DataTool for Windows documentation.

DataTool is a windows based file browser.  The user may specify the
number of columns and the type of the individual columns.  The features
will be listed in the following paragraphs.  

DataTool is copyrighted to Applied Technical Software.  You may use it
for free AT YOUR OWN RISK.  You may distribute it freely via computer
networks.  You may include it in CD ROM collections of shareware and
public domain software, provided Applied Technical Software is sent a
complimentary copy of the CD DataTool is included on.  Data Tool MAY NOT
be bundled with any other type of product without written permission to
do so. 

DataTool is a 16 bit windows application that opens files using read
only settings and renders the data in the file in a user specified
manner.  It will format data into readable form for the following types;
HEX bytes
ASCII text
EBCDIC text
decimal char and unsigned char
INTEL float (32 bit) and (64 bit)
Little Endian short, unsigned short, long, unsigned long integers
Big Endian short, unsigned short, long, unsigned long integers 

DataTool can toggle the entire table between hex and user specified
representation.  It allows the user to specify offsets to skip a number
of bytes from the start of the file.  

User interface features;  Insert and delete works from the keyboard to
insert or delete columns from the selected column label.  A right mouse
down in a column label will select that column and pop up a menu for
changing the type the column should render.  And that's about it.  You
can stop reading here unless you care about the history of DataTools'
development.

Mark Gross
Applied Technical Software
ATSoftware@aol.com


DataTool history.

DataTool exists on the Macintosh platform as shareware, and is Applied
Technical Software's first Window's program.  DataTool for Windows was
going to have more features, and be used to provide marketing data 
regarding the product potential of an enhanced version.  Its original 
feature set was larger than what is in this release.  I would still like 
whatever marketing data regarding the use of DataTool I can get.  So if 
you like DataTool or would like to see a more feature rich version send me 
email with at least one line such as "I like DataTool" or something.  
Include desired features you would like to see.

The marketing data would be used to obtain a distributer for a
commercial version of DataTool.  I don't believe in shareware, and would
like to see what the commercial software game is like.  If enough feed
back comes in from this public offering then I may yet go for it.

DataTool was going to have a number of features that are not
implemented.  For instance, savable formatting of tables that are
accessed via a pull down menu.  A status bar indicating the type off the
currently selected column, the offset of the currently selected cell,
and the size of the current record specification.  I may also have
supported user specified column names, horizontal and vertical table
representations.  ASCII export, searching for strings, and binary
conversions (say BigEndian to LittleEndian integers).  Access to linear
computer memory as a kind of file hack, and access to low level disk
devices physical disk blocks.

I spent most of my efforts in the development of DataTool becoming
comfortable with the Borland 4.02 development environment, and windows
programming.  I found MSDN level I very useful for about 1 week, after
which I found that I didn't use it very much.  There seems to be
missing information relating to Windows development and debugging
techniques, which exists for the Macintosh.  Getting MSDN I serves as a
crutch for when things don't seem to work and I don't know where to
turn.  I've learned to adopt my development techniques for the Macintosh
to Windows programming, but still feel a bit as if I'm working without
a net.  I realy miss MacsBug. 

Finding bugs and fixing them under windows is harder than it is on the
Macintosh.  For example, an earlier version of DataTool would crash
under windows 3.1 but not under 3.11.  When it did so it would corrupt
all the window strings and menu's to a state where you needed to restart
windows to get things back to normal.  This problem was fixed by
filtering the strings passed to TextOut to only contain printable
characters.  The determination of the cause of this problem had nothing
to do with any of the tools BC4.x came with.  I was thinking that the
must be a tool that would assist in the determination of the cause of
the text corruption, but there is none.  I just guessed that the problem
MUST have something to do with a kernel function (otherwise the other
window would not have been effected), that lead me to test DataTools
browsing binary files verses ASCII files.  Only binary files would get
DataTool to crash.  On the Macintosh there is documentation, tools and
technieques for debugging such a problem (like using step spie in 
MacsBug to watch for the writing to to DOCUMENTED portion of memory where 
the window's fonts are kept)

Another problem I've had was with getting the page up/down keys to work
without the alt key held down.  It turns out that I had accidently
placed the page keys into an accelerator table.  Again debugging this
problem was done without any aid from the tools provided (indicating the
tools provided are lacking).  I eventually deduced, after putting a
bunch of keyboard event handlers and seeing how they behaved, that
something very low level was intercepting the page up/down keyboard
events.  And for some reason I thought of the accelerator table.  There
are a few other debugging lessons learned while developing this tool,
but I'm not going to go into them here.

One bug that I would like to know if anyone else has experienced and
solved is the "flash" effect every time a new window is opened in
DataTool.  It seems that the entire screen is marked as invalid and all
the windows in all the open applications redraw.  I have no clue as to
why it happens or how one would go about hunting this problem to its 
source.  If you have any clue regarding this behavior using OWL please 
let me in know.  

I hope you find DataTool useful.  If you experience any difficulties using 
DataTool let me know so that I may fix it for a future release, if only to 
correct defects.

Mark Gross
Applied Technical Software
1/28/95