Mike,
        In appreciation for having upgraded our security level, we'd like
to offer you, gratis, the inaugural release of a couple of utilities which
we developed at home for use on the IF.  One is ZSView, a replacement for
AFVIEW, the ALLFILE.DIR viewer.  Why a replacement?  The viewer AFVIEW
(in AVF95.ZIP), written by Chris Sokol, is a nice utility but suffers from
several deficiencies:

        (1) It can't handle the larger file directories in ALLFILE.DIR.
        It cuts off ~250 lines in DIR69, ~390 in DIR65 and has a fit with
        DIR 64 - Windows programs, where AFVIEW cuts off listings from
        about August, 1995, and before, thereby missing some 12,000
        lines.  It appears its maximum viewing capacity is 3000 lines
        per directory.

        (2) Its file sort routine can't handle the multiline file descriptions
        in use on the IF for the last few years.

        (3) The search routine also suffers from several minor bugs or
        deficiencies.

        (4) The search routine can only search the directory you're currently
        viewing.

        Since the program has been out since February of 1995 and has not
been corrected and since Chris writes in a pop-up window in his program that
it is not supported, we've written ZSView to address the first three problems
listed above and ZS to handle the fourth.

        ZSView will handle individual directory listings up to about 2 Meg
(or 32,767 lines).  It can also handle the multiline descriptions properly
both in viewing and sorting.  And the search routine corrects the minor
bugs in AFVIEW.  ZSView is written in QB 4.0 (AFVIEW was written in Borland
C++), so it will run on an XT (slooow but usable).
        ZSView will also handle the individual directories contained in
ALLFILES.ZIP as a whole, as if they were all contained in ALLFILE.DIR,
creating an index for all 97 directories.

        To address the fourth problem, we've been using our own off-line text
search utility, ZS.  ZS will handle either ALLFILE.DIR or the individual
directories 1 thru 97 found in ALLFILES.ZIP.  Why write another text search
utility when there are so many and some faster ones on the market already?
Because ZS has been specially designed to handle the format of ALLFILE.DIR
and the file directories.
        Every text search utility we've seen does the same thing:  when it
finds the words you've requested, it displays them along with some of the
text which precedes and follows those words.  Unfortunately, this technique
often misses a good portion of the file description (especially as they
begin to grow beyond 10 lines).  ZS is designed to capture the ENTIRE
file description (up to an arbitrary maximum of 50 lines) and NOT extraneous
lines above or below it.  The results may be displayed on-screen and saved
as desired or, for faster usage, saved directly to a file which may be sorted
by file Name, Size and/or DATE and then viewed.
        In fact, as more fully explained in ZS.DOC, under certain 
conditions vs the Norton Utilities V8.0 text search function, ZS proved 
to be some 3 to 14 times FASTER than Norton, while always providing the 
requested information in a much more concise and useful format.
        An additional and very useful search feature in ZS is the ability
to do a multiline (i.e., three-lines with wordwrap) scan of up to 50
characters in the file description area.  Now, when properly formatted,  
those file descriptions that span two lines (or three) can no longer 
hide from a text search!


        Also included in the packages is PRETREAT.  This program is run once
before using either ZSView or ZS.  PRETREAT corrects three problems in
ALLFILE.DIR or the file directories which would cause trouble for the
search routines in ZSView or ZS:

        (1) Tabs are converted to 7 spaces. (Although in the latest
        ALLFILE.DIR {dated 4-2-96} there were no tabs used.)

        (2) Useless lines with "@X80" contaminating the file name area
        are removed.

        (3) That portion of the DIR98 listing in ALLFILE.DIR (between the
        two =================== lines) which doesn't obey the rule whereby
        multiline descriptions are marked off with a vertical bar, "|", are
        changed to comply.  (This is not necessary for the files in
        ALLFILES.ZIP -- no DIR98!.) The few blank lines left and the
        two =================== lines cause an inconsequential problem when
        the file is sorted:  they all appear at the top or bottom depending
        upon the type of sort done.

        
        
        Please delete this file from the package if you decide to post the
utilities.  And thank you once again for the added time.

                                                Paul Zuber
                                                May 7, 1996