITE command asks for your confirmation before writing to the disk. Q: Quit This command lets you get out of EDIR without saving the contents of the edited directory on to the disk. It asks for your confirmation before quitting. - 14 - ORDER FORM Qty. Description Unit Price Extended Price ---- ----------- ---------- -------------- ____ EDIR $15.00 ______________ IL residents add 7% sales tax ______________ Total ______________ Please print clearly: Name _______________________________________________________ Company ____________________________________________________ Street Address _____________________________________________ City/State _______________________________ Zip _____________ Home Phone Number ( )-__________-_____________________ Bus. Phone Number ( )-__________-_____________________ Where will you be using this product? ____ Home, ____ Work Your computer (make/model) _________________________________ Number of drives and type __________________________________ Display adapter and monitor ________________________________ Printer ____________________________________________________ Other peripherals __________________________________________ We welcome your comments and suggestions about EDIR: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ What applications and/or utilities would you like to see us develop in the future. Your inputs are very valuable to us: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Please mail this order form along with your check to: Rose Development, 1126 E. Algonquin Rd., 2K, Schaumburg, IL 60173. - 15 -