ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/TEXT/UTILITY/MORE13.ZIP/MORE.DOC

Text File | 1990-06-26 | 11.1 KB | 208 lines

MORE.EXE v1.3 -- File Pager

    First  and    foremost,  MORE  now  requires    DOS  v3.0  or  later to run. No
exceptions. If    you have  a version  of DOS  earlier than  3.0, you  can either
upgrade (recommended), or you can use MORE v1.1 (which is still available.)

    The MORE archive includes the following files:
        MORE.DOC    this documentation file
        MORE.EXE    MORE itself
        RUN.COM     used for executing batch files from MORE
        MORE.C        The source code for MORE

        STRINGS.COM    Analyzes binary files for text strings
        STRINGS.DOC    Document for STRINGS.COM

    MORE  itself  creates  the    configuration  file (MORE.CFG) in the directory
containing MORE.EXE. Therefore,  this file is  not included in    the archive. If
the  file  is  not  found,  the  information  is  read from a table of internal
defaults.

    MORE is a program which (essentially)  allows you to scroll through a  file
and examine its contents.

There are two ways to use MORE:
    MORE <filename>
    or, like the DOS more:
    TYPE <filename> | MORE

    Either way, your file will be read in. If MORE is unable to read your  file
(such as if you left your drive open or the file doesn't exist), it will inform
you: "more: unable  to open file".  If you supply  more than two  arguments, it
will inform you as to the syntax.

    However, if you forget to include a filename of some sort, it will just sit
there with the cursor flashing, waiting for input. The easiest way out of  this
mess is to press ^Z  and Enter. Then press ESC    to exit. Next time remember  to
include a filename. (This  is due to the  fact that if you  don't redirect, the
standard  input  --  which  MORE  reads  if  no  filename is supplied -- is the
keyboard.)

    After MORE has read  your file, you can  scroll through it using  the arrow
keys. The Up and Down arrow keys scroll one line up or down; the PgUp and  PgDn
keys scroll a  page. The Right    and Left arrow    keys scroll 20    columns left or
right. The Home and End keys go to the beginning and end of the file. Ctrl-PgUp
and Ctrl-PgDn scroll half pages. To exit (after you have read the file),  press
Escape.  Your  current    position  within  the  file is shown in the upper-right
corner of the screen, in the form of Line, Column. Pressing F1 will show a list
of possible operations.

    MORE also features    searching functions. There  are two types  of searches,
normal and case sensitive. The normal search thinks that A and a are  identical
for example, but to  the case sensitive search    they wouldn't be. The  searches
will only search beyond  the current line (the    line at the top  of the screen)
and will not find a word ON the current line.

    To use the searches,  push 'F' (for a  standard search) or 'C'  (for a case
sensitive search.). Then type the word or phrase you would like to search  for.
You can search for up to 65 characters at a time.

    If the find routine is unable to locate the phrase, the computer will  beep
and the screen will remain where it was. If it was able to locate it, then  the
screen will move so the line containing the phrase is at the top of the screen.

    If you would like to repeat a search,  use 'N' or 'B' -- find Next or  find
Backward. The find  next command works    as if you  retyped Find and  the phrase
you're looking for. However, the backward command looks BEFORE the current line
for the phrase. This is useful if you accidently went to far, for example.

    If you want to cancel the search, press Escape. ONCE! If you press it  more
than once, MORE will exit to the DOS prompt. It may take a while for the search
to end.

    You can also  search for lines.  To do this,  press 'L', and  then type the
number of the line you    want to find. (If the  line doesn't exist, or what  you
type isn't a number, the program beeps at you.)

    You can also store locations in the file for looking at later -- a    feature
called bookmarks. To use  this, type 'S', and  then type a number  and enter to
set the bookmark. Any number 0-9 is usable. (If what you type is not a    number,
the computer will beep at you). Then, when you want to go back to it, type  'G'
and the number again.  (If what you type  is not a number,  again, the computer
will beep. It will also beep if you haven't defined that bookmark yet.)

    Blocks  are  used  in  MORE  to  select  text  to be written to the disk or
printed. When you define blocks, the line at the top of the window (the current
line, under the top  information line) is selected.  The text you mark    for the
block is highlighted.

    To define a block, use the '+' key to set the top of the block and the  '-'
key to set the bottom of the block. (Either set will work.) But make sure  that
the line you want to mark is at the very top of the screen!

    To clear the block, press '*' (again, either one will do). Note that this
does not erase the block, but only unmarks it.

    To print the entire file, press 'A'.

    If you decide  to cancel printing  after it started,  press Escape. It  may
take a    while, but  do NOT  repeat the    keystroke unless  you want to exit. The
keystroke will register as soon as the    program has an has a chance to    look at
the keyboard.

