ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

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Text File | 1991-08-31 | 28.4 KB | 957 lines

###### ## ## ## ## ## ### #### ## ## ##### #### ##### ### ## ## ## ## # ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ####### #### ###### ## ## ## ## ## ####### ## ## ###### #### #### ## ## ##### #### *THE* File Area Browser for All Bulletin Board Systems the use the standard Files.Bbs format and generates a DorinfoX.Def system info file. Copyright (c) 1990,91 by FenrisUlven Data & Patrik Sjöberg ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Disclaimer and legal stuff ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The BROWSE-Package is subject to the following license terms and conditions. * The BROWSE-package is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of the BROWSE-package. * The BROWSE-package is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. * The BROWSE-package, all programs, the documentation and support files are copyrighted 1991 by Patrik Sjöberg. All rights are reserved. You may copy this package for backup purposes. You may also copy and share unmodified copies of the whole package, providing that the copyright notice is reproduced and included on all copies. * You may not sell the product for a fee and/or distribute the product along with other products without written permission, nor may you modify or remove the Copyright Notices from the programs or the documentation files. User clubs, if they are NOT commercial, are allowed to ask a small amount of money for distribution and storage when they want to share this package amongst their members. * It is forbidden to modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile and/or disassemble the software in the BROWSE-package. Patching the medium at places that carry the software is seen as a program change and is also forbidden. * Non-commercial users can get a licence for the usage up to this release of the BROWSE-package for a small amount of money. Look into the details in HOWTO.REG. Previous registered users will receive a big reduction to upgrade to the newer versions. These users should also look into the details in HOWTO.REG. For Non-commercial users there is a POSSIBILITY to submit to one of the special contracts as explained in the same file. * Commercial usage of BROWSE will cost somewhat more. Also, a so called 'closed' Bulletin Board System (a system where the user must pay direct to the SysOp to get full access) has to pay more than a Non-commercial user. Usage of the Browse-Packge on a BBS with 3 (three) lines or more is considered as 'closed BBS' usage also. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 2 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── What is BROWSE ? ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse a File Area Browser for your BBS. It will enhance your fileareas listing feature to allow your users to actually look into each one of your files On-Line with a touch of a key. How many times have you, as a user logging onto other BBS wished you could see the included files of an archive before you downloaded it only to find it was not the file you were looking for. You have now wasted time and possibly long distance charges to get a file you didn't even need. Browse will even allow your users to Tag any or all the files that they wish while On-Line, for downloading at a later time utilizing Robert W. Van Hoeven's Fantastic FileDoor Program. Your users may move back and forth between file areas without loosing the previously tagged files. They can even go back and de-select previously tagged files. And that is not all. Browse is a browser as well. That means that your users will be able to look at Your file areas just as if they where using any ordinary file viewer. But Browse does it all On- Line! What Browse is not is a replacement for Your bbs whole file handling. Browse is only intended to replace the viewing part of the Files.Bbs files which contains all information about the files online. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 3 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Features in Browse ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── These are some of the Features found in BROWSE... ■ Support for any bbs package that can create a DorinfoX.Def file and that uses standard Files.Bbs files. This includes most popular BBS systems. ■ Tag files for later downloading if used with FileDoor made by Robert W. Van Hoeven. ■ View contents of files easily (Supports .Zip .LHA .LZH .PAK .ZOO .ARC and ordinary ASCII files). ■ Show the resolution of GIF <Tm> images. ■ Supports Avatar codes in the Files.Bbs and translates them to ANSI if the user does not support Avatar. And strips them if user has TTY set as terminal emulator. ■ Full CD-Rom support if the BBS can handle the CD rom. ■ Browse will use any memory that You may have. It has full support for XMS, EMS and virtual memory on disk. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Hardware and software requirements ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── BROWSE requires the following software and hardware to function properly. * MS/PC-DOS version 3.00 or higher. * A revision 5 compatible FOSSIL communication driver. * Any Files.Bbs compatible file. * An IBM PC compatible machine with at least enough ram or disk space to hold a complete Files.Bbs file in memory. