Copyright: Copyright 1995 by EJW Ltd.


Contents

Introduction

How The File Cabinet Appears to Work

New Features in version 2.0

How to Register

How to Start

The List of Files Windows

Sorting Files

Searching for Files

Copying Files

Deleting Files

Moving Files

Renaming Files

Exporting Files to Text

Rebuilding Cabinet Indexes

Viewing Files

Technical Notes and Acknowledgements

How to Contact Author


Introduction

Copyright 1995

by Andrew Okun

CView 2.0 is designed to help you overcome the limitations of the file cabinet feature of WinCIM and CSNav, the Windows front ends for the Compuserve Information Service.  It is a copyrighted shareware program.  You may use it for 30 days on a trial basis, but if you wish to continue using it, you must register with EJW Ltd.

 -- With CView, you can go through your cabinet directories and move, copy, rename or delete one, some or all of the file cabinet files there.  You can also sort and search by subject, date, author and other variables.  This should make archiving and retrieving file cabinet material much easier.

 -- After you have moved files in or out of you file cabinet or deleted them with CView, you use the Rebuild Cabinet Indexes command in WinCIM or CSNav so that the file cabinet recognizes the changes.

 -- You can also see the contents of each file with a double-click of your mouse and then print it, copy it to the clipboard or save it as a text file.  Registered users can export some or all of the files in a folder to text files.

CView is a small-scale project and is anticipated to be short-lived. Compuserve has been promising for some time to bring out a new version of WinCIM with a whole new file cabinet.  It is unknown when this will come out, although a glimpse of the new cabinet is available in OS2CIM.  When the new version arrives, CView will no longer serve much of a purpose. Support will lapse six months after such a release.

Please note that CView was written with the help of one file describing incompletely the file cabinet file formats, without other assistance from Compuserve and without the thorough error-testing a larger outfit than EJW could provide.  I have tried to make it error-free but I cannot guarantee anything.  YOU USE CVIEW ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK.

A Few Warnings::

1.	Back up your whole file cabinet before making changes using CView.  You can try out CView just to view files before doing a backup to make sure it works on your system.

2.	Anything you can do inside WinCIM or CSNav, such as deleting files, should be done with those applications, not mine.  I include a delete command because of requests by users of CView 1.1, but I don't recommend using it since it duplicates functions already available in WinCIM and CSNav.

3.	Before making large scale changes to your file cabinet, test CView out on a few unimportant files and then use the WinCIM or CSNav Rebuild Cabinet Indexes command to make sure CView is working properly.

4.	Never, never mess with any of the support files in your file cabinet, such as the .IDX files. I don't know how they work and if you mess them up, it can take hours or days of effort to rebuild them.  Also, never, never change the cabinet structure of your file cabinet.  Let WinCIM and CSNav do that, even if what they do is frustrating.

5.	Try to make sure that the target directory and current directory are ready for whatever you are trying to do. I have tried to introduce good error-handling, but I can't guarantee that CView will be well-behaved if, for example, you try to move read-only files to an empty CD-ROM drive or if you rip out your diskette in mid-copy or some other trick I didn't anticipate.


How The File Cabinet Appears To Work

Your file cabinet data is stored -- one message, article or message thread per file -- in subdirectories of your Compuserve file cabinet directory, usually C:\CSERVE\FCABINET.  FCABINET contains three subdirectories, BASKET.IN, BASKET.OUT and CABINET.  BASKET.IN and BASKET.OUT are self-explanatory.  The CABINET subdirectory contains a series of further subdirectories, one called GENERALand the rest called FOLDER00.0??, where ?? is a number.  Each FOLDER00.0?? directory represents one folder in the file cabinet and the numbers are assigned in sequence as you create new folders.

The files are stored in a special format and named with number/letter combinations generated by WinCIM and CSNav.  The extensions usually indicate what type each file is.

