-----------------------[Attribute Manager V.0.42 beta]------------------------- -------------[(c) 1997 Alessandro Cantatore * Team OS/2 Italy]-------------- This program is freeware and it is beta code. Anyway it should be safe and not able to cause any loss of data. You can freely use it until July the 31th 1997 or as soon as a new version will be released. As a standard disclaimer: Under no circumstances the author is liable for any loss or damage. The use of the program implies acceptance of the conditions stated above. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is new with this release ============================= - The main window is resizeable and its size/position is stored in the program INI file. - Read/edit both ordinary and extended attributes. - File/directory name with wild chars accepted as arguments. - A different INI file can be specified as argument. - It is possible either to show just the attributes of the current file or show both attributes and the drive/path/file selection window. - A small toolbar with contextual help for the main functions. - Contextual menu in the various part of the main window. - A lot of options can be specified by a preferences notebook. - A new directory selection listbox Introduction ============ The program allows to easily add, edit or delete the .SUBJECT, .COMMENTS and .KEYPHRASES extended attributes of your files. I have a lot of archived files I downloaded from the internet and often cannot remember their content or cannot find a particular file. Comment manager allows to add a small description (it can be as long as about 32 KB in this release) and some "Key Phrases" you can use when searching files. Even if the "Find" button is not yet operative in this release, the OS/2 built-in Find utility allows file search based on the content of the "Key Phrases" extended attribute. Suppose you run a BBS and have archives of various kind of applications for different operating system, you could use various key phrases describing for example: -1) the author of the application -2) the operating system it is designed for -3) kind of application (file manager, game, etc.) -4) your evaluation (good application, useful, etc) -5) anything else This way, through the object find utility, you could automatically create folders containing all your "OS/2 text mode file managers", or all applications of your favourite software author and so on... Installation ============ Just put it where you like and run it. It doesn't need any runtime library (i.e. DLL files) other than the operating system DLLs and won't mess with your INI files! All the informations needed by the program will be stored in its own INI file (ATTMAN.INI). Nothing will be added to OS2.INI or OS2SYS.INI. If you want to use a different INI file, you can pass its name as argument using the "P" option. The option is case insensitive and can be introduced either by "/" or by "-". So if you want to store your program preferences in "D:\PROGRAMS\MYINIFILE.INI" and open the program with the attributes of "C:\OS2\BITMAPS\*.GIF" you must type: ATTMAN -pD:\PROGRAMS\MYINIFILE.INI C:\OS2\BITMAPS\*.GIF The arguments cah have any order: the profile name can be specified either before or after the file name. Starting the program ==================== You can start it from the command line, double click on its icon, or just drag a file/directory on its icon. In future I could add as option the chance to start it by the contetextual menu of any file object and will make the title bar accept operations of drag & drop in order to display the attributes of a different file. Help ==== At the moment there is no on line help. To tell the truth there are still a lot of not yet implemented features so do not wonder if some menu option or button doesn't work. If you click with your mouse button 2 on a toolbar button you'll get some explanation about that button. Import, Report and Find still do not work. How it works ============ It is like a file dialog box: just select a file and edit the attributes. If you have changed some attribute and select a new file or directory a dialog box will ask you if you want to save or discard what you modified. Click on the Save button to avoid that. If you chosed to work with the Extended selection option (see "Preferences") you can select one or more files in the same way you do that with other WPS objects: - swiping the mouse pointer on the "File:" list box while pressing down MB1 (mouse button one) - clicking with MB1 while keeping the "Ctrl" key pressed down for selecting not-contiguous files - clicking with MB1 while keeping the "Shift" key pressed down for selecting all files betwen the previous selection and the current selection The file specifics and attributes showed concern the topmost selected file. If you want to set the same attribute for all selected files you must click on the "Save" button in the main window. A dialog box will then be displayed to allow you to choose which attributes to set for all the selcted files. For instance if the selected files have different "comments" and you want them to share the same "key phrases" without affecting "comments" or any other attribute, you must select only the "Key phrases" check box in the "Multiple File Save" dialog. The first button on the left allows to show/hide (browse/nobrowse mode) the drive/path/file selection window. For the same purpose you can use the menu by clicking with mouse button2 anywhere in the window and selecting: File->Select->Browse. Preferences =========== To open the preferences notebook select from the menu: Options->General Preferences. [Common buttons] - Undo: It reverts the various buttons to their previous state. - Default: Not working. - Help: Not working [General Page] - Disable logo: allows to hide/display the startup logo. - Subject length: unchecking the "Default" button you'll be able to specify a non default lenght (the default is 40 characters and the maximum is 255) - Read only mode: If this is checked you can read the attributes, but cannot modify them. - Font: The button doesn't work yet. Anyway, to set a new font just drag it on a free region of the main window or on the window border from the font palette. [Selection page] - Extended file selection: Allows to select multiple files. - Select all