FRMDSK -- Enters Text From Disk With Line Preview & Edit Copyright (c) 1995 by David M. Wincelberg Table of Contents I. Introduction .................................................. 1 II. How to Use .................................................... 2 III. Limits, Warnings and Notes .................................... 2 Appendices: A. Command Line Switches ......................................... 3 B. Input Screens' Options ........................................ 4 C. Troubleshooting ............................................... 5 D. Other FileJockey Software Products ............................ 6 E. License Agreement ............................................. 6 I. Introduction Thank you for trying FRMDSK. Use FRMDSK when a BBS requires you to type in lines instead of allowing you to upload a file. It copies lines from a file to your BBS software (or other program) after giving you options. These options include edit line, finish file, wait, cancel, next/previous line and another file. FRMDSK works only with DOS text programs that read the keyboard in the standard way. The way to tell if the software you are using works with this program is to try them together. This 66 kilobyte memory resident program is safe to run on a Pentium processor since, as far as I am able to determine, it does not perform any floating point divisions of large numbers. If you decide to keep this program after 30 days, you are required to pay the $15 license and registration fee in order to use this program legally, receive technical support and be notified of updates and bug fixes. (FileJockey Software does not release products with known bugs.) Otherwise, you may not keep the individual files on your PC but you may keep the .ZIP file. A registration form is provided for you in the file FRMDSK.REG. Please make your check or money order for $15 payable to David Wincelberg and mail it to David Wincelberg FileJockey Software 289 S. Robertson Blvd., #373 Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Send comments, suggestions and problem reports to me at 71573,1023 by CompuServe (not Internet) e-mail or at the above postal address. I plan to read each one, but, if I receive a large amount of mail, I may not be able to reply to each letter. You may share this program with others. Please tell the recipient(s) that the amount you are charging, if any, does not include the license and registration fee. This product is not available directly from me. It is only available from bulletin boards, friends, shareware distributors, etc. FRMDSK requires DOS 2.1 or higher and enough memory to hold it and your BBS software (or other program) simultaneously. II. How to Use The first thing to do is to load FRMDSK into memory before running your BBS program. Do not load FRMDSK while using your BBS program's go to DOS feature since doing so may freeze ("crash") your computer. To load the program, enter FRMDSK from the DOS prompt. Several switches are described in Appendix A. Since FRMDSK is a large (66 K) memory resident program, it is better not to load it from your AUTOEXEC.BAT. Instead, you may wish to use a batch file to load FRMDSK, run your BBS program and unload FRMDSK. (See Appendix A for a sample batch file.) Once you are using a BBS program and want to enter text from a file, press --F. (Hold down the first two keys and tap the third. Then release all three keys.) The opening screen will ask you for a file name. If you enter a name with one or more wild card characters in it, such as *.TXT, you will be presented with a pick list. Select a file or press . If you press , the "File Not Found" screen pops up and you may then edit the file name. This screen will also appear if you misspell the file name or specify a file that does not exist in the current directory. Options for all the various screens are described in Appendix B. For now, notice that pressing restores the file name to what it was on the opening screen. Many of the screens use a line editor that can handle more than 80 characters by scrolling when the line becomes too long. This line editor starts in overtype mode. Press to toggle between overtype and insert mode and press to clear the line. Otherwise, the line editor should behave consistently with other line editors. Once a file is opened, you are presented with the "Send This Line?" screen. This screen has many options. For now, notice that you may edit the line, go to the next or previous line, send the current or all subsequent lines, or switch to another file. Further details are in Appendix B. III. Limits, Warnings and Notes FRMDSK has several limitations. The simple ones are that file names, including the path, may be up to 127 characters long and file lines may be up to 132 characters long. More complicated is that FRMDSK does not work with some DOS-based programs. For example, FRMDSK along with MS-DOS EDIT 6.0 causes the computer to freeze. In addition, FRMDSK does not work well with programs that do not read the keyboard in the standard way. (Microsoft WORKS 3.0 seems to be in this category.) The only way to tell is to try FRMDSK with a program you wish to use it with. What happens is that the program does not always finish reading keys from the keyboard. A work around is to press a shift key or the right arrow key (and ignore the beep). In addition, these programs might drop the second of two consecutive letters. For example, spell may come out as "spel". Be careful when using the /U switch to make certain that FRMDSK is the last program loaded. If it isn't, the program may still be removed from memory but your computer will become unstable and you will need to reboot. If your computer continuously beeps at the "Send This Line?" screen, try pressing 'W' for "Wait" and then popping-up FRMDSK again. (E-mail me if this problem occurs. I think I eliminated it.) The program does not wait for the current line to be processed by your BBS or other application program before presenting the next line. (However, it does wait for your program to finish reading the line.) To force FRMDSK to wait longer, press 'W', allow to application to finish and then pop-up FRMDSK to continue where it left off. In addition, you can change the delay between sending lines by using a command line switch as well as by pressing 'D' for "change line-send Delay" and entering a new value in timer ticks (1/18 of a second). Appendices A. Command Line Switches Entering FRMDSK /? produces the following summary of command line switches: Enters Text From Disk With Line Preview & Edit FRMDSK [file name] [switches] file name Initial file to read /U Unload FRMDSK -- useful for batch files /H:x Hot key letter to use with - /D:nn Delay in timer ticks (1/18 second) for sending lines /R:nnnn Recognition code: choose a 4 digit whole number Since FRMDSK is a memory resident or TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) program, there needs to be a manual way to remove it from memory without rebooting (or resetting) your computer. In fact, there are two ways: press when the opening screen presents that option or use the /U switch from the command line or a batch file. The method is safer since using /U may release memory when FRMDSK is not the last program loaded, which would result in memory problems that can only be fixed by rebooting your computer. Thus, only use /U as part of a batch file, such as the following: @ECHO OFF C:\FRMDSK\FRMDSK C: CD \QMODEM QMODEM C:\FRMDSK\FRMDSK /U The default sequence for activating FRMDSK once it is loaded is to press and hold the and keys, press the letter 'F' and then release all these keys. This triple-key sequence was chosen since it is less likely to interfere with sequences used by other programs. You can change the letter that you press along with and by using the /H switch as in the following: FRMDSK /H:A Do not use the letter 'C' since it might confuse programs that have special ways of handling -C. Note that the and keys are different to IBM-compatible PCs. Although FRMDSK can send letters to other programs rather quickly, many programs cannot process lines at FRMDSK's top speed. As a result, a real time way and the /D switch are provided to specify how long your BBS program has to process each line. (If you guess too short a time, press 'W' for "Wait" and pop-up FRMDSK again when your program is ready. FRMDSK will resume where it left off. If the time is too long, press 'D' for "change line-send Delay" and enter a smaller number.) The unit is timer ticks, which are approximately 1/18 of a second. The default value of 22 was chosen so that FRMDSK works with QMODEM. In order for FRMDSK to tell if it has already been loaded, it places a recognition code in memory. If the default recognition code matches that of another vendor's TSR, you can change FRMDSK's code by using the /R switch. B. Input Screens' Options The opening screen or window has two or three options, depending on whether it is safe to remove FRMDSK from memory: Clears the file name line Closes the window and returns the computer to your BBS or other application program Removes or unloads FRMDSK from memory The file name pick list screen appears if you enter a name containing either of the DOS wild card characters '?' or '*'. Its title is the directory containing the set of files specified by the file name. Choose a file by pressing the up or down arrow keys to highlight one and then press to select it. This window also responds to , , , and . If you press , you will be presented with the "File Not Found" window. The "File Not Found" window lets you correct the file name or pattern. Its options are as follows: Clears the file name line Restores the file name to what it was on the opening screen Closes the window and returns the computer to your BBS or other application program The "Send This Line?" window presents the current file line and provides many options. In addition, it displays the file name and current line's position and size. The size is useful since at certain times, such as entering a file description, you are limited to a fixed number of characters. Its options, which are chosen by pressing the highlighted and capitalized key, are as follows: Yes Sends the line to the keyboard so it can be read by your program Same as "Yes" Finish file Same