WELCOME TO FILE COMMANDER! This disk contains File Commander 3.0e for Windows NT on DEC ALPHA's! File Commander is an extender for the WinNT 3.1 File Manager. It allows you to add four (see below) menu items to the File Manager menu bar. From each of these top-level menu items, File Commander allows you to make up to 99 menu items spread up to 5 levels deep. File Commander helps you end the drudgery of day-to-day tasks when working in Microsoft Windows. Its FAST text-based interface completely avoids the graphical overhead that often bogs down real productivity in Windows. How many times have you tired of changing drives, moving through two subdirectories, finding an executable file from among 43 other filenames, double clicking on it, selecting File/Open, then searching for another directory in the listbox because your document happens to be in a different directory than the program! With File Commander you can automate that knowledge of where to move around the disk, which directories to go to, which files you want to work on, what size you prefer your window to be, and so on. With almost three hundred and fifty functions and commands, File Commander can: . Run Windows and DOS programs. . Send keystrokes directly to applications. . Rearrange, resize, hide, and close windows. . Run programs either concurrently or sequentially. . Display information to the user in various formats. . Prompt the user for any needed input. . Present scrollable file and directory lists. . Copy, move, delete, and rename files. . Read and write files directly. . Copy text to and from the Clipboard. . Perform string and arithmetic operations. . Make branching decisions based upon numerous factors. And much, much more. Of course, to take full advantage of the flexibility of File Commander, one must spend some time with either the manual or the help file and become aquainted with the underlying WIL script language. Of course, for those less technically inclined (you mean not everyone is a rocket scientist???) the sample menus shipped with File Commander provide a great deal of added value with no modifications whatsoever, and (even though I hate to admit it) I expect a sizeable portion of File Commander users will never actually have the need to modify the File Commander menus by hand. There are few things you should understand about the File Manager and its relationship to File Commander and other File Manager extenders. Be sure to read the both this readme file and File Commander manual if you have any other File Manager extenders installed. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS File Commander requires an IBM PC or compatible with a minimum of 4 megabytes of RAM (You need 8 really though), running Microsoft Windows version 3.1 *** LATE BREAKING NEWS *** File Commander comes with four sample menu files, each of which are associated with a new File Manager menu item. To wit: Menu title Menu File Main WWWFC1.MNU Applets WWWFC2.MNU Utils WWWFC3.MNU Demo WWWFC4.MNU Although these files are mainly intended as code samples that you can peruse to make your own add-on menu items, a lot of people, especially those not willing to plunge in and learn the batch language, will find that the sample menu items do all sorts of neat stuff, and may be perfectly content to live with the sample menus supplied. These sample menus are not exactly documented anyplace, but if you browse through the pull-down menus in File Manager, the functions of the various menus items should become obvious. We've carefully designed them to run on almost *any* system. If something does not work for you, then its up to you to dig into the sample menu code and rectify any imcompatibilities that may be occurring. *** GENERAL INFORMATION *** File Commander is an extender for the WinNT 3.1 File Manager. It allows you to add upto four menu items to the File Manager menu bar. From each of these top-level menu items, File Commander allows you to make up to 99 menu items spread up to 5 levels deep. The menu items, when selected, execute our Windows Interface Language (WIL) code. What is the WIL language? Well, its the Windows batch file language developed by Wilson WindowWare, and found in several products, including the following: Wilson WindowWare: Command Post - As the menu script language Wilson WindowWare: WinBatch - The Windows batch language >>> If you have used Command Post, you will find the menu scripts >>> *remarkably* similiar. The WIL language supports zillions (well maybe 350) different functions that allow you to do pritnear anything. Be sure to check out our new WIL.HLP Windows help file. It has a complete description of the WIL language (Thats the programming language found in our products). It should prove useful. NOTE: The documentation for the Windows File Manager Extender Interface states that 5 top-level menus may be added to the File Manager menu. However, due to what appears to be a bug in the Windows File Manager, the fifth menu item does not work properly. Any command selected from the fifth menu item becomes confused with the adjacent "Windows" menu, and the corresponding command from the "Windows" menu is executed instead. All this is saying is don't use more than 4 new top-level menus with the Windows File Manager. INSTALLATION NOTES File Manager Extenders are not EXE files. They are DLL's. When File Manager (either Windows or Norton) starts up, it inspects the Windows NT equivalent of WINFILE.INI for a special [AddOns] section. The [AddOns] section (when File Commander is installed) looks like the following: [AddOns] WWWFC1=C:\FILECMDR\WWWFC1.DLL WWWFC2=C:\FILECMDR\WWWFC2.DLL WWWFC3=C:\FILECMDR\WWWFC3.DLL WWWFC4=C:\FILECMDR\WWWFC3.DLL The upkeep and maintenance of the [AddOns] section of the WINFILE.INI is your responsibility. You will have to decide what to keep and what goes. We do provide four extenders: WWWFC1.DLL WWWFC2.DLL WWWFC3.DLL WWWFC4.DLL which our installation program will install. Each one controls a menu item. The menu items will appear on your File Manager menu in the same order that the menu items occur in the [AddOns] section. The installation process installs, and File Commander refers to an additional, new section of the WINFILE.INI file -- The [FileCmdr] section. The [FileCmdr] section of the WINFILE.INI file contains the titles of the top level menu items, and also contains the file names of the menu script files. You usually do not have to worry about these items, as our sample menu scripts maintain this section. However, in the interest of complete documentation, the [FileCmdr] section as it appears immediately after File Commander installation is shown below: [FileCmdr] MenuFile1=WWWFC1.MNU MenuFile2=WWWFC2.MNU MenuFile3=WWWFC3.MNU MenuFile4=WWWFC4.MNU MenuTitle1=&Main MenuTitle2=&Applets MenuTitle3=&Utils MenuTitle4=&Demos The WWWFC1.DLL extender will refer to the MenuFile1 keyword to determine which menu script file to use, and it will refer to the MenuTitle1 keyword to determine the title of the desired menu item. Likewise, the WWWFC2.DLL extender will refer to MenuFile2 and MenuTitle2, and so on. HOW-2-ADD YOUR OWN MENU ITEMS The Main menu item added to the File Manager menu has a selection to assist you in editing menus. All it really does is to run the Windows Notepad editor on one of the four menu files, WWWFC1.MNU, WWWFC2.MNU, WWWFC3.MNU or WWWFC4.MNU. In order to take full advantage of File Commander, you should read through most of the documentation. It will teach you about the WIL script language in an easy step-by-step fashion (We've got stacks of letters from non-programmers who said they were a tad scared about tackling the WIL language, but once they went through our tutorial, can write menu scrips with the best of them. One guy even decided he liked programming, took a few community college courses, and now has a job programming for a living!) More experienced people, people who are familiar with DOS BAT files, people familiar with DOS BASIC or other programming languages, and the average unreconstructed hackers may simply wish to plunge in, examine the sample menus and wing it. Although we don't officially recommend this kind of thing, it does happen. In any case, especially for those trying to "wing it", the menu script files ares COLUMN SENSITIVE, especially in the first four columns (character positions) which define the menu item titles. WIL batch code should start in column 5 or later (I like col 8). The structure of a menu file (this is the short form, see the docs for a real explanation); 111111111122222222223 Columns 123456789012345678901234567890... etc ; Semicolons are the comment symbol. Everything to the ; right of a semi-colon is ignored. At the top of the file ; is the "auto-exec" section which runs on File Manager ; startup, and whenever the extenders are reloaded. ; Note that the autoexec code starts in column 8 (way past ; column 5 so it does not get confused with menu items. TAB=Num2Char(9) ; Define a TAB char for laters CR=strcat(Num2Char(13),Num2Char(10)) ; Define a CRLF ; That was our autoexec section. It just defined a few ; special characters for later use. Here is our first menu ; item... NOTEPAD Run("Notepad.exe","") ;Run Notepad ; That was it. The word NOTEPAD will appear on a menu and ; when selected it will execute the command that launches the ; Notepad editor. ; Now, lets have a drop-down menu that off of a menu item. ; (Menu items don't need to be all CAPS, it is just to make ; this example a tad clearer. ACCESSORIES CONTROL PANEL Run("Control.exe","") CALCULATOR Run("Calc.exe","") ; Note that the first level menu, ACCESSORIES started in ; column 1, and that the two drop down menu items off of it ; both started in column 2. It is important to remember that ; the columns that the menu titles start in control what kind ; of menu item it is, and putting a menu item in the wrong ; column is the most common error in writing a menu. When loading a new menu script, File Commander will report on lines in the menu script file that it does not like. In general it is always expecting one kind of line or another, and if the current line does not meet up to its expectations, it displays the line with an error message. Quite often, the actual error occurred on the previous line. Almost all problems on load have to do with improper indent in the menu titles. In addition, after an error, the remainder of the menu file is ignored. Each menu script file can only support upto 99 menu items. It you have more that 99 menu items, the ones past the 99th item will not appear, and, if the 100th item occurs on some sub-level menu, can make its parent level disappear too. THE WIL.HLP file The installation program should have installed an icon in the Program Manager File Commander group which will bring up this file. Or just double click on it to make it run. Its also accessable from our sample menus. The first menu item you write might be to add a new menu item to access the WIL.HLP file to one of your own menus. Here's one way to do it. First, figure out where the WIL.HLP file is. Lets assume that you took the standard installation program defaults. That would put the WIL.HLP file into the C:\FILECMDR\HELP directory. Verify this. Assuming you have File Commander running, select the "Main" menu item. The first thing you will see in the drop-down menu that appears is the "Edit File Commander Menus". Select that option. Another drop down menu will appear which gives you a choice of editing the menu scripts or changing the top-level menu titles. Choose the first selection, "Edit menu scripts". Choose the first selection, WWWFC1.MNU, to edit the first menu file. This will pop you into the Notepad editor, editing the WWWFC1.MNU menu file. Move to the bottom of the file and add the following lines. BE SURE THAT THE MENU TITLE STARTS AT THE FAR LEFT WITH NO SPACES IN FRONT OF IT. Adjust the DirChange command, if required, to point to the directory containing the WIL.HLP file. ; This menu item brings up the WIL.HLP help file Get WIL Help File DirChange("C:\FILECMDR\HELP") Run("winhelp.exe","wil.hlp") Close the note pad editor. Look at your first menu. Strange, the new menu item is NOT there. Select one of the menu items, say "Browse". File Commander will look at the menu file, decide that it was modified since the last time it was inspected, and proceed to reload it. Since there's no telling what might have changed in the file, File Commander will tell you that the menu files were reloaded, and that you should re-select the desired menu item. After a short delay while the reload occurs, look at the menu item again. Lo and behold, it should be there on the bottom of the first menu. Select it. WinHelp should load with the WIL language help. Good Luck. *** FOREIGN LANGUAGE SUPPORT *** File Commander now supports some foreign languages. English is built in, and the software attempts to examine your system, and, if you are using German or French, will configure itself to use German or French. More languages on the way. There is also "ValSpeak", which is both a parody on Southern California slang, and an example of how *some* messages may be modified for the end users. If you are using Windows 3.1, File Commander will attempt to determine what language Windows you are running and automatically configure itself to use that language. To access a non-default langauage, choose the "Main" menu, and then the "Modify File Commander" submenu, and then the "Language for error messages" menu item. It will bring up a dialog box allowing you to choose a supported language. This menu item will only affect the internal WIL engine language. It is still up to you to write or translate File Commander menu items as you see fit. To add a whole new lanugage to the WIL engine, examine the WWWDLANG.* files, especially the WWDLANG.ENU file. By translating this file to the language you your choice, you can make the WIL engine run in any language. Please see the README2.TXT file for more information