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 4 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── How to get Started ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1. Unpack the archived file containing the BROWSE files. 2. Put BROWSE in any directory. Put the help file (BROWSE.HLP) file there as well (The help file is an ascii file and can be what you want. It also supports Avatar colour codes) 3. Read all the documentation files contained in the Archive. If You execute BROWSE without any commandline parameters it will show You a short info screen that contains all valid commandline parameters. Legal Command line Parameters: /B: <Path and filename for the 'files.bbs' file> ( Optional CD-support) /F: <Path where the FILES and FILES.BBS is located> /N: <Node running the program> /D: <Path and name of dorinfoX.def file> (optional) /T (Enable FileDoor Tag compatibility) /W: <Spaces to indent when wrapping description> /L:<Where to place the tagfile> /S:- Set snoop mode OFF. Can be toggled with space as well. /A (No question if User wish to tag some more files or stop) ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 5 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The commandline parameters explained. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── /B: <Path and filename for the 'files.bbs' file> This parameter tells BROWSE where to look for the Files.Bbs file. If not supplied, BROWSE will look in the directory where the files reside. But if You have a CD-Rom You might wish to put the Files.Bbs file elsewhere. Note that the files.bbs file does not have to be named files.bbs. /F: <Path where the FILES and FILES.BBS is located> This parameter tells BROWSE where the files are located. If the /B parameter is not supplied BROWSE will also look for the Files.Bbs file in this directory. /N: <Node running the program> This is an important parameter if You run a multiline system. It will see to that BROWSE does not interfere with other copies of BROWSE running simultaneously. If two nodes run BROWSE at the same time with the same node number both copies of BROWSE will try to use the same memory for the Files.Bbs file. And that is not that good. /D: <Path and name of dorinfoX.def file> (optional) Another optional parameter is the one that points BROWSE in the right direction when the DorinfoX.def file can not be found in the current directory. The DorinfoX.def file is a text file created by Your BBS system that contains information on what communication port the user is using and so on. It is essential for the operation of BROWSE. /T (Enable FileDoor Tag compatibility) Browse has the ability to interface to FileDoor which is an external file transfer program. FileDoor can read a file with information about what files the user wish to download and BROWSE has the ability to create this file. The function is called tagging since it will allow the user to simply tag a file /L:<Where to place the tagfile> This parameter tells BROWSE where to put the generated FileDoor tagfile. It should be the same directory as the one You have specified in the setup of FileDoor. If Not supplied, BROWSE puts the tagfile in the current directory. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 6 /W: <Spaces to indent when wrapping description> BROWSE supports description lines up to 255 characters and will wrap them so that they fit on a 80 character screen. This parameter tells BROWSE how many spaces to indent the wrapped line. It is nice if for instance have Download counters and wish the second line of the description to start to the right of the counter. Default is value is 32. /A (No question if User wish to tag some more files or stop) When a user has tagged some files before and enters a new area BROWSE will ask him if he wish to tag some more files or start all over again. This switch removes this question since most of the time users do not want to delete previously tagged files from the tag file. /S:- Set snoop mode OFF. Can be toggled with space as well. If You do not wish to see what the user is doing online set the snoop mode to off. BROWSE will still display its statusline and You can toggle snoop mode ON/OFF with the space key at any time during a session with BROWSE. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 7 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── How to install Browse in a BBS. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The following is an example of a BROWSE installation in a Remote Access BBS. It may not be what You are looking for but might help you out. I recomend that You install BROWSE as a menu type 7 command. Put the following on the commandline field in RAMENU. C:\RA\BROWSE.EXE <Parameters> NOTE: Remember to add the *M after BROWSE.EXE if swapping is desired while running as a Menu type 7 Sample Command Line for a Menu Type 7 using templates in RA and and activating the FileDoor interface. C:\RA\BROWSE.EXE *M /F:*0 /N:1 /T /W:37 /L:e:\tagfiles After setting up your menu option for the user, make sure you log on locally to ensure that you have all the command line parameters set as required. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 8 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Running the Browser. