Dirmaster 1.1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PREFACE If you are like me, you do not like reading user manuals, and if you are forced to, you just read the bare minimum . With that in mind, this manual is not a comprehensive description of DirMaster and its features. (Yes, a flimsy excuse for not providing complete documentation but I went to great pains to make DirMaster intuitive and easy to use. Nor is FATHER TIME my best of my friends right now.) Rather, the manual is written with the following objectives: 1. Quick overview (blatant advertising) 2. Getting started tutorial for beginners 3. Description of the esoteric features for die-hards 4. Quick Reference Section To print this manual, set up your printer as follows: 1. Lines per inch = 6. 2. Total characters per line = 70. DIRECTORY MASTER 1.1 OVERVIEW Directory Master is the fastest, most comprehensive, most versatile disk cataloguer currently available for the Amiga. Its major features include: SPEED - DirMaster can sort 2000 records in about 7 seconds, or 8000 records in 30 seconds, or 12000 records in about 44 seconds. Furthermore, it will find any record in the display list almost instantaneously. MEMORY EFFICIENCY - A 512K RAM Amiga can hold between 6000 - 7600 records. A 1.5M Amiga can hold up to 34000 records. Maximum records is limited only by memory. Plus, several options are devoted exclusively to packing more information into limited memory. EASY TO USE - DirMaster is fully mouse and menu-driven. UNIQUE COMPARE UTILITY - great for managing disk libraries. DirMaster will produce a listing of all files on your disks but not in a database. Plus, DirMaster gives you the option of consolidating the unique files onto fewer disks as well as allowing you to delete those files that are already in your database. POWERFUL SORT FEATURE allows you to specify any combination and any order of up to 5 fields to use in sorting the display lists. AMIGADOS UTILITIES that allow you to operate on all highlighted records in a disk at once, rather than one directory at a time. SIX MAIN DISPLAY modes of displaying the database records. Plus you decide on any combination of the 5 fields to display. EASY SCROLLING through the database via arrow and slider gadgets that continually update the screen display. INPUT/OUTPUT and DISPLAY FILTERING - DirMaster lets you specify which records to use through its powerful and UNIQUE custom requesters. MULTIPLE INPUT FORMATS - DirMaster can read in modified BBS listings, allowing you to use all of DirMaster's power to examine BBS downloads. PRINTER SUPPORT - any list displayed by DirMaster can be sent to a printer or a file. MULTIPLE RECORD SELECTION - any number of records may be selected simultaneously and operated on as a group. FIND DUPLICATES option that allows you to find all of the duplicate records in the database. COLORS - pick your favorite color combination out of 7 sets or define your own. GETTING STARTED All of DirMaster's features are grouped into 5 main categories (menus): 1. Project - options typically found in Amiga programs. 2. Edit - options to create, add to, and delete from databases. 3. Utilities - options which expand DirMaster's usefulness. 4. Display - options that specify records for DirMaster to display. 5. Configure - options to configure DirMaster as you want. When specific options are mentioned, the main menu will be specified, followed by the option and a sub-option (if applicable). TERMINOLOGY 1. Record - any disk, directory, or file entry. 2. Display list - the currently visible subset of records, as selected by the Display options. VIEWING AN EXISTING DATABASE 1. Use the Configure-Drive option to select the disk drive that contains the disk which has a DirMaster database. 2. Open the database with the Project-Open-All option. Click the mouse on the database you wish to open, then select "OK". 3. The database is now loaded into DirMaster. Use the Display options to select which portions of the database you would like to see. BUILDING A NEW DATABASE 1. Use the Configure-Drive option to select the disk drive that you will insert disks into. 2. Select the Edit-Disk-Add option. You will now be prompted to insert the first disk into the drive you selected. DirMaster will print the current record being added to the database in the title area of the DirMaster screen. When the disk is done being added to the database, DirMaster will display the disk name just added and wait for you to either enter another disk or select the CANCEL option. 3. When you are done adding disks to the database, select the Configure- Credits-Database option to enter your name as the creator of the database. This name will be stored with the database itself when the database is saved. It may be viewed via the Project-About-Credits option. 5. Save the database by selecting the Project-Save As-w/o- categories comments option. FINDING A RECORD 1. Select a display option which would display that record if it exists. 