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- Directory Opus V4.0 Short Docs
- ==============================
-
- by Ziggy of SDC
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- First of all, the most important feature to use in learning how to
- use Directory Opus V4.0 is to use the built in help feature. Just use the
- top, leftmost pulldown menu and select "Help!". Now you can click on any
- buttons or options in the pulldown menu and get information about what the
- function does. Select "Help!" in the top, leftmost pulldown menu again to
- turn the help feature off. The help feature is used in the Configuration
- area after you select Configure in the top, leftmost pulldown menu also,but
- in a different way. If you are in the Configuration program, you'll notice
- a question mark at the top right side of the page. Just click on it and it
- will bring up information about all of the buttons or fields on the screen
- currently. If you go into the buttons setup screen then hit the "?" at the
- top corner, you'll see some info. Then if you click onto one of the buttons
- to change the setup, you'll see a new screen. Clicking on the "?" again
- will bring up a totally different help screen for what you currently see!
- Every new screen in the config area will have a different help info screen.
-
-
- Now for the basics of how to use Dir Opus. At the bottom left, you
- will see the drive list of your system. You can scroll through this by
- tapping the right mouse button on top of the drive buttons. If you want to
- see the directory of one of the drives, just click the left mouse button on
- top of the drive you want to see. The directory will be shown in one of the
- windows. To change windows, click the right mouse button on the window area
- you want to be selected. The selected one is the source drive and the other
- is the destination drive. If you see references to areas on your hard drive
- that you dont want to be seen in the drives list, just load the configuration
- prg by selecting "Configure" on the pulldown menu then go to the "Drives"
- setup area. Select "Delete drive" and then click on the buttons you dont
- want to see. When done, click on the "Delete drive" button again to turn
- that mode off. Now you can use the "Swap Drive" button to move the buttons
- to where you want them to be. If you dont have enough buttons, just click on
- "New bank" to bring up a whole new button area to work with! When done,
- click on "Ok" once and at the Configuration main screen, save your setup by
- using the pulldown menu at the top left. Select "Save as" and then in the
- Drawer field, type S: to refer to your S directory. This is where the
- setup file should be saved. Now each time you save your setup, just select
- "Save" to save your current setup. The setup cant be saved from the DirOpus
- main prg remember. It only can be saved from the Configuration main screen.
- The same way we deleted drive buttons, we can delete button functions at the
- bottom of the screen by entering the button setup screen. We can add more
- buttons also and delete and add pulldown menu functions! To add new buttons
- to the bottom go to the button setup screen and select "New bank". If you
- choose the "Button Rows" Pulldown menu in the button setup screen, you can
- choose to see 0, 1, 2, 3, or 6 rows of buttons. I chose 3 because it lets
- me see more of the directory windows and is a good compromise. Now if you
- choose to have 3 also, then save your setup at the config main menu then
- click on "Ok" and you will see what you chose. To scroll through the button
- pages, just go to the status row where it tells you how much memory you have
- at the very bottom and click the left mouse button to scroll down page by
- page and right to go up. If you want to have scroll bars on the drive and
- button windows then go into the config area, and goto "Screen", then
- "General", then checkmark the "Button banks sliders" function. Click ok
- and then go back to the main prg and woolah!
-
-
- The buttons and other functions can be altered or new ones can be
- made which I will go through later. First goto the main prg look at the
- buttons All, None, Parent, Copy, etc... By using the help function you can
- see what these are for. By clicking on the button with the left mouse button
- it will execute the function it is used for. If you see a flap folded over
- on a button in the top right hand corner, it means the button has another
- function right below it! To use or see the other function, hold down the
- right mouse button on top of the button and if you let go of the right mouse,
- it will execute the function. One of the nice features about DirOpus is that
- you can copy files or do other functions without even having to click on
- any buttons!! By bringing up your source & destination windows, you can
- highlight many files or dirs in the source window and then immediately click
- the left mouse button onto the destination window and DirOpus will copy
- the files to that drive!! If you dont like this feature you can turn it off
- in the config, "Filetypes" area. Just delete the defined filetype action
- "DEFAULT" in the window and resave the setup at the main screen. In the same
- way, if you highlight an LHA arc file then immediately click the left mouse
- onto the destination window, it will extract to there! Double Click on an
- LHA, ARC, or Zoo archive to see the contents of them sent to text reader
- where more functions are present to print out or search for strings of text
- at the bottom of the screen and more! Try double clicking on an Amiga
- IFF/HAM/SHAM picture to show it, then hit the spacebar to print it out or to
- see some info about the picture! Use the cursor keys to scroll around the
- picture too! In addition, DirOpus is very smart. Double click on a
- powerpacked text file, picture, mod song or animation and it will decompress
- and do what it has to do! DirOpus knows how to play mods of the following
- types: Noisetracker, Soundtracker, Protracker, MED, Oktalyzer, regular Amiga
- 8SVX snd files, and Raw Data! DirOpus works with the new AGA Amiga 1200 &
- 4000 modes and ECS modes also!! Double click on a font and it will show you
- the font!!! Double click on a normal or ansi text file and it will know to
- use the Read or ANSIRead function automatically! Double click on an icon to
- see info or edit info about the icon. Highlight the icon and then click on
- the "Show" button at the bottom and you'll see what the icon looks like!
- All of these double click features work through the Filetypes that DirOpus
- knows. The next paragraphs will go through some examples of how to make
- different functions in DirOpus...
