Сборка Часть2 / АВМиС / vc405sw / VCINFO

The Volkov Commander, Version 4.05 shareware
Copyright (C) 1991-2000 Vsevolod V. Volkov



Minimal requirements:
Computer. . . . . . . . IBM PC or BIOS-compatible
Operation system. . . . DOS 3.20 or higher
Free RAM. . . . . . . . about 155 Kb


Implementation notes:
- all file and memory management operations implemented on
DOS level via Int 21h
- keyboard polling implemented on BIOS level via Int 16h
- I/O ports access: port 3DAh is used for snow elimination
on CGA


Some notes and recommendations:

1. The Volkov Commander allows you to select, copy, move and
delete directories (including all contained subdirectories)
as well as ordinary files.

2. You can split and merge files while copying. What you have
to do for splitting - if you see following message while
copying file to diskette:

ЙННННННННННННН Copy НННННННННННННН»
є There isn't enough room to copy є
є filename to є
є D:\filename є
є Abort Continue є
ИНННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННј

change diskette and select "Continue". First part of splited
file will have such date and time as had source file, other
parts will have current date and time.

How to merge two files? You have to copy second part of
splitted file to directory where first part resides. You
will see following message

ЙННННННННННННННННН Copy НННННННННННННННННН»
є The following file exists є
є D:\filename є
є Do you wish to write over the old file? є
є Overwrite All aPpend Skip є
ИНННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННННј

- choose "Append".

3. Hotkey F10 in Copy/Rename dialog box (F5/F6) pops up panel
with directory tree of the drive specified in destination
path. Then you can choose right place to copy to. Hotkey
Alt-F10 invokes directory tree of the current (source) disk.

4. Group Selection (Grey +) and Group Inversion (Grey *) acts
upon files only, while Unselection (Grey -) acts on both
files and directories.

5. After completion of operation upon selected group of files
you can restore selection using Restore Selection (Ctrl-M)
command.

6. You can specify a name of DOS command, executable or batch
file in command line as a parameter for VC which will be
executed automatically when the Volkov Commander starts. For
example:

VC startup.bat

VC will start up and then run batch file startup.bat, which
may contain DOS commands and resident programs.

7. There are two options of residing VC in RAM:

1. "Small" mode - The Commander deallocates memory before
execution of each DOS command or application. When
program started from VC is terminated, file VC.COM is
reloaded from path it was originally started. In this
mode only about 12.5 Kbytes of The Commander resides in
memory when programs run.

2. Full-resident mode - VC is totally allocated in the RAM
(about 76 Kb). While in full-resident mode, executable
file VC.COM is loaded only once and does not need later.
This mode is faster.

Small mode is selected if 'Memory Allocation' option checked
in pull-down menu Options. It is possible while being in one
of this modes to launch applications in opposite execution
mode without using menu: you just have to press Shift-Enter
instead of Enter. The status of Shift key is also examined
when starting programs from User Menu (F2) or History
(Alt-F8).

Mode choice recommendations:

1. If you have more than 65 Kbytes of high memory (UMB)
free - it would be preferable to load VC into UMB using
command LH VC under MS-DOS 5.0, HILOAD VC under DR-DOS
6.0. In such case it would be better to utilize "maximal
mode" for faster operating.

2. If you have no UMBs in your system or UMB size is
insufficient - "small mode" will be optimal if you run VC
from hard disk. If you have RAM-disk it will be even
better to copy VC.COM to RAM-disk and start from it. For
example, it could be done in such a way:

COPY C:\VC\vc.com E:\
SET VC=C:\VC
E:\vc

SET VC=... command specifies directory where VC.INI,
VC.HLP, main menu VC.MNU, etc reside. If VC environment
variable is not specified, these files are looked for in
directory VC.COM was started from.

3. If you run VC from floppy disk - "maximal mode" will be
the best choice. In spite of expense of RAM, this choice
save you from painful waiting for VC.COM reloading after
return from applications.

8. You can compress VC.COM by almost any executable packing
program, such as DIET, LZEXE or PKLITE. Some packers (for
example, LZEXE) support only EXE-files. Older versions of
PKLITE or DIET before v1.44 refusing to pack COM-files of
size near 64K. In such cases you'll have to transform VC.COM
to EXE-format using COM2EXE utility.