2. Select the Utilities-Find-Record(s) option. A new window will appear that has several utilities (see the reference section for full details). Type the EXACT name of the record you wish to find into the rectangular box. If the record is in the database list you selected from the display option, it will be displayed in the lower part of the Find window. ESOTERIC FEATURES This portion of the manual is devoted to the (dare I say it ?) non- intuitive features of DirMaster. Please note that the quick reference section may clear up questions concerning features that are not addressed here. EXTENSIONS The extensions options are provided mainly to conserve that elusive quantity that few people ever get enough of - MEMORY. The Edit-delete- extensions option deletes all records in the display list which have the same path and same name, but different extensions. It does not delete the alphabetically first record. For example, suppose your database contains: duIII.o duIII.c duIII duIII.info duIII.doc duIII.old duIII.ReadMe ... all in the same path. By deleting the extensions, you get rid of 6 records, (duIII is not deleted) without really losing that much information. Deleting the extensions from the FISH0-90 database will result in a "savings" of approximately 2217 records. This equates to about 22 disks. Likewise, you can "save" about 662 records on the AMICUS1-16 database. You may achieve the same effect by opening a database (or appending a database) with the No extensions sub-option. These will simply ignore multiple extensions but will not delete them from the database itself. CATEGORIES AND COMMENTS DirMaster supports 2 completely user-definable fields which are called the comments and categories fields - although they may be used for anything you want. For the sake of this discussion all comments concerning the "comment" field also apply to the "category" field, unless otherwise noted. The comment field is a character field of up to 60 characters. Each comment is associated with a number (range 0 - 65535). The numbers, not the individual comments, are stored in the database itself. The comment numbers are then mapped to the actual comments by the file "DirMaster.comments" ("DirMaster.categories" for the category file). The following options are available: 1. Open-Comment file - reads in the file "Dirmaster.comments" which must be in your current directory. 2. Save-with-comments/categories - this option stores the category and comment numbers in the database saved to disk. IF YOU DO NOT SELECT THIS OPTION, NO COMMENT NUMBERS WILL BE SAVED. Saving without comment numbers will decrease the database file size by 4 bytes per record. 3. Resort - you may resort the display list by comment number if desired. This will group all records with identical comments or categories together. 4. Display-Custom-Comments - this option will display all records whose comment field contains a specified string. This is essentially a KEYWORD SEARCH option. For example, you could use this option to display all records which have the string "graphic" in their comment description. Likewise for "music" or "demo" or "directory utility", etc. By the way, the keyword is NOT case sensitive, so "GraPHic" is identical to "graphic". The comment and category fields are very useful, if you spend some time creating the appropriate files. DirMaster does not provide direct comment entry, so you must create the comment file and directly insert the comment numbers into the database files. Sorry, but I just did not have enough time to put this support into DirMaster. Hopefully, someone will write a utility that simplifies this. The "DirMaster.comments" file must have the following format: 101/nbr_records 1/comment 1 2/comment 2 ... for example, 101/3 1/Directory utility program 2/neat graphics demo, requires 1Meg to run 3/communications program NOTES: 1. The first line in the "DirMaster.categories" file is: "100/nbr_records" 2. Comment 0 is reserved as the NO COMMENT number. 3. The numbers in front of the slashes must be sequential and may range from 1 to 65535. The easiest way to insert comment numbers into the database file is by first saving the database with the comments/categories option. This will give each record a comment of 0. Then, using an editor or word processer, overwrite the 0 comments with the appropiate comment number. For example, since the database format is: type/level/size/date/category/comment/name i.e. 0/0/823744/3601/0/0/Work Disk To assign comment number 3, to "Work Disk", the edited record would be 0/0/823744/3601/0/3/Work Disk NAME LISTS This option lets you input a list of names (i.e from a BBS download) into DirMaster. The size and date fields are set to 0, so the only useful information about the record is its name (unless you also use the comments or categories options). BIX_28_DEC.namelist (on the DirMaster distribution disk) is an example namelist. The name list format is: 200/nbr_records DiskName name1 name2 ... for example, 200/12 BIX_9-Nov-87_Partial asse10.doc asse10.lsp fuzzy.lsp msg.lsp ops5.lsp pc-lisp.arc qa.log qa.lsp The disk name you choose should be informative. The number of records can be anything. DirMaster will