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_____________________________________________________________________________ | | | MaxFile/2, a text based files.bbs manager | _____________________________________________________________________________ Portions of the header files used in compilation are: Copyright (C) 1992, Scott Dudley Copyright (C) 1994, Marco Maccaferri From the Development Team of: Ronald Van Iwaarden 1:104/338 MaxFile/2 Development Craig Morrison 1:201/60 MaxFile/PM Development Special Thanks go out to: Scott Dudley For making Maximus the great BBS that it is! Marco Maccaferri For providing the Lora structures and Lora itself Rick Ford Keeping me up to date with the Lora-BBS information If I missed anyone, well...you know who you are! Thanks! Forward: -------- For about 12 months, I have been getting by using (H)url to move files from one area to another and then pulling up an external editor to try and manipulate file descriptions. Needless to say, this got very tedious and to try and get around this, I searched for an OS/2 based file manager. As many of you know, there was none so I set out to write my own. MaxFile/2 is the cumulation of all that effort to date. I originally only wanted a manager to edit descriptions, move files and change archive types (I like all ZIPs). As time went on and as people found out about my efforts, creeping featuritis began to set in and MaxFile/2 is now IMHO, the most powerful file manager available to Max/2 sysops. It is multi-threaded, has most every feature found in many popular DOS based file managers, and it is fully 32-bit. MaxFile/2 is also always in need of improvement. If you have any suggestions or bug reports, feel free to let me know at any of the addresses at the end of this document. The Internet address is probably the most stable of the addresses given as I hope to complete my PhD in applied mathematics in the next year (mid 94) or so and completing my degree will probably take me to another part of the country given that I find a "real" job. Support will always be given in the OS2Prodsupport echo which is available at the Fernwood BBS as well as many other quality OS/2 Fidonet BBS's throughout the world such as my own. Support will also be given via mail to any of the addresses that are given at the end of this document. How it works: ------------- MaxFile/2 is a menu based file manager that is similar in appearance to most file managers that you might have encountered for normal file management. There are three main menu options: File which does many manipulations on files, Sort which will sort the files.bbs on the name, date or size field, and Description which will allow you to manipulate the description of any given file in the files.bbs. These menus are brought down by pressing the key <alt-F>, <alt-S> or <alt-D> respectively. The remainder of the top line is used for filling you in on the status of the threads that may be running in the background. Immediately following the word Description, file names will appear when their archive types are being changed. At the far right of the top line is where file names are displayed when they are files (GIF, JPG, BMP, TIF, PCX, TXT) that are being displayed by the external viewer. This is done so that you can then edit the description while you are viewing the file. If you ever have any questions, pressing <F1> will bring up a window with a description of your present options. This does not yet work for all situations but it does work for the areas where you have the greatest number of choices. Installation: ------------- First, move the file emx.dll to somewhere in your libpath and then edit the file maxfile.cfg to fit your setup. Now, just run it and you should be set. Config file key words: ---------------------- MaxFile/2 uses a simple text based configuration file to set up some basic parameters. The key words and their descriptions will follow here: KEY xxxxxxx This is the registration key for your copy of MaxFile/2. If you do not have a registration key, the easiest way to get one is to send in the enclosed registration form! :-). If you do not have one, put any number here and there will be a two second public service message at the beginning of the program before you can continue. BBS_TYPE xxxxx This is the type of BBS you run. Right now, only Maximus, Lora, and SuperBBS are supported. If you run a different type of bbs that uses a standard files.bbs, contact either of the authors about getting support for your type of bbs. There is also, now, support for a "generic" type of BBS. The only restriction is that the BBS must use a files.bbs approach to cataloging files. See the later section "Generic BBS configuration" for more information on how to set up this type of BBS. FBP d:\max\fbp.exe This is the command line for your file index maintinance utility. For Maximus sysops, this is either fbp.exe or fb.exe. If you are a Lora sysop, this program is called fileidx.exe. Lora sysops also need to include the index file that is to be updated. For example, if you want to update the allfiles.idx index file, you would have the line "FBP g:\lora\fileidx.exe fileidx.idx" instead of the above line. AutoFB YES|NO This determines whether or not FB (or FBP) as defined above will automatically be run on the changed file areas when MaxFile/2 exits. MAXDIR d:\max This is simply where you keep MAXP.EXE and all the related utilities. It is necessary. TEMPDIR d:\temp This is a directory were all