DISCLAIMER
All the usual disclaimers go here: use PSHELL at your own risk and
don't come wailing to me if bugs in the program eat your disk, your
computer and your pet canary. As far as I know there are no dangerous
bugs in PSHELL and I certainly did not put a virus in it. Please read
the copyright notice: althoug not too many strings are attached (pun
not intended), this program is not public domain.
I will now stop development of this version (1.): it was only meant to
give me the first 'feel' of Turbo pascal for Windows.
Version (2) will be around later this year. I will use it to delve into
the niceties of the OWL development kit, which comes with TPW, but
looks, sounds and smells VERY complicated! PSHELL version 2 will
have some new tricks, which I also miss in WINDOWS.
Comments and suggestions are always welcome as are bottles with beer!
See address below. (Must see the first dutchman yet who sends a
bottle of beer for what he can have for free!).
DIRECTIONS OF USE
Put PSHELL.EXE and PSHELL.HLP somewhere in your path. There is an
Icon in PSHELL, but it does not seem to come out if the program is
minimized.
If you like PSHELL, add a line like
RUN = E:\BIN\PSHELL.EXE
in WIN.INI and it will be around when WINDOWS awakens.
Use the HELP-command to learn about the commands. A synopsis is given
below, but I keep adding things and forgetting about them later.
PSHELL does not cover all 4DOS-commands, switches and parameters. It
reflects those functions that I use regularly, but there are many
very sensible functions that are not in PSHELL, because I do not
happen to need them. Tell you what: send me a bottle of Belgian beer
and I'll add them in for you.
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY.
4PSHELL version 1.05
DIR Displays sum of files in a directory.
DEL Now you can stop a DEL *.* by pressing ctrl-c. I did find out the hard
way that ctrl-c did not work her.
EXCEPT (one of that 4DOS-goodies) works too! Just put filespecs
inside parenthesis and give a disk-command.
e.g.
EXCEPT (*.EXE *.COM) COPY *.* B:
It works by first setting the attributes of the files
between the parenthesis on HIDDEN and READONLY, executing
the command and setting the HIDDEN and READONLY off again.
NOTE: files of that filespec, which were hidden or read-only
to begin with, are changed to NOT hidden and NOT readonly!
SET may be used to examine DOS environment variables (not to SET them!)
=============================================================================
4PSHELL version 1.04
My thanks to Martin Fridael who tested the previous versions.
Backslash and point may be placed behind commands without
intervening space. N.B. spaces before the slash of a switch are
obligatory!
The caret (^) now may be used to combine several commands on the
command line.
DIR now displays the correct free space (in stead of the space of
the defaultdisk).
DOS-command removed in favour of 4DOS or COMMAND. Try them to see
which one works on your system.
PSHELL.INI added, to remember information for next boot.
STOP! quits Windows without confirmation
ARROW-keys and Home/End now work too! Finally got my fingers between
the keys.
The close-box left-up now works without letting an accidental
CTRL-C clobber the window.
=============================================================================
4PSHELL version 1.03
\a - switch added to DIR (displays attributes in stead of comments);
\c - switch added to TYPE to add CR to lines, which don't have one.
GLOBAL added for executing an internal command over several
directories. Try GLOBAL DEL *.* to get the general idea. (NO!
Don't take me serious!).
STOP added, to quit WINDOWS without first having to discuss it with
the progam manager. You have to enter 'Y' in uppercase to
confirm.
HELP added, which was a major pain in the ass. But thanks to God,
Phillipe Kahn and my own gigantic intelligence, I finally
figured how to write MS-WINDOWS help-files.
DOS a command, which starts the COMMAND-interpreter that is in the
COMSPEC-variable (either DOS or 4DOS).
==============================================================================
4PSHELL version 1.02 -- 12 juni 1991
Scrollbar activated. Virtual PSHELL-window now is 256 lines and may
be scrolled back and forth.
CLS added (guess what).
TREE added (displays directory-tree).
^E is now automatically followed by ^F when editing the command-
history.
\w - switch added to DIR (for wide display).
Bug removed, which impeded DELETE and COPY after a number of times.
Bug removed, which prevented loading programs if path was set. Bug
removed, which sometimes did not update the descriptions after REN
==============================================================================
4PSHELL version 1.01
Bug removed, which prevented execution of external commends, if not
in path.
CD, RD and MD now also work as MKDIR, CHDIR etc.
PUSHD dirname, DIRS and POPD added, with stack of twenty
directory-names.
MEMORY and FREE added (RAM and default disk).
MOVE added (deletes files after copying them).
HISTORY added.
command line editor added; ^E, ^X, ^S and ^D function as Uparrow,
downarrow, left and right. ^A and ^F as HOME and END. As I said,
I am waiting for a trick to read the scancodes. You 'll remember
that in 4DOS the up-arrow cycled back through the command-history,
and the down-arrow forward. ^E and ^X do it now in 4PSHELL. Don't
forget to use HOME (^A) and END (^F) to finish the edited
command-line.
NB. this is fixed in version 1.04. Arrows now work like expected.
==============================================================================
4PSHELL version 1.0
copyright Hans Paijmans 1991.
4PSHELL was born from the conviction that ten fingers and a keyboard
are better tools to perform typical housekeeping-tasks on the PC than
mice and other pointing devices.
Also I am addicted to 4DOS, the well-known alternative for
COMMAND.COM from JP Software and many of my directories have
4DOS-descriptions attached. Alas! none of the command-line shells
for WINDOWS, that I have seen, seems to support them.
So I wrote another command-line shell for MS-WINDOWS, but one that
should be able to read the 4DOS DESCRIPT.ION-files. It is at the
moment a very rough-and-ready affair, but it works.
How to use it:
------> Refer to 4DOS help if the following is not clear.
COPY, REN, DEL and DIR may be used and changes will be reflected in
the descriptions. Parameters not supported at the moment.
TYPE and LIST are identical. They support wildcards. Press ESC to
cancel the typing of the current file, ctrl_C to quit.
CHDIR, RMDIR, MKDIR work as expected (by me, that is).
CDD changes both path and disk.
DESCRIBE filenaam: will enable the user to add 4DOS descriptions to
files in the directory.
DOS and MS-WINDOWS commands may be typed on the commandline to start
execution. This works for BAT-files and PIF-files too. The DOS
path-environment is copied to PSHELL and expanded when searching
for an executable file. If one is found, first a CHDIR to that
directory is executed.
EXIT. To kill the 4PSHELL just type EXIT on the command-line.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Although everybody is invited to copy PSHELL for private use, the
program is NOT public domain. I want to keep all options open to
prohibit criminal, racist, zionist and fascist organizations to
profit from my work.
Suggestions and donations of bottles with Belgian beer are welcome
at
Hans Paijmans
Elzenstraat 1
5183 VS Waalre
Holland
PAAI@KUB.NL (bitnet).
