 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Members' Tips 'n' Tricks Ron Taylor |
Ah, the not so steady transition into the land of the GUI. At long last there are now some good freeware and shareware programs emerging in the Windows arena. Many of these are of impeccable standard, a true credit to the programmers involved.
It has taken a while, but like the early days of DOS, the slow running and usually buggy offerings in the world of GUIs are maturing into very polished and professional code indeed.
One of the better ways to keep in touch with what's hot on the shareware scene is to drop in to the Freeware & Shareware Special Interest Group, a quite friendly and informal affair very competently organised and run by Russell Langley.
A little nostalgia: back when I first joined this user group I used to buy a Shareware disk each month at the meeting. Only one per month? well in those days they were ten bucks each! Russell now sells them for as low as One Dollar- plus you get to see the things demonstrated, so that's pretty good value! Now for some tips, free as well.
A Rose By Any Other Name
Ren Benko
One of the most useful features of 4DOS is the internal ALIAS command. Far more powerful than the humble DOSKEY, a 4DOS "alias" can not only execute any command (or multiple commands), by a user defined name but can also be assigned to almost any Key combination for instant execution.
An alias can also call other aliases, and can even be made to
override or even "disable" internal or external commands. When defining multiple command aliases at the command line or in a batch file, remember to enclose the definition inside back quotes
(`). This is not required when reading them in from an "alias" file, using the
command - alias /r aliases.fil.
If you want an alias to be executed without having to press the Enter key, either use a double "@" sign in front of a Keystroke alias or add an ASCII 24 (dec) plus the letter "r" at the end of the command.
In Listing 1 is a sample of some 4DOS aliases I regularly use and find invaluable. I hope you find them useful to adopt or modify to suit you own needs. Note that the capitalised alias name and all text thereafter,
e.g. "NAME= ..." must be entered on the same line.
| Listing 1 Keystroke Aliases @@CTRL-Fl = cls @@SHIFT-F10 = exit @ALT-F1 = c:\dos\help.com @ALT-F2 = lst c:\dat\docs\doserror.txt @@F5 = menu @@F12 = sba r Named Aliases 1.4 = formatqm a: 1440k p 720 = formatqm a: 720k p ALIST = *alias | more BEEP = *beep 300 4 900 4 350 4 900 4 BEEP1 = *beep 400 2 350 2 400 2 350 2 400 2 350 2 BOOT = *boot m BW = e:\term\bwave\bwave e:\term\bwave\bwave200.cfg CALC = ucalc COMMAND - %comspec° COMMAND.COM = %comspec% DOSERROR = lst e:\utils\dos.err DRAW = e:\tdraw\thedraw EXPIRE = e: " cd\yarn ^ expire.exe FIND = e:\utils\fff.exe HIST*ORY = *history /p L = list MAGICKEY = c:\dat\magic\magickey c:\dat\magic\internat.dat -t MEM = *mem /c /a | more MEMD = *mem /d /a | more MEMP = *mem /p /a | more SCAN = e:\scan\scan %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 TIME = echo The time is %_time on %_date TREE = acd UNKNOWN_CMD = 4error.btm IMPORT = e:\yarn\import c:\dat\mail\melbpcin.sou YARN = e:^cd\yarn"cdd e:\yarn ^ if exist c:\dat\mail\melbpcin.sou import c:\dat\mail\melbpcin.sou ^ yarnx.exe^cd\ PURGE = iff .%1==. then ^*select /o-d /a-d del (%zip4bak\*.*) ^ else ^ pushd %zip4bak ^select /o-d /a-d del (°s&)^popd^endiff EXIT = iff %_Shell == 0 then ^echo Can't EXIT from Primary Shell ^ beep ^ else ^ *exit ^ endiff |
Making MemMaker Make Memory
Ron Taylor
It always happens. No sooner do I seem to get the old machine optimally tuned when something comes up to change it all. All software I used did not require EMS (Expanded) memory so the NOEMS parameter was used on the EMM386.EXE command line in CONFIG.SYS.
Alas, an attractive price on a new program was too much to resist (er, a favourite game actually), so- on with the installation! But the new toy needed EMS to rnn properly. No problems, just remove NOEMS and add the param RAM to the EMM386 line.