WinCIM maintains a set of indexes that enables it to quickly reference the contents of each folder.  Other than CABINET.DAT, which says which FOLDER00.0?? goes with which folder name, CView does not use any of those indexes. You should not touch any of those files nor should you add or remove any subdirectories in the FCABINET tree.  WinCIM and CSNav do that for you.

WinCIM and CSNav have a command, Rebuild Cabinet Indexes, which recreates those indexes from scratch.  Whenever you move message files into or out of the file cabinet using CView or some other utility, you should use Rebuild Cabinet Indexes, so that WinCIM and CSNav recognize the changes.


New Features of  CView 2.0

 -- It can examine copy, move, delete or rename numerous files at once.

 -- It displays files according to subject and type, not just filename.

 -- It can copy more of a displayed file, up to 64k, to the clipboard.  Ver. 1.1 was limited to 30k.

 -- It uses the Windows Multiple Document Interface to display more than one file at a time.

 -- It accesses email and message files much faster.

 -- It allows cooperative multitasking during lengthy operations.  You can play solitaire or write a letter while it grinds away.  Version 1.1 locked up the computer until it was finished.

 -- It can search the contents of a single directory by subject, date, sender and recipient.

 -- It can sort files by date, subject, sender, recipient and type.


How to Register

CView 2.0 costs $25 for new users and $10 for registered users of CView 1.1.  Send your check and your Compuserve E-Mail address to:

EJW Ltd.

Suite 112

3435 Ocean Park Blvd.

Santa Monica, CA  90405

Or you can pay through the shareware registration service on Compuserve, GO SWREG. The registration ID is 5802 for new users and 5803 for registered users of CView 1.1 seeking to upgrade.

The day I receive notice of your registration, I will e-mail you a registration name and number.  The next time you run CView, hit the Register button on the nag screen and then enter the name and number EXACTLY AS SHOWN.  The registration names are case sensitive.


How To Start

The first time you run CView, it will display a nag screen and ask you to register.  If you decide to register and have received your registration name and number, hit the Register button and enter your registration name and number.

If when it starts, CView can't find the file CABINET.DAT in what it thinks is your cabinet directory, which is usually C:\CSERVE\FCABINET\CABINET, it will prompt you to enter the directory where this file resides.

When CView starts, it automatically displays a List of Files window, with all the files and subdirectories in the last directory you were looking at in your last session. You can use the Path button to navigate to other directories, the Cabinet button to go directory to your file cabinet or you can double-click displayed subdirectories to enter them.


The List of Files Window

The List of Files window is the main tool of CView.  It displays a list of files and subdirectories in the currently chosen directory.  Non-cabinet files and subdirectories are displayed by filename, cabinet folders are displayed by folder name and cabinet files are displayed by subject.  Each entry's type is indicated by a symbol at its left.

Subdirectory

Cabinet Folder

E-Mail Message

Forum Message

Forum Message Thread

Executive News Service Story

Other News Article or File

Unknown

Non-Cabinet File

Here is what you can do in the List of Files window

 -- Mouse-click.

This selects the clicked file and displays some file details in the box below the list.

 -- Mouse-double click

A. File Cabinet files. Double-clicking causes a new File View window to open up showing the contents of the selected file and various file details.  From this window, printing, copying to the clipboard and saving in text format are available.

B. File Cabinet folders or other subdirectories.  Double-clicking switches you to the folder or subdirectory selected.

C. Other files.  Double-clicking does nothing.

 -- Multiple selection.

If you hold down the Control key and click various entries, you can select or deselect more than one item on the list.  That way you can move, copy, delete rename or export more than one file at a time.  If you hold down the Shift key and click a file, you select the whole range of files in the list from the previously selected file to the newly selected one.

 -- Path and Cabinet buttons.

These move you to a new directory of your choice or the cabinet directory.

 -- Sort and Search

You can Sort and Search the entries in the list box.