as "Yes" for the current line and the rest of the file. To stop sending lines, press to turn on its light. To reactivate this option, turn off the Scroll Lock light. Edit Presents you with the "Edit Line" screen so that you can edit the current line Wait Closes the window and allows you to resume with the current line when you pop up FRMDSK again Cancel Closes the window and the file Next line Presents the next line in the file Previous line Returns FRMDSK to the previous line in the file. You may use this option repeatedly until you reach the first line of the file. Returns FRMDSK to the first line in the file Another file Allows you to select another file (or unload FRMDSK) from the opening screen change line- Allows you to change how long FRMDSK gives your send Delay (in program to process a line. Timer ticks are timer ticks): approximately 1/18 of a second. Finally, the "Edit Line" screen provides the following options: Clears the current line Restores the current line C. Troubleshooting File read errors: Try a disk repair utility to fix your disk. There are now such utilities in recent versions of DOS. For serious problems, you may wish to consider a third party product. Your program stops while reading keys: Press a shift key or the right arrow key (and ignore the beep). Your program does not finish processing each line: Increase the number of timer ticks (1/18 of a second) for FRMDSK to wait either by using the /D switch or by pressing 'D' from the "Send This Line?" screen. FRMDSK waits too long after sending a line: Decrease the number of timer ticks (1/18 of a second) for FRMDSK to wait either by using the /D switch or by pressing 'D' from the "Send This Line?" screen. Continuous beeping from the "Send This Line?" screen: Press 'W' for "Wait" and then pop up FRMDSK again. D. Other FileJockey Software Products Following is a list of current FileJockey Software products. All of the compressed files for these products have extension ZIP. In parentheses after the descriptions are the locations where the programs may be found on CompuServe and the registration/license fees. CFWRAP 1.1 -- Word Wrapping Tuned for BBS Capture Files Prepares BBS capture files for editing by removing page pause lines ("Press for more !", etc.) and word-wrapping various types of paragraphs (including each line starting with ">>" and indented paragraphs). Many page pause lines are in a user-changeable .INI file. Version 1.1 improvements include multi-BBS support, better word wrapping, dialog boxes and mouse support. Pentium safe. (GO IBMCOM, Library 2, $15) PROGCR 1.0 -- Prepares Programs for Copyrighting Protects the privacy of your C/C++ or PASCAL source code copyright deposit by removing comments after each file's header (which should primarily consist of your copyright notice) from copies of the original files. Also, copies words displayed by standard or user- specified print commands to a file for spell checking. Pentium safe. (GO IBMPRO, Library 6, $10) E. License Agreement This is a legal agreement between you ("Licensee") and FileJockey Software ("Licensor"). Licensor owns all worldwide rights, title, copyright and other interests in and to the computer program identified as FRMDSK 1.0 ("Software"). By using the Software, you are agreeing to be bound by the following terms: 1. Licensor grants to Licensee the non-exclusive and non-assignable right to use the Software for a period of 30 days without paying a fee to Licensor. After 30 days, Licensee may continue this right by paying $15 to Licensor. 2. Licensee may distribute copies of the Software and related files to others provided Licensee informs the recipients that the Software is subject to a license agreement and that the fee you charge, if any, does not include the $15 license fee. 3. Licensor hereby alerts Licensee that the Software and accompanying documentation are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Licensor assumes all risks involving use of the Software and its results and performance. 4. Licensee hereby acknowledges that Licensor bears no responsibility or liability which may arise or result from Licensee's use of the Software. Licensee hereby waives and releases Licensor from any and all claims for damages, losses and costs therefrom. In no event shall Licensor's liability for any damages ever exceed the price paid for license and registration, regardless of the form of the claim. 5. This license agreement shall be construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of California. This agreement may not be modified except by written instrument signed by both parties. If any provisions of this agreement are found to be invalid or unenforceable by the operation of the law, then invalidity or unenforceability of such provision(s) shall not affect the validity or enforceability of the other provisions of this agreement. Any dispute arising from this agreement shall be submitted to California courts located in Los Angeles County, and Licensee hereby submits to the jurisdiction of such courts. All (registered) trademarks and (registered) service marks are properties of their respective companies.