PsL Monthly 1993 December

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U1-11: File View, Compare, Other ------------------------ 1550 File View Utilities Small Programs Disk ------------------------ Head2 Della, Marcos R. $0 displays a specified number of lines from either the beginning or end of a file or alternatively, all but the specified number of lines from the beginning or end of a file. If a file has a few lines of garbage at the beginning, you can redirect the output of HEAD to a new file while deleting those garbage lines. Pascal source code is included. List 7.7 Buerg, Vernon D. $20-$30 is a must have utility. It lets you read files on-screen, using the cursor keys to move back and forth through the file. That one-line description is like saying "The space shuttle is an aircraft." This is a powerful, multi-featured program in a small package. The DOC file is over 100k, and it contains no fat. Rather than take up a lot of space trying to describe all the features, we will just say "GET IT!" Look120 Doctor Debug $0 allows viewing files of up to 120 columns wide with a standard CGA or EGA. Naturally, the text will be less legible, but we found it readable. Note that this does not leave your system in a 120-column mode, it only lets you read text files in that mode. Man Rick, David L. $? is a utility for searching for and reading documentation files on a hard disk. You can optionally specify a subdirectory or search path in the DOS environment. Example: You are running a little DOS utility program named XYZ and need to refer to the documentation, you just type MAN XYZ and MAN will search the hard disk for the file XYZ.DOC and when found, display it, optionally using Vernon Buerg's LIST program. Mouse Lister 2.1 (MOUSLST) Yoder, Y. G. ASP $6 is a simple text lister with mouse support. Note 1.1 Kaye, Bob $0 is a pop-up program that lets you scroll through a text file without leaving the program you are in. Because it uses video RAM, it will not work on monochrome systems or other systems that lack the extra video RAM, as do some Tandy computers. It did work fine on a VGA system at the PsL. (res:3k) Readme Albanowski, Kenneth $0 is a simple utility for viewing those README files that come with software. It will show you a scrollable list of any files whose names start with READ. When you pick one, it will invoke an external file viewer, such as Vernon Buerg's LIST, to display the file on screen. Scan displays only the portion of a disk file made up of printable (alphanumeric) characters. We have a similar utility named FILTER in the library, but the fact that SCAN ignores sequences of less than four printable characters means that a lot more garbage is screened out for you. The purpose of SCAN is to search through downloaded programs for embedded messages like "Copyright IBM. Violators will be squashed." or "Arf. Arf. Got you." Strings Sampson, Steve and Lyall, Peter W., Jr. $0 displays all strings in a file consisting of a user-specified number of consecutive printable characters. This could be useful in looking for copyrights, version numbers or other text in program files. TwoFiles (TWOFILE) Smith, David $0 allows you to view two files at the same time and scroll the files up and down independently. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1550 -------------------------------- --------------------------- 2246 File View Utilities #2 Small Programs Disk --------------------------- DblListr 1.03 (DBLLIST) Bates, Stephen S. $15 lets you scroll and page through two files simultaneously. The files will be displayed initially in two horizontal windows, each taking half the screen. Pressing V changes the screen to two vertical windows. The display can be toggled to let either of the two take up two-thirds of the screen in either the vertical or horizontal display. Other features include a Hex display and a text search function. Note that the amount of each file displayed is limited to available memory, so you may get an ``End of File'' message when you know you are not at the end of the file. Head Simonson, John $? is a UNIX-like utility that will display the first 5 lines (by default) of specified text files. There are several switches that allow you to control the output. NG_Clone 1.1 (NG_CLON) Pederson, J. P. $0 reads, decrypts and displays the contents of database files in Norton Guide format. It can be run as either a resident program or non-resident file viewer. Pascal source code is included. Ralph the Reader 2.0 (RALPH) Kansys, Inc. $10 is a text file lister. It is not about to dethrone Vern Buerg's LIST, but it does have two distinctions: it will read WordPerfect and WordStar files without conversion and it is designed to work for the blind user using a speech synthesizer. Ram-Man 2.5 Smetana, Rob W. $20 is a 31k pop-up file viewer. It will let you view any length text file while running other text-based programs. In addition to moving through a file with the cursor keys, it will search for text. Show is a bare-bones file viewer. It has none of LIST's numerous features except the ability to page or scroll back and forth through text files. Show's advantages are that it only takes 2k of disk space, and it is public domain. Assembler source code is included. Tail prints the last 10 lines of a file, by default, or you can specify as a positive integer the number of lines, characters or "blocks" from the start of the file to begin printing, or as a negative integer, the distance from the end of a file to print. The documentation refers to a "-f" option for which we could not figure out a use, but which didn't work anyway. View 2.1 08-93 CD Dibble, David M. $0 is a very small (1k) file viewing utility, ideal for inclusion on distribution disks. In fact, we include View on most of our disks. Assembly source code is included. