PPData version 1.0 Yet Another PowerPacker Utility ------------------------------- No, not by Nico, but made possible by his powerpacker.library. This program is basically an intuition front-end for that library, and allows you to crunch and decrunch DATA files. "But I've already got PowerPacker!", I hear you cry. Well, if you only have the shareware version <= 2.3b, you'll know that crunching can be a time-consuming business. Later (commercial) versions use speedup-buffers to dramatically decrease the crunching time. Newer versions of powerpacker.library provide the facility to use these faster methods of crunching, and that's where PPData comes in. The program is only for use with Kickstart 2.0 upwards. This is because it takes advantage of the many breaks programmers were given with the new OS. Yet another reason to upgrade. You should install powerpacker.library version 1.4 or higher (version 1.4 is included with this distribution). To do this, double-click the 'Install' icon. PPData can be started from Workbench or CLI and is self-detatching if run from CLI (ie. no need to run it). No CLI interface is provided, so however you start it, you get a small window with menus attached. These should for the most part be self-explanatory if you've used PowerPacker before, so here's a quick rundown: Project Menu ------------ Load Opens up a file requester (asl from Commodore) asking for you to select a file. Once selected, PPData determines whether the file is already crunched. If it is, it looks at the Control settings (see below) to decide what to do (decrunch, recrunch with current settings or cancel). If the file is not crunched, it is loaded and crunched. The window displays various statistics about the crunch process, including a progress indicator. Save Once you have successfully crunched (or decrunched) a file, choose this option to save. Again, a file requester pops up prompting for the name. This name is initially set to the name of the file you loaded, plus or minus a '.pp' extension, depending on whether this is required (see Prefs menu below). Batch Batch mode. Not nearly as comprehensive as PowerPacker's, but should be adequate for most purposes. First of all, it asks for the save path for processed files. Then a file requester asks you to select files to process. This is done using a Multi-Request asl requester. In this you select multiple files as in Workbench way, ie. shift-clicking. Unfortunately, all files must be in same directory (this is a fault of asl.library, in my opinion). Once you've selected all your files, click the OK gadget. PPData will then load each file, process it (in same manner as described in Load item above) and save work to the save path, again adding or removing '.pp' depending on preferences. Delete This lets you delete a file (file-requester pops up). About Displays version and author. Quit Quits PPData. If current buffer is unsaved, you are warned. Prefs Menu ---------- Color Color to use when decrunching files Efficiency How efficiently files should be compressed. This has a bearing on the speed of crunching. Speedup How big a buffer to use. The bigger, the faster, but large buffer mode uses an extra 200K or so. Suffix Whether to add '.pp' suffix to crunched files. PowerPacker utilities such as PPMore automatically look for this suffix. Eg. if you crunched this doc and saved it as PPData.doc.pp, then typed PPMore PPData.doc, PPMore would look for '.pp' file if it couldn't find named file. Overwrite If set, PPData will query before overwriting a file. Save Prefs Saves current preferences to the file S:PPData.config. Control Menu ------------ This controls how PPData reacts when it loads an already crunched file. 'Always decrunch' and 'Always recrunch' do what they say. 'Ignore crunched' simply passes over crunched files. 'Query decrunch' pops up a requester offering the choice of the former three options at the time of loading. Query mode is most useful in interactive sessions; however, when using batch mode, it's handy to set one of the other controls to prevent work being halted with a requester. That's the menus; now a few general points. I have tried to make PPData user-friendly in that it won't let you do silly things, at least without checking first. It's also preferences-friendly, adjusting window size and menus to handle currently set fonts, although proportional fonts might cause problems. But since it's probably a bad idea to use a proportional font as screen font (since so many programs would break) I won't be doing anything about it for now. As far as I am aware, PPData frees all of its resources on exiting, and is bug-free. However, I'd be glad if you contact me if you find out otherwise Credits ------- Well, mostly to Nico Francois for his excellent PowerPacker utilities and library - PPData's raison d'etre. Credit must also go to Commodore, for making the programmer's life considerably easier with AmigaDOS 2.0. It's a pity they make such a mess of their marketing - just as well the product sells itself. Finally, thanks to Steve Koren for SKsh, and Mike Meyer et al. for mg3 (still the best PD text editor). Finally ------- This product is completely public domain (which isn't to say contributions wouldn't be gratefully appreciated by a poor student hampered by an authoritarian government which thinks students are a burden to Society). Distributions should at least include unmodified binary and this document, and preferably the source too. All suggestions for improvements/modifications, and especially bug reports are welcome (encouraged even). I'd appreciate it if you didn't distribute modified versions of PPData without checking with me first. Things I plan: * Make it an 'AppWindow' so you can just drop icons into the window to have them processed. * Enhancement of Batch mode. * Add support for encrypted files (does anyone use these?). I can be contacted by postal mail at: Martin W. Scott, 23 Drum Brae North, Edinburgh, EH4 8AT, (dis)United Kingdom. or by email (preferred) - my address is mws@castle.ed.ac.uk Enjoy! - Martin.