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UNCFS, a productivity tool version 1.20 23rd July 1994 Copyright (c) Cy Booker, 1992, 1993, 1994 Synopsis 1 Warranty 1 ShareWare 2 Registering 4 Why use UnCFS 5 Typical usage of UnCFS 6 Important Preamble 7 Installing UnCFS 8 Troubleshooting !Install 8 Patching Applications 9 The Choices Window 10 Multitask 10 Faster 10 Small files 10 Delete !Boot 11 Outline Fonts 11 Save Choices 11 Troubleshooting !UnCFS 12 Un-installing UnCFS 13 Troubleshooting !UnInstall 13 How UnCFS works 14 Technical Details 14 Registration Form 16 Page 1 Synopsis: This program (UnCFS) is only of use with Computer Concepts' Compression filing system (CFS), on a Risc OS machine. You also require Acorns' outline Font Manager to run the installation applications, but not for normal use. UnCFS dramatically speeds up the loading time of applications stored under the CFS, and does so in a completely transparent way. Warranty: Although great effort has been made to ensure the correct running of UnCFS under many circumstances, UnCFS is being distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Page 2 ShareWare: UnCFS is copyright material and is being distributed as ShareWare. This is *NOT* free software. ShareWare is a marketing concept - allowing you to `try before you buy'. In order for you to fully evaluate UnCFS before buying it, this version of UnCFS is completely unrestricted (save for an initial prompt), and includes a full documentation. The files that should have come with UnCFS are at least the following (with directory structure as shown): !Install !Boot !Help !Run !RunImage !Sprites CFSUtil !UnCFS !Boot !Help !Run !RunImage !Sprites CAssembler Messages Default Sprites Templates !UnInstall !Boot !Help !Run !RunImage !Sprites Messages Default Sprites Templates Documents ASCII !UnCFS_Doc Page 3 If your copy of UnCFS does not have at least these files then you do not have the complete product. Please write to the author if you have any missing files, detailing where you obtained the program. Until you register your copy, you have only been given limited rights to use UnCFS, inparticularly: After TWO WEEKS from first using this product, if you wish to continue using it you are required to REGISTER. For details of how to register, see below. Failing to register is THEFT. Page 4 Registering: Single User regsitration of UnCFS entitles you to: Unlimited personal use of UnCFS Technical support (postal) A registered copy of UnCFS, and other stuff to fill the disc up Free future upgrades (you send a disc and SAE, I'll send you the latest version) The cost of Single User Registration is as indicated in the following table. Note that these prices are correct as of November 1992, after Novemember 1993 please contact the author for a revised price list. | With Manual | Without Manual ========================+===============+================= Europe | 10.00 | 5.00 Rest of World | 15.00 | 10.00 All prices are in POUNDS STERLING. How you pay is up to you, so long as I end up with the above amount of money after bank charges, exchange rates, etc... Make cheques / postal orders payable to Mr Cy J. Booker 86 Church View Main Road Crockenhill Swanley Kent. BR8 8JW U.K. Site Licences can be arranged by contacting the author. For convenience, at the end of this document is a print-able form that can be used to register your copy of UnCFS. Page 5 Why use UnCFS: The trouble with the current version of CFS (v1.10) is that it just compresses everything you give it - including !Boot, !Run and !SpritesNN files. This has an adverse effect on the time an application takes to be seen by the filer, and on a directory full of applications you are left with an hourglass for some considerable time. The other side-effect of this is that you must be in a CFS directory to run the application. You can not run the application from the underlying filing system. This is a real problem if you often have both CFS and the underlying FS's directory viewers on the desktop. UnCFS is designed to dramatically reduce this `waiting' time, and allow compressed applications to be run from the underlying filing system. This later feature means that you don't need the CFS filer at all - only if you add new files to your system. Page 6 Typical usage of UnCFS: There are two modes of operation of UnCFS once you have installed it. The first mode involves patching applications stored in the CFS to use the UnCFS. A desktop program is provided to simplify this (see below). The second, and the most used mode of operation, is your normal desktop environment! This is because, once installed UnCFS works behind the scenes with absolutely NO user involvement, speeding up your use of CFS. When you install new software onto your system you just need to patch it once, and then continue as normal! Page 7 Important Preamble: For UnCFS to work it has to make alterations to your system. This includes patching the !Cfs.!Run file. Also patches are applied to applications' !Boot and !Run files. Because of this UnCFS is split into three parts: !Install Installs UnCFS for use with CFS. This must be run before you can use !UnCFS !UnCFS Desktop program to patch applications for use with UnCFS !UnInstall Desktop program to un-install UnCFS from the CFS and also un-patch applications. Thus if you decide that UnCFS is not suitable for you, it is easy to restore your system back