CHANGE Command -------------- The CHANGE command allows you to change the format, sort order and list order of the entries in the active display. The two SID displays each have their own display method consisting of an entry format, sort order and list order. Each list that is loaded into these displays is adjusted to match that display method. Not only can you configure the display method with the EditPrefs program, you can change the display method for each individual display once the program is running by executing the CHANGE command. The Format Requester will appear, allowing you to change the display method for the active display. You can also summon the Format Requester by clicking the left mouse button in the message box at the bottom the SID window. FORMAT There are five different entry formats available. SID always displays the entry's name along with another piece of secondary information: SIZE The size of each file in bytes appears next to the entry name. There are no sizes listed for directories with two exceptions: 1) when you execute the BYTES command, the total size of the files contained within selected directory entries is displayed, and 2) when you execute the DEVS command, the amount of available disk space on each device is displayed. DATE The date and time of each entry appears next to the entry name. For files, this is the date that the file was created or last updated. For directories, this date is the date that the contents of the directory were last changed (i.e. a file was added, changed, or deleted). For devices (displayed by executing the DEVS command), this is the date the device was created or last formatted. You can configure how you want to display both the date and the time with the EditPrefs program. Dates can be displayed in month-day- year, day-month-year or year-month-day format. Also, recent dates can be displayed in English ("Today", "Yesterday", "Monday", "Tuesday", etc.) or in numeric format ("02/03/91, for example). If so configured, only dates within the past week would appear in English. For example, if today is Sunday, February 10th, 1991, here's how the following file dates would appear: FILE DATE FORMATTED 10-Feb-91 Today 11-Feb-91 Future 09-Feb-91 Yesterday 08-Feb-91 Friday 04-Feb-91 Monday 03-Feb-91 Sunday 02-Feb-91 02/02/91 Notice the date one week ago today is listed with the weekday name. Any date before that is listed numerically. You can also configure whether you want the times to be displayed in either AM/PM or 24-hour format. In either case, the times appear as hours:minutes:seconds. BITS The protection bits of each entry appear next to the entry name. Currently, there are eight protection bits associated with each Amiga file or directory. These are listed below, along with a brief description of what it means when a file has that bit set: H - Hidden ....... file won't appear in a directory list S - Script ....... batch file can be executed as a program P - Pure ......... program can be made resident in RAM A - Archived ..... file has been saved by an archiving program R - Readable ..... file is readable W - Writable ..... file can be written to E - Executable ... file is an executable program D - Deletable .... file cannot be deleted Most of these protection bits are voluntary, meaning that a program-- and not the operating system--enforces their status. As an example, many programs will still display a hidden file in a directory listing. If configured, however, SID will not display hidden files. The protection bits are usually written in the same order: HSPARWED. If the bit is set, its corresponding letter will appear. If the bit is cleared, a hyphen will replace that letter. For example, H---RWE- means that the file is hidden, readable, writable and executable, but NOT script, pure, archived or deletable. NOTE The first twenty characters of the entry's filenote appears next to the entry name. AmigaDOS allows you to attach notes of up to 70 characters long to files and directories. These filenotes can be used for any purpose--to identify the file contents, its author, intended use, etc. SID preserves these filenotes for the entire life of a file, even if you change, copy, move or rename that file. You can view an entry's entire filenote by executing the INFO command and can change its filenote with the COMMENT command. DESC The description of each entry appears next to the entry name. This description is up to twenty characters long and describes what type of file it is, for example, "WordPerfect Document", ".info Icon file", "Manx Object Module", etc. SID has the ability to identify files and execute commands based on the description of those files. Supplied with SID is a library of file descriptions (the SID.desc file) used to identify files. You can add to this library with the ANALYZE command. Changing to the DESC format from another format may take a few seconds as SID loads the first block of each file in an attempt to identify that file. Becuase of this, the Stop Requester will appear, allowing you to stop the file identification process. Once a file has been identified, however, that description will remain with the file for as long as the directory list exists. The entries formats are laid out as shown below: SIZE: <-------- EntryName ---------> 999999999 DATE: <-------- EntryName ---------> MM/DD/YYx HH:MM:SSam BITS: <-------- EntryName ---------> HSPARWED NOTE: <-------- EntryName ---------> <-Truncated Comment> DESC: <-------- EntryName ---------> <-- Description ---> Because you can adjust the width of the SID window, there may not be enough room to display the full name along with the size, date, etc. based on the format you selected. SID will always display all of the secondary information (size, date, etc.) but will truncate the name if necessary. If the name is indeed truncated, the last visible character will be replaced with a double-arrow character '»' to indicate that part of the name is not shown. You can also toggle through the different entry formats simply by clicking the right mouse button in the message box at the bottom of the SID window. The entry format of the display under which you clicked will rotate between SIZE, DATE, BITS and NOTE. Because of the time requirements associated with the DESC format, you have to execute the CHANGE command in order to display entry descriptions. SORT ORDER SID uses an extremely fast non-recursive quick sort algorithm to sort the entries in each display. You can select how you want the entries sorted: either by name, date or size: NAME The entries are sorted in ascending ASCII order. All alphabetic characters are converted to lower case while sorting, meaning this sort is case-insensitive. The exact sort order is listed below: space ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz { | } ~  alt-space ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¦ § ¨ © ª « ¬ ­ ® ¯ ° ± ² ³ ´ µ ¶ · ¸ ¹ º » ¼ ½ ¾ ¿ À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ð Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö × Ø Ù Ú Û Ü Ý Þ ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ð ñ ò ó ô õ ö ÷ ø ù ú û ü ý þ ÿ SIZE The entries are sorted in ascending order based on file size. This means that directories will appear at the top of the list unless they have a size associated with them (see the SIZE format above). DATE The entries are sorted in ascending order based on date. The oldest files and directories will appear at the top of the list. LIST ORDER After sorting, SID can reorder the entries so that either all directories or all files will appear at the top of the list. If you deal with files most of the time, you may want files to appear at the top of the list so that you do not have to scroll through the list very often to find the desired file. If you browse through directories most of the time, then you may wish to move the directories to the top of the list so they are easily accessible. The third option, of course, is to leave files and directories mixed. CHANGE 4-Apr-91 © Copyright 1991 Timm Martin All Rights Reserved Worldwide