9. Two methods of launching DOS commands and applications from
VC is available.

First - standard way: executing COMMAND.COM /C <command>. In
this case it is needed that COMSPEC variable in DOS
environment shall be installed properly and presence of
command processor on mentioned path. This is no-risky way
(and used by default).

Second method - using DOS interrupt int 2Eh - may not work
in some cases (for example 4DOS and NDOS support this method
optionally, OS/2 DOS box does not support it at all). This
method have some advantages over the standard method: you
are able to modify master DOS environment variables by
usual SET, PATH, PROMPT etc. commands, second copy of shell
(COMMAND.COM or replacement) wouldn't be loaded into memory,
therefore commands and applications are executed faster and
after loading of resident programs there is no "hole" in RAM
after second copy of COMMAND.COM. There are also some
shortcomings inherited in DOS: BATCH-file interruption with
Ctrl-Break stops execution but with trying to execute next
command, continued execution of interrupted batch file and
then ordered command; DOS has no possibility of nested
execution through int 2Eh, so if one program started with
int 2Eh and then started another one through int 2Eh also,
the control will be given to the process which started first
program and other program is allocated in RAM, though there
is no access to it. Shortly speaking - the choice is yours.
You can select second method by checking "Quick execute
commands" in Advanced options.

10. "Memory Info" (Alt-F5) command gives you useful information
about programs loaded into low (first 640 Kbyte) and upper
(UMB area) memory: PSP segment address, number and size of
memory blocks occupied by program, and intercepted interrupt
vectors. You can also remove from memory thouse resident
programs which were loaded after the Commander.

You can select/unselect programs from the list using Insert,
Grey -, Grey + keys and then remove selected programs from
memory by pressing Enter.

It is not possible to unload resident program if one or more
interrupt vectors originally owned by this program rehooked
(intercepted) by another TSR. That's why the programs with
the same intercepted vectors could be unloaded
simultaneously or one by one starting with the last
intercepting program.

When VC exits to DOS it unloads all TSR programs installed
after VC was started.

11. "File Attributes" command (item in Files menu) allows you to
change the attributes, date and time of selected files. If
you apply this command to subdirectory, attributes of all
files in that subdirectory will be changed.

12. You can calculate the sizes of all subdirectories in the
current panel. The size of directory is the sum of sizes of
all files and subdirectories inside of that directory. This
calculation can be done automatically on every file panel
re-reading - check "Auto directory sizes" in Options menu,
or manually - using Alt-F6 combination.

13. File search function Alt-F7 allows to search files by
standard wildcards template or filtered by context. If
"Containing" field is empty, the template search is going
on, and if the "containing" field is not empty, the search
is running according to the specified string facing the
template. This command searches the current or specified
directory and in all enclosed directories. Apart from the
particular directory you can specify the drive. You may use
*: instead of drive letter if you want looking for files on
all fixed disks, i. e. on all hard disk partitions, all
virtual and network disks excluding floppy drives and CD-ROM
drives. While search is in progress you can move the pointer
above the found files, interrupt search or switch to chosen
file into the specified subdirectory of specified drive.

14. There is current drive label in the Info panel. You can
create, edit or remove it, with the command Volume label in
menu Commands or press Ctrl-F4. To remove the label you have
simply to delete all characters in the field of the label
name.

15. You can create enclosed User Menus. For this, you have only
to enter full file name containing submenu instead of the
command. If path is not specified the search will be in the
same directory from what file executing was loaded. It is an
obligation to specify extension .mnu as follows:

F1: Formatting...
format.mnu
or
C:\VC\format.mnu

16. It is possible to use macro !@ in extension files and menu,
which creates file (VC.LST) containing list of highlighted
files and directories, and inserts pathname of this file
into the command instead of !@. If there is a string in
menu:

PKZIP -ex ! @!@

the file VC.LST will be created and command

PKZIP -ex filename @C:\VC\vc.lst

would be executed. File VC.LST is created in home directory
of VC or in directry specified in TEMP environment variable.