work can be done. This is only used if you have not defined the TMP environment variable in which case the directory stored in TMP will be used. If you have defined neither the TMP directory or the above TEMPDIR, MaxFile/2 will create sub-directories off of the present directory to do it's work. sysinfo d:\max\area.dat This is the location of your file area system information. For Maximus sysops, this is your area.dat file and for Lora sysops it is the sysfile.dat file. Simply give the full path for this file. DATE (YES|NO) This config verb simply sets the default status for displaying the date. That is, it the verb is set to NO, then the date will not be displayed in a window for each file as default (it can be toggled back on easily enough if wanted). SIZE (YES|NO) This config verb simply sets the default status for displaying the file size. That is, it the verb is set to NO, then the file size will not be displayed in a window for each file as default (it can be toggled back on easily enough if wanted). WRAP (YES|NO) This config verb simply sets the default status for displaying the file description. That is, it the verb is set to NO, then the file description will not be wrapped as the default. (it can be toggled back on easily enough if wanted). Window1Area 0 Window2Area 1 These are the areas in which the two window will open up in. The default is area 0 and 1 (This does not necessarily the same as in your filearea.ctl) as defined by the area change window. GIF joeview JPG joeview BMP joeview TIF joeview PCX joeview TXT e These are the commands for viewing GIF, JPG, BMP, TIF, PCX, or TXT files respectively. They do not have to be the same and the default is for them to not be installed and they do not have to be the same command. It is assumed that it will take a file name on the command line. For example, if I type "joeview os2.bmp", Joeview will come up with os2.bmp as the image. LowPriRearchive (YES|NO) This sets the priority level at which the file re-archiving is done. If it is set to YES, the priority level of the re-archiving is set to Idle, delta 1. If it is set to NO, then the re-archiving is done at the level at which MaxFile/2 is running. The default is YES DefDescription xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This is the description given to files that are adopted and do not have a file_id.diz or desc.sdi in the archive. It can be up to 60 characters long and can have any ascii symbols you want. VirusCheck os2scan.exe /nopause /report c:\cprog\maxfile\virscan.log An External virus scanner can be used. The expected format for this command is that the scanner is run, taking a directory on the command line and all files in that directory will be scanned. The return code is expected to be 0 if no virii are found and non-zero otherwise. The example here is for Ann Mcafee's oscan.exe. The scanner is run in a separate session so you can watch it's progress. zip_extract unzip -x -o -U zip_add zip -9 -r zip_list unzip -v zip_test unzip -t These describe the command line for dealing with .zip files. It is assumed that the archive is taken as argument 1 (after the above string) and, for extraction, the files to be extracted are taken as further arguments. The example given should work for most Max/2 sysops arj_extract unarj e arj_add arj_list unarj l arj_test unarj t These describe the command line for dealing with .arj files. It is assumed that the archive is taken as argument 1 (after the above string) and, for extraction, the files to be extracted are taken as further arguments. The example given should work for most Max/2 sysops lh_extract lh x lh_add lh a lh_list lh l lh_test lh t These describe the command line for dealing with .lzh files. It is assumed that the archive is taken as argument 1 (after the above string) and, for extraction, the files to be extracted are taken as further arguments. The example given should work for most Max/2 sysops arc_extract arc x arc_add arc a arc_list arc l arc_test arc v These describe the command line for dealing with .arc files. It is assumed that the archive is taken as argument 1 (after the above string) and, for extraction, the files to be extracted are taken as further arguments. The example given should work for most Max/2 sysops WrapComents (YES|NO) Since many times, you just want to see that the comments are there so that you can see the spacing, this keyword will prevent the descriptions of the comments from being wrapped, no matter what is done with the rest of the window. Touch_Adoptee (YES|NO) This determines whether or not a file is to be "touched" (file date brought up to the current date) when you adopt it. The default is YES AutoAdopt (YES|NO) This determines whether or not to automatically adopt the orphan files in a file area when you enter a new file area. adopt zip This keyword simply describes what sort of file extensions to look for when adopting orphaned files. You can have up to 15 of these lines. ColourName BLUE ColourReadOnly CYAN ColourSize MAGENTA ColourDate GREEN ColourDesc RED ColourHighlight YELLOW This is where you can set up the colours for MaxFile/2. They are fairly self explanatory. The possible colours are Black (not recommended), RED, BLUE, MAGENTA, WHITE, GREEN, CYAN, BROWN, and YELLOW. DupIgnoreExtension (YES|NO) If this keyword is set to yes, then MaxFile/2 will ignore the extensions of file names when searching for duplicates. American_date (YES|NO) If this keyword is set to yes, then dates will be