SMILERSHELL 1.1A INTRODUCTION AND INSTALLATION INTRODUCTION SmilerShell is a handy Windows utility that puts a command line on your Windows desktop, letting you run DOS or Windows commands from within Windows. Unlike Program Manager's Run command, it supports redirection, and you can run anything: DOS programs, Windows programs, or DOS internal commands. There's a built-in command line editor, which saves all submitted commands in a command stack. This allows you to get back a previously-submitted command, change it, and re- submit it. You can have SmilerShell search for a previous command of interest; no need to scan them all yourself to find the one you want. You can load a command stack from a file automatically when you start SmilerShell, or at any other time. You can save the current command stack to a file, suitable for loading later or editing as needed. You can set up aliases with SmilerShell, short commands that are replaced with longer commands of your choosing. Aliases can be like regular commands, just type them in. Or they can be attached to function keys, hit the F-key and it happens, no need to press Enter. SmilerShell has a fast directory-change utility built in, called DC. Just type DC and the first few characters of the endpoint directory you want to be in, and SmilerShell takes you right there. If your command is ambiguous, a list window pops up, letting you choose which directory you want. This works across as many multiple drives as you tell it to be aware of. SmilerShell is clipboard-aware. It has menu choices to keep it always on top of all other windows, to show the current directory in its title bar, to display a clock in its title bar, or to display Windows free memory and resources in its menu bar. It can directly manipulate the inactive windows that remain when you run DOS commands from Windows, or toggle the systemwide setting so that such windows never appear in the first place. SmilerShell takes up very little space on your screen, but to save more space you can even remove the menu entirely. THE SHAREWARE CONCEPT: IF YOU LIKE IT, PAY FOR IT SmilerShell is shareware. It is not free, or in the public domain. You are welcome to try SmilerShell for a week or two. If you find it useful and you continue to use it, send in the $11 registration fee. You'll get a registration number that will turn off the signon screen. Registration will also entitle you to a printed manual, support, update notices, all the usual whatnot. An additional $5 gets you a disk with the most recent version. WHY IS THIS A SHELL? The word shell is sometimes used for a wrapper that surrounds another application and hides it. SmilerShell is the opposite of that. It makes all the power of the command line available from an environment in which that power is not otherwise accessible. But since it makes things more visible, rather than less visible, why is it called a shell? It's a shell in another sense. Maybe you've seen programs that let you "shell out" to DOS, for example WordPerfect's Ctrl+F1 command, Shell. When you "shell out" it's like having a window into another environment, a pathway to a different level of functionality. That's what SmilerShell is, and that's why it's a shell. INSTALLING SMILERSHELL SmilerShell comes as a self-extracting archive that will expand into these files: smishell.exe the program smishell.wri the documentation, in Windows Write format smishell.hlp the help file smishell.ini sample initialization file smishell.stk sample command stack file readme.txt this doc: overview and installation file_id.diz 45 x 10 text description, for BBS uploads invoice.wri invoice for companies that need one to disburse vendor.txt gives distribution permission whatsnew.txt summary of new features To install SmilerShell: 1) Copy these files to a convenient directory on your hard disk. 2) Put the SmilerShell icon into a program group. To do this, bring up File Manager and set it to the convenient directory you chose in the previous step. Then drag-and- drop smishell.exe into your favorite Program Manager group. The SmilerShell icon should appear there. 3) Optionally, set up an initialization file. But if you start SmilerShell without an initialization file, you'll be asked if you'd like SmilerShell to create one and fill it with reasonable values, then let you edit it in Notepad before proceeding. See the section The Initialization File in the documentation. 4) Optionally, set up the command line. See the section Command Line Parameters in the documentation. 5) Optionally, create a command stack file, having a list of commands that you want loaded into SmilerShell. See the section Command Stack Files in the documentation. NOTE FOR THOSE UPGRADING FROM VERSION 1.0 Version 1.0 stored the DC info file smishell.dir and the default ini file smishell.ini in your Windows directory. Starting with Version 1.1, to avoid cluttering the Windows directories of the world more than they already are, these files are now stored in the same directory as the SmilerShell program. After you install the new version, you can delete smishell.ini and smishell.dir from your Windows directory. As before, the ini file can be wherever like. Use the commandline switch /ini= to put it where you want. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Complete functionality under Microsoft Windows 3.1 or better. Partial functionality under earlier versions of Windows.