When you enter a new directory, CView opens each file to see if it is a cabinet file and get important information.  If you have several hundred files or more, this can take a while.  CView was written to allow cooperative multitasking, i.e. you should be able to play solitaire while CView churns away in the background.

You can use the Unsearch button to have the file list again display all the files in the current directory.

 -- Copy, Move and Export

The Copy, Move and Export buttons do the same as the Copy Selected, Move Selected and Export Selected menu items.


Sort

The Sort button displays a dialog box giving you the option of sorting or not sorting the files displayed in the List of Files window and, if you sort, sorting by Subject, Date, To, From and Type.  In a large subdirectory, the sorting can take a while.


Search

The Search button brings up a dialog box that allows you to search by date, subject, to and from.  When the search is done, all the files from the current directory that meet the criteria will be displayed in the list box.  If none meet the criteria, it will be empty.  Further searches will limit the search even more.

If you want to display the whole directory again, just hit the Unsearch button!


Copy

When you hit the copy button or choose Copy Selected from the Copy/Move/Rename menu, CView attempts to copy all of the currently selected files to the target directory.  If you want to copy all of the files to the target directory, choose Copy All from the the Copy/Move/Rename menu.

The copy command copies the files IN THEIR CABINET FORMAT. You still will not be able to open the files to any useful effect in a word processor.  To export the content to a text file, you need to double click the file in the file list to display the file in a File Viewwindow and then use the Save As command.  If you register CView 2.0, you can also use the Export command.

Be careful to make sure your target directory is properly chosen, i.e. that a diskette is in the drive if the diskette drive is your target.  Otherwise, CView will default the target to C:\ and you will have to go find your files there and remove them.


Delete

The Delete Selected and Delete All menu items allow you to delete either the selected files or all the files in the displayed directory.  I RECOMMEND YOU DON'T USE THESE COMMANDS.	The reason is that both WinCIM and CSNav allow you to do multiple selection deletion of your file cabinet files already, and it is a good idea to use WinCIM and CSNav whenever you can.

Also, delete really means delete.  If you ever delete files by accident, immediately run an 'undelete' utility such as the one provided with recent editions of DOS.  You stand a slight chance of getting some of your files back.


Move

  	The Move button or Move Selected command from the Copy/Move/Rename menu moves the selected files from the current directory to the target directory.  Be careful to make sure your target directory is properly chosen, i.e. that a diskette is in the drive if the diskette drive is your target.  Otherwise, CView will default the target to C:\ and you will have to go find your files there and move them again.

Choose the Move All menu command to move all the files in the current directory.

As with copied files, moved files remain in file cabinet format and cannot be usefully accessed using word processors.


Rename

You can rename all or just the selected files.  Choose the Rename command from the Copy/Move/Rename menu and you will get a dialog box with various options.

If you choose Rename Last Clicked, you will be prompted to enter a new filename.  The default extension is the current extension of the file.

If you choose Rename Selected or Rename All, you will be prompted for a four-character "stub" to name the files with.  The files will keep their current extensions and be named in numerical order.  For example, if you have three files

12341f3.msg

5233f3.plx

6346hh43.ens

and you choose "andy" as your stub, your files will be renamed

andy0001.msg

andy0002.plx

andy0003.ens

Each time you do a renaming operation, the file count starts from scratch, so there is a chance you could get andy0001.msg and andy0001.ens in the same directory if you do more than one renaming operation with the same stub.

If you need to name more than 10,000 files, send me an e-mail.


Export

** The Export feature is available only to those who register CView.  See How to Register.

The Export button and the Export Selected menu command enable you to get the text content of all the selected files into either individual text files or one big text file.  If you want to export all the files, choose the Export All command from the Export menu.

If you choose to export to multiple files, you must enter a "stub" name of four characters.  The files will be numbered in order and given the extension "txt".  For example, if you are exporting 53 files and choose the stub name andy, your target directory will have the files

andy0001.txt

andy0002.txt

.

