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Help for Azr
Help for ZR 7 / AAA ZIP

Contents

        PKZIP, ARC, ARJ, LHA, ZOO

        Dual Boots

        From A to Z

        Icon based unzipping

        Differences

        Getting around

        How ZR is changing Shareware

        Where to find

         Register Info

         About ZR FileWorks

         About ZR ProgramWorks

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Dual Boots

    There are 2 versions of this program, ZR 7 and AAA ZIP, respectively. Really they are 2 different programs, though to a certain extent, they look and function similarly enough to share the same help file (see Differences). Given the fact that icon based unzipping is no longer my idea alone, I wanted to get something out to show people just how ZR ProgramWorks decompresses programs using icons. At the same time, I wanted to protect the name ZR 7 since that is what the new (late this year, don't wait, register now please) version probably be called. It is my hope to abandon recent version numbers, rename the program(s) ZR 7 and start all over again with a new version. In case you are not familar with ZR (ZIP Runner) it started out as an extension to a text reader which was already decompressing text files, to include decompressing programs and files into 'imaginary' directories for use, running programs, reading text files, and then zipped them back up again when you were done using the contents.

     After a hectic history and a few splits along the way, it eventually evolved further into 2 programs, ZR FileWorks and ZR ProgramsWorks. Each of these programs alone contains more than enough features to be several smaller independent programs (See descriptions). While testing out new UUE features for ZRFW, I made a small program called AAA UUE which later caused ZRFW to turn into ZR FileWorks Turbo because I liked the new design better. AAA UUE was freeware and did exceptionally well on AOL for some reason (over 2000 downloads in first 2 months), and that version could not even merge the new AOL usenet files! Version 2 does, has been out for a while now, and hopefully AOL will have made it available for downloading before you are reading this.

    In keeping with the theme of AAA UUE, this (these) programs too are freeware though there may not be many more freebies in the future if people don't start registering other programs more frequently. Though some of the coding for these gets borrowed from the ZR programs, much more has to be written especially for these, and at the moment it is time I can ill afford to waste.

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From A to Z

     This is brief history of ZR from memory so it is not exactly completely accurate. While making a program to display many poems I had written, I could not get all of them to fit into one program so I made the program read them off of the disk and lo, it became a text reader program by circumstance. Having discovered PKZIP.EXE later, I made it shrink any text files and unshrink them when you wanted to use them. That was Readdx version 2. Version 3 would unzip all the files in zip file so you could read multiple files. A side version of this was dubbed ZIP Runner to also run the programs in 'zip' directories, and run other compressed and uncompressed programs as well. ZR shared Readdx's version number 3 and when the Windows version came out on Memorial Day weekend (end of May) 1994, the logical version number seemed to be 3.1.

     Unforseen by me, these early ZR's did not work for everyone as I forgot to include a key  program, BRUN45.EXE. System operators did not catch this probably because they too already had it and didn't know it was needed. In June I discovered my best program did not work for most people, so I skipped over a planned Version 4 to make up for the error with a new version 5 which also backed up files (an identical DOS version 5 came out later), and was released at the beginning of July '94.  Groundwork for Version 6 and Cubix took up most of the next 6 months. In January 95 a new twist came with ZR FileWorks and ZR ProgramWorks. Both would show Jpeg, Gif, Bmp, etc. files, ZRPW would show multiple picture files at once and use icon based decompression. Then came AAAUUE which in turn created ZRFW 6.2 Turbo. Playing around with icons to make ZR ProgramWorks, (early versions were released under the name ZR PhotoView) I soon learned how to make icon buttons for ZRFW which then upped its version number to 6.3. The 6.4 incorporated the new binary file merging from AAA UUE 2.0 to merge pesky Cserve and AOL usenet UUE files which resisted ordinary text based merging. Now that ZR ProgramWorks is about to be fully released, both a new AAA program and a preview of what ZR 7 MAY look like have been fashioned into AAA ZIP and ZR 7 which you have one or the other of now.

