WnBrowse Topic Index

The Index lists Help topics available for WnBrowse.

To learn how to use Help, press F1 or choose Using Help from the Help menu.

Commands

   File Menu Commands

   Edit Menu Commands

   Search Menu Commands

   View Menu Commands

   Options Menu Commands

Topics

   View Mode

   File Types

   Keyboard Use

   Font Selection

   Selecting Text

   Viewing ZIP Files

   Print Options

   Command Line Options

   Button Bar

   Registering WnBrowse


  File Menu Commands

Open

Opens a new file.

When you select the Open command you are presented with the Open File dialog box. From there you can select the file that you want to browse. If the selected file is a text file, then the  initial viewing mode will be text, otherwise the hex viewing mode will be selected.

Related Topics

   View Mode

   File Types

Save As...

Displays a Save As dialog box from where a file can be selected for saving the currently selected text. This option is greyed when no text is selected.

Close File

Closes the current file, releases any storage and iconizes WnBrowse.

Previous File

Displays  the previous file from the current directory that matches the file specification used for the last Open request.

Next File

Displays the next file from the current directory that matches the file specification used for the last Open request.

Print...

The Print option can be used to print the entire file, or a selected portion of a file on the currently active printer. A dialog box is displayed allowing various options to be selected.

Related Topics

   Selecting Text

   Print Options

Printer Setup

Allows you to set printer options for WnBrowse. The options available depend upon the selected printer type.

Show Information...

Displays a dialog box containing information about the currently selected file, including the file size and modification date.

Exit

Exits WnBrowse


Edit Menu Commands

Copy

Copies any selected text to the Windows Clipboard.

Select All

Quickly selects the entire contents of a file.

Selected text can be copied to the Windows clipboard, printed, or saved to a file.


Search Menu Commands

Find

Displays the find dialog box from where you can search for a character string within the file being browsed. The following options can be selected :

Find What

Enter the string to be searched for. This can be entered in ASCII or hexadecimal

Direction -

Specifies the direction of the search, backwards or forwards.

Origin -

Specifies from where the search comences. Entire Scope searches from the top or bottom of the file. Current position searches from the top or bottom of the current window.

Options -

Match Upper/Lower case - string comparison is case sensitive

Scroll to Top - Matching lines are scrolled to the top of the window

Repeat Last Find

Following a successful find, finds the next occurance of the same string within the file.

Goto

Displays a dialog box from which you can select the new file location.

In text view mode, enter the line number.

In Hex view mode, enter the hexadecimal offset.


View Menu Commands

Text Mode

The selected file is displayed in text mode.

Hex Mode

The selected file is displayed in hex mode.

View ZIP File Contents

Displays information about the contents of a ZIP file.

Redisplay Zip File

Redisplays the Zip file containing the Zipped file being viewed.

Related Topics

   View Mode

   Viewing Zip Files


Options Menu Commands

Select Font

Selects the font to be used for displaying and printing the selected file.

Related Topics

   Font Selection

Ruler

When selected, displays a ruler or scale line at the top of the display window.

Expand Tabs

When selected, tab characters contained in the file are expanded. Only applicable in text view mode.

EBCDIC Translate

When selected,  certain characters within the file are translated from EBCDIC to ASCII before they are displayed.

Related Topics

   View Mode

 Remove Scroll Bars

This option removes the scroll bars allotting more window space to the file data, useful for none rodent inclined users.

Display Status Line

If selected, a status line is displayed at the bottom of the WnBrowse window. This area is used to display status messages. It also contains the line and column number of the line at the top of the window.

Display Button Bar

If selected a Button Bar is display allowing one-click access to most WnBrowse functions.

Colours

Displays a dialog box that allows the colours of certain WnBrowse elements to be selected.

Set Line Length

Sets the  display length for lines of non-text files using the text viewing mode.

Save Settings

Saves the currently active options, (Font, Ruler, tabs, scroll bars and Colours), so that they  are automatically used every time WnBrowse is started.


Viewing Mode
View Modes

WnBrowse can display files in two ways or modes. The initial view mode is selected automatically according to the file type,  but can be changed from the view menu.

Text Mode

The file is displayed line by line. Scroll bars are provided if necessary for both vertical and horizontal scrolling.

If the file is a non-text  file, then the file is displayed with 75 characters per line.

Related Topic

   File Types

Hex Mode

Each display line is separated into three parts.

1. The offset into the file of the line in hex.

2. 16 bytes of the file displayed in hexadecimal.

3. the ASCII or EBCDIC translation.