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #2246 -------------------------------- -------------------------------- 3410 Self-Displaying File Makers Small Programs Disk -------------------------------- AutoCom REXXCOM Systems $14 converts text into self-scrolling COM files complete with multi-colored, animated (ascii) graphics. MakeScroll (MAKESCR) Gans, Eric $0 is a very simple utility to convert text files into self-displaying files. Unlike TXT2COM and ASC2COM, it has no screen scrolling features other than displaying "[More]" when the screen fills with text, but on the plus side, it adds less than 150 bytes to the file and it is free. TEXE 2.0 Panda Studio Inc. $30-$52 converts any text file into a self-scrolling EXE file. It can convert files up to 2000 pages long. It provides support for Windows and for a mouse. It adds 15k to the text size. Also included is TEXEPOP, a pop-up text file viewer. Txt2Com Graham, Keith P. $5 lets you create self-scrolling COM files out of text files. Features include printing the text, converting the COM file back to a text file and the ability to use colors and to display a title on each screen. Function keys can be used to branch to parts of the file from an opening menu screen. The ability to make the file stay resident and to be able to pop it up while in other programs make this an easy way to create your own help files. Txt2Com also lets you search the file for specific text. TXTRun Sawada, Dr. Masaaki $10-$20 turns text files into COM files with pop up pages, the ability to run programs with a keypress, and more. This is like a cross between hypertext and a DOS menu program. Viewing boxes can be smaller than full-screen and moved about the screen by the user. Many other features are included. The WriteMe System (WRITEME) Sitting Duck Software $45 lets you create self-scrolling documents. Features include smooth scrolling, up to 250 colors, easy box drawing, up to 500 lines of text, and a "what you see is what you get" approach. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #3410 -------------------------------- ----------------------------- 0274 File Utilities, Other #1 Small Programs Disk ----------------------------- 0274 Change Attributes ---------------------- Alter 2.55a Gavin, Bruce $10 allows you change change the attributes of files (hidden, read-only, read-write, system, etc.), as well as the system time and date stamps for files. We have seen many file attribute utilities over the years, but this is the best. FDate 1.2b Wollman, Garrett A. $10 resets files to a given date. This utility has a multitude of options for choosing the date to set, such as in Hex, the Julian date, the current date minus N days, a specific day of the week's date, and more. Touch lets you change a file's time and date stamp to specified values. Alter will do the same, among other things, but Touch is free and Alter is shareware. 0274 File Statistics -------------------- Effic measures the storage efficiency of any group of files on any floppy or hard disk supported by MSDOS. It returns a list of files with the number of clusters used, the number of non-contiguous clusters and a measure of the efficiency of storage as it will afect read/write performance. If all clusters are contiguous, the efficiency is rated as 100%. Otherwise, the efficiency is downgraded by the percentage of clusters that are non-contiguous. Disktype tells you how the specified disk is formatted (eg: double-sided, 9 sector). Faster than using CHKDSK. Disk Space Usage 1.2 (DSU) OED $0-$5 displays the amount of space required by a specified group of files on a hard disk (under DOS 2 or 3) or on a floppy and the number of 360k, 720k, or 1.44meg floppies it would take to hold the files. 0274 Miscellaneous ------------------ Bchange 1.1 DMA $15 is designed to change a string of bytes in either a text or a binary file. The data to be changed can be specified in either string or hexadecimal form. EPW 1.3 Farpoint Software $20 modifies an EXE or COM file so that it requires a password to execute. The program is extremely simple to use and is very effective. ForAge 1.0A Pinnacle Software $0 feeds the oldest or newest file from a group of files to a DOS command. It can be used for automatic backups or anywhere you want a program to process files in time and date order. Generations 1.0 (GENERAT) Competitive Edge Software $10-$20 makes it easy to keep track of and manage old versions (past "generations") of specified files. It copies the file to an aliased file name. At any time, you can quickly call up a listing of all the old versions on hand for any file, including file date, time, size, and your comments. Old versions are automatically deleted based on a specified number of backups desired, or you can manually delete specific backup versions. JS-Not 1.0 (JS_NOT) (11-93 CD) Smith, Jonathan Mark $8 lets you specify files on which action should NOT be taken. For example, you can delete or copy all files but those specified. RFile 1.13 McCormick, R.P. ASP $7 displays relative file size in a pie chart of all files from a selected directory. You can enter a directory name or extension such as *.TXT on the command line, or edit the directory name as displayed on the graphics screen. Update 1.1 09-93 CD Lindinger, John $0 makes it easy to update files on a hard disk. Update searches a specified path for a file matching the filespec. It compares its file date to the new one to see if the one that was found needs to be updated. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #0274 [10] -------------------------------- ----------------------------- 2163 File Utilities, Other #2 Small Programs Disk ----------------------------- 2163 File Recovery ------------------ Data Recovery Software 1.12SF (DRS) Data Research Software $20 assists in the recovery of data from floppy disks that give you the "GENERAL FAILURE READING DRIVE A" message. It is designed to bypass DOS and move your drive head to each logical sector of the disk. It then converts the raw data found there to a form you can read. If information is on a disk and the disk will spin in your drive, this may help you get at it. Diskette File Recover 1.01 (DFR) Vitt, Mark $0 recovers files from a damaged disk. UndelShell 1.10 (UNDLSHL) Price, James H. $20 provides a user-friendly shell for the DOS 5 UNDELETE command. It displays a complete list of the recoverable files in a selected directory. You can scroll through the list, sort the list in various ways, and tag the file(s) to be recovered. (Not on this disk. Ask for disk #8735.) Unerase Gans, Eric $? will un-delete files. UNERASE should work on any disk up to 20 megs, or 30 if it has fewer than 12,800 blocks, which would be the case with a 4K block size. In case your deleted file is a text file, you have the option of viewing the doubtful blocks (those after the first) before accepting them back in the file. 2163 Miscellaneous ------------------ Clearfil 1.0 Sawada, Dr. Masaaki $10-$20 is a utility to completely clear files by first writing all 1's into the files followed by all 0's prior to deleting them so that no snooper utility can ever recover sensitive files. It will display and delete any read-only, hidden or system files. (Normally, deleting a file only changes the directory entry and the contents of the file are still on the disk until overwritten by an active file.) Colorado Utilities Volume Labeler 1.0 (CUVL) Micro System Solutions $0 automates diskette volume labeling. (The "volume label" is the name you put on the disk when formatting it or when using DOS's LABEL command.) With CUDL, you give a starting number and feed in disks. The program will increment the number and record it on the next disk as the volume label. Pascal source is included. COM File Library and Command Executor 1.5 (XEQ) Stearman, Colin J. $0 lets you combine several of those small, useful, but disk-space-eating COM programs into one XEQ file from which you can run the programs. Keep in mind that this only works with programs with COM extensions, not EXE, and is of limited or no value with large programs. The point of XEQ is that a 200 byte COM file actually takes up disk space in the amount of whatever your drive's minimum allocation unit of disk space is, which could be as much as 8,000 bytes. By combining, even with 2k clusters, you could cram 10 of the 200-byte COM files into the space usually used by one. CV lets you change volume labels. Current versions of DOS let you do this now, but earlier versions did not. Debug2 is a text file that tells you how to use DEBUG to find your way around a diskette or hard disk. Its main purpose is to guide you in the event you need to unerase a file. Diskpie 1.1 Kigar, Charles $5 displays a piechart of file space consumption by space, before or after a specified date, by directory or by whether a file is backed-up or not. It is Novell compatible. Except Cox, Doug $0 allows you to do a DOS function such as DIR, COPY, REN or DEL to all the files in the directory except a named file. Wildcards are supported. FileType 1.5 (FILETYP) Peterson, Cliff $0 attempts to tell you what kind of file a specified file is. It may seem a little silly when it tells you that it thinks that XYZ.EXE is an EXE file, but if you have files that have been renamed (possibly by downloading) or if you have a data file of uncertain origins, FileType can be most helpful. Other features include directory recognition and a large list of program identification types. Ref Cards (REFCARDS) $0 is a pair of program reference cards, for List and for ArcMaster, created with Publish It!. RNF 2.1 Eyer, Bob $0 adds designated characters to the end of all filename prefixes matching a specified filespec. You can automatically add a four-character date or time stamp, or a letter code of your choosing. Shrink 1.0 Hanlin, Thomas G. III $0 compresses .COM files of up to 30k without afecting the way you run them. It does not work on all files and the amount of space saved will vary from 7% to 46%, depending on the program. It should not be used on any program that writes back to itself, such as LIST. Be sure to have a BACKUP of your file BEFORE USING SHRINK because if it does not run after Shrinking it, you cannot un-Shrink it. ShutDown (SHUTDWN) Smith, Dave $0 searches all drives for files opened today and copies them to a specified drive and directory. StoreIt 0.02 Nordevald Software $5 is a version-tracking backup utility. When a file is copied to a backup, the name is changed to include either a sequence number or the current date. Optionally, the original file