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Icon based unzipping

    This programs lack of apparent controls may seem foriegn to most people, especially those with the control laden ZR FileWorks Turbo. Here is how icon based unzipping works. Any ZIP, ARC, ARJ, LZH or ZOO file will display a ZRC icon which stands for 'ZIP Runner Compressed' directory. If you have a unzipping program (PKUNZIP.EXE, ARC.EXE, ARJ,.EXE, LHA.EXE, ZOO.EXE) for those extensions in a path set directory (\windows, \dos), all you need to do to uncompress it is double click on the ZRC icon. This creates an imaginary directory defined by the contents of the compressed file. You can use the programs or files within it and then repack them when you are done. This is quite handy for compressed files which include setup programs and install to another directory anyway which would leave you with a mess of unneeded files to erase.

    When a file decompresses, you will see 3 new items on the top menu bar; REFRESH, REPACK, and EXIT ZRC. Clicking refresh will update all the files in the directory which were changed (if any were)(NOTE: depending on your decompression program, you may have to click a particulare file, then refresh, to save any changes in it, ZOO and ARC do not update all files automatically, PKUNZIP does, as does LHA and ARJ.) Repack closes the ZRC directory and erase all the uncompressed verisons of those files, this is perfect for those files you do not use very often. Exit ZRC will close the ZRC directory but will not erase the uncompressed versions. Use this to permanently decompress files (or use Decompress on menu bar when a ZRC icon is highlighted).

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Differences

    The differences between ZR 7 and AAA ZIP lie in the way they load files. Both decompress files the same and run programs, but when a file is not a program or a compressed file and you wish to load it automatically into another program (by double clicking it) such as a graphics viewer or video player, it must refer to a setup file to see which one to use.

    AAA ZIP creates its own setup files easily. You just click on Setup for a text editor, picture viewer, audio or video player, tell it the name as location as in the example it gives and you are done. The set extensions are MOV, AVI, MPG, FLI for video files, WAV, MID, MOD, CMF, ROL, and VOC for audio files, and JPG, GIF, BMP, PCX, TIF, TGA, and DIB for picture files. The text editor is the default for all unrecognized extensions. If no text editor is setup, the default for all unknown extensions is NOTEPAD.EXE for files under 50,000 bytes and WRITE.EXE for larger files.

    ZR 7 on the other hand, is more complicated and simpler at the same time. It uses the setup files created by ZR FileWorks or ones in the same format. Even if you do not have ZRFW, you can create your own setup file. The name of the file is ZRWPRINT.DAT which should be in the directory \ZRW as should this program. The directory \ZRW must be in the root directory (c:\zrw or d:\zrw, etc.) to work as should ZRWCOM.EXE.

     For the setup file, ZRWPRINT.DAT, programs and paths should be entered in the format as follows: EXAMPLE: for notepad, C:\WINDOWS\NOTEPAD.EXE. The first line is the default for any unknown extensions, I prefer to use notepad for this (I am including a sample setup file in ZR7.ZIP, look at it and you will understand this better). The second line is not important and can be anything as the default will load all unknown file types. All following go in the following order, odd (3, 5, 7) are for program names like the above notepad example. Subsequent evens (4, 6, 8) are for their extensions: EXAMPLE .BMP, .GIF. You must include the period before the 3 letter extension for it to be recognized as such.

    This may seem like a pain to go through but you have far greater power using ZR 7 instead of AAA ZIP, though AAA ZIP is easier to set up and better for new users. By setting extensions manually you can load Mpegs into one program, AVIs into another such as MPLAYER.EXE. You also can configure many many types of files instead of the 4 types pre-built into AAA ZIP.

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Getting Around

    This may seem weird to people who are not use to directory icons. To enter into a sub-directory, double click on the icon for that directory. Directory icons are multi-colored folders representing immediate sub-directories of the directory you are in. Think of them as rooms to go into or folders where you keep different files. To back out of a room into the previous one, click the   \..  symbol on the bottom bar beneath the icons. This is in dark grey to make it easier to spot and will back you out one directory. On the file menu, you can use 'Goto directory...' to quickly change to a drive and directory you wish to go to by typing its name instead of using the drive box and directory icons.

