Ever tried to find that program or file and given up because you can’t and it's already taken half an hour, then you need DiscScan. DiscScan’s purpose is too keep track of the contents of floppy discs, hard drives, CD Roms, etc.... so that when you want to find an item that's on one of them you can quickly with out loading several discs.
Installing DiscScan
DiscScan must be run from read and write media, not an archive, as an as it needs to write to it’s self, like most programs, but more so. To install DiscScan just copy it out of it's archive. It is best run from a hard disc drive but it can be used from a floppy disc with a few small changes to the options (See Options later).
Loading DiscScan
To load DiscScan double click on the !DiscScan application, and a title window will appear in the centre of the window. Then DiscScan icon will appear on the right hand side of the icon bar. To remove the title window click on it with SELECT or wait about 5 seconds.
How to scan a disc or directory
To start a scan open the main window by clicking on the DiscScan icon bar icon with the SELECT mouse button. Then type in unique code for the scan and possibly a description for the scan (ie Magazine Cover Disc, Public Domain Disc, Application Disc) and click SELECT on the Scan icon in the bottom right hand corner of the main window.
By the side of both of the two writable icons are two pop-up menus. In these menus are a number of useful (I hope) items to speed up scanning. There are also two items which can be defined from the desktop in both and the contents of these are saved with the choices.
While scanning a disc or directory DiscScan is always looking for filenames with a back slash in them as this could mean that they have a file extension. If the file name has a back slash in it DiscScan will check it with the list of file extensions it already knows about. If the file extension is known then the file will be stored as a dos file. If not then DiscScan may ask if you want to store it as a dos file using the part of the filename to the right of the back slash.
If DiscScan finds an archive it also looks for a !Run file in it. If it is present it treats the archive as an application otherwise it will treat it as an archive. This is to correct a problem with the App. Archives option in !ArcFS.
If you decide to change the directory you are scanning from ‘ADFS::0.$’ to something else such as ‘IDEFS::4.$’ or ‘SCSI::5.$.Clip_Art’. Then open the main menu and go down to the Scan path item and go across. In this menu item you can type in the directory you want to scan. When you start a scan if the scan path does not exist an error will be returned when you start a scan. You must remember that a scan can take a while. The more information of the disc then the longer it will take. So a small Ram disc will be fastest, and CD Rom or hard drive will probably be slowest.
DiscScan also checks the exception string for the section the scan is being put in to. The exception string defines whether a special action should be taken against a certain filename. You can also define whether to open applications and read there contents in special circumstances. Information about the exception strings is under the Options sub-heading and it is a very good idea to read this section as the exception strings make the scanning much more powerful.
To search for an item
Once you have scanned a number of discs you will want to find an item which is on them, at sometime in the future. To search for an item open the main window and click MENU on it to open the main window menu. There will be a menu item called Search move the pointer down to it and across to the right and a window will open.
In this window are a number of icons. Enter the filename/application name you want to search for or part of it and press Return or click on the Search icon. This will start a search. If you know which section it was put in to when it was scanned then you can select to search only one section. To do this select the section you want to search in the main window and select the ‘one section’ icon in the search window and carry the search out as before.
If an item is found, nothing is found or you abort the search then another larger window will open with 4 icons at the bottom of it. They are ‘Stop’, ‘Run Item’, ‘Continue’ and ‘Retry’. If a match was found then Stop will stop the search and free all the claimed memory. Run Item will run the item after checking that it exists along the path that had been found. Continue will continue the search and will try and find the next match.
The Browser
The browser can be used as a quick way to search thought the records you have created. To open the browser click ADJUST on the icon bar icon or open the browser from the main menu from the main window.
The section being displayed by the browser is controlled from the main window. If no records are in the section or no section is selected then an error will be returned and if the browser was open it will be closed if no section was selected. If there no records to display then it will have ‘No records in section ??’ at the top otherwise a record will be displayed.
The record can be displayed with each type of item coloured differently to make them stand out more. You can for example have all applications displayed in dark blue and directories in light green. To change the colour of an item open the browser menu by clicking with MENU over the browser and move to the ‘Colours’ item and across you can then decide on which item to change and to what colour.
The display can be changed by going to the Display item and across. You can then decide whether to have the display indented or not or whether to display the file sizes and file types or not. You can also chose whether the file types should be shown as a text description or just the file type or file extension. The final chose is whether DiscScan should display the short version of a filename, which will be the first 14 characters or the whole name depending on whether the machine you scanned the record on had file names longer than 10 characters.
The data that has been stored can be altered, deleted or updated. These are accessed from the Edit submenu. When you alter the data a window will open with the disc code, description and scan path. These can be altered and will be stored when you press RETURN or click on the Alter button. When you decide to delete a record from the section you will be asked for confirmation then it will be deleted.
This is the Alter record window from which you can alter some of the data. There is also an Update window is the same except that it will re-scan the disc along the path defined by the scan path in the bottom writable icon.
Options
There are a number of options available for DiscScan and these are split up in to groups, which are as follows Sections, Scanning, Browser and Miscellaneous. The Section options and Scanning options are linked as you define the exception strings for a scan in the sections group.
The Exception string is a list of filenames that will have a special action taken against them when a match is found. If the item is a file then it will not be stored in the records, if it is a directory or archive then it will not be scanned. The action taken against a application depends on whether you want it to open applications in the root directory of the scan path and it is in the root directory. If you want it to open them then if it is defined then it will not be scanned otherwise it will. To define an exception string for a section you have to type in the filename in to the writable icon to the right of the section name the case of the letter is unimportant. To chose the section to open root applications select the option icon between the two so it has a tick in it.