can be deleted. The backup file can be placed in the original directory or any other specified directory. Swapname lets you swap the names of two files, such as SWAPNAME TEST.OLD TEST.NEW. UniqName Halderman, Ty $0 lets you rename a one or a set of files to a unique name. You can use wildcards aad list up to ten filespecs on the command line. You can choose to change the file extensions to numbers starting with 000 or you you can have it change the names to the current date (eg: 890531) plus a unique letter. WhatIs 1.2 Smith, J.E. $5 tells you if a file is an executable or not, which is useful if you have downloaded a file and didn't put an extension on it. It can also tell what compiler was used to create it, though we are not sure what you can do with that information. It will detect LZEXE-compressed files, as well. WinSet 1.0 Sawada, Dr. M. & Associates $10-$20 keeps track of files that Setup programs copy to your hard disk. This comes in handy if you need to delete those files, which may be spread around anywhere. It works with both Windows and DOS Setup programs. It will also make a list of files opened or created and other changes to subdirectories by any software. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #2163 [0] -------------------------------- ----------------------------- 4131 Text File Search/Replace Small Programs Disk ----------------------------- Findx Castelli, Fulvio $? gets around FIND's limitations by allowing you to search multiple files for matching text. FINDX has lots of extra options, as well. (Not on this disk. Ask for disk #904). Fgrep 1.71 Dunford, Christopher J. $0 is a VERY fast text search utility. For example, another Search program in the library took over 15 seconds to locate specified text that took Fgrep less than 1 second. (We have the other program available because it will also optionally Replace text.) This program also allows binary and binary-plus-text searches and lets you specify a file which contains a list of file names to be searched. File sharing support is also included. Lookfor 3.2 Trafton, David L. $15 will search text files for words and phrases. We've rejected many pretenders to the FGREP throne, but if this one does not dethrone Chris Dunford's Fgrep, it at least gets an adjoining seat in our UTIL subdirectories at the PsL. It is not as fast as FGREP, taking 35 seconds to search 2.5 meg of text files for non-existing text compared to FGREP's 22 seconds, but it has two major advantages. The first is that AND and OR can be used to search for more than one word or phrase. The second is that when a match is found, you are shown the match with surrounding text in what turns out to be a file listing utility with which you can view the entire file. Fgrep still has a large number of options that LOOKFOR does not have, such as case-sensitive searches, but LOOKFOR's options make it very valuable to have around too. MaxFind 2.3 Peters, Stanley C. $15 is another challenger to the FGREP "text search utility" throne. It comes up short on speed. A search that took Fgrep 24.6 seconds to complete took MaxFind 41.5 seconds. However, MaxFind has some nice features that Fgrep does not have: it will search for up to 15 strings on one pass; it will perform and/or searches; it will search an entire hard disk; and like Fgrep, it allows for inexact spelling and wild cards in the search string. Query Text (QTEXT) Myslinski, Steve $0 lets you ask questions about information in a text file and displays relevant parts of the file. For example, using the file U1-09 from PsL's Reviews Disks, we asked: "What will park the heads on my hard disk?" and it displayed the line that says Njpark "quickly PARKS the read-write HEADS of all HARD disk drives attached to the system." (Emphasis added by Qtext.) Once a passage is located, you can scroll the file at that point to read more or continue the search or quit. The program is fast, well-designed, and makes good use of screen colors. Search (SRCH-AH) Hill, Art $? will search files for up to five strings of text and optionally replace them with other specified text. A new feature allows a list of files to be searched to be specified by the user. SeekEasy 7.07 (SEEKEZ) Correlation Systems $40 is a fuzzy-logic text finding program. It searches a file, directory, hard disk, or CD-ROM for a close match of requested text. Exact wording or spelling of the text is not required for finding information. After the items are found, you can scroll through and view the file and mark text to be printed or saved to disk. Seeker 3.0 Pliable Products $18 finds text in a file, directory tree, or fixed disk fast. When text is found, you can optionally bring up the document in your editor. SNR 5.31b 08-93 CD Lundin, Thomas A. $50 is a multistring text search and replace filter. Non-text files can also be processed, since the program allows the definition of hex values in a search and replace equation. Up to 50 equations can be entered into an SNR table, each of which can be 140 characters in length (70 on the search side, and 70 on the replacement side). -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #4131 -------------------------------- --------------------------- 4768 Text Search/Replace #2 Small Programs Disk --------------------------- Context 1.0 Avni, Haim $30 provides a fast search across files, directories and drives for words, patterns, file-name patterns in any logical combination. Matching files may be browsed, edited or