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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ClickDOS V2.04 - by Gary Scott Yates ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This Manual is for version 2.04 of ClickDOS. It is suggested to all users of V2.04, even those who have used previous versions, to reread the manual entirely, to be fully aware of all the enhancements and changes in ClickDOS v2.04. ClickDOS is my entry into the ever growing numbers of "directory utility" programs. I wrote ClickDOS primarily because of my frustrations with other directory utility programs. Here are some of the things which I think make ClickDOS better: - ClickDOS is reasonably small (for what it does): 32K on disk 40K in memory. - It uses a single window on the Workbench screen which can be iconified. So it doesn't gobble up your chip memory - It does not rely on other programs for it's Type and Show functions. These function are built in. - ClickDOS's data structures are dynamically allocated and it uses Fast memory for everything it can. Therefore, it's very memory efficient. - ClickDOS's gadget controls are very logical and easy to use. FIRST A FEW FORMALITIES: ClickDOS IS NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN! However, it may be redistributed freely provided: - the entire contents of the original distribution disk always accompany it - the program and all files on the original distribution disk remain unaltered in any way - No part of this disk may be included on a commercially distributed disk (including disk magazines) without written permission of the author: Gary S. Yates. ClickDOS and associated files MAY be distributed on any public domain compilation series disk in which a REASONABLE (no nore than $10) distribution fee is charged. DONATIONS: If you find ClickDOS useful, the author would appriciate a donation of $15. Your donation will place you on a mailing list to receive updates to ClickDOS FREE! You will also receive notification of other useful programs as they become available! SEND DONATIONS TO: Gary Yates 422 Nth 6th Apt9 Lafayette, IN. 47901 USING ClickDOS: ClickDOS can be started from either WorkBench or CLI. Form CLI type: dos [dir1] [dir2] [-i] where dir1 and dir2 are directories you want DOS to put in the directory areas as soon as it starts. These are optional and are simply a convenience. The -i option will be explained below. Form WorkBench: simply double click on the ClickDOS icon. THE CLICK DOS WINDOW: At this point, it would help a great deal if you can view the picture called ClickFigure which should have accompanied your copy of ClickDOS. This picture shows a shrunken version of the DOS window, with labels pointing out the different areas. The main parts of the ClickDOS window are the directory areas. This is where ClickDOS shows you the files in the currently selected directory and where you pick the files you want to effect with an action gadget, much like other dir utils. You can scroll the file names in these areas using the proportional gagets to the sides of the directory areas. Near the bottom of the ClickDOS window is a space where DOS will print all of it's messages to you. WATCH THIS AREA! At the very bottom of the window DOS will continuously show you how much memory is available in the system, as CHIP and FAST. This display is also a gadget. If you click on this gadget, DOS will display how much free space is on the DISKS associated with each of the directory areas. SELECTING FILES: To select files to be affected by actions you can simply click on the file name. You can click on the file name again to deselect that file, or click on the Unselect All gadget to deselect all of the files in a directory area. There is an Unselect All gadget for each directory area. As you select files, DOS keeps a running total of "bytes selected" for each directory area. It will display this every time you select a file. This is handy for determining, for example, if all the files you selected will fit on the disk you want to copy them to. Unfortunately, AmigaDOS has no way of determining how large a directory of files is, short of reading the entire directory, which, as everyone knows is SLOW! So, the size of selected directories are not taken into account, only files. You can select a group of filenames by clicking and holding the left mouse button then dragging the pointer over several names. Then, when you release the button all of the names you dragged over will be selected (or unselected, if previously selected). At this time, the directory area WILL NOT scroll if you drag past the last visible name. So the most you can select in this way is the visible area of names (14), but it is still better than click, click, click, click.... After DOS has compeleted an action you requested with any action gadget, it will automatically deselect all files in BOTH directory areas. If you want to do a second action on these same files you can click the Select All gadget and it will reselect them for you! PROVIDED the action did not cause ClickDOS to reread the directory in that area. Clicking on the Select All gadget a second time will select ALL of the files in the appropriate directory area. INPORTANT NOTE: You will not be able to see selected files which are scrolled out of the directory area. BEWARE OF THIS! It is easy to forget about these files and inadvertantly affect them with an action. ClickDOS helps out with this by deselected all files after each action is complete. WAYS OF GETTING INTO A DIRECTORY: There are several ways you can get ClickDOS to read a directory into one of its directory areas. The most comman way is to simply click on one of the volume gadgets. This will cause DOS to read the root directory of that device. Note that there is a set of volume gadgets for each dir area. The following devices are currently the defaults: RAM: VD0: DF0: DF1: DF2: DH0: When ever ClickDOS reads a directory, it sorts the contents of the dir alphabetically, files seperate from directories. It places all directory names at the top of the list, then the files names. Directory names are shown in the hilight color (orange in the default Workbench colors) and file names in the text color (white in the default Workbench colors). However, all the colors ClickDOS uses depend on your current preferences