files in directory: If the program is opened by passing it a directory name as argument, if the "Extended selection" is enabled, all files contained in the directory will be selected. - Single mouse click: Allows to select drive/directory/file with one mouse click rather than with a double click. - Show file selection window: If checked the window is displayed in its its full size. When it is unchecked only the attributes of the current file are diaplayed. - Only directory: If the previous checkbox is enabled the window will be displayed in it full size only when the argument of the program is a directory. [Import page 1 of 2] The following options haven't yet been implemented. -Enable: If the file doesn't have .SUBJECT or .COMMNET EA, the program will automatically search for a file_id.diz, 4DOS-4OS/2 description or other, as specified in Import page 2. -View only: If any description of the current file is found in it will be showed in the "Subject" or "Comment" field of the main window but it will not be copied to the file EAs. -(Import to) Subject: If any description is found it will displayed in the subject field and imported in the .SUBJECT EA if the "View only" option is unchecked. If the length of the imported text exceedes the defined Subject length it will be truncated. -(Import to) Comment: As above, but the target of the import operation will be the Comments field or .COMMENT EA. -(Import to) Auto select: The target of the imported operation will be the "Subject" field if the text is shorter than the defined subject length, otherwise the text will be imported to the "Comments" field. [Import page 2 of 2] The following options haven't yet been implemented. (Default import mode) Allows to choose where to search first for the current file description: -4 DOS - 4 OS/2 The program will search in a 4 DOS - 4 OS/2 description file in the current directory. DESCRIPT.ION Allows to specify the name of the 4 DOS - 4 OS/2 description file. -file_id.diz Looks for a file_id.diz in the file if it is an archive of a known type. -Enable user defined file Looks for the description in a file defined by the user in the "File name" field. -Other Prompts the user for a file name from which to import. -Run external program Allows to specify an external program in the "Program name" field for formatting or extracting the text to be imported. [Report page] The following options haven't yet been implemented. -Auto report Allows to generate a report with all file data and attributes. The report will be showed in a separate window. It will be possible to print it and save it to file. If this checkbox is selected, usually, both the main program window and the report window will be displayed. If this checkbox is unchecked it will always be possible to generate a Report by selecting the button in the toolbar of the main window or by selecting from the menu File->Report. -Show only report Only the report window will be showed. -Only directory The report will be generated only if the argument is a directory. -Selected files Only the selected files will be included in the report. -All files All files in the current directory will be included in the report. -Full Tree All files in the current directory and, recursively, in all its subdirectories will be included in the report Menu ==== There are two pop-up menus. Clicking with mouse button 2 on the edit controls (Subject entryfield and Keys/Comments fields) you will get the most complete menu. The menu you'll get by clicking elsewhere will not have the Edit submenu. Submenu File Select->Browse Show/hide drive/directory/file selection window Select->Select all Selects all files in the current directory Select->Deselect all Deselect all files Select->Mask Allows to specify a selection mask (not yet implemented) Refresh Refresh the contents of the drive/directory/file selection window. Save attributes Saves the current attributes. Report See Preferences: [Report page] Find Not yet implemented Exit Terminate the application. Submenu Options General Preferences See the Preferences section Font " " " " Read only mode " " " " Submenu Edit not yet implemented Submenu Help not yet implemented Known limitations ================= -1) The inner controls will not be resized correctly if the maximized size of the windows is limited by the "Warp Center" of OS/2 4.x. -2) I've used standard "list box" controls so there could be problems if you have large amounts of files in your folders (32765 files with OS/2 Warp 3 or 4 - I'm not sure about OS/2 2.x). -3) The code has not yet been optimized, neither for size not for speed. The program works very well with my P100 machine, and I think the speed could be acceptable even with a 386 (let me know if you have any problem). It still does all work in a unique thread, so some operation like modifying attributes of a alrge number of file, will not allow you to interact with the system until the end of it. The next release will be multithreaded. The program has not been packed, but if you have warp 3 or 4 you could shrink it up by LXLITE. (It is a free utility by Andrew Zabolotny. You can download it from: hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/archiver/lxlt118.zip). -4) If multiple files are selected, selecting a new file (and deselecting previously selected files) will display the "Save..." dialog. Clicking on the "Save" button in this dialog will allow to save only the topmost of the previously selected files. So in order to set the same attribute for multiple files it is necessary to click on the save button in the main window. -5) Since control size depends on the system default font size rather than on the font used by the controls or by their owner window, the program window could be too large with the default system font. In a future release I'll add a routine to make all controls automatically resize themselves according to the size of the font used in the window. What will be in the future releases? ==================================== I will implement the still missing features as soon as possible. Besides that I'll add drag & drop capability and an "Attribute" menu item to every file object menu. For any suggestion or bug report write to me: Alessandro Cantatore - Team OS/2 Italy email: alexcant@tin.it alex.cant@iol.it fidonet: 2:335:705/2