to the state it was in beforehand. Page 8 Installing UnCFS: Installation of UnCFS is easy. You just run the !Install application. This patches the CFS application directory so that the UnCFS support module will always be loaded alongside the CFS. You should NEVER install UnCFS onto your master disc of Compression, always use your working CFS application (on the hard disc). Installation need only be done once. If you use more than one copy of the CFS application directory then you will need to install each separatly. This is done by repeating for each separate copy of the CFS application: Run the particular CFS application (!Cfs) Run !Install Troubleshooting !Install: You must have the CFS active for the installer to work (the CFS application has to have been seen by the filer). This usually isn't a problem as most users ensure that the CFS is initialised at boot-up. The installer must be able to alter the contents of the CFS application directory. It must not reside on a read-only drive (or on a write-protected floppy). You may have LOCKED the !Cfs.!Run file to avoid accidental deletion. This must be undone, using the desktop filer menu to change the access of the !Run file. At any time you can quickly test if installation was successful - inside the CFS application directory will be a new module called CFSUtil. Page 9 Patching Applications: In order for UnCFS to work, applications stored on the CFS must be patched. This operation need only ever be done once. Thereafter every time that application is booted or executed, it will be done that little bit faster. The !UnCFS program is a desktop application that allows applications to be quickly and easily patched. This is a multi-document multi-tasking application, and fully supports Acorns' interactive help program !Help. To patch an application simply drag it onto UnCFS's icon bar icon. A status box will pop up informing you of the progress and results of patching the application. Remember not every application can be patched - only applications that are stored on the CFS and have not already been patched will be eligible. NOTE: Even if the patch was applied, the effects will not be noticable until you next boot the machine. This is because Risc OS has already cached much information about the application. Also, the effects of patching a single applications are usually not very apparent. You can achieve much more by dragging a directory onto the UnCFS icon bar icon. This processes all the applications inside that directory, and is a lot simpler and faster for processing batches of files. Remember, you only ever need to patch an application once. You can drag either a CFS, or an underlying filing system application or directory to the UnCFS icon bar icon - it knows what you mean. Page 10 The Choices window: Multitask: By default all patching is done `in the background', so you can continue to use your computer while !UnCFS patches all the applications it can find. While an operation is in progress you can PAUSE it by either clicking on the button, or pressing the ESCAPE key. If you have a large disc to patch, then you can turn off multi-tasking by toggling the appropriate menu item = BEFORE starting the operation. Remember, you can always press ESCAPE to pause the non-multi-tasking operation. Faster: If you wish to speed up things a little bit, you can select the FASTER menu item. This stops all the fields of the status window being updated. There is a menu attached to each status window to alter an operation in progress. Small files: With very small files, the compressed version is often BIGGER than the original file, which can happen because the compressed file contains a fixed size header. An extra feature to the UnCFS application has been added to allow such files to be uncompressed. This SAVES disc space, as well as speeding up the loading of these files. Page 11 Delete !Boot: With many applications, the !Boot file does nothing more than to perform an "*IconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites". Such !Boot files are degenerate, as this is the default action that the Wimp does if it can not find a !Boot file. Deleting such degenerate !Boot files dramatically speeds up first seeing an application, and so it is recommended that this option always be selected. If a !Run file refers to the !Boot file in any active line, then the !Boot file is not deleted. Outline Fonts: UnCFS comes with two sets of windows, one with fonts and one without. For low resolution/RISC OS 3.5 users it is probably better to use the windows without fonts. For historical reasons changes to this switch do not take effect immediately, instead you must closedown and restart the application. Save Choices: When the UnCFS application next starts up you can tell it to use your current settings by using this button. Page 12 Troubleshooting !UnCFS: Because the UnCFS needs to patch applications, it must be able to write to it, and so the application can not reside on a read-only filing system. If a file has been set to `no user read access' then !UnCFS will complain, and you must alter the files' access privileges. Similarly, if a file has been LOCKED, or not have sufficient access privileges then !UnCFS will not be able to alter it. In all the above cases an ERROR is generated. This cause the operation to be paused, and the status window now shows you which file was in error, and what that