Disk Cat 2.7 DOCS Introduction: Have you got lots of disks, but wouldn't have a clue what's on them? Well I had the same problem, so I numbered all my disks, and created this, a very powerful disk Catalog program. Now you have your disk cat programs all floating around, what makes this one different, is that it doesn't muck about with tedious information. All you want to know is the disk's contents and the number of that file you've bee looking for, and a comment about it so you can find it fast. Features. It is one of the FEW programs at all to offer specialized paper saving printing, with six different NORMAL styles from a standard printer. It can actually read the files off of a disk, many catalog programs I have seen don't even do this. In addition it will read only important files ignoring directories like DEVS, LIBS, L, S, or any that you don't like. Even any file types you don't want to catalog. It allows for full and complete manpulating of the list in any way shape or form. You can even convert other lists made with other catalog programs into Disk Cat Form. Need I say more. NOTE: This is a Evaluation Version, all functions are working, but you can only have a max of 100 files in your list. It won't restrict many but I don't want to restrict you, just enjoy the program. And send ideas in. PS: I have found another program called Disk Cat, it is a KS 2.x program, I did not write it, and don't recommend it. Any program that only works under KS 2.x is useless. If you have used it, there will be a conversion module for it shortly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADD FILES FROM DISK This will allow you to naturally add files from any disk, or disk device that has been mounted, for instance, Multi Dos Disks can be read, as well as normal Amiga disks. It will read all the files, and will go up to Four to Five subdirectories in, since most don't go much further. It EVEN works with HD's, so I expect it will work fine with any device. There is an option to filter out which subdirectories, and types of files to be read, See ADD RESTICTIONS. Once it has read the files it will ask you for the id of that disk, Accepts any four digit alphnumeric. THEN it asks if you want the files, answer, yes, no, Quit, or A for all of them. To make it easier, yes is the same as pushing the left button, No is the right mouse button. It can't read Non Dos disks, it won't recknoize them at all, but won't crash if you acidently try to read one. WARNING!!!, DO NOT!!!!!! Attempt to instert two disks with the same name on them. Then attempt to read one, or while one is being read, insert another in the other drive with the same name, I did this with and with out disk cat running, and if they are inserted, at the precise same time, the amiga Doesn't like it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ENTER FILES MANUALLY. Since we have non dos disks, or disks with menus, and file names which mean completly nothing. You can enter the files directly into the list. You MUST enter an ID, it can be numeric or Alphabetic, or both. You Will Be then asked if you want ASSENDING or NORMAL, If you choose ASSENDING, your id will be increased each time, this only works correctly for NUMERIC ID's, if you eter an ALPHA ID then it will change it to a numeric one execpt for the first letter of the ID. From there each time you scroll down to the next name to edit, the id will automaticly AUTO increase. IF you choose NORMAL, what ever you entered as the ID will be the default ID for use for every file. For Button Operating instructions, see display files, since it is actually the same routine that does both. Pressing return will swap the current editing section you are in, from name, to ID., to Comment. You Can Edit anything and everything. Abort, does that, erases what you have entered. Done will go through and remove any un sightly blank spaces. Note: The actuall location of display will be straight after the last entry in the list, so if you do a page up you will see previous entries. If you modify these entries and then do an abort, those modifications will NOT be removed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEFINE ADD RESTRICTIONS Will allow you to place restrictions on the sub directories, off of the main only, that are read, like C, DEVS, LIBS, you don't want them directories to be read normally. No Wild Cards. Also, it will allow you to ignore certin files, *.TXT, or *.INFO, wild cards are allowed here. This is loaded as a default from the current device, if it's there, it looks for CONFIG.restrict. Thus when you save, it will save as Config.restrict first. If you load, and then do an abort then the load is as if it never happened, also if you save then abort, the save is still there, but the abort removes any changes to the list. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISPLAY FILES This is the most often used of all the options, i'd think. So it has the most features. The editing features are identical to enter files, you can point and click anywhere on the editing windows, and the cursor will go there. Done, exits. But first, if you have modifyed any of it it will do a smart process, because processing the whole damm thing when you have 5000 entries takes for ever, it will only process the parts that were modifyed. Any entry that has no name will be erased, even if an id, or comment is present. Top, Pg Down, PG up and Bottom, do what they say. Search, The use of wild cards ONLY! is like this. *WORD WORD* or The entire word. *WORD* The search routine will search for name or Id only, No comment search has been installed, not worth it really. How it operates: It searches for the name given to look for, or the id given, if both the name and id are given it will look for occurances, of either the name or id, irrespective of wether the id and name appear in the same entry. You can scroll up and down, by clicking at the blank spot at the top or bottom of the text windows. Don't use the cursors to scroll, it's too slow. You can also enter new files here, if you really want to. Block Functions. By using the right mouse button in the editing display you can highlight a block of text, by holding the right button down and draging the cursor down the list, the text can be selected. From this point, you may choose to cut or copy the selected text. Notice that the paste button will not be ON until you have cut/copyied text. Once you have cut or copied some text then you can either cut or copy some more, or paste it in any location you like. When you paste the item(s) in the list AT AND below that point will be moved down to make room for it. EDITING MODE: You Can change the editing mode you wish to use, from Either: INSERT, which will move everything along when you enter a letter, and move everything back when you press the delete button. OVERWRITE, does Not Care what you do, it will simply overwrite the existing letter with a new one, no inserting at all. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SORT FILES Sort.. it does it..... Just..... Don't complain to me about the slowness of it, right!, it's not my fault, it's the languages sort command. Well the above is sorta, still true, but I have added the quickest custom sort routine I could find, it is quick, for small amounts of items, but not for large. So I have allowed some trickery to take place. If you sort by name, and you have under 1500 files, then you will be using the shell sort routine, which has a full slider time display, it flashes from bule tyo grey, as it fills up each line. (You'll see), also the sam applys for the id sort, but under 1000 this time. However what about over this amount, well, then the Amos sort command will take effect, it is quick for a large amount of items. IMPORTANT: ========= FOR AMOS SORTING: You get NO, progress display, so don't worry if it appears to have frozen up, it is normal. The bar will go to the center, and freeze, then sort the files, and then the sort will be done, it will seem like the program will crash but it hasn't. So you get the best of both worlds. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DELETE FILES. This will enable you to delete the files in your cat, the module is self explantory, execpt, wild cards do apply here. *WORD - Anything with 'WORD' being the last 4 letters WORD* - Anything beginning with 'WORD' *WORD* - Anything with word in it. WORD - The name word, must be the full and complete name. NOTE: - This is all case sensitive. Two options, delete all, and confirm, delete all will do what it says, go through and kill all files. Confirm, will ask you nicely, if you would like to do away with the file. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT: ========= To Get a list of Devices Mounted, from the file requestor, when loading or saving, press right mouse button. LOAD, you can either load a new cat, or merge/append another cat to the end of the current one, the cat description will be that of the new one, or current one. NEW, Clears the Cat, and creates a new one. SAVE, Saves a cat, saves the Cat description, Date, and Author as well. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRINT. The main reason for Disk Cat, is that no cat programs that I have seen can print any amount of columns wide. YOU can print ot a >>FILE<<, or The Printer. With several different text styles. STYLES: Micro - Very small, smaller than condensed. Mega Micro - About the smallest print aviable on a printer. Condenced. - Readable, and nice. Super Condenced - Slightly smaller than condenced, 5 columns. Normal - Normal text. Modifyed Normal - Higher use of paper, 3 columns in almost normal Over time, the print option has got better and better, and this is about the best you can get. You will be offered a whole host of features, and things to play around with, you can not only change the style of the print out, but you can say what to print, how many characters of the name, id and comment line. You can set the amount of colmuns to use, and combinations of everything. CALCULATE Once you have set how many characters to use, and what text style, you should press the CALCULATE button, if you are going to print to the printer, because, DEPENDING ON THE TEXT STYLE, and the amount of characters wide per line, the calaculate will adjust the colmuns permitted to print to the maximum allowed, and the maximum lines that can be printed per page. This button is VERY USEFULL, because it stops, werid line, and column overuns, and waisted printing. USE IT EACH AND EVERY TIME YOU PRINT!!!!, However, if you are printing to a FILE, you can have as many columns as you like and as many lines per page as you like, but