When hex mode is selected, WnBrowse will switch to a fixed font if necessary.

Related topics

   View Menu Commands


File Types

When WnBrowse opens a selected file, it classifies the file into one of three types.

Text File

A text file consists of one or more lines of text, each containing 255 characters  or less, separated by  ASCII NL/CR characters. Text files are presented initially using the text viewing mode.

Non-Text File

Any file that does not meet the criteria for a text file, is considered to be a non text file. All such files are presented initially using the hex viewing mode.

While it makes no sense to display some non text files in the text viewing mode, for example EXE files. some files that WnBrowse classifies as non text , contain large amounts of text, best read using the text viewing mode. Such files include word processing files.

ZIP Files

All non-text files are checked to see if they are ZIP files. Such files are processed by WnBrowse as for non-text files, except that their contents can be listed from the View menu.

File Information

The File Information menu option (or the information Button) can be used to display information about the file being browsed. Displayed along with other file details is the file type. For non-text files, WnBrowse will attempt to identify what type of file is being displayed. Currently WnBrowse will recognize Windows, Windows NT and OS/2 executables. For Windows 16 bit files, WnBrowse will  display the file description and version (if available).

Related topics

   View Mode

   Viewing Zip Files


Keyboard Usage

F1	- Displays the Help Index

F3	- Performs a Find Next

ESC	- Closes the file and iconizes

ctrl-T	- Selects text view mode

ctrl-H	- Selects hex view mode

ctrl-M 	- Toggles the display of the menu

ctrl--S        	- Saves the currently selected options

ctrl-C	- Copies selected text to the clipboard

ctrl-Page Up	- Browses the previous file

ctrl-Page Down               - Browses the next file

Page Up	- Scrolls up one window full

Page Down	- Scrolls down one window full

Up Arrow	- Scrolls up one line

Down Arrow	- Scrolls down one line

Left Arrow	- Scrolls left 8 characters

Right Arrow	- Scrolls right 8 characters

Home	- Scrolls to the top of the file

End	- Scrolls to the bottom of the file.


 Font Selection

WnBrowse supports fonts for both displaying and printing the selected file.  Fonts are selected by using the Select Font command from the options menu. The number of fonts available will vary according to the currently selected printer.

Sometimes WnBrowse will select a new font automatically. For example if you switch from text view mode to hex view mode WnBrowse will ensure that a fixed font is being used. When you switch back to text view mode, the original font will be restored.

Related Topics

   Options Menu

   View Mode


Selecting Text

You can use a mouse to select text from the file being browsed. The selected text is displayed in a different colour to distinguish it from the unselected text. You can copy selected text to the clipboard, print it on an attached printer, or save it to a file.

Select text using the following procedure.

1. Move the cursor to the first or last character you wish to select.

2. Press and hold the left mouse button. The cursor will change.

3. Drag the mouse, up or down , left or right, until you have selected the required text.

4. Release the mouse button.

If you move the mouse above or below the WnBrowse window, the text will be scrolled while being selected.

Selection Hint :

If you want to select a large portion of the file, click and hold the mouse before the first character required, then press the Page-Down key to select text a page at a time.


Viewing ZIP Files

WnBrowse allows you to view the files contained within a ZIP file without having to unzip the entire file first. When WnBrowse opens a file, it checks to see if it is a normal ZIP file or a self extracting ZIP file. If it is, the View menu option 'View ZIP file contents' and the ZIP button are activated. Selecting either of these will display a scrollable list of the files contained within the ZIP file. Also displayed is the total size of the ZIP files and the level of PKUNZIP needed to unzip them.

If a file in the list is double-clicked, or if  a file is selected and the View button pressed, WnBrowse will unzip the selected file and display it. After the viewing of the file is completed, WnBrowse will delete the

unzipped file.

When a zipped file is being displayed you can redisplay the original ZIP file by pressing the redisplay ZIP file button on the button bar or selecting Redisplay Zip file from the View menu

WnBrowse uses the PKUNZIP program to unzip any selected file. Therefore, you must have a copy of PKUNZIP.EXE on your system. The level of PKUNZIP must also match or better the level required to unzip the selected file.

When you view a zipped file, WnBrowse creates a temporary file, and deletes it after viewing is complete. By default, the temporary file is placed in the directory defined by the TEMP environment variable, or in the root directory  of the disk containing Windows, if there is no TEMP variable.

NOTE	To avoid the possibility of inadvertently overwriting a file in your root directory, it is strongly recommended that you define a temporary directory.


