************************* * General Documentation * ************************* PocketD Plus v4.2 (D.EXE) Directory Listing, Copy and File Management Program PocketD (TM) Copyright Jeff Rollason, PocketWare (TM) 1990-1994 All Rights Reserved Contents: (1) PocketD Plus and Shareware ASP Shareware PocketD Plus Trademarks (2) Special Tips and Speeding up PocketD (3) Design Compromises (4) Compatibility and Limitations (1) >>>>> PocketD Plus and Shareware PocketD Plus is a shareware product. You may use the software for free for 30 days. If you continue to use it after this time you must register it through PocketWare (See below). _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Jeff Rollason is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI USA 49442-9427, FAX 616-788-2765, or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. **************************** * The Shareware Principle * **************************** Software distrubuted as Shareware allows the user to try out fully working programs before buying. >>>>> THIS IS THE IDEAL WAY TO BUY SOFTWARE: It has the benefit of giving users the chance to fully try out whether a product is suitable for their needs without risking a wasted financial outlay. The software is also CHEAPER! (See below). >>>>> THIS IS THE IDEAL WAY TO SELL SOFTWARE: The Shareware Author does not have the overhead of high advertising or distribution costs, as the product is self-promoting. In consequence Shareware products can be sold at a lower price than conventional retailed software. >>>>> IS SHAREWARE SOFTWARE ANY GOOD? Yes! The proof of this is obvious. Shareware completely dominates many areas of software, such as file compression and communications, where Shareware clearly lead the markets. >>>>> IS IT FREE? No! Much time and effort is required to turn programs into polished and documented products. So if you seriously intend to use a Shareware product, then support it! ************************************ * The Shareware version of PocketD * ************************************ The Shareware version of D.EXE has a built-in Registration banner screen that will appear whenever the user accesses the full on-line manual, also prompting the user to input a single digit between 1 and 4 to acknowledge the banner. The same banner appears randomly 3% of the time whenever D.EXE is run, waiting for any key input or continuing anyway after 60 seconds (It can therefore run unattended during evaluation). MENUD.EXE has a similar mechanism. Users must refer to the file VENDINFO.DIZ for the DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY and distribution restrictions. TRADEMARKS All trademarks are acknowledged. This and other related documents refer to the following names, among others: - OS/2 & PC-DOS are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp. (IBM Inc.) - LIST copyrighted by Vernon D. Buerg - Microsoft, Windows & MSDOS registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corp. - DIET Written by Teddy Matsumoto - PKlite, PKzip, PKARC and PKPAK trademarks of PKWARE Inc. - LZEXE copyrighted by Fabrice Bellard - ANARKEY copyrighted by Steve Calwas of Moderne Software - CED Written by Christopher J. Dunford - NORTON trademark of Peter Norton - PCTOOLS copyrighted by Central Point Software, Inc. - LHA & LHARC copyrighted by H. Yoshizaki - ZOO copyrighted program - ARC & SEA copyrighted by SEA - ARJ copyrighted by Robert K. Jung - DESQview copyrighted by Quarterdeck - 4DOS copyrighted by J.P. Software - Novell NetWare copyright Novell - CompuServe registered trademark of CompuServe Inc. (2) >>>>> Special tips and Speeding up PocketD PocketD is intended for use from the command line. The user is strongly recommended to use it with one of the many command history editors such as CED or ANARKEY. This will allow the user to experiment with long command lines without needing to re-type command input. DOS constrains the user to inputing lines no longer than 128 characters long. This is a serious constraint when using multi-line or multiple templates or very large numbers of filespecs. A way around this constraint is to make use of user-defined parameters to build long lines. e.g. set a1=[echo Creating $n//md $n//pkunzip $w $n\] set a2=[?Unpack ZIP file to its own subdir ?] which could be used by the following line to generate a long command line that could not have been entered within a single line. d programs.zip game*.zip util*.zip /- *temp /a1 /a2 Another solution to processing large numbers of files is to use a "response" file, e.g. d Look at the compatibility notes. (3) >>>>> Design Compromises PocketD could have been designed differently. Many of its features could be expanded and made more exotic and powerful. For example the file viewer could allow wildcard searches. D.EXE could make use of expanded memory and shell out to extended memory or disk when running other programs. File copying could be made faster by buffering multiple files before beginning a copy. All these are possible, but if implemented, the tiny 30k of the (registered) D.EXE program would be substantially bigger, and less attractive to those who need D.EXE to be very small. D.EXE has been carefully designed to provide an astonishing range of features within a truly tiny program. This has meant that its facilities have had to be closely integrated to achieve the maximum utility for each code section added. This design approach has been very successful. D.EXE cannot be completely replaced by any other combination of tool sets, despite its small size. The program that does come closest to D.EXE in functionality has less than half the range of options, but is over twice the size. One particular compromise is the design of the directory browser. This traverses subdirectories by re-invoking D.EXE. This has the effect of limiting how deep the user can browse, only about 9 levels on a normal machine (or 8 if called by MENUD). It also imposes limits on the screen refresh between levels and the speed of traversing levels. The payoff has been the very small code size increase to D.EXE, also the compensation by the useful and unique ability of D.EXE to search for and collect any group of files and directories from multiple drives to be browsed within a single list. The final compromise is the single letter option names, giving parameter strings that are often hard to read. This was a deliberate decision to allow the user to combine large numbers of options without hitting the 128 byte command limit. In the long run, most users will also appreciate the reduced number of keystrokes needed to input a command. Does PocketD provide the right things? I believe it does. PocketD 1.67 was developed from the feedback of just a few users. v4.2 has been developed from the feedback from a much wider base, including reviewers and many registered users, and in consequence has been able to grow into a product that closely satisifies the needs of a much more diverse group. (4) >>>>> Compatibility and Limitations. o PocketD works under MS-DOS/PC-DOS 3.0 or later, Windows 3, OS/2 and DESQview. However, moving files between logical drives under OS/2 v2.0 will not work, because v2.0 has a bug which prevents inter-drive moves in a DOS window from working at all. This may be fixed in v2.1. Users can safely speed up MOVE within a drive by using the /.4 switch to turn off OS/2 copy/move compatibility. o PocketD will work with non-standard display sizes, e.g. 132x44. Note that DOS's ANSI.SYS does not, and may therefore prevent PocketD (and DIR) from working correctly. o PocketD can scan any number of files and directories but is limited to building lists of about 1,400 names (except when using /r or /e which can process any number). The registered version includes DL.EXE which can handle 10,000 names (PocketD can generate lists of unlimited length with the line "D /j"). o PocketD needs COMMAND.COM to be available when running external programs. It is strongly recommended that COMMAND.COM is made resident using a line of the form SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /p /e:1024 in CONFIG.SYS. This provides additional environment space, which PocketD can use for configuration, color and user-defined parameters. o PocketD does not need any external programs to see filenames inside archives, but will need the appropriate de-archivers such as PKUNZIP etc. if the user wants to view the contents of files during browsing (/Q or /q). If these programs are missing, then D.EXE will attempt to run them, fail, and then return to the browse display. If you are unsure about why this fails, then use /q to view the error, otherwise the error message will be cleared from the screen. If you have .LZH archives created by LHARC rather than the newer LHA, then you should create a BAT file LHA.BAT with the line "LHARC %1 %2 %3 %4 %5" inside to allow D.EXE to view these files.