UUDEVIEW FOR WINDOWS MANUAL Let me at this point repeat a paragraph from the Installation Manual. Some of you have probably managed to installl the program without reading that text, but this section is essential to understand the relationship between the Launcher and the Decoder. Understanding Launcher and Decoder The decoder was trivially ported from the DOS version, and it still awaits its options on the command line. If you run the Decoder in Windows, it will simply display a help text, because it has not found any command line options or files to decode. This is why the Decoder cannot run stand-alone. So the Launcher was designed to provide the user with a simple-to-use Windows interface on the front end, and feed the Decoder on the back end. This is why you will always start up the Launcher if you want to decode something, and therefore we will install only the Launcher within the Program Manager. However, there is an exception, a single case in which the Decoder can be started directly; this will be explained later in this text. Before you can begin Decoding Before you can begin decoding, you must save the newsfiles from your newsreader into one or many files. If you don't know how to do this, read my article on saving from newsreaders. In the following part, we will assume that you have stored the news articles somewhere on disk, either in a single file or in multiple files. Starting the Decoder You have now two possibilities to start the decoding process. Only, the first possibility assumes that you have all the articles saved in a single file. DECODING A SINGLE FILE Remember that we have installed an association of files with the uu file extension, back then from within the File Manager? So, if you have a single file with this extension (this file may of course consist of several independent postings), you can simply enter the file manager and double-click on your article file. This automatically brings up UUDeview (the Decoder), and you can then enter commands like explained below. This possibility has the slight disadvantage that you cannot pass command line parameters to the program. If that bothers you, read on, since the process of decoding multiple article files also works with a single file. DECODING MULTIPLE FILES This possibility makes use of the Launcher application to present you with a menu interface to the Decoder. Simply double-click on the Launcher's icon inside the Program Manager (remember? we installed it before). It looks like nothing special, with a menu bar and some text inside its main window. The launcher application just sits there in silence, until you begin to drop files from the File Manager onto it, because it is a recepient of Drag&Drop. To do this, start up the File Manager, and arrange the windows so that both applications are visible at the same time (to free up the desktop, you can iconify the Launcher for the moment). Now browse the directory tree (within the File Manager, of course) until you find your saved articles. If you have a single article file, press down the left mouse button while pointing at it. Without releasing the button, move ("Drag") the file (you will see that a ghosted icon of the file moves with the mouse pointer) until it is somewhere inside the Launcher's window (or upon its icon). Now, release the mouse button ("Drop"). If you have several article files within the same directory, hold down the CTRL key, and click on each article file. Each file will be marked. After all files have been marked, you can release the CTRL key, press down the left mouse button on one of the marked files and repeat the Drag&Drop procedure of above. Immediately after you have dropped the file(s) onto the Launcher, it starts up the Decoder, UUDeview, decoding everything that was inside the dropped files. This was (in the Author's opinion) already a convenient method of decoding. But the Launcher can do much more than that. The Launcher Application This chapter explains the usage of the Launcher application, the interface between the File Manager and UUDeview for Windows. Here, the menu structure is explained. * _File_ This menu offers four choices. The Cancel item is here presented after the Freeze item; don't be bothered by that. + _Decode_ opens a file selector box, where you can select one or many articles (from a single directory). As soon as you click on OK, the decoder is started (unless the Launcher is frozen, see below). Read the below chapter about the Decoder for more information on the actual decoding process. + _Encode_ lets you select a file, encodes it and eventually splits up the encoded data into multiple parts. Please look below for the explanation of the Encoding Options, since this command only makes sense after appropriately setting them. There, you can set the encoding method, the number of encoded lines per file, and the directory where encoded files will appear. The encoding engine isn't very talkative. It will simply grab the CPU for a little while and then finish without printing anything. If you don't get any error messages, the encoding went OK. The encoded file(s) will have the same basename as the binary file, with an extension of .001, .002 etc. So if you'd select uulaunch.exe for encoding, you'd get uulaunch.001 etc. + _Freeze_ If you have several article files that you would like to decode, it is not always possible to mark them all at once inside the file manager or with the above Decode command (if they are in separate directories, for example). If you select Freeze, the Launcher delays the starting of UUDeview. This state is reported in the main window. Now you can drop and select as many files as you want. You can freeze and unfreeze by pressing CTRL-F. Once you disable Freeze, UUDeview is started with all files you have previously dropped and selected. Note: You may NOT delete the article files after you have dropped them. They must exist until UUDeview is finished with them. + _Cancel_ If the Launcher is frozen, and you have by mistake dropped the wrong files onto the Launcher, this menu choice empties the Launcher's memory. You can then continue by dropping other files. + _Exit_ quits the application. If the Launcher was frozen, UUDeview will NOT be started, and all input files will be forgotten. If you quit the Launcher by this means, it will also remember its screen position and size the next time you start it up. * _Edit_ offers the single menu item Paste, which is active whenever there is text within the clipboard. If you choose this item, the text from the clipboard is loaded and fed to the decoder. If the Launcher is frozen, you can paste as often as you want and decode them in a single step. This is handy if your Windows newsreader offers the possibility to copy articles to the clipboard. * _UUDeview_ can be used to configure the command line parameters and other aspects of UUDeview. + _Command_ Tells the Launcher where the decoder (uudv-win.exe) resides. You might remember that we have chosen this command during installation. Since the Launcher remembers the path, you will only need to choose it again if your installation changes. + _Options_ Opens up a dialog box where you