Print Options

The print dialog box can be used to select a number of print options. You can print the entire file or the currently selected portion. The left, top and bottom margin sizes can be specified and you can define headers and footers to be printed on each page. You can request that the file be printed using the default printer font, and not the currently selecting viewing font. You can also request that embedded form feed characters within the file (hex '0C') are to be honored.

Note : When you select the process Form Feed option, you should make sure that the current page size is large enough to accommodate the resulting pages.

The default left margin is one inch (or 2.5 cm) and the default top and bottom margin sizes are one half inch (or 1.25cm),. The unit used, inches or centimeters,  is selected according to the measurement option set using the control panel.

If you select the Print Headers/Footers box, the dialog box is expanded to include two extra edit boxes, one for the header text and one for the footer text. You may use the default values, or select your own. Along with the text in the header and footer string, you can include the following special codes:

&d 	- Inserts the current date

&t 	- Inserts the current Time

&p 	- inserts the current page number

&f 	- inserts the file name

Along with the special codes, you can used the '/' character to left justify, right justify and centre the text contained in the headers and footers. For example :

      left/centre/right

Will print 'left' left justified, 'right' right justified and 'centre' in the centre of the page.

      //Page &p

Prints 'Page n' right justified .


Command Line Options

The command line can be used to pass the name of the files to be browsed and/or parameters defining WnBrowse options. A parameter is distinguished from a file name by preceding it with a dash (-).

WnBrowse currently supports three parameters. One specifies the initial position and size of the WnBrowse window, one allows a  set of saved options (including the window size and position) to be used, and the third supports drag and drop printing.

Specifying the Window Size and Position

The window size and position is  given as four values, respectively the position of the upper left hand corner of the window, and the width and height of the window. All values are given in  pixels.

                      -100 150 300 400

This  results in a window  with a top left hand corner positions at X and Y (100,150) with a width of 300 pixels and a height of 400 pixels.

Using Saved Options.

WnBrowse allows you to save a number of different options in the wnbrowse.ini file. Each set of options can be given a name, the default being 'WnBrowse'. To use  (or save) a set of options with a different name, you must tell WnBrowse what name to use with a command line parameter :

            -Iname

Where 'name' is the name of the options you wish to use (or save).

Drag and Drop Printing.

Windows 3.1 drag and drop printing is supported by WnBrowse via a new parameter (-P). When this parameter is specified on the command line, the file will be printed and WnBrowse will then close. To use this facility, you must register WnBrowse as the printing program using the Windows 3.1 REGEDIT program.


Button Bar

The WnBrowse button bar allows you to perform many operations with a single click of a mouse button. The following buttons are available.

Displays the file open dialog box.

Browse the previous file.

Browse the next file.

Print the current file.

Display information about the current file.

Copy selected text to the Windows clipboard.

Search the file for a character string

Repeat the previous search.

Display the file in the text view mode.

Display the file in the hex view mode.

Display the files contained within a ZIP file.

Select a font.

Set your colour preferences.

Display the WnBrowse help.

Launch the file with it's associated application.

Redisplay the previous ZIP file

Close the current file and Iconize

If a button is not currently active then it will be greyed and will not go down when it is clicked. For example, the clipboard button is disabled when there is no selected text, and the launch button is disabled when the file has no associated application.


Registering WnBrowse

WnBrowse is a shareware product. This means that you can use  WnBrowse for a reasonable  amount of time without charge for evaluation purposes. If you decide to keep WnBrowse, you must register your copy by sending payment to the author. You can also pass on WnBrowse to friends and colleagues so that they may also evaluate the product.

You can also register WnBrowse using the CompuServe shareware registration process. Simply go to the SWREG service (GO SWREG) and follow the online prompts. For details refer to WNBROWSE.TXT.

When you register WnBrowse you will receive many benefits :

1. 	You will have access to free product support.

2. 	You will receive advanced details of new versions of this and other products.

3. 	You will be able to request changes to WnBrowse to help me make it a better tool.

4. 	You will allow me to continue to support this and other tools in the future.

For further details please refer to the file WNBROWSE.TXT .


Author

Nigel G Thomas. I can be contacted at 39 Redshank Avenue, Winsford, Cheshire CW7 1SP, England or on CompuServe (ID 100117,1542). I would love to hear your comments and suggestions.


ZIP File

A file format that enables one or more files to be contained in a compressed format in a single file, commonly used to ship files on disk or via a communications link. The format and supporting programs (PKZIP and PKUNZIP)  are copyright PKWARE Inc.