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How ZR is changing Shareware

    Pretty bold topic, huh? But then ZR is a pretty much of an upstart program. Whenever ZIP Runner comes out with something, oddly, other programs seem to add similar features. Here is a list of possible innovations perhaps begun in ZIP Runner (I do not know the history of all programs to confirm nor deny any of this).

    ExZip- (Now called Repack), a button which would magically erase all uncompressed versions of programs in a ZIP file when you were done using it. Possible origin, original ZIP Runner and ZIP Runner for Windows, May 1994. Probable copying by the COMPETITION, July 1994 (and he got the credit for it).

    ZIP Favorites- Easy access to your favorite most often used ZIP files, other files or other programs with you being able to launch instead of the main program part on startup. Date: Also May 1994 in the first ZRW version 3.1. This has continued up to ZRW 6.0 but with the FileWorks programs, has been discontinued as they are suppose to use multiple icon based lists in ZR ProgramsWorks.

    Lists- Not just content to make lists of files to make into compressed files, the lists were automatically saved to the disk for later use such as moving them, copying them, or deleting them (all of which were functions built into List) after the original zip file was checked out and found to be OK, even if this happened weeks later. Origin:also May 1994, first ZRW.

    Show files- Far better than your average extension box, you can click on types of files, programs, movies, sound files, and display them. What is better about this is you can combine them such as setting it to display text files and programs, or programs and compressed files or any number of combinations of several types of files. Other choices are showing all files and typing in the extensions. Date January 1995, ZRW 6.0 and ZRFW 6.0.

    Triple threat- While definely not the first to combine a multiple decompression utiltiy with a multiple format picture viewer and/or text reader, or a picture viewer with a UUE decoder / merger, it APPEARS to be that ZR was the first to combine all 3 into one program, ZRFW 6.0, January 1995.

    Icon based decompression- I still cannot believe I am the first to come up with the idea and I will kick myself if I was for not keeping quiet about it. I just seemed to be only a matter of time before someone came out with one so I got too loud about it too quick. Me and my big mouth announced it to the world in January 1995 in all the early ZRFW's, the COMPETITION (same one too) put it out at the end of Feb / early March. Chances seem good he will get the credit for that one too but that's life. I had it first and said as much but with my history of putting out programs too early, I think have shown remarkable restraint for a change. This is my take on icon based decompression here in this program, the way it was meant to be.

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Where to find

    Where to find ZR or AAA shareware? Try the big boards, Cserve's File finder under go IBM then File Finder or go WINSHARE, on AOL in Windows, Delphi usually has it , and on ZIFNET if you have Prod. On the net, best bet is to ftp either OAK.OAKLAND.EDU or one of its mirrors or FTP.CICA.INDIANA.EDU or one of its mirrors if I can ever get it there.  Hopefully your local BBS will get them from one of these, if not, give 'em one.

  10  Current programs and versions as of April 1995

1    Readdx (RDX) 4.0- Origin of all ZR programs. 256,000 color VGA text reader for DOS, probably the highest resolution, multi user saved setup reader there is bar none.

2    ZR 3.0-   Classic ZIP Runner, needs BRUN45.EXE to work, DOS based with built-in Readdx. Way outdated (because of me of course) and its still less than a year old. Still surprisingly good at what it does.

3    ZRD 5.0- ZIP Runner for DOS- DOS Version of the Windows version 5.0, not a classic.

4    ZRW 6.0- ZIP Runner for Windows- Basically ZR FileWorks without the picture viewer

5    ZRFW 6.4-  ZR FileWorks Turbo- Latest greatest ZIP Runner

6     AAAUUE 2.0-  Micro sized Freeware version of ZIP Runners 6 UUE features including drag and drop merging of multipart UUE files and extracting (and merging) from logs.

7    AAASSS 1.0- Mini version of ZRFW's directory pie charting features, $10 shareware

8   CUBIX (q-bix)-  Real 3d games for Windows you play in and  (oops, how did that get in here)

9    AAAZIP /  ZR 7 - Mostly Freeware full working (never mind you already have it, you should know what it is)

10    ZR ProgramWorks 6.4-  Companion program to ZRFW but ZRFW defintely not needed.  Probably the best whatever you could call it there is thus far.