fill in the correct number, if neccessary, but you must have a number in that field. You should sort the list into alphabetical order (AmigaDos SORT command) if it is not already ordered. DOS UTILITIES The DirMaster DOS utility options are very useful when you want to do the same thing to a number of files in different directories on a disk. For example: deleting files, or showing picture files, or reading documentation files, or running new PD programs... While several excellent PD directory utility programs are available, these typically restrict you to one directory at a time. 1. The first three DOS options are user-configurable via the Configure-Dos Utilities options. They will send the option selected, followed by the highlighted file(s) to the CLI. For example: "type beta.doc" can be sent to the CLI, at which time AmigaDos takes over, types the file in another window, then returns to DirMaster. The program invoked by DirMaster must be in your current path - or be given a path in the command itself. 2. Dos-custom, this option sends a custom string and file name to the CLI. It is used for commands you won't often use, and do not want to configure a special command for. 3. Dos-CLI, this opens a new CLI. You must type "ENDCLI" (and "ENDCLI" must be in your path) before returning to DirMaster. USER CONFIGURABLE ENVIRONMENT The user-configurable parameters are saved to the file "DirMaster.environment" upon program termination. If this file is in your current directory on startup, then DirMaster will read its contents and configure itself accordingly. REFERENCE SECTION MENU REFERENCE PROJECT MENU ABOUT 1. Directory Master - some notes on the current version 2. Shareware - describes the shareware policy 3. Credits - mentions some people who contributed to DirMaster NEW - clears the current database from memory OPEN - opens up various files that DirMaster uses 1. All - reads in all records in a database file 2. No Extensions - reads in all records in a database file except for those records which have the same path and name, but different extensions (after the ".") 3. Custom - reads in a user-definable subset of the database 4. Category File - reads in a category file 5. Comment File - reads in a comment file 6. Name List - reads in a name list SAVE - saves the current database to the database originally opened 1. with categories/comments - stores category and comment numbers in the saved database 2. w/o categories/comments - does not store category and comment numbers in the saved database (saves 4 bytes per record) SAVE AS - saves the current database to a user-specified file 1. with categories/comments - stores category and comment numbers in the saved database 2. w/o categories/comments - does not store category and comment numbers in the saved database (saves 4 bytes per record) PRINT - prints the currently DISPLAYED records 1. to printer - prints the display list to the printer 2. to file - prints the display list to a specified file HELP - presents a 1 page help screen with some notes about DirMaster QUIT - exits DirMaster EDIT MENU DISK - 1. Add - adds the disk in the current drive to the database 2. Update - deletes the highlighted disk from the database, then adds a disk with the same name in the current drive to the database 3. Examine - reads the disk's contents in to memory and allows you to view its contents before adding it to the database APPEND DATABASE - adds an existing database to one already in memory 1. All - appends all records 2. No extensions - appends all records except for those records which have the same path and name, but different extensions (after the ".") 3. Custom - appends a user-definable subset 4. Name List - appends a name list DELETE - deletes records from the database in memory 1. Highlighted Records - deletes all highlighted records and subrecords of highlighted records 2. Extensions - deletes all records which have the same path and name, but different extensions (Does NOT delete the first matching record) 3. Empty Disks - deletes all disks which have no sub-records 4. Empty Directories - deletes all directories which have no sub-records 5. Custom - deletes a user-definable subset of records UTILITIES MENU FIND - searches for specific records or duplicate records 1. Records - finds a record in the current display list 2. Duplicates - finds all duplicate records in the current display list COMPARE - compares a disk to the current database in memory and supports several options for printing a list of unique files, copying unique files, and deleting matching files. RESORT - Allows you to specify any combination and any order of 5 fields (name, size, date, comment, category) as the sorting criteria for the display lists UNHIGHLIGHT - unhighlights all highlighted records DOS - implements several AmigaDos utilities (must be in your CLI command path to use) 1. 