Tom Jennings World Power Systems/Fido Software Box 77731 San Francisco CA 94107 June 90 ---------------- HOW TO USE: GO Harmlessly lists some basic information to remind you how it all works, and to plug the author (me). GO ? Displays the list of available directories. GO = Re-enters the last-entered drive/subdirectory. GO name Log into the named drive. ---------------- REQUIRED: GO.EXE the program, what else GO.MAP sample map file (see text) GO.DOC guess what GO= DOS environment variable "GO", so GO.EXE can find the text file. ---------------- WHAT IT DOES: Lets you name your hard disk subdirectories and "GO" to that name, instead of long, cumbersome, error-prone CHDIR pathnames and drive letter changes. It also has one cute feature that remembers the last drive/subdir you were on, so that when you boot up later, it logs you back in there. (Optional of course.) ---------------- WHY: I don't know about you, but I have two hard disks (C: and D:), and a zillion subdirectories on each. Mine are arranged by project; about half have another level of subdirectories, and some of those have even more. Traversing them is a pain in the neck. When changing from one to the other, I have to remember which drive I'm on, change drives, then CD or CHDIR to the right subdir, getting all the \'s and suchlike correct. Not only that, if you have more than one hard disk, you can invoke that unpleasant, obscure DOS side effect of the "logged in subdir" on another drive; ie. when you're currently on D:, and you say "CHDIR C:\FOO\BAR", then later you do a "DIR C:" (thinking you'll get the list of files in the drive's root directory) you get the contents of C:\FOO\BAR instead. Yuck. ---------------- HOW TO INSTALL: First, set the environment variable "GO", which GO.EXE uses to locate the file that contains all these. For example ... SET GO=C:\BIN\GO.MAP SET command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, so it's set upon bootup. GO.EXE will complain if it can't find the things it wants. Next -- the text file itself (example here: GO.MAP) contains the list of names (that you enter as your destinations) and full path specifiers (that GO.EXE actually goes to). They are arranged one per text line, with space(s) between them. For example, here's part of my GO.MAP file: =c:\lastdir \ \ c: c:\ mslib c:\mslib mylib c:\mylib fidotools c:\fido\tools bin c:\bin dos c:\dos files c:\fidosw\files d: d:\ book d:\fidobook pctex d:\pctex texinputs d:\pctex\texinputs homocore d:\homocore shipley d:\texts\shipley This is a "standard" (sic) MSDOS/CPM text file -- ASCII characters, each line terminated with CR/LF (13/10 decimal). End-Of-File Control-Z not needed but tolerated. Blank lines and lines beginning with semicolons (;) are ignored. Lots of blank lines and/or comments will slow the program down. GO is simple to use -- if you enter "GO FILES", Go will (1) open the file named in the "GO" environment variable, (2) search for the line containing "FILES" as the first word and (3) change to the subdirectory (second word), using these two rules: (a) If the new, target subdirectory is on the current, default drive, GO simply CHDIRs to the subdir. (ie. if you're in C:\FOO\BAR, it would simply do "CHDIR \FIDOSW\FILES") (b) If the new, target directory is on a drive other than the current, default drive, GO does first a "CHDIR \" to log into the root of the current drive, then changes drives, then CHDIRs to the subdir. (ie. if you're in D:\SUBDIR\BABBLE, it would do "CHDIR \" to log into the root, drive change D: to C:, then "CHDIR \FIDOSW\FILES".) You can manually change drives and/or subdirectories whenever you want to. You will not confuse GO.EXE. ---------------- DOS ERRORLEVELS: GO.EXE returns ERRORLEVEL 0 when things go right, and 1 when things go wrong. ---------------- WHAT ABOUT THAT FUNNY EQUAL SIGN (=) If you were observant, you noticed that the first line in my sample GO.MAP file is different than the rest. The presence of this line enables a fancy, optional feature: "remember the last drive/directory". The pathname after the "=" is the name of a disk file where GO will store the last-GO'd to subdir. The example here is a good one -- the root of the boot disk, though anywhere will do. The last-dir file is tiny, simply the name of the last logged directory. If you last entered "GO FILES", C:\LASTDIR would contain "FILES". (Note not the pathname "C:\FIDOSW\FILES".) It is a one-line text file. OK, so GO remembers the last GO'd to directory. How to use it? GO = When given "=" as a subdir name, it will use the contents of the = from the GO.MAP file, and "GO" there. ---------------- AND SO: If you use GO.EXE to do most or all of your directory changes (I do!), if you have ... GO = you turned your machine off. -- end