License agreement:
------------------

APPLY.EXE is a shareware program. You can use it to evaluate it but once you 
decide to keep it you should register your copy by sending 10$ money order 
( preferred ) or check with your name and address to:

Jean S. LaRochelle
865 Des Jesuites #8
Quebec, PQ, CANADA
G1S-3N2

You can give a copy of APPLY to friends for evaluation but you must include 
this file with the program.

In no event shall Jean S. LaRochelle be liable for any damage whatsoever,
including but without limitation: damage for loss of business profits, loss
of information and other pecuniary losses even if Jean S. LaRochelle has been
advised of the possibility of such damage.

I have been using APPLY for a few month before it's release on the market and
I have found it very useful. Feel free to send any suggestion or remark I will
take them into account for future version.


Overview of APPLY
-----------------

APPLY is a program that makes it possible for you to instantly build
elaborate file processing command and to selectively "apply" those command
to a group of file.

APPLY is made up of two main component:

	1) Command line file-name processing macro language.
	2) Command list editor

The way you use APPLY is by first building a command with the macro language.
You can use an optional mask for file selection as the last argument ( *.EXE,
*.?AT, etc... ). Pressing enter will take you right into the list editor
were you can fine tune your commands by editing them using standard editing
functions including search and replace. You can use page up and page down and
the cursor key to move around in the editor. Use ALT+S to activate the search
and replace command.
It is also in the editor that you will do the final selection of file by
selectively marking them for processing. Thus the editor gives you more
control for file selection than the DOS wildcard characters alone. Once you
are satisfied with the result you can apply the command by pressing ALT+R in
the editor or you can save the commands to a batch file using the ALT+W commands.
You can also cancel file processing by pressing ALT+X. Remember that you have to
select file for processing using CTRL+A or ALT+A otherwise pressing ALT+R or
ALT+W will give no usefull result.

1) The macro language

The general syntax for the macro command is:

APPLY [ COMMAND | %A | %F | %P | %N | %X | %Ln | %Rn | %Mn ] [FILESPEC]

Where:

	COMMAND is any dos command or program name
	%A to %L are special substitution parameters
	%A will get replaced by full path and file name ( absolute )
	%F by file name and extension
	%P by path
	%N by file name with no extension
	%X by extension preceded ( no dot )
	%Rn or %Ln by n last or first characters in name ( right, left )
        %Mn by the n character in name
	FILESPEC is a special optional parameter to add filespec for selection

Parameters in the first bracket can be repeated and permutated as long as 
the result is a valid command. For example:

	APPLY REN %A %L601.OLD *.PAS

Will build a list off all *.pas file in the current directory with a command
to rename them using at most the first six characters in the name, followed by
01 and the extention .OLD .

Sometimes I want to backup a number of files with the same name but different
extension. Using APPLY I can do:

	APPLY REN %A %L5%X.OLD

This will rename all selected files using a name built from the name and
extension. This approach also preserves the information about the old 
extension.

One of the most usefull application of APPLY is with the dos delete command.
Simply type:

	APPLY DEL

You will get a list of the files in the current directory ready to be deleted.
I find this more useful that DEL *.*/P because you get a global picture of 
the directory.

When used with one parameter APPLY will assume %A and *.* so that the above 
command is equivalent to:

	APPLY DEL %A *.*

You can then select files for processing or exclude files using the CTRL+A and
ALT+A key. Of course if the files are not in the current directory you can
specify a path in the last wildcard argument.

	APPLY DEL %A A:\*.*

Notice that in order to specify a path we had to use explicit arguments.

In those situation were you want to apply several command to each file simply
seperate each command with ;. For example:

	APPLY ATTRIB -R %f ; DEL %f *.exe

This command will turn off the read only attribute of a file and then delete 
each selected file.


Limitations
-----------

Apply will handle a maximum of approximatly 800 files depending on available
memory.

Apply requires a certain amount of disk space because it builds a batch file
to execute the commands. APPLY will try to write the batch file in the 
current directory and if this fails it will try to build the batch file in
the directory where it is located. The batch file ($APPLY$.BAT) is deleted 
after execution.