1-3 - the first three are user-definable (see Configure Dos Utilities) 4. custom - this is specified each time it is used 5. CLI - this option brings up a new CLI (you MUST type ENDCLI to get out of the CLI before returning to DirMaster) STATUS - shows how many bytes are required to save and print the current database. Also shows the bytes free on the current drive DISPLAY MENU RECORDS - displays all records (disk, directory and file entries) in the database DISKS - displays all disks in the database 1. No sub-records - displays disk names only 2. Sub-records - displays disks and all sub-records for each disk DIRECTORIES - displays all directories in the database FILES - displays all files in the database HIGHLIGHTED RECORDS - displays all highlighted records PARENT - displays the parent and the parent's subrecords of the highlighted record selected FIELDS - allows you to select any combination of 5 fields to display CUSTOM - displays a user-definable subset of records 1. Names - displays a subset of names 2. categories - displays the records whose categories contain the specified keyword 3. comments - displays the records whose comments conatain the specified keyword CONFIGURE MENU COLORS - allows you to pick the colors DirMaster uses 1. Predefined - lets you pick between any of 7 predefined color sets 2. Custom - lets you pick any of 4096 colors for each of DirMaster's 8 colors DRIVE - allows you to specify the default drive that DirMaster uses 1. df0: - drive df0: 2. df1: - drive df1: 3. df2: - drive df2: 4. custom - lets you specify any other drive CREDITS - lets you specify names to be displayed in the About-Credits option 1. User - current user's name 2. Database - name of whoever created the database 3. Colors - name of whoever selected the custom colors KEYBOARD FUNCTIONS MENU SHORTCUTS Hold down the Right Amiga key and press the letter key specified A - Add Disk C - Compare D - Delete highlighted records E - Examine disk F - Find record(s) H - Help N - New O - Open all P - Print to printer Q - Quit R - Resort S - Save with categories/comments U - Unhighlight records MAIN DIRMASTER WINDOW Up-arrow = scroll display 1 record up Down-arrow = scroll display 1 record down SHIFT-up-arrow = scroll display 1 page (23 records) up SHIFT-down-arrow = scroll display 1 page (23 records) down ALT-up-arrow = pposition display at beginning Alt-down-arrow = position display at end FIND WINDOW Up-arrow = dispay previous records Down-arrow = display next record SHIFT-up-arrow = display record which is 1 page (1/30 of the total records in the display list) up from the current record SHIFT-down arrow = display record which is 1 page (1/30 of the total records in the display list) down from the current record ALT-up-arrow = display the first record in the current display list ALT-down-arrow = display the last record in the current display list IMAGERY This section presents Directory Master's main imagery. 1. Color Sets --------------------------------- | | | Color Sets | | | | SET 1 SET 2 SET 3 SET 4 | | | | SET 5 SET 6 SET 7 CUSTOM | | | | | | OK | | | --------------------------------- You may select any of the seven predefined color sets, or the last entered custom color set. 2. Compare Requester ----------------------------------------------- | | | Compare Requester | | | | Compare disk: DF0: DF1: | | | | Output to: SCREEN FILE PRINTER | | | | Fields: NAME SIZE DATE | | | | Copy new files to another disk: NO YES | | | | Delete matching files from disk: NO YES | | | | | | OK CANCEL | | | ----------------------------------------------- The disks that are inserted into the selected drive will be compared (file by file) to the database in memory. The files that are on the disk but not in the database will always be listed on the screen. In addition, this file list may be sent to a text file and or the printer. Any combination of the compare fields may be used as long as at least one of them is selected. You may also choose to copy all files that are on the disk but not in the database to another disk. This is useful if you have a lot of duplication on your disks and want to consolidate the unique files onto fewer disks. Finally, you may choose to delete all files from the compare disks which are already in the database. All of these options operate simultaneously, so only one pass is made through the compare disk. 3. Custom ... Requester ------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | Custom Display Requester | | | | Default = All Wildcards = * and ? | | | | Begin XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX INCLUDE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX EXCLUDE | | | | End XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX INCLUDE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX EXCLUDE | | | | INCLUDE EXCLUDE INCLUDE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX EXCLUDE | | | | | | OK RESET CANCEL | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------- This requester is used for custom displays, custom opens, custom appends, and custom deletes. It gives you considerable power in defining a subset of records to operate on. (None of the gadgets are case sensitive.) The BEGIN and END gadgets define a range which may be INCLUDED or EXCLUDED. For example, setting BEGIN = "c" and END = "h" and