error was. From this state you can either: ABORT: Completely abort the operation SKIP: Skip this file - it will remain unpatched RETRY: Try and patch this file again By clicking SELECT on the file name in the status window, the directory containing the offending file will be opened. Thus you could quickly, say, unlock the file and retry the operation. If you wish to manually edit any patched !Run or !Boot files at a later date, please note that the un-patch program assumes the patches are at the very front of the file. If you make any changes please put them AFTER the first line. Page 13 Un-installing UnCFS: If you wish to remove UnCFS from your system, the !UnInstall application is provided. When run it initially un-patches the CFS application directory, and then behaves much like the UnCFS application (see above) only instead of patching, it removes the patches. You can always tell you are un-patching an application, as the status window for un-patching is bright red. UnInstall only alters applications that have been patched, so there is no harm in giving UnInstall an original application - nothing will be changed. For that reason, to ensure that UnCFS is completely removed from your system you could apply the following three steps to all discs that may have applications that you have patched using UnCFS: 1. Go to the root directory of the disc 2. Select All 3. Drag the selection to the UnInstall icon bar icon Troubleshooting !UnInstall: See the troubleshooting section of both the Install and the UnCFS sections of the manual, as both of these apply. Page 14 How UnCFS works: You don't need to know how UnCFS works to benefit from the speed up its use gives you, but if you want to know then here are the details. When the desktop first `sees' an appliation it loads some files inside an application, including the !Boot, !Sprites, and possibly a !SpritesNN file. If these files are compressed then there is a noticeable delay while CFS decompresses each file - particularly if the CFS temporary directory is located on a highly fragmented hard disc. Usually these files are small anyway, and compressing it didn't save any disc space - on the contrary the compressed !Boot file is usually BIGGER than the uncompressed version! If you are in the habit of having both CFS and the underlying FS filer windows open you can only run an application from the CFS. This is very annoying as there is no quick way `promote' the filer window to a CFS window. The reason you can't run the application is because its' !Run file has been compressed. Put simply UnCFS will uncompress an applications' !Boot, !Run, !Sprites and !SpritesNN files. However there is slighlty more to it than that. Technical Details: If you just uncompress an applications' !Boot and !Run file you can still run it from the CFS but not from the underlying filing system - the rest of the application is still compressed. UnCFS allows the !Run file to execute a compressed application by patching it to think that the rest of the application is infact stored on the CFS! In order to understand how it can do this, you must know about a system variable that goes by the name of `Obey$Dir'. Page 15 When an Obey file (such as !Boot and !Run files) are executed (which happens when you boot/run an application), the system variable `Obey$Dir' is set to the directory that is being executed. This simple but powerful feature allows applications to easily reside anywhere on a disc. However, if you run a compressed application from the underlying filing system, the value of `Obey$Dir' is of no use, because it points to the compressed directory and not the CFS directory. What UnCFS does is to ensure that the system variable `Obey$Dir' always points to the corresponding CFS directory. This is done by inserting the following line to the front of both the !Boot and !Run files: ForceCFS which simply coerces the current value of the system variable `Obey$Dir' to point to a CFS directory. The code to perform this `ForceCFS' is stored in a module that the installer ensures is always loaded alongside the CFS itself. (A module was used is because the script language is not powerful enough to handle the general case). This is exactly what happens when an application is patched If a !Boot file exists, and is an Obey file, and is stored under the CFS then copy to the underlying FS, prepending the line: ForceCFS If a !Run file exists, and is an Obey file, and is stored under the CFS then copy to the underlying FS, prepending the line: ForceCFS If a !Sprites[2-3][2-3] file exists, is a Sprite file, and is stored under the CFS then copy to the underlying FS. Page 16 Registration Form: I would like to register as a Single User of v1.20 UnCFS and have enclosed __________. This DOES / NOT (delete as applicable) include a manual. As a registered user I will receive a registered version of UnCFS and have access to technical support. Title: ________ Name: ____________________________ Address: ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ Postcode: _______________ Country: _______________ I obtained UnCFS from: ____________________________ Machine: ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Possible improvements: ___________________________________ ___________________________________ Make cheques / postal orders payable to: Mr CY J. BOOKER 86 Church View, Main Road, Crockenhill, Swanley, Kent. BR8 8JW. U.K.