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;                              BATCHEDT.TXT
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;                             Clark Swisher
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;                        Compuserve ID 72417,1504
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    When Symantec shipped version 2.0 of Norton Desktop for Windows, 
they incorporated Batch Builder as an offshoot of DeskEdit. The only 
way I've found (through their documentation and Help system) to run Batch 
Builder is through the menu system of Norton Desktop. It was 
frustrating to not be able to run it standalone. Sometimes I use 
another program as a shell for Windows and have to launch Norton in 
order to use Batch Builder. (Norton 2.0 may be faster loading than 
Norton 1.0 but not by much, it seems). 

    Using some logic and a little luck, I experimented with command 
line parameters and found that Batch Builder can be run stand alone 
using a '/batch' parameter to DeskEdit. The syntax is:

DESKEDIT[.EXE] /BATCH [filename]

This can be done from the Windows 'Run' command line or any of the 
other normal ways programs are launched in the Windows environment 
(i.e. as a Program Manager group item or as a Norton Desktop group item).
    
    It gets a little tricky when trying to load a file to Batch 
Builder within a batch file though. It becomes necessary to 
concatenate the /batch parameter with the filename in order to use the 
batch Run command effectively. 

;The following runs Batch Builder, but doesn't load file

Run("Deskedit.exe /batch ",file)    ;this doesn't work
Run("Deskedit.exe /batch",file)     ;niether does this

;The following runs Batch Builder and will load the file

parm=StrCat("/batch ",file)               ;
Run("Deskedit.exe",parm)                  ;this does work

    Symantec gives an example of a Batch Builder dialog box for 
editing batch files. However, they still use 'BATCHBLD.EXE' in the 
example, even though it wasn't shipped with Norton Desktop 2.0 (it was 
a Norton Desktop 1.0 file). I've altered their example (pages 21-42 
through 21-45 in the 'Using Norton Desktop for Windows version 2' user 
guide) to make use of this method of calling Batch Builder. 

    Keep in mind that this is a fairly basic batch file, but one that is 
useful. You'll have to edit it a little to supply the correct path 
names for your system, but that should be minimal. I'll leave some 
comments in the batch file as a reminder. Tinker around with it, make it 
more complex, make it less complex, add some bells and whistles - that's 
the great thing about Norton Batch language, you're only limited to your 
imagination.

    I've included the batch file (BATCHEDT.WBT), the template 
(BATCHEDT.WBD), and this text file (BATCHEDT.TXT) in a zip file named 
(BATCHEDT.ZIP) that I'm uploading to the Norton/Symantec Forum under 
the NDW 2.0 and Batch Tips libraries. Feel free to distribute to other 
Norton Batch users. If there is any feedback, please leave mail to my 
Compuserve ID 72417,1504.

                                    Clark Swisher