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── When you depress the Menu Option key (Selected by you) to start Browse you should see the something to the effect of the following sample screens: ------------------------------------------------------------------ A BAT2FD10.ZIP 58411 11-03-90 (34) Batch files for multi Node B FD199C.ZIP 517193 03-08-90 (73) FrontDoor Mailer ver. 1.99c C FD201.ARJ 569914 08-14-91 (24) FrontDoor Mailer ver. 2.01 D FDANLZ.ZIP 38922 04-22-91 (17) FrontDoor Usage Log Analyzer E FDLOG120.ZIP 49045 12-02-90 (16) FrontDoor Logging Utility F FMS110.ZIP 38974 02-09-91 (54) FrontDoor Manager Utility (List one page long) (V) View (?) Help (T) Tag Escape to Quit ┌──────────────┬──────┬───┬─────┬────────┬───────────────────────┐ │ Paul Williams│175:56│N:1│382Kb│19:28:06│<Space>-Toggle Snoop │ └──────────────┴──────┴───┴─────┴────────┴───────────────────────┘ ------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTE : All these sample screens have been somewhat compressed to fit on a single line! View Menu Option: If you were to select the (V)iew option you would be asked to select the file you wish to view. At this point you would select your file by giving the letter to the left of the file you wish to view. In this sample we will use the letter F and you should be presented with the following screen: ------------------------------------------------------------------ File to Show: FMS110.ZIP Name Length Size Date Time Path ------------- ------- ----- -------- ------ ------------ FMS.EXE 52393 31371 02-09-91 19:27 FMS.DOC 18032 5006 02-09-91 23:39 FMS.CTL 1463 546 02-09-91 23:34 BETA.DOC 1087 584 02-09-91 20:09 WHATSNEW.DOC 609 374 02-09-91 19:52 ------------- ------- ----- -------- ------ ------------ Total : 73584 37881 Press any key to continue: ┌──────────────┬──────┬───┬─────┬────────┬───────────────────────┐ │ Paul Williams│175:56│N:1│382Kb│19:28:06│<Space>-Toggle Snoop │ └──────────────┴──────┴───┴─────┴────────┴───────────────────────┘ ------------------------------------------------------------------ ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 9 If the file would have been a GIF image BROWSE would have displayed the resolution of that image instead. If BROWSE does not find the file You wish to view to be a valid archive file (ae Unknown archive format for BROWSE) then BROWSE will ask the user if she/he wishes to view the file anyway. After all it could be a textfile. Help Menu Option: If you select the Help Option - (?) Help YOUR help screen will be displayed to the user. This could Contain any additional help you feel that your users may need for running the program. The help file is called BROWSE.HLP and should be located at the same place as the BROWSE.EXE file. The help file can use the same avatar codes as the Files.Bbs so if You wish to enhance it with some nice colours use the Avatar codes. Tag Menu Option: The tag menu option is only displayed if the /T parameter was given on the commandline. If You have installed FileDoor then this function will let Your users easily tag files for later download. All they have to do is press (T) and then enter the character displayed first on each line with a filename. If the user wishes he can de-tag the file by repeating the procedure even if he has left the area and later returns. Remember the /A command line parameter mentioned earlier? It is an optional parameter, however, If you omit the /A switch, Browse will present a very nice reminder to your users that they have already tagged files for download should they forget. Browse WILL NOT bring up the reminder message if the /A command line switch is used. The following is what the Reminder message Screen looks like: Hi Paul, You have already tagged some files for download. Do you wish to tag some more files or start all over scratch? T)ag some more files. S)tart from scratch. E)xit the browser. Your Choice (T/s/e): ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 10 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The Statusline ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── What does the status line tell me? The statusline is updated every second and consists of some vital information about the user online. Below You'll se a sample statusline. The status line consists of the following information. ┌──────────────┬──────┬───┬─────┬────────┬───────────────────────┐ │ Paul Williams│175:56│N:1│382Kb│19:28:06│<Space>-Toggle Snoop │ └──────────────┴──────┴───┴─────┴────────┴───────────────────────┘ Name ────┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Time Left ───────┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ Node running browse ────┘ │ │ │ │ Conventional memory left ─────┘ │ │ Current time in 24H format ──────────┘ ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 11 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── BROWSE, DesqView and Share ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── BROWSE is DesqView- and ShareAware. That means that BROWSE will when opening files try to allow others to access the files at the same time. All files, except textfiles, are opened in Deny-Write- mode. That is, other programs are allowed to read but not write to files opened by BROWSE while BROWSE is reading them. BROWSE will never have a file open longer than necessary to get the needed information from it. The Screen writes in Febbs is also aware about DesqView and asks DesqView (DV) for an alternative video buffer. Thereby you can set the Direct screenwrites option in DV to NO. How much memory you give to BROWSE is all up to you but when deciding keep an eye on the status row how much memory is left when you decide how much to give to Febbs. BROWSE can handle most types of