processed by the appropriate application. It has fast incremental index updating and hypertext context-sensitive help. Convert-All 2.08s (CNVTALL) Arrow Connection $20 can find and replace in a file up to 100 items at once. It also performs conditional replacements, alternating replacements, upper and lower-case conversions, and several types of deletions. Wildcards are supported. Srch 1.06 Pawski, Miles $10 searches for text/character strings in any type of file and shows matches in 70 character line fragments with highlighted matches. It searches any file including binary and ASCII files, whole directories, or a whole disk. You can use it in batch files and output results to files. TSR 2.0 (TSR-MV) Vitt, Mark $10 is a text search and replace utility for any size or type of file. It will even search and replace inside ZIP-ed files (PKZIP required). Universal Find & Replace Utility 1.0 (FR) (11-93 CD) Softechnics $14 can do search and replace and make other changes to files. It works with any format and size of file. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #4768 -------------------------------- AutoRead 2.0 [AUTOREAD] 09-93 CD Grigg, David R. $30 #12469 is a file viewing utility for large files. In addition to letting you move around the file with the cursor keys, it will automatically index the files, search for keywords, find text option, remove duplicates and automatically set up chapter markers based on your specification of repeating text (eg: if every chapter heading is underlined with a string of "=" marks). A pull-down menu guides you through the program options. Unlike other text file indexing/viewing programs, you do not have to modify the files before using the program on them. Compare! Mosher, Kim $25 #4349 is a file comparison utility. It filters whitespaces such as tabs and line feeds, case, and user defined text and groups of text. You can strip the high bits from WordStar type files. You can also save and restore the current status of your comparison; copy, print and append files or marked blocks from a file; edit and delete files; shell to DOS; find specific text in either or both files; find the last difference or scroll back through the last 50 differences; go to a specific byte location and return DOS error code. FileBuddy 3.03 Dean, Lenard ASP $20 #4944 is a combination text, archive, and image file viewer. A file and directory window lets you easily select files and change directories with a keypress or mouse click. Archives are viewed by linking to the popular archive utilities such as PKZip press of a key. BIF, GIF, PCX, and TIF image files can be viewed and between formats. Images can be printed on an HP LaserJet or compatible printer. Other features include support for LHA, PAK, ZIP, dBASE, GIF89a, 24-bit TIF, and TARGA files; DOS and archived file deletion; support for ATI's Wonder XL and TSENG/Sierra HiColor 32,768 color video adapters for 24-bit images; word-wrapping; the ability to view embedded archive files up to 5 levels deep; multiple archived file tagging for extraction; multiple key searches; image processing, cropping, and zooming; the ability to view images in slide-show format; and much more. FileStat 1.04 Solid Oak Software $43 #4793 monitors file activity on your hard disk. It records files used, number of accesses and last access date. It also generates a list of unused files. FileStat can be of great assistance in identifying unused files to clear off your hard disk, files that need backing up, and files added by programs that you want to delete. GoodLook Dove, John L. III $15 #7061/0894 lets you compare two files a line at a time. One file scrolls up the screen from the middle and the other scrolls down the screen from middle, so the lines you are comparing from each file appear one above the other for easy comparison. Goodlook has lots of features to make the comparison even easier. Sherlock Bauernschub, John P. Jr. ASP $20 each #7061/2897 compares two ASCII (text) files line by line. Also included is Disklist, which prints disk sleeve inserts showing directory contents. Asc2Com 2.05 MorganSoft ASP $25 #7477/1928 will convert a plain text file to a self-scrolling COM file, just like the -DIRLIST.COM file on our Monthly Additions Disks. TXT2COM is a similar program that has a few more features, but ASC2COM-created files take less disk space. Features include mouse support, colors, the ability to mark individual text lines with color, and replace characters for the Taglnes. The program has a pull down menu approach. Peruse Falk Data Systems ASP $0 #7477/2832 is a file reader that allows you to view multiple files of any size in ASCII text or hex formats. Peruse features text search, block and printing capabilities, mouse support, and a pop-up DOS shell. It is DESQview aware. You can also load it as pop-up that uses as little as 7k of DOS RAM by swapping to EMS or a hard disk, which is ideal for keeping the documentation file for a program handy while you run the program. Quick Help & Quick Text Olsen, J. W. $10 #7477/2447 is for preparing help screens or manuals for users. QHELP automatically formats screen or printer output from a menu-driven environment. QTEXT is for simpler applications and converts text files to self-scrolling files. Visage Lite Document Image Development Corp. $99 #4352 scans, stores, keeps track of, displays, and prints document images, using an HP ScanJet for scanning. As a ScanJet driver, it takes as little as 9k. ]]]]]