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FileUtils version 4.07 12/12/92 by Ben Summers FileUtils version 4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *Command menu for files with find file, find space, change type windows, parameters, set dir and forget disc utilities. Click here for conditions of use & distribution. Please note my address has changed. FileUtils now needs the latest version (3.75) of CLib. You should all have this by now, but if you haven't, write to me. If you think of any more utilities which might be useful or use FileUtils a lot, please write and tell me. Note on True count The application directory should contain the following files: !Boot !Help !Run !RunImage !Sprites FUhotkey Help HelpReader HelpText Templates StartHK and the directory SetUp, which should contain ffChoices FileData Options Revision history ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Version 1.00 Original BASIC application. Version 2.00 - 2.06 Optional file menu commands added, bug fixes. Version 3.00 BASIC application rewritten in C. Utilities added. Version 3.01 Find file user interface changed after comments from Acorn. Fix FileCore option removed after complaints from Acorn (dismount discs when you have finished with them). Interactive help is now fully supported. Version 3.02 Return now starts the search in the Find file window. Hotkeys now added. Code improved. Version 3.03 Find file improved. Archive searching added. Hotkeys now work 'outside' the application. The options are now a submenu. Version 3.04 Bugs corrected. Version 4.00 More bugs corrected. Context sensitive HelpReader system used. Outside hotkeys removed. Parameters utility added. Set dir utility added. Minor improvements to templates. Improved FileData file. Version 4.01 Changed find file progress window. Find file now preserves parameters and paths between each use. Version 4.02 Kill dialogue box now shows object name. Short cuts added to iconbar menu. Version 4.03 Save find file options and paths option added. Re-implemented the outside hotkeys (but in a different way: ) Added Forget disc utility. Support for new format archives. Modified way filenames too long appear in file list window. Version 4.04 Corrected new archive searching to cope with converted archives. Modified find space to take account of wasted disc space. Opening of archives in the file list window. Version 4.05 Fixed small bug with default paths. Version 4.06 Clicking on FileUtils icon now brings up last used utility. 'Error in archive' message now shows archive name. Directory structure changed slightly. Added True count utility. Added Set dir dialogue box for quicker setting of the current directory. Version 4.07 Added saving of found list in find file How to use FileUtils ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @*filemenu File menus ~~~~~~~~~~ Drag a file to the iconbar. A menu of * commands will pop up. Chose one, or click elsewhere to cancel it. At the top of the menu, there will be up to four optional items, depending on the options set up. They can be: Change type ⇨ Leads to a submenu allowing you to change the files filetype. Dump Dump the file Info Get info on the file Kill Deletes the object (file or directory) even if it is locked. This is useful for getting rid of applications or directories where somebody has locked a file inside it (annoying isn't it?). As it is quite a dangerous option, there is an option to confirm that you want to kill the object before you do so. See the format of the FileData file for how to define the other options. Interactive help ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To save space, the help text is only loaded in when it is needed, so when you first point at FileUtils, it will access the disc to get this text. How to easily add interactive help to your C programs. Hotkeys ~~~~~~~ Each of the utilities has a keyboard shortcut. Shift-Ctrl function keys have been used to avoid clashes with other applications. See the info on each utility for its hotkey. The hotkeys can be made to work outside the application so that if one of the hotkeys is used, FileUtils will be loaded and the relevent utility started. To make this work, you must add the following line to the desktop command file (the one in the command 'desktop -file <filename>' {page 390 RISCOS2 user guide}) in your boot routine: adfs::HardDisc4.$.Utilities.!FileUtils.StartHK You will, of course, have to change the path to the directory FileUtils is in. This method is only really useable for hard disc users, but then, these hotkeys are probably only suitiable for them. The main menu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Main menu (click Menu on the icon) Info ⇨ Leads to standard info dialogue box. Options ⇨ Leads to options submenu Save options Saves the current options to disc Help Loads this text *Cmd menu Just a reminder... True count Open the true count window Forget disc Opens the forget disc dialogue Set dir Toggles the set dir utility Parameters Opens the parameters window Change type Opens a change type window Find space Allows you to find a disc with enough room on it Find file Opens the find file window Quit Guess One