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Register Info

    Shareware is does not mean free, though it is still one of the best deals under the sun. You get to try out really neat stuff and you are trusted to pay for what you like. This means EVERYBODY, not just the rich or people who test programs for a living, gets to see whats at the cutting edge, new or unique, without having to spend a fortune to see if the programs really live up to the promises on the box.

    Too many people don't register to warrant shareware releases of most products and many good programs die out because people think it really doesn't make a difference. DON'T KID YOURSELF, if you don't bother, who's to say anyone else will? If you want to see better programs along the lines of ones you like, only paying for them can make it happen.

This is FREEWARE, no registration fee is required but if you feel like it you could send a voluntary contribution for my efforts of $10 or register all of ZR-pc, ZR ProgramWorks, ZR FileWorks, ZR IconWorks, ZR PhotoView, and Readdx 4 (RDX) for $42 + $4 shipping. The address is as follows.

           Scandere Software

           PO Box 1329

           Dennisport, MA  02639

or register via Compuserve, GO SWREG, Register ID number for ZR FileWorks 4470 or ID number 4907 for ZR PhotoView.

If you would like information on other ways to register, my e-mail address for questions regarding this program is Jared10@ix.netcom.com

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About ZR FileWorks

    Where to begin. ZR FileWorks unzips files using zip, arc, arj, lzh, and zoo formats into temporary imaginary directories for use, can add to or delete files from them, then refreshes them and erases / recompresses them again when you are done, or it can permanently decompress them into the current directory or a new one equal to the name of the file. It also has support for several UUE functions including encode, decode, merge broken UUE files, breakup UUE files to any size to mail pictures, programs, video or sound files over the Internet. It also features a mini-version of ZR PhotoView to load picture files from within compressed directories. It can make pie charts showing the size of any directory's sub-directories, make lists of files to compress, drag and drop moving and copying of files, keyboardless renaming of files or creating new files, backing up files since any given date including a compress backup files option. ZR FileWorks and ZR ProgramWorks were designed to work as a team, and both programs combined make up the ZIP Runner Program Center or ZR-pc for short.

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About ZR ProgramWorks

    ZR ProgramWorks is the greater version of this program and is the most ambitious ZIP Runner yet. It does icon based unzipping, has multiple groupings of for easy access to your files, loading of files by icon directories, name directories, name groups, icon groups or picture thumbnails. It is very comprehensive and designed to work with ZR Fileworks. It has been designed as a program manager for compressed files and all other files and it compares well with other famous yet to be released and recently release graphical front ends (Graphical User Infaces (GUI's)). Sound like too much hype? Maybe. Here is a brief statement of its parts besides the program grouping and icon loading. Multiple file viewing capable of showing dozens of pictures at once in Jpeg, Gif, Bmp, Tga, Tif, Pcx, and Dib formats, printing pictures at variable resolutions, rotate any angle, resize to thumbnails, cut up and copy  to/from clipboard, convert format etc. etc., a tiny pie chart on toolbar always showing free memory while loading and unloading pictures and programs, a system file editor, a multi-document editor, an icon maker / editor, an alarm clock, a program / file launcher, an icon extractor, a picture file format converter, and even has the 3d video game Cubix- Squared thrown in for good measure. And it is all shareware and all in one program.

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PKZIP, ARC, ARJ, LHA, ZOO

    Any one of these programs is all you need to use the decompression utilities of this program, no commands to learn, no books to read. All you need to do is get any one of them, put them in a path set directory like \dos or \windows, and thats all. You can find any of them on just about any large BBS or online service. The majority of files are compressed using PKZIP in its most current version 2.04g. When a new verison of PKZIP comes out, this program should be able to upgrade to using that automatically as soon as you get it. LHA is the program used for the extensions .LZH. The most current versions I know of are PKZIP 2.04G, ARC 6.02, ARJ 2.41, LHA 2.13, and ZOO 2.01. This program works exactly the same for all of these, simply double click on the the file you want to decompress at thats all there is to it. Read this very short help file and you will know all you need to know.

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