selecting the INCLUDE gadget will define your range to be all records alphabetically greater than or equal to "c" and less than or equal to "h". Selecting the EXCLUDE gadget with the same settings would give a range of all records less than or equal to "c" and all records greater than or equal to "h". Selecting no range defaults to a range of ALL RECORDS. After you choose the range of interest, the other gadgets define a subset of that range, where "*" is the multiple character wildcard and "?" is the one character wildcard symbol. If you want to use all records within the specified range, then put an "*" in the first string gadget. Otherwise, you may specify up to three strings to define a particular subset. When the custom strings contradict each other, the top string has least priority and the bottom string has most priority. Some examples: INCLUDE *.c - includes all records w/i range that end with ".c" INCLUDE d* - includes all records w/i range that begin with "d" INCLUDE ???* INCLUDE d*.c - includes all records w/i range that are 3 or more characters long and includes all records that begin with "d" and end with ".c" INCLUDE *.? INCLUDE *.info EXCLUDE *.o - includes all records w/i range that end with "." followed by 1 and only 1 character unless that character is an "o". Also includes all records that end with ".info". 4. Display Fields Requester ----------------------------------------------- | | | Select Display Fields | | | | NAME SIZE DATE PATH CATEGORY COMMENT | | | | OK CANCEL | | | ----------------------------------------------- Determines which fields will be displayed and printed. Any combination of fields may be selected, but the display of each record is limited to 1 line. 5. Find Duplicates Requester ----------------------------------------- | | | Select find duplicate fields | | | | NAME SIZE DATE CATEGORY COMMENT | | | | OK CANCEL | | | ----------------------------------------- When searching for duplicate records, only the fields selected above will be used as criteria. Any combination of fields may be selected, as long as at least one field is specified. 6. FIND WINDOW Enter a record to find XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX FIRST OK CANCEL QUIT PREVIOUS NEXT Scope: DISPLAYED RECORDS LAST Name: Size: Date: Path: Category: Comment: This window is used to search for a specific record. It may be reached via the Utilities-Find-Record option or by double-clicking on a file in the display list. The search routine is very fast (less than a second to find a record in all databases tested - up to about 16000 records). If you double clicked on a record, it is initially diplayed. Otherwise the top record in the previous display list is used. OK - attempts to find the record which is typed into the find gadget CANCEL - returns to the display window, at its previous position QUIT - returns to the display window, positioned at the found record FIRST - displays the first record in the display list PREVIOUS - displays the previous record in the display list NEXT - displays the next record in the display list LAST - displays the last record in the display list Keyboard functions Up-arrow - same as PREVIOUS Down-arrow - same as NEXT ALT-up-arrow - same as FIRST ALT_down-arrow - same as LAST SHIFT-up-arrow - displays the record which is 1/30th of the display list above the current record SHIFT-down-arrow - displays the record which is 1/30th of the display list below the current record. 7. OPEN Requester ----------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- | Select a database to open | | _ | | drawer XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | | | | |X| | | first file | | | | | | | | second file | | | | | | | | (dir) first directory | | | | | | | | (dir) second directory | | | | | | | | - | | file XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX | | | | OK CANCEL | | | ----------------------------------------- This requester (which was written by Charlie Heath and placed in the public domain) is used when you need to specify a file for DirMaster to operate on (Yes, I know - never use a preposition to end a sentence with). The drawer is the disk and directory of the file. This is initially the current drive as selected by the Configure-drive option, but you may enter any valid path. To select a file, either click on its name or type the name directly into the "file" gadget. 8. Resort Requester ----------------------------------------- | | | Select sort fields in order | | | | NAME SIZE DATE CATEGORY COMMENT | | | | OK CANCEL | | | ----------------------------------------- This requester lets you specify how DirMaster should sort the DISPLAY list. By default, records are sorted alphabetically by name. However, you may specify any combination and any order of the 5 fields. For example, clicking on DATE, then NAME, then SIZE will sort the display list first by date. Records that have the same dates will then be sorted by NAME. Records that have the same dates and names, will then be sorted by size. This sort criteria remains in effect until it is changed again.