    You can write  either a block,  or the whole  file, to another  file. To do
this, type 'D' to write the current block (if no block is defined, MORE beeps).
Then type  the name  of the  file you  want to    write to.  If the  file already
exists, you  are given    three choices.    Push 'Y'  if you  want to overwrite the
file, push 'N' (or Esc) to cancel, or push 'A' to append the text to the  file.
Writing the whole file uses the same process, but type 'W' instead of 'D'.  You
can use Esc to cancel the write. The file will be deleted UNLESS you  specified
to append to an existing file (if you did, then you have to clean up the mess.)

    If the file was  collected from the standard  input, you wrote it  out, and
you did not append it on to another file, MORE will change the top line to show
the name of the file you wrote it out to, and will let you use the 'E' command.

    To call up an editor from MORE, first set it up (exact procedure  described
below). Then you push  "E". If the file  was collected from the  standard input
and not written to disk using the "W" command, this will be ignored. MORE  does
not return after your  editor has ended.

    MORE does  have some  limits. You  can't load  files larger  than available
memory and  lines are  limited to  2048 characters  in length.    MORE can't read
binary files (such  as program files)  except with the    help of a  program like
STRINGS (which is included).  No problems will occur,  but the results will  be
somewhat wierd.

    If you  go beyond  the limits  set forth  in the  program, the program will
politely inform  you with  a message  like "more:  insufficient memory".  Lines
longer than 2048 characters will  be split into multiple lines.  However, after
such a split, tab characters become small circles and don't space properly.  In
fact, this can happen to any long line.

    Normally, MORE  displays the  name of  the file  you're viewing  on the top
line, but if it is too long,  it displays a copyright message instead. It  will
also display the copyright message if the input was collected from the standard
input as no filename is available.

    To set  up MORE,  you use  the keys  F7 through  F10. F7 changes the screen
colors. To use this, simply use the Up/Down arrows to move the pointer (->)  to
the color that you would like to change, and then use the Left/Right arrows  to
increment or decrement the number. Both wrap. The line at the top of the screen
shows the numbers for background and foreground colors, and the three lines  at
the  bottom  of  the  screen  show  the  colors currently selected. To exit the
color-changing mode, hit Esc, which also  redraws the screen in the colors  you
selected.

    To    change    the  printer  port,  push  F8.    Then you can either enter a new
printer port (the logical DOS file used for output to the printer) or press Esc
to cancel the operation. Possible printer ports are listed on the bottom of the
screen, and include 'PRN' (the default), 'LPTx' (parallel port #x), and  'COMx'
(serial port #x), as well as standard DOS files.

    Changing the command used to activate  the editor is done by first    pushing
F9. Then you can type command that  you want to use (replacing the filename  to
edit with an @    sign), or hit Esc  to cancel the operation.  Normally, what you
type would be exactly the same as what you would enter on the command line, but
if you    need to  use a    batch file  to run  your editor,  you must  preface the
command with "RUN",  and you must  have the program  RUN.COM (which comes  with
MORE) somewhere in the path. This is done to minimize the memory overhead.

    Pressing F10 writes  the configuration file  to disk (it's  MORE.CFG in the
directory that contains MORE*.)

    Version 2 will be available as soon as I get around to it. Version 2 should
feature the  ability to  spool files  to disk  (allowing viewing  of any length
files), and any improvements suggested by my users. More interim releases  will
be released before version 2, though.

    Changes in version 1.2 include the ability to call up an editor from  MORE,
the ability to write input collected from standard input to disk, and  changing
the screen colors and printer port.

    Changes in version 1.3 include improved memory management (allowing loading
of larger and wider files), reorginazed (prettier) help, 2048-character  lines,
no maximum  file length  (aside from  memory**), about    50K of    extra room  for
loading files, and a command for going to the very left margin of the file.  It
also adds commands for storing and going to bookmarks within files and locating
lines. The command for writing files out to disk was revised, and a command
was added for writing a block out to disk.

    For those who are interested,  RUN.COM simply calls COMMAND.COM to    execute
the command specified as its argument.

    *For those who care, MORE actually reads the actual name of the program off
the command line  and uses that.  So, if you  rename MORE.EXE to  LOOK.EXE, for
example, the configuration file would be named LOOK.CFG.

    **Actually, there is  an absolute limit  at 32000 lines.  But there is  not
enough memory available for loading  more than about 26000 lines  (even totally
blank), so this is not important. It will be, however, in Version 2.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    If you use like MORE  and use it routinely, I  request that you send $5  to
the address below.

    Daniel Sachs
    242 E. Crescent Ave.
    Elmhurst, IL 60126

    I am  including the  source code  in the  archive. If  you wish  to use the
source code  in your  own programs,  go right  ahead; just  give me  credit and
repeat the above in your documentation (if you distribute it).

    If you have any problems, go ahead and contact me. I'm at the above address
(please, no phone calls), or you  can reach me at 73667,3110 on  CompuServe, at
u23783@uicvm on Bitnet, or at [e-mail] on Internet.