17. Internal viewer and editor work in both text and hexadecimal
modes (F4 switches modes). While in hexadecimal mode Search
operation (F7) allows to search file fragments and bytes
sequences in hexadecimal. For example, if you specify:

EB,38,A5,6

VC will try to find text "EB,38,A5,6" as well as 4 bytes
sequence: EB 38 A5 06. Mentioned string could be presented
in any convenient way:

EB, 38, A5, 6
EB38A56
EB38A506
EB 38 A5 6

18. VC allows you to associate operation of Enter, F3 and F4
keys with file extensions. Information about associated
commands stored in so-called "extension" files: VC.EXT,
VCVIEW.EXT and VCEDIT.EXT correspondingly. These files'
format is following:

ЪДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДї
і' Comment і
іext: command1 і
і @ command2 і
і . . . . . і
АДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДЩ

The sign ' in the first position means that the line
contains comments. If any other sign apart from Space, Tab
or ', VC tries to identify extension in such a string.
Command1, command2, ...- could be any DOS commands. If there
is a symbol @ before the command, both prompt and command
are not echoed to screen (as in BATCH-files). Using 4DOS or
NDOS, the following string has to be included into VC.EXT:

BTM: !

This string allows to run BTM-files simply with Enter press.

Meanings of all sequences of the macro substitutions using
! are in the lower part of screen while editing extension
files.

Viewers could be run in two ways: either in mentioned above
way or with passing on of the parameters, including 'Socha'
string, information about colors, mouse etc., as many
standard viewers do. To pass on the parameters in files
VCVIEW.EXT or VCEDIT.EXT the string has to look like:
the command has to contain only full name of the viewer
including extension and path; if the path is not specified,
the viewer is being searched in the same directory, from
what extension file was read; the command should not contain
substitution symbols !; only one command allowed for the
extension. For example, the following lines

txt: wpview.exe
txt: C:\VIEWERS\wpview.exe

will invoke viewer in proper way, with passing on of the
parameters, and the first line will try to load wpview.exe
from the same directory where are the files VCVIEW.EXT or
VCEDIT.EXT located. And if the viewer has not found there,
internal viewer would be invked instead. But commands

txt: wpview
txt: wpview.exe !.!
txt: wpview.exe
cls

will be executed as regular commands through the command
line.

19. VC supports not only main (global) version of extension
files VC.EXT, VCVIEW.EXT, VCEDIT.EXT and menu file VC.MNU,
but also local ones. Local versions overrides main file for
current directory. What does it mean? VC looks for "local"
versions of this files in current directory of current
drive. Only if local file does not exist, VC looking for
main extension or menu file in directory, specified in
environment variable VC=..., and if this variable not
specified - in directory VC was started from.

20. Internal editor can edit quite long files, using all
available free memory.

21. Internal editor can undo last character, line or word
deletion (Ctrl-U).

22. To hide the panels and show DOS output screen, move the
mouse into the upper left corner and click any button.
Click mouse button one more to restore panels. This function
is the same as Ctrl-O press.

23. Ctrl-Z displays the Tree-panel in the adjacent window.

24. Ctrl-I inserts selected filenames into command line, space
delimited. Ctrl-[ and Ctrl-] inserts path of left and right
panels.

25. VC fully supports logical drives created by DRIVER.SYS and
phantom disk drive B: in systems with one floppy drive.

26. VC is fully compatible with multitasking environments like
DesqView, Windows, OS/2 DOS boxes and does not waste
processor time while waiting for keyboard input.

27. Country information sets the appearance of date, time and
determines character converting from lower to upper case
in search operation. If this function does not work
properly, be sure the country code and code page are set
correctly in the COUNTRY=... line of CONFIG.SYS file.

28. The program VCSETUP allowes you to set a lot of parameters
of screen, mouse, panels, view country information and
change color palette.

29. You can show or hide directories with hidden and system
attributes using option 'Show hidden directories' in VCSETUP
program. You should rescan tree to update TREEINFO.NCD file
by Ctrl-R in Tree panel after changing this option.

30. You can check for presence of VC in memory and get addresses
of VC internal data structures using this INT 21h call:

INT 21h:
Set registers to:
CX = 'VC' (5643h)
DX = 'OM' (4F4Dh)
AH = 2Bh
AL - subfunction:
AL = 0 - get pointer to left panel data structure
AL = 1 - get pointer to right panel data structure
AL = 2 - get address or global data varables
Returns:
AL = 0FFh - if VC.COM is not loaded
AL = 0 - if VC.COM loaded
AH - API version (42 for VC 4.02 and 4.03)
ES:BX - pointer to requested data structure

31. VC is year 2000 compliant.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Vsevolod V. Volkov Kiev, Ukraine

Homepage: http://come.to/volkov
E-mail: vc@vvv.kiev.ua
Fidonet: 2:463/62.16
Phone: 380-44-4842542 Monday through Friday,
7pm-10pm Kiev time (+2 hours GMT)


June-16-2000