You can also chose whether or not DiscScan should ask about files which have file extensions that DiscScan does not know about them. You can also choose whether DiscScan should open archives with the file types &DDC or &3FB and you can also choose what the minimum version of ArcFS that DiscScan will use should be.
The Browser options control whether the Browser is updated when a match is found in the search and when the section selected in the main window is changed. The third option denotes whether DiscScan will open the Browser or main window to an ADJUST click on the icon bar. With it selected it will open the browser otherwise it opens the main window.
You can also can the amount of memory that the search facility will use as a temporary store. This option will be shaded if the browser is open or if the found window is open (ie you are searching for something).
Under Miscellaneous is whether to open the title window at start up and the temporary directory that is to used. For people with hard drives it should be set to ‘<Wimp$ScrapDir>’. For those people who don't have hard drives it should be set to ‘Pipe:$.DiscScan’. If an error appears then the temporary directory will not be changed.
Important : If you are using DiscScan from a floppy disc then you should have the Auto update browser option unset (No tick in the icon to it's left). An 'Update' icon will appear in the browser pane and to change the section being displayed you will need to click on it. This will stop a lot of disc swapping.
Key Presses
Key Window What it does
F4 Any Opens Search window.
Ctrl B Any Opens Browser.
Ctrl F2 Any Closes the window.
Ctrl O Any Opens Info on sections.
Return Any Activates default action.
F1 Search Toggles Case-Sensitive search.
F2 Search Selects search all sections.
F3 Search Selects search one section.
Escape During search Cancels search.
F3 Browser Opens save window.
Ctrl A Browser Opens alter info window.
Ctrl C Browser Toggles convert file type.
Ctrl D Browser Toggles indent of display.
Ctrl F Browser Toggles show file type.
Ctrl N Browser Toggles show short names.
Ctrl P Browser Open the update window.
Ctrl S Browser Toggles show file size.
Ctrl T Browser Toggles whether to open the tool pane.
Ctrl X Browser Delete record from section.
File type identifying
To identify a file type drag the file on to the DiscScan icon with the CONTROL key held down. The file type that will be identified will be the Risc OS one, except when there is a file extension as this will be used instead. An error window will open with either a text description in it or the a message telling you the what the file type used was. The message could be 'File XXXXX is a Text file' or 'File XXXXX is a PC text file'.
Extra Section information
To get some extra information about the section open the main menu from the main window and from the Info menu item go across and select Sections. A window will open with the section titles in, the number of discs in it and the file size of the section.
Adding file types and file extension to those already known
To add a file type or file extension to list that DiscScan already knows open the icon bar menu and select the menu item Add file info and a window will open. In this window is an option icon with File extension by it. If you want to make a file extension know then select this icon so it has a tick in. The file type or file extension should be entered in to the small writable icon at the top of the window and a text description should be entered in the icon below.
If the type is already known then by pressing RETURN in the top writable icon the description will appear in the bottom icon.The Add icon should be clicked on to add information about a file type or update the information and Remove should be used to remove a file type from the list.
Problems and Werid Actions
• The Browser windows can react 'differently' to how you would expect them to (will be fixed).
• Archives that have to be de-archived with SparkPlug or Spark don’t react well with DiscScan when it has to read out there contents. Simply because DiscScan uses ArcFS and the file data that is returned is usually wrong.
• Archives that are stored on a disc where there are a number of disc errors were an archive is being stored can cause the error "String too long".
• Dos files that are on Risc OS format discs can be a problem if they don’t have their full file extension present because of it being truncated when the file was copied. It can mean that a file with the filename ‘TextFile/T’ will be stored as having a file extension of ‘T’ when it should be ‘TXT’ or 'TAB' or 'TOP'.
Improvements still to do
• Add a ‘Move’ function to the Edit submenu.
• Add a ‘Sort’ function to the Edit submenu.
• Allow drags on to options window and Add file info window to set options.
• Improve the search so you can find files of a certain type, or free space for a file on a disc. Start the section selected in the main window.
Changes since version 0.85
• Scanning now supports DOS file extensions.
• File format. It had to be changed because DiscScan supports DOS file extensions and I’m not sure what characters are allowed in them. It has also given quite a speed increase from less code.
• Added a buffer to the search to fixed problem when searching for an item and not having enough memory to load the section file.
• Improved search and browser link. It will now change section, change to the correct disc record and then highlight the item that has been found.
• Improved the browser display so that it will look the same on a Risc PC and on an older Archimedes.
• Added display short names and a tool pane options and also a wipe section to the browser.
• Removed max disc limit.
• Added more colours choices.
• Added an Update function to browser.
• Speeded up alter procedures. It is now running at a reasonable pace.
• Changed Options window. It now has more options and looks better.
• Better error handling. (Was going to use my own error boxes, but Risc OS 3.5 looks better.)
• Added add file info menu item to the icon bar item so you no longer have to alter the ‘Messages’ file using a text editor to add a file type to the list already known.
• Made DiscScan more suitable for running from a floppy disc than before.
• Fixed problems with Hi-res monitors.
Copyright and Disclaimer (the legal bit)
Copyright: This program has been put in to the Public Domain as FreeWare. This means that DiscScan can be freely copied. I, the author, retain full copyright over it/ You may not alter any of the files and they must all be present!
This program was developed with routines written by A.P. Senior as provided with the book BASIC Wimp Programming published by Dabs Press and they have been included in the main !RunImage file so that they can be compressed (execute faster) and are not the copyright of the author.
Disclaimer: I, the author, do not accept any liability for the loss or damage to your computer or any data stored on it, however caused, arising as a result of the use or misuse of this program or bugs in the code.
Address
If you have any problems, or you have any suggestions you can contact me by mail using:
