VAREAD SHAREWARE UTILITY

           by P.Mihok  - 12 Dec 1994


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:INTRODUCTION:
   This little utility arose as an offshoot of another utility
I was writing, as a sort of "base program" to which I wanted to
append ANSI display capabilities. I found it very handy to read
long ASCII documents, and thought my users might also find it
useful. I am including two versions:

   VAREAD - the basic version without the mouse added.

   VAREAD2 - the preliminary version with mouse added. There are
a couple of minor glitches in the mouse operation, which
I did not have time to solve. They are a minor inconvenience.

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:DESCRIPTION:
    The utility can be summoned by typing

    VAREAD

at the command line, in which case it starts out showing a
directory. Typing a file name after the name of the utility,

    VAREAD YOURFILE.TXT

will load the specified file. Do not use VAREAD to read unusual
files (non ASCII) as the software cannot deal with them properly.

    The utility will display ASCII files of up to 10,000 lines in
length. It will wrap long lines, so long files with long lines may
be truncated at the 10,000 (wrapped) length.

    It will also run .EXE, .COM and .BAT files.

    The utility shows you the first screen as it loads the file, so
you can start reading right away as it is loading.

It will also do a word search, do a basic printout of the file, and 
provides two directory/shell options:

    (a) Shell option - if the name of a shell file is loaded at the
command line as follows:

     VAREAD YOURFILE.TXT &BINGO

     VAREAD will then shell out and try to run the file named "BINGO"
when F2 is hit. (The ampersand flags that it is the shell name.)

     If no shell file has been loaded, VAREAD will load a directory of
the current directory.

     (b) Directory option - An extended directory list will be loaded
(up to 212 files) including the names of subdirectories and the path
back towards the root (shown as two dots:    ..   )

      VAREAD will navigate to directories that are chosen, so you can
use it to travel about your hard drive looking for a file.

      VAREAD shows a graphic display of your position in the file and
also tells you what line number is at the top of the screen. The HELP
screen gives a clock display and tells you the total number of lines
that are in the file. 
      

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:LICENCE:
     You may use VAREAD on your own machine as much as you like. If you
wish to distribute it, though, to display ASCII text files, you should
send $10. to:

      VMV Ltd.   5694-4 Hwy 7 E. Unit 193, Markham Ont. Can. L3P 1B4

     If you find VAREAD *Very Useful* it would also be nice to send the
$10. to support my continued software development efforts. At that 
price, though, I can't promise much - but I'll post you a thank you
message and let you know how those software development efforts are
coming along!

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