of the utilities will have a grey background on the menu instead of the normal white background. This is the utility that will be started when the FileUtils icon is clicked. Options ⇨ ~~~~~~~~~~ This leads to a submenu which allows you to set which optional items appear on the file menus. Use the 'Save options' on the main menu to save these to disc. True count ~~~~~~~~~~ Hotkey: Shift-Ctrl-F8 This utility allows you to see how much space an object really takes up on your disc. This is provided because the Count option on the Filer doesn't give the true amount of space used. All it does is total up all the lengths of the files. This gives a false impression of the space used up for two reasons. Firstly, a file can take up more than its lenght because it must fit into an exact number of sectors. These are about 512 bytes long. If a file is 513 bytes long, an extra sector has to be used to store the 513th byte, so in fact the file takes up 1024 (1K) up on the disc. The Count command does not take this into account. The second reason is directories. These are ignored by the Count command. However, each one takes up 2K on the disc. Because of this, the count command gives an inaccurate result. For a demonstration of this, count all the files on a disc, preferably a hard disc. Next use the 'Free' option to find out how much has been used. Compare the two - count will give a smaller result. True count will show how much space an object actually takes up on your disc. To use it, open the true count window using the iconbar menu or the hotkey. Next drag the object to this window. The size will be shown. The window has two other icons, the Reset size and Add sizes icons. The reset size resets the size shown to 0K. The Add sizes icon is useful when you are dragging a directory full of objects to the window. With out this icon selected, each object would be counted, and the value displayed. However, the next object would over write this value. To stop this, select this icon. Now whenever an object is dragged to the window, it's size will be added to the size shown. Use the Reset size icon to put this back to zero. Use this icon when you drag more than one object from a directory at once onto the window. Note on True count Forget disc ~~~~~~~~~~~ Hotkey: Shift-Ctrl-F7 This utility allows you to forget a disc like dismount, but also unsets any system variables which reference it. This should stop any requests for a disc (which you sometimes get even after dismounting it from the disc drive icon menu). To use it, select it from the icon bar menu or use the hotkey. Click on the icon of the drive with the disc in that you want to forget, set the options and click on OK. The options allow you to select which system variables to get rid of. The 'Forget paths' option also checks the system variable 'Wimp$Scrap'. Set dir ~~~~~~~ Hotkey: Shift-Ctrl-F6 (toggles utility on/off) This utility allows you to set the current directory from the desktop. Just drag the Set dir icon from the left hand side of the iconbar onto the directory which you want to be set as the current directory. A dialogue box will pop up confirming that the current directory has been set. If you want to use the Set dir utility just once, you may find that it is more convient to use the dialogue box hanging off the iconbar menu for the Set dir utility. Just drag the icon to the directory just like you would with the iconbar version. Parameters ~~~~~~~~~~ Hotkey: Shift-Ctrl-F5 This option allows you to run or load a file or application with parameters. For example, you might want to load FileUtils from the command line with the FindFile window open (this is an example - I'm sure you would not want to load FileUtils from FileUtils!). To do this you would use the command *Run !FileUtils -f However, you cannot do the same thing in the desktop. The parameters utility allows you to do this. To use it, select it from the main menu or use the hotkey. Drag the file or application of the window, and it's name will appear before the parameters writeable icon. If you click on the white icon at the far left of the window, it will toggle the command type between *Run and *Load. Type the parameters into the writable icon. If you drag a file into the writeable icon, it's full filename will be inserted at the caret. To run the command, press [Return] or click OK. The command will be executed, and the parameters window will be cleared. Click OK with adjust to execute the command and preserve the windows contents. Change type ~~~~~~~~~~~ Hotkey: Shift-Ctrl-F4 This option opens a change type window. Before you can use it, you must first set up the filetype by clicking menu on the window, and choosing a filetype, or typing one it at the bottom of the menu. Then select all the files you want to set to that filetype, and drag them to the window. This is useful, for example, when you have just transferred files from another (non Archimedes) computer and they are all filetyped Data. Please note that this option is only worth it for lots of files - if you have just one, drag it to the icon on the iconbar, and choose a filetype from the Change type submenu of the file menu. Find space ~~~~~~~~~~ Hotkey: Shift-Ctrl-F3 This option allows you to find a disc with some space on it (for when you want to find a disc to copy something onto). Fill in the box for how much space you need or drag the file, directory or application to the window to add that objects size to the number in the box. Set up the drive you want to search in, and click on OK. The disc in the drive will be checked, and then you will be prompted for more discs until a disc is found with enough space. Find file ~~~~~~~~~ Hotkey: Shift-Ctrl-F2 In the window: Ctrl-E: set exact searching Ctrl-C: set containing searching Ctrl-P: restore previous name Return: start search Escape: close window This option opens the Find File window. Fill in the name, select the paths to search, and set the options. Click on OK to start. Searching is case insensitive and multi-tasking. If you drag a file or application to the window, then the path of the directory it is in will be added to the list of paths. When a directory it dragged to the window, it will be added to the list of paths. If a path is not necessary (for example there is a path nearer the root directory in the list), it will not be added and the computer will bleep. If there is a path further away from the root directory in the list, then it will be removed. Click menu over the list to remove a path or clear all the paths. A horizontal scroll bar will be added to the list if necessary. Drag a file or application from the root directory of the disc to search the entire disc. When you start the search, a window will open allowing you to stop the search, and giving you some infomation on how it is getting on. If no files are found, the findfile window will reopen with all the options and paths set up. If you selected the list files option then when a seach has finished, a list of files found will be opened. Double click with select on a item to open the directory viewer the item is in. Applications are shown in red, directorys in blue, and files in black. If a item is in an archive its filetype is shown in light blue, and when it is double clicked on the archive will be opened and the directory viewer will be displayed if ArcFS is loaded. If it is not, the directory viewer that the archive is in will be opened. Click menu on this window to save the find list. If you selected many discs searching, you will be prompted to insert more discs until you click on Stop on the dialogue box which asks you for another disc. No check is made to see if the disc has been seen before by the search. The paths you set are kept between each time you use the find file utility, and the options are the ones which were set last time you clicked on OK. Use Interactive Help to get more information about the options. If you find that you are searching on the same path every time you use this utility (for example the root directory of your hard disc), you can save the paths and some of the options to disc so that they will be the options and paths set up every time you run FileUtils. Click menu over the find file window and select 'Make defaults' to set these. Searching in Archives ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FileUtils can search in any Spark archives it finds, new and old formats. Select the 'Search in archives' options to enable this. To make your own archives, contact David Pilling for a copy of Spark or ArcFSr/w. I strongly recommend that you buy a copy of ArcFSr/w. It is a very neat bit of coding, and provides easy to use compression for a nominal price. Note on True count ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ True count askes RISC OS how much space each file takes up on a disc, and uses the size for directories give by it. However, in some cases, this figure is inaccurate. Usually, it is very close - I have never found the final result to be more than 2k out. Still, it is still much better than Count. I am investiagating this problem. Perhaps users of FileUtils could report the sucess or otherwise of this utility on their systems. Please write and tell me the size True count thought it was, and the size it actually is. Also details of which filing system used and the machine and operating system version. To find out how much space an object takes up, use the Free option from the Filer iconbar menus. Note the free space. Next copy the object, and note the free space again. Subtract the first result from the second one. If you are using RISC OS 2, the result will be in bytes. Divide this by 1024 to get the result in Kbytes. If you are using RISC OS 3, the multitasking Free utility will give the free space in Kbytes if there is less than around 2Mb free. I included this utility in this version for two reasons. Firstly, this utility still is accurate. The problems I have had may be because of RISC OS 3.00 (included in the A5000). This version is at best a beta-test version of RISC OS, and the version supplied in the A4 portable (3.10) has just about all of the modules updated. This utility may work fine under RISC OS 2.00 and 3.10. Feedback please! Secondly, by including this version, and hopefully getting some reponse from users, I can find out what the problem is. The FileData