displayed in the form mm/dd/yy. If it is set to no, then dates will be displayed in dd/mm/yy format. ExtendedDesc ? If your BBS supports using extended descriptions in the files.bbs, enable this keyword and replace the '?' with the special character that is used by your BBS system to identify extended descriptions. If you are a Maximus user, leave this line commented out. For example if your files.bbs can look like the following: myfile.zip This is a file for which I have decided to use an extra > long description. The special character for my BBS type is > the '>' which indicates that the comment for the previous > file is continued on this line. You would replace the '?' above with a '>' to enable these long descriptions. The extended description is edited with an external editor which is defined later with the externaledit verb. The 'e' editor works very nice for this purpose. Also, the above special character cannot be a space, a '-', a letter, or a number. VerticalWindows (YES|NO) This config verb will allow MaxFile/2 open up window windows split either vertically or horizontally. If this variable is set to YES, then MaxFile/2 opens up with two windows side by side. If it is set to NO, then you get one window on top and one on the bottom. Macro? <string> This config verb (where ? is any number from 2 to 9) describes a macro that can be run on the selected files. The macro can be any sort of external program, specifically, a .cmd file can be very useful. The macro is run with the command line parameters: c:\file\filename.ext c: file\ filename ext (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (1) is the fully qualified file name (2) is the drive for the file (3) is the path with a trailing slash (or back slash) (4) is the file name (without extension) (5) is the file extension. This could be especially useful for extracting a file to a specific directory, extracting a "read.me" file or something along that line. This is done in a separate thread (such as the picture viewer) so one can edit descriptions and perform other operations while the macro is performing it's work The macros can be accessed by pushing function key i (that is, press <F2> for macro2 and <F6> for macro6,...). externaledit <string> This config verb allows you to define an external editor to edit the descriptions rather than using the built in editor. If you are using extended descriptions, then this must be defined. If you have not defined an extended description character, then all control-returns that are in the edited file will be changed to spaces. If you want to use the built in editor, then either comment out this line or leave the string blank. strip_high_asci (YES|NO) This config verb allows you to configure whether or not you want the high ascii characters stripped from the file_id.diz when it is used as the description. Naturually, set it to YES if you want the high ascii stripped and set it to no if you want the high ascii retained. If it is set to YES, then all high ascii characters are changed to spaces and sequences of more than three spaces are collapsed to a single space. Generic BBS configuration: -------------------------- If your BBS type is not presently have built in support with MaxFile/2 or MaxFile/PM, you can add a "generic" setup. Simply change the BBS_TYPE to generic and then create a configuration file that describes your file areas as follows: ───────────────────────────── AREAS.CFG sample ──────────────────────────────── AreaCount 5 0 d:\max\file\uncheck d:\max\file\uncheck\files.bbs Unchecked Uploads 1 d:\max\file\max d:\max\file\max\files.bbs BBS Stuff 2 d:\max\file\dos\games d:\max\file\dos\games\files.bbs Dos Games 3 d:\max\file\os2\util d:\max\file\os2\util\files.bbs OS/2 Utilities 4 d:\max\file\os2\apps d:\max\file\os2\apps\files.bbs OS/2 Applications ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The 'AreaCount' keyword tells MaxFile/2 how many area definitions it can expect to find in the file. The AreaCount keyword must come BEFORE the area definition lines. The format for each area definition line is: <area tag> <file path> <list name> <area description> <area tag> - Is a short name to identify the file area. <file path> - Is the path to the files. <list name> - Is the full drive\path and filename of the FILES.BBS for the area. <area description> - Is a description of the area. All four items MUST be on each line. You can name this file what ever you wish, just make sure you specify the name of this file for the sysinfo variable in the maxfile.cfg file. Please be aware that if we can install normal support for your BBS type, then MaxFile/2 will interact more smoothly with your BBS and there will be one less configuration file to setup. If you have information regarding the structure for storing file area information and also have the permission of the BBS author to distribute this information, please forward it to either the author of MaxFile/2 or MaxFile/PM at one of the addresses at the end of this document. It is usually quite easy to add support for new BBS types and we can probably have a new executable for you within a couple of days. Command Line Options: --------------------- MaxFile/2 now supports several command line options that can be used for nightly/weekly maintinance. -allfiles: This command line option will force MaxFile/2 to to create a file called maxfile.all in the present directory. It will be a complete list of all files in your files.bbs with the size and dates