memory when allocating memory to hold the information in the Files.Bbs file. Ordinary RAM memory, XMS, EMS or virtual memory on the disk can be used. BROWSE will also, when idle waiting for a keystroke, slice away CPU time to other tasks running under DesqView. This has the advantage that BROWSE allows other tasks to execute faster and smother while BROWSE is not doing anything in particular. If access is denied to a Files.Bbs then BROWSE simply abort and return the user to the BBS. This is the best way to handle it since the user might not be willing to spend his time online to wait for another task to release the file. Access denied can occur on multiline systems when several tasks try to access the same files in a non sharing manner. For this to work you must have loaded the DOS utility SHARE.EXE before you start. Please note once again that BROWSE opens all files in a sharing manner. Other programs will have no problem reading files opened by BROWSE. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 12 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Avatar codes supported by BROWSE. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── BROWSE is aware of some Avatar codes. Avatar stand for Advanced Video Attribute Terminal Assembler and Recreator and is a <TM> of George A. Stanislav. I will not go in to deep here on the Avatar codes but if you wish to examine them closer i suggest you get hold of the following FidoNet technical Standards documentations : FSC-0025 FSC-0037 They should be available on most Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) but if you can't find them contact me and i will supply you with them. The Following codes are supported by Febbs. ^Y<Char><Repeat> - Repeat Character. ^V^B - Turn Blink on. ^V^A<Colour> - Change Colour. Where ^ stands for Control(Ctrl). Press down Ctrl and then Press the Character after ^ to create the Control character. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── BROWSE - In the future. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── New functions are being looked at for implementation as soon as I have the time and get some good idea that's worth implementing. What would you like to see in BROWSE? It is only my imagination that holds me back, and of course spare time. I am not doing this for a living. If i would have done that i would have starved to death by now. So Please try to be realistic. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 13 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The last Request ... ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Any comments of what you think of BROWSE and suggestions of future enhancements you would like to see can be sent via E-Mail or Ordinary mail to the development team. Or log on to the support BBS, where you'll find a local support conference for Browse. Somehow there has never been a need for a echomail support conference. Perhaps because it is a program that is very easy as it to use... The Telephone number to the BBS : +46-26-62 80 57 E-Mail address : 2:205/208@FidoNet USR DS v42Bis/v32 Speed and 24Hr open. My address is as follows : FenrisUlven Data Attn : Patrik Sjöberg Sörbygatan 69B S-802 55 GEFLE SWEDEN USA Support/Registration Site : Paul Williams 701 Laurel Drive Aiken, South Carolina 29801-3391 E-Mail address : 1:3624/1@FidoNet USR DS 14.4/v32 23 Hours a Day And if you use Browse, Please Register. If you don't then this piece of SoftWare will come to a halt in development. No one likes to put Hours, Days, Months, Years of work into something and not getting something in return. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 14 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Copyrights, Trademarks ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PKPAK, PKUNPAK, PKZIP and PKUNZIP are trademarks of PKWare Inc. PAK is a trademark of NoGate Consulting. ARC is a trademark of SEA inc. LZH and LHarc are trademarks of Yoshi; LZS and LARC are trademarks of K.Miki H.Okumura and K.Masuyama ARJ is a trademark of Robert K. Jung HYPER is a trademark of P.Sawatzki and Klaus P.Nischke AR is a trademark of Haruhiko Okumura ZOO is a trademark of Rahul Dhesi. QuickBBS is a trademark of the QuickBBS group Inc. Remote Access is a trademark of Continental Software FrontDoor is a trademark of Joaquim H. Homrighausen TubFile is a trademark of Jörgen Olsson Opus is a trademark of Wynn Wagner III Maximus is a trademark of Scott Dudley Desqview is a trademark of Quarterdeck Systems Qemm is a trademark of Quarterdeck Systems 386Max is a trademark of Qualitas MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft corporation FileDoor is a trademark of Rob Van.Hoeven GIF is a trademark of CompuServe Inc. Avatar is a trademark of George A. Stanislav The BROWSE-Package is written in Turbo Pascal 6.0 and Turbo Assembler 2.01, with help of the Turbo Debugger 2.01 and makes use of Object professional 1.11 and PSCF v0.06. Also included are some routines of Anders Brink's fine tools called ABUnit which is Public Domain. Turbo Pascal is a trademark of Borland International Turbo Debugger is a trademark of Borland International ABUnit is a trademark of Anders Brink Object Professional is a trademark of TurboPower Inc. PSCF is a trademark of Patrik Sjöberg Browse Documentation is the combined work of: Patrik Sjoberg 2:205/208 Paul Williams 1:3624/1 < End of Document > ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Browse - The Files.Bbs browser Page 15