settings. Once you have read the contents of a dir, you can enter other directories by clicking on the name of a directory and either, clicking on the Child gadget, or clicking the RIGHT mouse button (menu button) anywhere over the same directory area. The DoubleClick was avoided here because of conflict with clicking on a file name a second time to deselect it. The final way of getting a directory is to type any legal path name into the Current Directory Display string gadget which is over each directory area. ClickDOS will always show the name of the current directory in this gadget. You can force ClickDOS to reread the current directory from disk by clicking in this gadget, then pressing return without typing anything. You may want to do this for example if you do something at the CLI which changes the contents of the directory. ClickDOS can not detect such a thing and you would have to force it to reread the directory to see the changes. To get out of a directory, back to its parent, click on the Parent gadget. WHAT CLICK DOS CAN DO FOR YOU: Here are the actions which DOS supports. (left to right by gadget) MAKEDIR - This is used to create a new directory in one of the directory areas. When you click on this gadget ClickDOS will present a requester asking you for the name of the new directory. Type in the name and press return. After you have entered the name you need to click on one of the three other gadgets in the requester. Click on the LEFT gadget if you want DOS to create the directory in the left directory area (i.e. in the directory associated with that area). Click on the RIGHT gadget if you want DOS to create the directory in the right directory area. Or, click on the CANCEL gadget if you changed your mind. RENAME - Rename will let you change the name of one or more files. To use this option, select the files to rename then click on this gadget. ClickDOS will ask you for a new name for each of the files you selected. Type a new name or select CANCEL if you changed your mind. So that you will know which file you are renaming, DOS will fill the requester gadget with the old name of the file. This also allows you to edit the old name, making renaming quicker. If you are completely changing the name, a quick Right Amiga-X will zap the old name out of the requester. Rename will let you rename across directories on the same disk. COPY- ClickDOS always copies the files you have selected in the left directory area to the right directory area. And the files you have selected in the right directory area to the left directory area. Thus you don't have to worry about which is the source and which is the destination. In fact DOS will do both of these at the same time. So you can swap files in one operation if you select files in both dir areas at the same time then click on copy. Although, at first you may find this somewhat confussing, after you use ClickDOS a couple of times, I think you will find it to be quite logical. As a note, ClickDOS copies the files in the left area to the right first, and then the files in the right dir area to the left. A very powerful feature of the copy option is that it can copy an entire directory! If you click on a directory and then click COPY, DOS will create this directory on the destination disk and then copy ever file AND DIRECTORY and every file in every nested directory in the source directory to the destination(phew!). For example: you could copy an entire directory of fonts with only two clicks. A click on the directory name and a click on copy! Try it, I think you will like it! NOTE: if an error occurs while DOS is copying a file DOS WILL remove the damaged destination file. However, if you are copying a directory, the files which had already been copied before the error occured will not be removed from the destination. So you will need to look at the destination disk and see which files made it and which ones didn't. If you are trying to copy a file to the same directory it is already in (by having the same directory in both directory areas) ClickDOS will ask you for a new name for the copy of the file. MOVE- The Move option works almost identical to Copy with one important difference: Move DELETES the SOURCE files or directory when it is finished copying them. When Move is used to transfer files from one directory to another on the same disk it does so by Renaming the files rather than actually making new copies. This is faster and more efficient on disk space. DELETE- Delete will permenantly erase every file you have selected in BOTH dir areas. Watch for those files which are scrolled out of the dir area which you forgot you selected!! Delete will also delete and ENTIRE directory and every single thing which is in it!! BE WARNED! This is a very powerful but potentially VERY DANGEROUS feature. You should be sure you truely want to delete EVERYTHING in the directory you selected!!!! ClickDOS will NOT ask for confirmation!! NEWCLI- This gadget will bring up a NewCLI window for you to use. This is a true CLI window and will hang around until you give the EndCLI command. SHOW- This option will show any IFF ILBM picture or brush. To show a picture select the picture's file name and then this option. Show will display the picture for about 5 secs then return to the ClickDOS window. You can do a slide show viewing by selecting several pictures. They will be shown one at a time. Between each picture you will see ClickDOS flip back to its window. This occurs for two reasons. One, so ClickDOS can tell you the name of the next picture in the message bar. Two, this way only one screen has to be allocated in memory at any given time, so the show is more memory efficient. Please keep in mind this option was intended to give you a way to review your files for deletion, copying, etc. not as a true slide show program. If you wish to view a picture for longer than 5 secs press the ESC key or the Right Mouse Button. This will turn off the timing. To turn the timing back on press ESC or Right Mouse Button again. Timing is also turned back on each time you select the SHOW option. To jump to the next picture before the 5 secs has eplapsed press the LEFT Mouse Button. To jump out of the slide show completely (i.e. return to DOS) press q (for Quit). As mentioned above Show can display brushes. It can also