listed with the filename. MaxFIle/2 will look for the files allfiles.hdr and allfiles.ftr in the current directory which will become the header and footer of the allfiles list. For customization, MaxFIle/2 will read in the files allfiles.hdr as the header of your allfiles list and allfiles.ftr as the footer for the allfiles list. These files must be in the present directory to work. If they cannot be found, then no header or footer will be created. Finally, MaxFile/2 will look for the file maxfile.exc in the current directory. This file will contain the numbers of the areas that will be excluded from the all files list, listed one per line. A sample maxfile.exc is included. This can be used so that certain (hidden, passworded) file areas will not be listed in the allfiles list. -adopt: This option will cause MaxFile/2 to adopt all of the orphans in all file directories that are pointed to by a file area. When files are adopted, MaxFile/2 will attempt to extract a file_id.diz or desc.sdi and use that as the file description. -file_id: This option will go into every file area and check every file that is listed in the flies.bbs to see if it has a file_id.diz or desc.sdi to be used asa file description. -sort: This option will open the files.bbs in every area, sort the files.bbs according to name. The -adopt and -file_id.diz options will print a description of what they are doing on stdout which can be used as a log. That is, you could run MaxFile/2 every night with the command line: maxfile -adopt >> adopt.log which will give a list of what files were adopted in which areas and the descrtiption that was used for the file. Be aware that the -file_id option can take a VERY long time. Essentially, it needs to try to unzip file_id.diz from every file in your file list which, as you can imagine, takes quite a while. Also, until MaxFile/2 is registered, you will need to press return to run it after a 3 second pause. Also, these command line options can be combined and will be run in the order that they are given. For instance, if you wanted to adopt all files, sort the file areas and then write an all files list, you could give the command maxfile -adopt -sort -allfiles which would perform the three tasks in order. File Menu Options: ------------------ Here is where the majority of my work is done with MaxFile/2. This will do most of your normal file manipulations for the files.bbs. Most of the options are fairly self-explanatory but I will go through them anyway. Whenever I say it will operate all selected files, I mean that, if you have selected files, it will operate on those selected files and if you have not selected any, then it will operate on the presently highlighted file. Move: This will move all selected files to another file area. You will be provided with a window that gives you the option to remove or accept the presently selected files. It will bring up a window to select the area and then, upon selection, will move the files. You can press <esc> to cancel. Contents: This will un archive the file and then it will display the contents of the archive in a window. You can scroll through the display of this window and take a look at all the files in the archive. Verify: This will attempt to verify the selected files archive using the command given in the MaxFile.cfg Re-archive: This will attempt to change the archive type of the selected files. It will even allow you to re-archive to the same type (such as changing zip 2.04 to zip 1.10). This is done in the background and, as each file is being re-archived, the name is displayed at the top of the main window on the same line as the word Description. Delete: This will delete the selected files and remove the description from the files.bbs. You will be presented with a list of the selected files and will have the option of removing files from the list or accept it as is. vieW: If you have defined a viewer in the maxfile.cfg, then this option will view all the selected files. As each file is is displayed with the external viewer, the file name is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the window. Touch: This will attempt to go to go to each file and set the last modification date of the file to the present date. This will make it show up on a new-files scan by Maximus scaN for virii:If you have defined an external virus scanner, this will un archive the file to a temporary directory and then it scan that directory for any virii. It will not recurse into archives within an archive. marK all: This will mark (select) all files Unmark all: This will unmark (deselect) all files. Save: This will attempt to save the current state of the files.bbs It will backup only on the first save (so you can restore the files.bbs to it's original state. Insert: This allows you to put in a file that cannot be adopted (not configured for it) or simply to add comments. To add a new comment, simply insert a file with the name "COMMENTS" repOsition: This is how you can move files around within a files.bbs. Simply mark the files you want to reposition, and then move the highlight to where you want it to be moved. Once there select <alt-F> O and then it will reposition all the files you have selected to before the highlighted file. You cannot reposition files in front of a selected file. dupe searcH: This will search for files in other areas that have the same name as a file in the present file area. The DUPESKIP config variable determines what a duplicate looks like. Once