BEWARE, the more lines, and partucuarly the MORE COLUMNS you have, the longer it takes to make the file, and it takes FOR EVER, sometimes. Author Button: Because I felt that this was a bit over the top, and couldn't be bothered filling it in my self, I made it optional on the print line. Draft/Letter: This was added because it is very tasking on your printer ribbon, particularly when your list is very large. So it will not print it in letter quality, which speeds printing up a little. BUT! not on the two micro print styles, it will still have to do double strike, (Go over the line twice) on some printers (Mine included), because the text is so small, yet so detailed. General word on printing, this is all based on an epson FX, or MPS 1250/Epson fx, printer, if there are problems with you particular printer please advise me. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONVERT. This is going to be continually up graded, as more catalogs need to be converted. There are Three installed. HYPER CAT, YOU MUST! select a valid hyper cat file, or you risk, the GURU or a program crash, or just garbage. (This more crash friendly now, so the risk is slightly less) It will convert all of the disk numbers, names, and comments into disk cat from from hypercat. ASCII, convert, this is a simple convert routine, all of the files must be listsed one after another in a standard ascii file, each file being on the next line. The Layout is as so for each line: First 28 characters: File Name. Next 30 Characters: Comment. The ID is to be filled in your self, since I only use this to make a list of files on a single disk when they are all menued. DIR MASTER, this is a catalog program that has been around a while, if you have any catalogs in this format, they will be easily converted. IMPORTANT: ========== This will add the converted cat to the end of the current one, so if you have already reached your'e maximum amount of files then it won't even allow you into the option. PLEASE READ: ============ IF you are using another cat program and wish to convert, send me the cat program if you can, or send me a copy of your catalog, and the name of the catalog program, and I will attempt to work out the format and install it as a convertor. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPTIONS, On Full Version this has a few more things here, I just removed them to make room for the comment here. Change Palette, This is a improved routine it allows you to change every colour in the display. To change any colour, click on it, and change the amound of RGB as you like, with the + - buttons of each. You can Load/Save the pallete to the disk. Called Config.Palette. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- END..... EXTRAS: Helpful info, to avoid you banging your head against a wall. IMPORTANT, if you get a request saying NO DISK IN DRIVE 0, THEN YOU BETTER PUT A DISK INTO DRIVE 0!!!!! GOT IT, OR THE GURU "WILL" Visit. DON'T WHAT EVER YOU DO, PUSH THE CANCEL BUTTON. FAULT OF THE COMPILER. If you have less than a meg, bad luck, you might not be able to use it. Contact me, and complain, and I'll put out a half meg version. This is due to the space allocated at the start, required to store the max of files. Ignore the above, the current evaluation version should work with half a meg. At the moment the max is 150 for the demo, and limitless for the real one, (depending on your memory situation.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Possible problems you might encounter: Q. The program has frozen, the slider counter is stuck, and no matter how many foul things I say to it it won't move. A. Memory problem, unless you have heaps of mem, more than 1 1/2 meg, because of the language it happens. It shouldn't and there is no logical reason why but it does, However, don't switch off, it will resume, give it time, it just has to move a few things in memory around to make room. Q. How come it takes a while to sort files, A. The language's sort command, has to sort every file name, which means the blank ones too. I hate it, but it's quicker than a custom sorter, for large files. Q. How can I contact The cool guy who wrote this. A. Dial RAMOS BBS (Vic), mail me, Paul Somers, Fido 3:633/255 IF you Must, Direct Mail Address is, PO BOX 1061 Dandenong 3175 Victoria Australia. In order to get a registered version of this program. Contact me, and give me details of your system, and I will make one to suit your system, in order to get the maximum amount of files. You will get the next version of Disk Cat, a step above what you already have. ======================================================================= LAST WORD: ======================================================================= It is only a registration fee, of $20, or if you send me a disk full of stuff that you think I'd like (demos, amos source, C source) then, I'll be very generous, give it to you for $10. and I'll send the disk back. Or send two disks full of stuff and It's just the cost of a disk. To contact me: Internet: psom2@cfs01.cc.monash.edu.au psom2@vx24.cc.monash.edu.au Empire BBS: ????? look it up in fido net, Ramos: Above. Or look in the preferences of the program. Or Po Box 1061 Dandy, 3175, vic, Australia. <--- only if necessary, as I am only borrowing this box. Look out for Display Cat, 100% cool.