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IBM PS/2 ASSISTANT (TM) Developed by Mark T. Chapman IBM NDD National Support Center, Atlanta, GA. Copyright (C) IBM Corp. 1989-1992 ─── ─── The intent of this file is to explain what the IBM PS/2 Assistant is, how to install it, how to obtain future upgrades, and what problems or limitations you might run into while installing or using it. A complete list of the files that you should have is as follows: PS2ASST.TXT (This File) PS2A_GEN.INF PS2A_MKT.INF PS2A_SVC.INF PS2A_TEC.INF PS2A_TSP.INF PS2A_TTL.INF The purpose of these files is described below. OVERVIEW ──────── The IBM PS/2 Assistant is an online help tool composed of PS/2 and OS/2-related marketing, service, technical and general information. It comprises five parts: the IBM PS/2 Marketing Assistant (PS2A_MKT.INF), the IBM PS/2 Service Assistant (PS2A_SVC.INF), the IBM PS/2 Technical Assistant (PS2A_TEC.INF), the IBM PS/2 Technical Specifications Assistant (PS2A_TSP.INF), and the IBM PS/2 General Information Assistant (PS2A_GEN.INF). These files may be viewed separately, or together, according to the user's preference. For convenience, the files will be collectively called the "PS/2 Assistant" throughout the rest of this document. The PS/2 Assistant is a binary file created by compiling a scripted ASCII text file, using the Information Presentation Facility (IPF) Tag Language and Compiler. They are included in the OS/2 V1.2 and 1.3 Programming Tools and Information toolkits (P/Ns 6024929 or 85F1671). The PS/2 Assistant requires OS/2 1.2 (or later) to operate, because it uses the OS/2 VIEW.EXE command to access the file. This is the same command used to display the online OS/2 Command Reference. Since both files were created with the same compiler, and are displayed by the same command, they look and act very much alike. So if you know how to use one, you also know how to use the other. Features include: - A Table of Contents listing a number of sections containing PS/2, OS/2, DOS, and AIX Marketing information; PS/2 and OS/2 Service information; and PS/2 and OS/2 Technical information, as well as a PS/2 Assistant overview and usage instructions tutorial (About PS/2 Assistant). - A keyword Search capability, which highlights all occurrences of a word or phrase, anywhere in the PS/2 Assistant, and displays all sections containing that string in a selection window. - A Print feature allowing you to print the Table of Contents, any section or group of marked sections, or the entire document (over 600 pages worth!). - A Copy-to-clipboard function for copy/paste use. - A Copy/Append-to-ASCII-File capability to save to disk for future use. - A Bookmark feature to save a list of the frequently-referred-to sections for quicker access. - Contextual online Help for general usage information. The PS/2 Assistant was tested, and does work, across an OS/2 LAN Server V1.2 network. Still, keyword searches may take longer across a network than directly on a local workstation. Menu access doesn't appear to be affected by the network. Because the PS/2 Assistant is only about 1MB in size, you may wish to load it on the individual workstations (rather than on the server). (For instructions on Setting Up an OS/2 LAN Server to Share On-line Books, see the document by the same name in the Networking Tips section of the Tips-and- Techniques heading in the PS/2 Technical Assistant.) INSTALLING AND STARTING THE PS/2 ASSISTANT ────────────────────────────────────────── For performance reasons I strongly recommend that you copy the files to a hard drive. You may wish to add the PS/2 Assistant to the C:\OS2\BOOK directory, which already contains the online OS/2 Command Reference (and OS/2 LAN Command Reference, if you have the LAN Requester installed). If you prefer to create a separate directory for the Assistant, you should also change the SET BOOKSHELF= statement in CONFIG.SYS. For example, if you create a directory called PS2ASST, change SET BOOKSHELF= from: SET BOOKSHELF=C:\OS2\BOOK to SET BOOKSHELF=C:\OS2\BOOK;C:\PS2ASST This tells OS/2 where to look for online books.) | Then for OS/2 1.x either: 1) Create a menu option (using Program...New from the Group action bar) containing the following information: Program Title: PS/2 Marketing Assistant Path: C:\OS2\VIEW.EXE Parameters: PS2A_MKT and simply click on the PS/2 Assistant menu option to run the program. or, 2) Type: VIEW PS2A_MKT to run the program directly from the command prompt. | For OS/2 2.0: | 1) Open the Information object on the desktop, and use Create Another (or hold | down the Ctrl key and drag a book icon elsewhere in the folder and then drop | it) to duplicate an existing book object | 2) Open the icon Settings and change the Parameter field to the name of one PS/2 | Assistant book; then change the icon title | 3) Repeat steps 1) and 2) for the other books | | Or, use the VIEW command as in OS/2 1.x. To install the PS/2 Service Assistant and the PS/2 Technical Assistant, simply repeat the process, substituting the other titles and file names in the above example. | If you would like to automatically start the PS/2 Marketing Assistant when you | boot up your system, add the following statement to your OS/2 1.x STARTUP.CMD | batch file: START C:\OS2\VIEW.EXE PS2A_MKT.INF | Or, OS/2 2.0 users can add the book icon to the Startup folder. If you would like to logically link the five books together (to simplify keyword searches of all the information in the three files) into one big menu, you can type from a command line (or put in a batch file or