-
-
- How to make a double click feature example (using Filetype definition):
- =======================================================================
-
- Suppose we want to make DirOpus view a DMS archive when we double
- click on it and send it to a window as output. Goto the congif
- main screen, goto filetypes, and select "New", then scroll down and select
- "Diskmasher archive". In the "Events..." window, select the "Double-click"
- option and then in the "Event Description" window, type what you want to
- be shown at the very top of the screen when you double click on the DMS file.
- I typed "Reading DMS file information..." (dont type the quotes!). Then
- click on "New Entry" and where you see the word "Command", click on that
- button to see whats there. You'll see Command (a built in DirOpus command),
- AmigaDos (to run a prg thru DOS), Workbench (to run a prg thru the Workbench)
- , Batch (to execute a script file), and Arexx for an arexx command. Leave
- this button selected as AmigaDOS, then goto the right and type in the cmd
- you want to use. In this case type the following without quotes:
-
- "c:DMS view "
-
- Make sure you have a space always after the last entry you did. Next goto
- the button marked {} and select it. Then you will see some functions.
- Click on the {f} button and then hit return on the line you had just typed.
- Now you should see (without quotes):
-
- "c:DMS view {f} "
-
- The {}'s function just tells DirOpus what to pass to DMS when you double
- click on the file. Now for the last thing... In the flags window, the only
- thing you want checked is the "Output window" option. In the Close
- Delay field outside of the Flags window put the amount of seconds to wait
- before it closes the window. If you put a -1 it will ask you to hit the
- left mouse after showing it on the screen too! Thats it, now hit "OK", and
- "OK" again and at the main screen, one more thing...we will change the
- size of the window to be as large as the screen when it is shown(by deafult
- it isnt!). Goto System, then AmigaDOS from the config main screen and then
- at the Console Field type the following without quotes:
-
- "CON:0/0/640/200/Directory Opus Output"
-
- Hit "OK" once and at the main screen save the setup. Now its all done.
- Double click on a DMS archive and you will see the output window! If you
- had wanted to send the output to the text reader so you could print out the
- output or do other things, just go back in and change the flags window
- from "Output window" to "Output to File"!
-
-
- How to make a button example:
- =============================
-
- At the Config main screen, select buttons. Click on button to see
- how it is made and you'll see it is done much the same way as the previous
- example. Suppose we want to make a button that will use a gif viewer
- to look at one or as many gif files that you have selected in the dir window!
- At the main button screen, click on one of the emtpy spaces to make
- a new button. I will use a prg named Gift. Goto the name field and name
- the button and give it the colors you want to! Next, goto New Entry
- and select the button to say AmigaDOS and then type in the prg and its
- arguments to the right of the magnifying glass. (The magnifying glass is
- for you to find the file on your hard drive with the path and it will type
- in on the line where it is for you!). I type the following without quotes:
-
- "Gift -pcd {f} "
-
- Dont forget the space at the end! Next in the flags window, select only the
- "Do all files" function. This will run gift on each and every gif file you
- have selected in the dir window separately! Thats it!
-
- Now test it out. Save your setup and goto the main prg and highlight a couple
- gif files and hit the Gift button!
-
-
- How to extract DMS archives:
- ============================
-
- Check out the "Arc Ext" button. This will extract LHA, ARC, and Zoo
- files when you highlight one or more arc files and then hit the "Arc Ext"
- button providing you have a destination window up in DirOpus! To make this
- button undo DMS arc files as well lets look at what the button does...
- With further investigation, we see that the button runs a Command called
- User1. Dont mix up command with an AmigaDOS command. Command is a built-in
- function that only DirOpus knows (such as the Show, Play, and DiskInfo
- commands). User1 happens to be defined in the filetypes area. Goto the
- Filetypes screen and click on the Diskmasher archive option you made earlier!
- Then in the "Events..." window, scroll down to "Command User1" and highlight
- it. In the event description I put "Extracting DMS archives..." (you put
- what you want to!), then click on "New entry" and click on "Command" to make
- it say "AmigaDOS". Then type the following without quotes:
-
- "c:DMS write {f} "
-
- Checkmark the options "Do all files" & "Output window" in the Flags field.
- In the close delay field, type 1 for a 1 second delay after everything has
- been extracted. Click "OK" & "OK" again and then save the setup at the main
- config screen again. Now go back to the main DirOpus prg and highlight 1 or
- many DMS archives and then hit the arc extract button and away you go!!!
-
-
- How to edit/make pulldown menu options:
- =======================================
-
- To learn how to use the pulldown menu setup screen an example will be
- shown on how to edit an option already made with the default setup. Goto the
- config main menu, goto Menus and click on "LHA add". You will see the same
- familiar screen for the setup of its function as the button & filetype
- screens. This example will change the way Lha's add function will work to
- use the -2 option (the new compression method) (The default setup for LHA add
- in DirOpus doesnt use the "-2" option and it should be used). To the right
- of the "New entry" button, select the line that was typed in to control LHA
- and goto the right of the magnifying glass below and change it to the
- following:
-
- "LHA -2 -r -x a "{d}{RsEnter LHA archive name}" {O}"
- /\ /\
- ======================================================
- \/
- Don't type the 2 end quotation marks!
-
- And last, goto the Flags window and unselect the "Recursive directories"
- option. Thats it. You can make new pulldown menu options much the same way
- as you made buttons, etc. Don't forget that you can use the "?" at the top
- of the screen for help and it will explain what the Flag options do, etc.
-
-
-
- There are many other options you can change in the way DirOpus looks
- in the Operation and System menus. They are generally easy to figure out
- so I wont go through how to do that.