file: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This file tells FileUtils what *commands to put in the file menus. The format of this file is quite simple, but for those of you too lazy to work out what it is, here is a description of each line: Each line describes a menu for one filetype, or is a comment. Comment lines begin with a '\'. The last line must be the XXX entry for filetypes not described before. The format of a menu is: FileType number,Title of menu,First item to appear on the menu,*command, other entries of item and *commands, The line must finish with a comma. The *command may have a '#' in it, which will be replaced with the full name of the file when the item is selected. Don't put extra spaces in. Please note there is no error checking on the FileData file. If you make an interesting modification to the FileData file, please send me a copy of it. Stupid jokes ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Q. What's the difference between an IBM salesman and a herring? A. One has scales, is slimy and smells funny. The other is a fish. Q. What's the difference between an dead IBM salesman lying in the middle of a road and a dead snake lying in the middle of the road? A. There are skid marks in front of the snake. IBMs definition of an optional extra: Something essential which isn't supplied with the machine. The Amiga. Twilight ~~~~~~~~ Do you worry about images being burnt into your monitor? Do you use confidential data on your machine? Do you want pretty patterns to be displayed on your screen when you are not using it? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you need to buy a copy of Twilight, my first commercial program. Basically what it does is blank your screen and display an effect on it when you are not using it. This saves your monitor from image burn in. It also has a password feature to stop unauthorised users looking at you data while you are away from your computer, and a hotkey for instant blanking of your screen. This is useful for keeping prying eyes away from your data. Twilight also has lots of effects, from memos to fish to shapes to rectangles. It will display just one, or a random selection. Twilight costs £14.95 from: The Really Good Software Company 39 Carisbrooke Road Harpenden AL5 5QS This is the correct price and address. Some early versions of the Twilight demo have a more expensive price and a different address. Please write to me if you would like a demo version. **** By the way, try light blue (colour 15) on black (colour 7) in Edit. Much nicer than black on white. **** Credits ~~~~~~~ Thanks are due to the following people for finding bugs and/or making suggestions about FileUtils: Ben Harris Andrew Cawte Brian Sherwood Alex Crawford Ian Ford Also Mark Smith for his help with archive searching. FileUtils source code ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I may be prepared to release the source code of FileUtils to certain people. However, they would have to abide by the following conditions: 1. The source code is not distributed - I would like to keep track of where it gets to. 2. The source code is not modified, and a modified version of the source code or a compiled version of FileUtils is not distributed. 3. Bits of the code are not used in other programs without my consent and an acknowledgement of this in the documentation. FileUtils is written in C using the RISC OS Library supplied with Acorn Desktop C. If you want to see it, please tell me why, and explicitly state that you will not break the conditions above. Conditions of use and distribution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This application may be freely distributed for no commercial gain. A small charge may be made for media etc. The copyright of this application remains mine at all times. I would like to hear from any PD library which distributes FileUtils so I can provide a copy of the latest version. If you find that you use this application often, I would appreciate a letter telling me so and perhaps a disc of PD. If you include return postage and a disc I will send you the latest version. You could even make suggestions for new features or improvements, and I might add them to FileUtils. The author: ~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have any comments to make, bugs (what?) to report or new features to suggest, please write to me. My address is: Ben Summers 1 St Clements Hill Norwich NR3 4DE email: bsummers@cix.compulink.co.uk If you write, please send a SAE for a reply. If you send a disc with your letter, I will copy the latest version onto it, and send it back in your SAE. If you are sending a disc, wrap it so it doesn't get broken in the post, but not so that it can withstand nuclear attack. If you find this program useful, please send me a token of your appreciation, for example a disc of PD programs (which I will send back if you send an SAE), as many hours of work have gone into writing this program. Most of the modifications to FileUtils have been done because someone wrote to me and suggested it, so if you would like to see a new feature please write and suggest it. Thanks to everyone who has sent me a letter and a disc - it's much appreciated.