CONFIG.SYS): SET PS2ASST=PS2A_MKT.INF+PS2A_SVC.INF+PS2A_TEC.INF+PS2A_TSP.INF+PS2A_GEN.INF This will create one "virtual" book called PS2ASST (or any other name you choose to assign). To see the data, just VIEW PS2ASST as you would with one of the component files, or use PS2ASST as the parameter in a group setup. OR, create a menu option containing the following information (the file names can be in whatever order you prefer): Program Title: PS/2 Assistant Path: C:\OS2\VIEW.EXE Parameter: PS2A_MKT+PS2A_SVC+PS2A_TEC+PS2A_TSP+PS2A_GEN (The disadvantage to these approaches is that the "About PS/2 Assistant" menu heading will appear four times each on the combined menu, because it exists in all four files. This makes the menu a bit more cluttered, but nothing more.) In the above examples, the title of the combined book would be "IBM PS/2 Marketing Assistant" because that is the title of the first file in the SET command. If another file were first, its title would be used instead. There is one additional (517 byte) .INF file on the diskette, named PS2A_TTL.INF, which is merely a title header. If you precede the other file names in the examples above with this file name, your title will read "IBM PS/2 Assistant" as the title, instead of "IBM PS/2 Marketing Assistant." This may be less confusing when you sometimes look at just one section of the PS/2 Assistant, and other times link several sections together. (NOTE: In case you are wondering why the .INF extension was used in some of the examples above, but not others, the answer is that it is optional when using the VIEW command directly, as in VIEW xxxx; however when the START command is used to launch a program, or the SET command is used to link files together, the fully-qualified program and file names are required. Not using the .INF extension in these cases will cause a "Cannot Open Input File" error.) Finally, you may wish to create a new menu (Group) specifically for the PS/2 Assistant, or for all online books, including the OS/2 and LAN command references. To do this, simply go to the Desktop Manager and select Group. Then select New, and type in a Group Name (say PS/2 Assistant, or Online Books). After deciding whether to have the menu auto-start when you boot up (under 1.3 or later), and whether to start minimized or "normalized", click on Add, and you are done. Once the group has been added, you can set up the menu to include the Assistant books, by using Program...New, and filling in the fields, as described above. *** TIP *** If you already have the Assistant installed on a menu, and want to move the entries to their own group, you can simply drag and drop (using the "alternate" (right button for right-handed users) mouse button) from one Group window to another. This will save a lot of typing (in the new Group) and deleting (from the old Group). This "trick" works with any Group menu items. USAGE INSTRUCTIONS ────────────────── Information on using the PS/2 Assistant is available by double-clicking on the first menu option (Overview and Usage Instructions) of the Contents menu. If you are familiar with using the OS/2 Online Command Reference, then you already know how to use the PS/2 Assistant; however there is some information specific to the PS/2 Assistant contained in this section that should be read before using the first time. *** HOT TIP *** If you know the name of the section you will be looking in first, you can jump directly to that section from the command line. For example, if you want to look up a phone number, rather than typing VIEW PS2A_GEN, and then selecting the IBM Phone Number list, and then the IBM Voice Phone Numbers, you could type: VIEW PS2A_GEN VOICE and jump directly to that section. This technique works only for the FIRST menu topic containing that keyword. If, for example, you searched on PHONE, you would get the IBM Phone Number header. This trick won't always get you where you want to go on the first try, but it can be a time-saver once you get the hang of it. ****************************************************************************** UPDATES ─────── The PS/2 Assistant is updated twice-monthly, and released via the IBM NSC BBS (see below) for end-users (PS2ASST.EXE), or the MKTTOOLS disk (PS2ASST PACKAGE) for IBMers. IBM Developer Assistance Program (IDAP) members, and customers registered as Technical Coordinators, who have access to IBMLINK also may download the PS/2 Assistant (PS2ASST PACKAGE) from the ESDTOOLS disk. IBMers may type in the following command from the VM command line to get the latest copy of the PS/2 Assistant: TOOLCAT MKTTOOLS GET PS2ASST PACKAGE If this doesn't work, use the following: TOOLS SENDTO BCRVMMS1 TOOLS MKTTOOLS GET PS2ASST PACKAGE To subscribe to the PS/2 Assistant (and receive future updates automatically), type: TOOLS SENDTO BCRVMMS1 TOOLS MKTTOOLS SUB PS2ASST PACKAGE If you have any comments, suggestions, or find any errors, please let me know. I can be reached through the IBM NDD National Support Center BBS. (Dealers registered with the IBM Technical Advisor program may use the 800 # to call the Technical Advisor BBS (TA BBS) set up for them. Others may call 404-835-6600 for the first available modem line; or 404-835-5300 for USR Dual-Standard 9600 baud modems; or 404-835-5578 for IBM 7855 modem lines; or 404-835-6296 for Hayes V-Series or Ultra Smartmodems.) Communication parameters supported are 300-9600 baud; N,8,1). IBMers can reach me internally at T/L 269-6432 or MCHAPMAN @ DAYVM2. There is also a PS2ASST FORUM available on the IBMPC disk. Prodigy users may leave a message for JPJS05A. ****************************************************************************** KNOWN PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS ────────────────────────────── 1) If you are using SE 1.2 ship-level (ie. without the November 1989 Update), the IBM PS/2 Assistant V1.40 or later will not work ("Cannot Open Input File" message). This is due to my switching to the updated IPF compiler (which fixed some bugs in the original compiler) that requires the SE 1.2 update. EE 1.2 users already have the update incorporated into the ship-level code. Only SE 1.2 users with a SYSLEVEL of less than XR04020 are affected. (This does not affect EE 1.2 users, all of whom have a minimum SYSLEVEL of 4053 or later.) 