display overly large bit maps BUT only as much of the upper left hand corner as will fit on the screen. Finally, Show is a very simply IFF reader. It will NOT find ILBM hunks which are inside of other hunks, for example ANIM hunks. Show DOES support HAM. TYPE - This option lets you view any text or binary file in ascci format. It does no formatting of its own (i.e. no word wrap) I did not empliment this because so many README files and DOS files (the most common use of type) are preformatted these days. And DOS trying to reformat the already formatted files just makes a mess! Type will show you several files one after the other if you select multiple files. You can scroll both forward and backward in a file using the Type option. Type opens a seperate window to show you the file. In the title bar of this window are the commands for scrolling thru the text. In addition to the commands listed in the scroll bar, you can use the LEFT mouse button to scroll forward a page (note this has change since version 2.00) and the RIGHT mouse button to scroll back approx. one screen. I say approx. because ClickDOS does not actually scan the file to back up one page exactly, it does a logical guess. ClickDOS will tell you how many bytes it went backward in the file. Type also allows you to send the output to the printer. When you select Type ClickDOS will ask you where you want the output to go, printer or screen. When you select printer ClickDOS will look in the directory specified in its .dosrc file (more on .dosrc below) for a program called spool. Spool is a printer spooling program which should have accompanied ClickDOS. If ClickDOS finds spool then it will start the program and turn the printing over to it. If ClickDOS does not find Spool, it will print the file by copying it to the PRT: device. Using the spool program is much better than having ClickDOS do the printing itself, because if ClickDOS has to do the printing it locks up until it is done, Spool runs as a background process. See the documentation for Spool for more information. As the default, ClickDOS will look for Spool in C:. C: is usually assigned to the C directory of the Workbench disk. WARNING: Spool and ClickDOS communicate directly using Messages and Message Ports, DO NOT try to substitute a different spooler program by renaming it Spool! THE ICONIFY GADGET: You will notice (perhaps with some reservation) that the ClickDOS window does not have a size gadget. This is true, you can not size the window. There is however a NEW system gadget in the title bar of the window, beside the front back gadget (it looks like a backward size gadget). This gadget, when clicked on, will shrink the DOS window down to a tiny size and place it in the title bar of the Workbench screen, much like many of the clock programs available. Clicking on this gadget again will return the window to its normal size. This is called iconifying. Note that if you do not like the iconified window where DOS places it, you can move it to a new location and from then on DOS will place it there. Also, you can specify absolute screen coordinates for the iconified window, in DOS's startup file (.dosrc), see below. Finally, if you would like DOS to start out iconified, you can place the -i option in its argument list when you start it from cli. Example: dos -i This is handy if you use ClickDOS a great deal, and would like to have it activated by your startup-sequence. FYI, ClickDOS takes up about 40K when it is sitting iconified. It only takes 1K of chip memory when it is iconified if you have expansion memory. The iconified window continuously shows the current free chip and fast memory. THE .DOSRC FILE When ClickDOS begins it will try to read a file called .dosrc. It will look for this file in the S directory of the Workbench disk that booted the machine, by looking for: S:.dosrc. (Note: versions earlier than 2.04 looked for .dosrc in the T directory) This startup file contains three things. First, it lets you tell ClickDOS which volumes you want in the volume gadgets. Second, it lets you position the iconified ClickDOS window anywhere on the Workbench screen you like. And Third, it lets you specify in which directory ClickDOS will look for the Spool program. The format of this file is: volumes string x position of iconified window y position of iconified window directory to search for Spool Example: RAM:VD0:DF0:DF1:DF2:DH0: 200 50 C: The volume string MUST be exactly 24 characters long! And, the volume names MUST be exactly 4 characters with the last one being a colon! If you have a volume with less than 4 characters then pad the name on the LEFT with spaces. Example: RAM:VD0:DF0:DF1: DH:DF3: The position of the iconified window is in screen coordinates which specify where to place the upper left corner of the window. Legal values are: x position: 0-300 y position: 0-190 The default values are: 250 0 (in the title bar beside the front- back gadget) Included with ClickDOS should be a sample .dosrc file. The best way to make a new one is to edit this file. The search directory for Spool can be any legal AmigaDOS path. HOWEVER!!! ClickDOS only allocates 29 bytes for the entire path!! Therefore the directory specified must be 29 characters or less!! ClickDOS allocates such a small space because I greatly suspect that most people will put Spool in their C directory so all you have to put is: C:. ClickDOS IS A BIT DETACHED: Whether ClickDOS is started from CLI or from WorkBench, it will always run as a completely seperate task. If you start ClickDOS from a CLI, ClickDOS will immediately detach itself (thanks to the wonders of Aztec 3.6a). So ClickDOS will never take over a CLI as most programs do. And you will NEVER have to start DOS using the RUN command. MISC -- Helpful Hint #1: For people without expansion RAM. Reading in a directory with a large number of files can take up a fair amount of memory. Use the Parent Gadget to empty out both directory areas before iconifing ClickDOS for a long period of time. Otherwise, this is perfectly good memory just sitting there. Remember, ClickDOS allocates its data structures dynamically. -- Helpful Hint #2: FaccII by ASDG makes ClickDOS run like a dream! I highly recommend it! OK FINE, BUT HOW DO I GET OUT OF THIS THING: Click the close gadget! KNOW BUGS None known at this time!