a dupe has been found, you may delete one of the files, edit the description of one or the other, abort the dupe search, examine the contents of either of the files, or skip the present dupe pair. Locate: This option works similarly to Maximus's Locate. If this option is chosen, then you will be prompted for a string. MaxFile/2 will then search through all the file.bbs's to to try and find this string as either a file name or as a substring of a file's description. It will then open that file area and present the located file at the top of the present window. At this point you are allowed several options which can be seen by pressing <F1> Exit: Exit MaxFile/2. If files are being re-archived, you will need to wait for this to complete. You will be prompted to save any changes to the files.bbs. Sort Menu Options: ------------------ This will sort the files.bbs based on Name (increasing/decreasing), date (increasing/decreasing), or on size (increasing/decreasing). It will attempt to leave the comments where they. If you have selected a range of files, only that range of files will be sorted. If, on the other hand, you have not selected any files, the entire list will be sorted. Description Menu Options: ------------------------- This is the other most used area. It allows you to modify the description or the comments in the files.bbs. Remove: This will remove the description and the files name. It is useful for "hiding" files from the user but leaving them in the directory for later insertion. Edit: This will bring up a window with the file description wrapped for each selected file. The maximum length is 250 characters (almost the max that Max/2 allows). You can insert new characters, delete or paste into the window. Pressing return accepts the new description and pressing <esc> will abort the changes New: This will bring up a window with an empty file description for each selected file. The maximum length is 250 characters (almost the max that Max/2 allows). You can insert new characters, delete or paste into the window. Pressing return accepts the new description and pressing <esc> will abort the changes Use FILE_ID: This will attempt to extract the file file_id.diz, FILE_ID.DIZ, desc.sdi, or DESC.SDI from the file archive. If found, it will use this as the file description with all high ascii chars changed to blank space. If you are using Info-ZIP for your unzip-per, the case sensitivity may cause it to ignore an enclosed file description if it does not fit one of the above formats. The reason is that Info-ZIP came from the UNIX world where case sensitivity is much more important. Insert Comment:This will insert a comment line before the current line. You can then edit the description field so that the comment appears as you wish. dupe searcH options: -------------------- For the following options, only the 'a' and, of course, <F1> work when it is presently scanning for files. Once a duplicate pair has been found, all of the other options are available. a: Abort the present search. d: Delete the presently selected file c: Show the contents of the present file. This is useful for identifying true duplicates. TAB: Switches between windows. e: Edit the present file's selection. u: Uses the file description at the top of the unselected window for the present selected file. r: Remove the description. This is useful if the file is not deleteable or the file does not exist. <esc>: ignores the presently displayed duplicate pair. Main Menu options: ------------------ Many of the keystrokes at the main menu will allow you to perform many of the above menu options with a single keystroke. These can be seen by pressing <F1> which brings up the on-line help. "A": Change area "]": Go to next area "[": go to previous area "R": Re-scan files.bbs from the disk. "W": Toggle the wrapping of file descriptions "D": Toggle the display of file dates "Z": Toggle the display of file size "TAB": Switch between file windows Up, Down: scroll file list up, Down Right, Left: grow window rt, left HOME, END: go to top, end of list pgup,pgdown: file list up, down 1 page "space": Select or de-select file ctrl Right: shrink right side of window ctrl Left: shrink left side of window ctrl PGUP: Maximize window <alt-X>: Exit MaxFIle/2 <alt-E>: Edit file description(s) <alt-R>: remove (delete) file(s) <alt-N>: Scan file(s) for virii <alt-P>: View picture files <alt-A>: Adopt orphans <alt-C>: Contents of archive(s) <alt-V>: Verify archive(s) <alt-I>: use file_Id.diz <alt-UP>: Grow top of window <alt-DOWN>: Grow bottom of window <ctrl-UP>: Shrink top of window <ctrl-DOWN>: Shrink bottom of window <F2>-<F8>: Execute the given macro. So ends the documentation. If you have any questions that are not answered by this or the on-line help (press <f1>). If you have any further questions or want to make suggestions for improvements to MaxFIle/2, feel free to contact me at any of the following addresses: Fidonet: Ronald Van Iwaarden 1:104/338@fidonet.org Internet: rvaniwaa@carbon.denver.colorado.edu OS2NET: Ronald Van Iwaarden 81:313/1@os2net.ftn The internet address is probably most stable but feel free to give all of them a try. If you have any comments as to MaxFile/2 or the above documentation, feel free to let me know and I will see what I can do to fix the problem. Thanks for using MaxFile/2. If you have any questions regarding the PM version of MaxFile, contact myself or Craig Morrison at the following: Fidonet: Craig Morrison, 1:201/60@fidonet.org