2) It appears that you cannot print from the Assistant if the OS/2 Spooler is disabled. If you receive printing errors, check to be sure the spooler is enabled, or type SPOOL at a command prompt to enable it. 3) In some instances a multi-part search string (for example, MATH COPROCESSOR) may not return all valid matches. This is a limitation of the VIEW.EXE command. If you do not get as many "hits" as you expect, try a shorter search string (such as COPROCESSOR), or use wildcards (MATH *PRO*). Single-word searches appear to work correctly. 4) If you try to use STARTUP.CMD to start more than one .INF file (whether PS/2 Assistant, CMDREF.INF, or other online help file) you may receive an OS/2 error message for each attempt after the first. This is due to a timing problem (the second copy trying to load before the first finishes) in OS/2 1.2 and 1.3. The fix for this bug is in OS/2 V1.30.1 (also called CSD 5015). 5) If you accidentally (or intentionally) delete the OS/2 1.2 Courier font from the system, IPF (under which the PS/2 Assistant runs) will incorrectly substitute a proportional font instead of the system monospace font. This has the effect of messing up the alignment of text in all the monospaced documents (such as the price list and technical specs documents!). This has been reported to OS/2 development and will be corrected in a future 1.2 CSD. 6) There seems to be an intermittent problem using the PS/2 Assistant on an OS/2 LAN Server V1.2 network. Occasionally, the first time the PS/2 Assistant is started a Protection Violation error will be encountered when the first menu option is selected. If a Search is attempted before a menu option is selected, Search ignores the search request. It doesn't appear to be a serious problem. It happens only sporadically, and only once. If you start the Assistant again, immediately after the PV error, it will work correctly the second time, and every time after that until the next time you reboot. 7) When using OS/2 V1.3, the fixed-pitch font (such as in the price list) used by OS/2 is larger than that used in V1.2. Therefore less text will fit on the screen than before, both horizontally and vertically. This is not a problem vertically, since you can just scroll up and down to see all the information; but some data may be cut off on the right side of the screen. There is no way to see this information currently. I have no control over this limitation, and there are too many lines of fixed pitch text (10-15,000 lines) to change manually. Until a new version, or Corrective Service Diskette, gives me (or the user) the ability to select a font size, or scroll horizontally, this will be a permanent limitation. Workarounds include using an 8514/A adapter and compatible high-resolution display; or staying with OS/2 1.2 for the time being. 8) There may be a problem trying to print (from VIEW.EXE) INF file information on a PostScript printer. If you encounter strange wrapping problems on a PS printer, try changing your printer into IBM Proprinter (or other ASCII printer) emulation mode if your printer has such a mode (or any other emulation mode that is known to work with the PS/2 Assistant). Then set the Print Manager Application Default (from Setup) to use an OS/2 driver compatible with this printer mode. (If this works, don't forget to reset your printer mode and OS/2 driver back to their original settings when done printing from the Assistant. If your printer is capable of printing ASCII files, another approach is to use the Copy to File pulldown option. This will save the selected sections to a file called TEXT.TMP, in the same directory as the INF file you are copying from. Then simply use the File Manager to drag-and-drop the file to the Print Manager icon. Then answer the prompt for the device driver to use, and when prompted whether the data is Graphics or Text, specify Text. (The reason for doing it this way, rather than using the Print command, is that many PS printers do not automatically switch from PS mode to ASCII mode, and tend to "eat" the ASCII file instead of printing it. The drag/drop method forces the printer into ASCII mode, if the printer has an ASCII mode.) 9) If you are using the Assistant on a network, make sure that all INF files are set up with read-only attributes, otherwise all users trying to share a file that is already open will receive "access denied" error messages. This is true of any INF files you might be sharing (command reference, etc.). I hope you find this tool to be useful. Good luck! Mark Chapman Advisory Marketing Support Representative IBM NDD National Support Center, Atlanta. NOTE: The IBM PS/2 Assistant is copyrighted by IBM, and may not be modified in any manner, or for any reason. See the "About PS/2 Assistant" menu option in the PS/2 Assistant for Trademark information and additional disclaimers.