.

andy0053.txt

If you later export more into the same target directory, CView will note that there are already files with the same name and start at andy0054.txt.  If you export to a different target, it will start again at andy0001.txt.  If exporting multiple times is necessary, you have may to use some of your four character stub to do some indexing as a work around.

Each file will contain an informative header and the text contents of the file.  If the file is a thread, the messages will be in order each with its own header.

If you export to a single file, you choose the name and the text contents of all the files will be exported to it, in order, each starting with an informative header.

If you are operating on a slower computer or have slow disk access, or are exporting an unusually large number of files, the export operation could take a discernible length of time.  CView uses cooperative multitasking to allow Windows to handle other operations, you can minimize CView while it churns away and do something else.

Be careful to make sure your target directory is properly chosen, i.e. that a diskette is in the drive if the diskette drive is your target.  Otherwise, CView will default the target to C:\ and you will have to go find your exported files there and remove them.


Rebuild Cabinet Indexes

After you have moved or deleted any files in your cabinet or copied or moved any files into your cabinet, the WinCIM/CSNav indexes are no longer up to date.  You must enter one of those applications and execute the Rebuild Cabinet Indexes command for the file cabinet to reflect the changes you have made.

If you have a great number of files, this rebuild process could take a long time.

Before you make major changes with CView, it is a good idea to make minor changes with unimportant files and make sure the Rebuild process will work properly.


File View

When you double click a file cabinet file from the List of Files window, CView opens it up and displays its contents in a new Window.  You can then do several things with it.

 -- Copy to clipboard.  This copies the file's contents, with a header, to the Windows clipboard.  If text is selected, only that text, without a header, is copied.

 -- Save As.  This copies the file's contents, with a header, to a text file.

 -- Print.  This prints the displayed text, with a header, to your chosen printer.  If you want to choose a different font, there is a "Font" menu command displayed when a File View has the focus.  To change printers, click the print button and then choose the Print Setup ... button.  If text is selected, only that text, without a header, is printed.

Because the Edit component that CView uses to display the file is limited to about 30K in length, CView diverts the whole text contents of any larger files to a file called OFV????.TMP in the CView directory.  (These files are automatically deleted when you exit CView.)  A message "File > 30K " is displayed when a large file is opened.  Only the first 30K of the file is displayed.  If you do a "Save As" command, the overflow file is used to save the whole text contents.  If the "Copy to Clipboard" command is used, CView attempts to send the whole text contents to the clipboard.  (If it is too long, you may get an error.)  The "Print" command prints only what is displayed.

Note:  You can change or add to the displayed text, but that never changes the underlying file.  After you close the File View window, the changes are lost.


Technical Notes
Technical Notes and Acknowledgements

CView was programmed in Visual Basic 3.0.  In addition to standard components, it uses the following items.

1. MList -- A list box component allowing bitmaps.  Created by:

McKean Consulting

Robin W. McKean

1042 Braddock Circle

Woodstock GA  30188

CompuServe: 72622,1403

2. Word-Wrap -- Some code to make printing easier.  Created by:

SoftCircuits Programming,

P.O. Box 16262, Irvine, CA 92713.

CompuServe: 72134,263

3. Ini-Wrapper -- Code to make handling .ini files easier.  Created by:

Karl E. Peterson

Compuserve: 72302,3707.

CView 2.0 requires the following files to be in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory.

VBRUN300.DLL	This is required for all Visual Basic 3.0 programs.  It is widely avaiable on Compuserve.

CMDIALOG.VBX

COMMDLG.DLL

MLIST.VBX

THREED.VBX


How to Contact Author

Andrew Okun and EJW Ltd. may be reached at 76640,1261 on Compuserve or at:

EJW Ltd.

3435 Ocean Park Blvd.

Suite 112

Santa Monica, CA  90066

I apologize, but EJW is not equipped to handle telephone enquiries.

EJW will provide e-mail or regular mail support for CView until six months after Compuserve releases new products that render CView obsolete.