These 9 utility programs are included for your convenience. Except for MTCONV.EXE, they are not connected in any way with PC-OUTLINE. They were written by the developers of PC-OUTLINE for their own convenience and are shared with you in hopes that they will likewise make your life a little easier. Who said you never get SOMETHING for NOTHING? 9 UTILITY PROGRAMS ================== 1) GLOBAL.COM - for doing any dos function on an entire directory tree at once. Useful for finding lost files or deleting all .BAK files, etc. across many directory boundaries. 2) CPY.COM - for backing up a series of files to floppy. You can list the files to be backed up in a separate file and CPY will automatically prompt you on when to insert a new disk. 3) DIRS.COM - gives the total disk space occupied by a set of files. Useful for seeing how much disk space a bunch of files are taking up. For example, "DIRS *.wks" would tell you how much space all of your .wks files in the current directory occupy. 4) MOVE.COM - Allows you to actually move a file from one directory to another without an intermediate copy. 5) MEM.COM - Shows the amount of free memory without waiting for a time consuming CHKDSK. 6) BEEP.COM - Generates a beep. Useful for batch files to indicate errors or completion. 7) PUSHDIR.COM- Saves the current directory from a batch file. 8) POPDIR.COM - Restores the current directory from the previous PUSHDIR. 9) MTCONV.EXE - Converts a Maxthink outline into Structured File Format, which may then be loaded into PC-Outline. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS: GLOBAL.COM ---------- USAGE: GLOBAL Global executes any dos command or program on an entire directory tree. For example, if you log to the root directory and execute "GLOBAL DIR" then you will see a directory listing of every directory and sub-directory on your hard disk. If you execute "GLOBAL DIR PLAY.DOC", then you will find all occurences of PLAY.DOC on your hard disk. You can even use non-dos commands like "GLOBAL DIRS *.WKS" would show you the total disk space occupied by all .wks files in each directory on your hard disk. Global.com starts from the current directory and goes down the directory tree. To cover the whole disk, start in the root directory. To just cover part of the hard disk, start in a sub-directory. =============================================================================== CPY.COM ------- USAGE #1: CPY OR USAGE #2 CPY @ destination path USAGE #1: CPY can be a direct replacement for the copy command in dos with the added benefit that it will not quit when a floppy fills up. Instead it will, stop, erase the partial file, prompt you for a new floppy and continue on its way. For example: "CPY c:\*.wks a:" would copy all .wks files in the root directory of c: to a:. If the floppy in drive a: filled up during the copy, the partially copied file would be erased from the destination floppy and you would be prompted for a new floppy. USAGE #2: This usage of the CPY commmand allows you to specify a series of filenames to be copied to the same location. Simply create an ascii file (let's use a file named CPYFILES for the sake of this example) with each file to be copied listed, one per line (wildcards are allowed). Then to copy all of those files to a new location simply type "CPY CPYFILES A:" and one by one all the files listed in the CPYFILES will be copied to a:. Again, if the floppy fills up you will be prompted to insert a new one. The can be extremely useful for backing up to floppy a standard set of files that doesn't easily conform to a simple dos wildcard. =============================================================================== DIRS.COM -------- USAGE: DIRS (wildcards permitted) DIRS works just like DIR except instead of displaying each of the files, it simply adds the sizes of all of the files that would have been displayed had it been the DIR command. DIRS uses the space actually occupied on the disk, not just the listed file size in the DIR listing. NOTE: hard disk space is allocated in 4k increments on the XT so that a file that shows up as 7 bytes like BEEP.COM actually takes up 4k on the hard disk. DIRS takes this into account. For example "DIRS *.WKS" would show you how much space all your .wks files were occupying. Or "DIRS *.BAK" would show you how much space would be freed if you erased all the .BAK files. =============================================================================== MOVE.COM -------- USAGE: MOVE MOVE will move a file from one directory to another without making an intermediate copy. The two names must be on the same disk drive. For example, "MOVE C:\PLAY\TEMP C:\TEST" will move the file c:\play\temp to a new location and name c:\test. =============================================================================== MEM.COM ------- USAGE: MEM MEM lists the amount of free memory in your computer as reported by dos without having to wait for the painstakingly slow CHKDSK command. =============================================================================== BEEP.COM -------- USAGE: BEEP BEEP makes a beeping noise on the speaker. This can be very useful in batch files to indicate either an error condition or completion of some long task. =============================================================================== PUSHDIR.COM ----------- USAGE: PUSHDIR PUSHDIR allows you to save the current directory from a batch file, switch to another current directory and switch back to the original later in the batch file (by using its companion POPDIR). For example, if 123 was located in a directory called c:\123, then you could create a batch file like the following: PUSHDIR C:\123 123 POPDIR Assuming you had pathed to the batch file, you could then start 123 from anywhere on you hard disk and when you left 123, your current directory would automatically be restored as if you never left it. Note that this is different than just pathing to 123 because 123 (like many other programs) needs the current directory to be set properly so that it can find its support files (configuration files and drivers). The first time you use PUSHDIR a small piece of it will remain resident (about 400 bytes). This is the storage area used to save the current directory. Subsequent PUSHDIR's and POPDIR's do not use any more memory. PUSHDIR's and POPDIR's can be nested up to 6 levels deep. Each PUSHDIR will save the latest current directory and each POPDIR will restore the last one saved. =============================================================================== POPDIR.COM ---------- USAGE: POPDIR POPDIR is just the counterpart to PUSHDIR. After a PUSHDIR, POPDIR will restore the previous current directory. See the documentation on PUSHDIR for more information. Note: POPDIR is of absolutely no use without first doing a PUSHDIR. =============================================================================== MTCONV.EXE __________ USAGE: MTCONV input.fil Takes an outline written on Maxthink and converts it into the Structured file format, which can be read into PC-Outline, using the File Input Structured command from the menu. This enables information to be transferred easity from Maxthink to PC-Outline.