**************************************************************************** * * * MakeSpace V1.00 By Bryce! of Horizon 1990 * * * * Harddisk Space Creating Utility. Filesize Redusement of [Filename] * * * **************************************************************************** User's Manual for the MakeSpace utility. 1. Introduction Have you ever, as a Sysop, experienced that some users always upload old programs that you have deleted, because of its age, and thereby lost important diskspace that could be used for better thing? Have you ever thought about how to solve this problem? Well, fear no more because now there is a solution to this problem, and it's name is of course; "MakeSpace". This util works almost like the delete command, but the difference is that the MakeSpace command only empties the contents of the file, but leaves the filename in the directory, so that when someone tries to upload the file in question again, Ami- Express will find the filename and abort the transfer. Now, the good thing about this is that it takes almost no diskspace to have hundreds of files lying on the harddisk, but still working as a block for old files. 2. How to get started Now, if you just want to start using this program, that's fine, but after a while you'd probably get tired of all the empty files being in your upload directory, so what you should do is to make a new directory in the conferece directory called something like 'Temp'. Then edit the 'Paths' file located in all conference directories that contain files. The 'Paths' file might look something like this: BBS:ELITE/UPLOAD Now, add the path to your MakeSpace directory and it would look like this: BBS:ELITE/UPLOAD BBS:ELITE/TEMP Pretty simple, eh? Now, the computer will check in the 'Temp' directory before allowing a file to be uploaded. 3. The MakeSpace functions OK, let's have a look at how MakeSpace works. First of all put MakeSpace in the 'C:' directory, and then go to CLI och Shell. Just enter 'MakeSpace' for an argument description. That would look like this. MakeSpace V1.00 by Bryce! of Horizon Usage: MakeSpace [Filename] or [Wildcard*] or [?] As you can see there is three options. Either you enter the filename of the file to delete right away, or you can search for the file by using wildcards. (Use the '*' sign to define the use of wildcards.) Or you can enter '?' as an argument and get a more deep-going description of the program and what it does. If you choose to delete just one specific file the result would be like this: 1> MakeSpace MSeka180.DMS MakeSpace V1.00 by Bryce! of Horizon File 'MSeka180.DMS' redused to 47 Bytes If you, on the other hand, want to delete all files which have a filename beginning with an 'M', the syntax would be like this: 1> MakeSpace M* MakeSpace V1.00 by Bryce! of Horizon File 'MSeka180.DMS' redused to 47 Bytes File 'MSG5.EXE' redused to 47 bytes File 'MUGI100.ZOM' redused to 47 bytes Mission completed! The phrase 'Mission completed!' means the end of mathing wildcards. Now that you know how the program works when the file was found, let's see what happends if no match was found. Let's say you enter the filename 'Strang.DMS' instead of 'Strange.DMS'. The file would then naturly be impossible to find. What will happend then is that MakeSpace will inform you of this, and then ask you if you want to view the current directory, or any other directory. You then have the choice of entering either 'N' to exit, 'Y' to view the current directory or a specific path to view, for example 'DH0:'. Here's how it would look: 1> MakeSpace Strang.DMS MakeSpace V1.00 by Bryce! of Horizon File 'Strang.DMS' not found. Please re-check filename! Press 'Y' to view the current directory. Press 'N' to exit. Or enter path to view a specific directory. Your choice? Y Examining Directory: Lib Type Name Size Blocks --------- --------------------------- ----------- ------ Filename s.lib 3436 7 Filename detach.ols 1816 4 Filename c.lib 113372 225 Filename m.lib 32516 64 Directory Subs 0 0 1> Well, as you probably understand you could of course enter any other path instead of 'Y', so I won't go in to that now. I think you all got the picture now, so let's move on... 4. Hints On big hint is to put MakeSpace in to Diskmaster. What you would do is that you go to the 'Configure' menu in Diskmaster and choose 'CMD 1'. You then get a window that says 'CMD 1'. Then change 'CMD 1' to 'MakeSpace %s', and make sure MakeSpace is in the 'C:' directory. Now, all you have to do is click on the unwanted files and press MakeSpace in DiskMaster. Very useful actually. 5. Program Info Programming: Bryce! of Horizon Hardware Guidance: Ric of Horizon Programmed in Manx Aztec C. 6. Special Messages Special Thanx to SpaZm for all his support. Greetings, in no order at all to: Prisoner of Wife, Mogwai, The Baron, Ted, Conqueror^Zike, Bigfoot, Dragon, Zin, Raistlin, Judge Dredd, TarHeel, Jabbah, ArchAngel, Capricorn, Bruse Li, Winter Mute, Irata. And of course to all HORIZON members... You can reach me (BRYCE!) and RIC, and the other Horizon members at my BBS 'THE MAINFRAME' at +46-31-151552. Comments and tips are VERY welcome! Or write to: BRYCE! of HORIZON c/o Stanley Eriksson Barnhusgatan 14 S-411 11 GBG Sweden C a l l o u r b o a r d s . . . Type: Name: Number: Sysop: -------------------- ---------------------- ------------- ----------- World Headquarters Flatliners 703-347-4181 In Decent U.S. Headquarters Channel Zero 213-670-2211 Grimreaper Euro Headquarters MainFrame +46-31-151552 Bryce! England Headquarters Splatter House +44-992640705 Splatt -------------------- ---------------------- ------------- ----------- Look out for more stunning productions from Ric^Bryce! of Horizon.