can automatically configure the behaviour of UUDeview for Windows. You can enter the path where decoded binaries shall be saved to, choose if the program shall run interactively (if not, it will not prompt you for anything), if it shall ignore replies while scanning articles, and finally you can select which files should be decoded. The Everything selection overrides all other selections and instructs the program to decode everything. If you disable Everything, click on the file types that you wish to have decoded. These boxes are extremely helpful, if you want to run the program non-interactively, since they allow you to selectively decode programs. + _Additional Options_ allows you to enter more command line options to UUDeview manually. + _Encoding Options_ prompts you for the encoding method to be used (UU encoding, XX encoding or Base 64 encoding), the number of lines per file (0 means infinite for not splitting up the encoded file), and the directory where the encoded files will appear. You must enter a directory here, or the encoding engine won't be able to create the encoded files (at least not in the directory where you'd expect them). * _Help_ Display a short About box. If the Launcher encounters an error while trying to start up UUDeview, it automatically enters freeze mode. If you figure out what the error is, you can correct it and unfreeze again. The Decoder After choosing a file or a number of files with the launcher, or after double-clicking an encoded file in the File Manager, the Decoder starts. It will pop up a window. This is the part which is almost identical to the Unix version, so don't go looking for fancy buttons. Everything is text-oriented here. But it's really simple to operate. The Decoder will immediately start scanning the input files for decodable data. During this time, it prints a line of information for every part found. This information may look a little weird, but as long as everything works well, you can safely ignore these messages. One reason why they're in is that you know the program's working. But if decoding fails, the messages are a great help in locating the problem. This scanning phase may take a while, especially with large input files. Then, a short summary is printed with the files found and their parts. If you disabled the interactivity in the Launcher's options menu, the Decoder will automatically decode everything it can find. Otherwise, it presents you with all the files that look like they could be decoded, one at a time. You can choose individually for each file whether to decode it or not. You have to give these commands by keyboard (as I said, no buttons here ...). There are several more commands than just to decode, here's a list of them: DECODER COMMANDS (?) gives a short list of all available commands. (d) decodes the file and writes it to disk. Files are always written to the directory where you have started uudeview. Therefore, you should always start up uudeview from your binaries directory (I always change to /tmp). If the file already exists on your hard disk, you will be prompted wheter you want to overwrite the existing file, or rename the new one. (y) 'yes', does exactly the same as (d) (n) Do not decode this file and go to the next file. (i) Show file Info. Prints out the zeroeth part of the file if available, or the first part up to the beginning of encoded data. Some of the most annoying headers are stripped. (l) will list a text file. You'll get a lot of junk if you try this command on anything other than text files. (r) prompts you for an alternate filename. If you later (d)ecode the file, it will be written under this new filename. Any directory will be stripped from this filename. (p) allows you to change the save path, that is, the directory where decoded binaries will be saved to. You can see the present path in the command description (which you get with the (?) command). (q) quits the program without prompting for all the other files. (c) displays the copyright notice and some other blah. After all files have been decoded or skipped, you will see a message, "No more files to decode". You can then close the Decoder window, or simply hit CTRL-C, which is the same. Troubleshooting I drop files onto the Launcher, but UUDeview does not start. This may have several reasons. If you have iconified the launcher, please restore its window first to find out more. In the last line of the Launcher's window, you will see a message regarding the status of the Decoder's last invocation. + The usual reason is that the Launcher hasn't found the Decoder. In this case, the message will report something like UUDEVIEW NOT FOUND. Either you have by mistake deleted it, or you have incorrectly specified its path to the Launcher. If you are sure it's not deleted, use the File Manager to locate the executable (uudv-win.exe). Next, choose Command from the Launcher's UUDeview menu and see if the pathname, including the program's name, is correct. If it is not, correct the path. Because the Launcher has frozen itself upon the error, unfreeze to try again. + If the status of the last invocation is 0, or (OK), the Launcher is frozen. Click on Freeze from the File menu to unfreeze. This should start the decoder, or at least produce an error code. + If a numerical error code is mentioned in the invocation message, report it to the author. + If the message says [internal error], you haven't set the TEMP and TMP environment variables. Edit your autoexec.bat and set these variables to a suitable, existing directory. UUDeview starts up and scans the files, but then it quits without decoding anything, or never prompts me but says it ignores all files. + Make sure the Everything option from the Launcher's Options dialog box inside the UUDeview menu is selected. + If you want to be prompted before anything is decoded, make sure the Interactivity option within the same dialog box is checked. + In rare cases, some of the postings have been sent as a reply or followup to another post; and replies are normally ignored. Uncheck the Ignore Replies option, again from within the same dialog box. I want to save the Options settings. The Launcher automatically partially saves its configuration. The following options are saved: + The path to the Decoder as chosen from the Command menu item. + The save path where the decoder shall write its decoded files to. + The Ignore Replies and Interactivity settings. + All of the Encoding Options: The encoding method, the number of lines per file, and the directory for the encoded files. I double-clicked the Launcher, and the system reports it's started but I can't see it anywhere It looks like something went wrong with the Launcher desperately trying to remember its prior screen position. Edit the file uulaunch.ini in your Windows directory and delete the like that reads Size=.... Sometimes the Launcher remembers its screen position, sometimes it doesn't The screen position is only saved if you leave the program explicitely with the Exit command from the File. _________________________________________________________________ Frank Pilhofer Back to the Homepage Last modified: Wed Oct 18 15:46:56 1995