Sure enough, this simple change screwed up the memory configuration forcing some programs, SMARTDRV and/or MOUSE, to load into Conventional Memory. But, viewing the output of the MEM /C command showed that there was in fact room for these in Upper Memory. Why?
Running MEMMAKER should fix, so with "164 Calculations Complete" it proceeded to reboot. "Does your Computer seem to be Running OK?"- "Yes", says I. Back to MEM /C at the prompt and things were even worse!!!
Hmm, its not so smart after all then. Oh well, you can't get good help these days! Next step, load CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT into the trusty Editor. After removing the "/L:nnn" bits from the DEVICEHIGH and LH lines I swapped some of these lines around in the files, e.g. loading the MOUSE.SYS before some other devices-now resave and reboot.
Back to MEMMAKER again and it produced a totally different result. After about five changes and retries it finally struck the right combination and everything loaded HIGH as before with EMS enabled.
Just as a safety measure, saving CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT plus the resultant output from MEM to a temporary file with incremental extension, before each change enables one to easily go back in case things go wrong. The following commands do the trick:
MEM /C > TEMP.MEM
COPY TEMP.MEM+AUTOEXEC.BAT+CONFIG.SYS TEMP.001
Melb PC Icons?
Ron Taylor
During a recent mind bending discussion on the Melb PC BBS involving some of the regular personalities, one participant put forth the idea of having our own Melb PC "Icons". (Thanks to Trevor Jacobs for the inspiration here!)
But just what are the secrets to those little .ICO files scattered throughout our directories? How, and with what software programs are they created? I am sure there are many who know and can pass around the Tips and "How-To"s.
Now this could lead to almost anything couldn't it! So, herewith we shall throw out the challenge, and see what members can come up with. Just think of some of the caricatures that may emanate from the minds of the BBS fraternity. Imagine, Dirty Dave on the Desktop, Claude in Control Panel, Llamas, Farmas, Terminators! The mind boggles...
But then how do we share these 766 byte masterpieces? After all they are graphic files so you can't easily view them on the BBS and would be a bit silly flooding the Files Area with them.
OK Here's the Tip. Post them up in a Message! Yes, using a little free utility called xXBUG.EXE by Chad Wagner you can simply convert small binary files to messageable format. This creates a small text like "script" which the recipient can then reconvert using DEBUG. XXBUG is a great little program, and so easy to use. Enjoy!
Quick Menus with 4DOS
Ren Benko
There are many menu-type programs available and no doubt every user has their favourite. But few of them are able to satisfy all needs, being just right for the job at hand. Most are either too limited, too big and cumbersome with features that we never use, or lacking that "personal touch".
The rich set of enhanced features in the 4DOS command interpreter allow it to replace scores of small but useful, utility programs. 4DOS itself can readily be used to create fully customised and colourful menus as well.
In Listing 2 is a sample menu system to experiment with, typing MENU at the prompt (or better still, assign it to an alias), will invoke a "Pop-Up" menu on the screen from which you can choose a program to run. Menu selections are read in from the separate user created text file MENU.CFG.
Note: A .BTM file (Batch To Memory) is a type of 4DOS batch file which fully loads into memory for faster execution, as opposed to a normal DOS batch file which reads in and executes one line at a time.
| Listing 2 REM *** MENU.BTM by Ren Benko REM *** uses MENU.CFG Text File @echo off rem cls set pgm=%@select[f:\bat\menu.cfg,1,0,21,21,[ COMMANDS]] if "%pgm"= "" goto :EXIT %@substr[%pgm,25] REM pause menu :EXIT rem %@SELECT[file, t,l,b,r,title] rem file = The name of the file you want to select from rem t,l,b,r = Top, Left, Bottom, Right corners of the rewm display window rem title = Any title you want to display on the window REM *** END MENU.BTM ** MENU.CFG by Ren Benko ** Note: Menu Title goes in Column 1 ** Commands to start a Program in Col 26 Accounts (GO SOFT) SBA Bluewave (Reader) BW Dos View (Shell) DV Month End (Accts) SBAMEND Disk Doctor (All) NDD C: D: E: /COMPLETE Speedisk (Full) SPEEDISK C: D: E: /FF /V /SS Scan (All) SCAN C: D: E: /A CHKI /BELL Terminate (Comms) W Windows W Yarn (Internet) YARN |
Many thanks to Ren Benko for his 4DOS wizardry. Ren has passed on many more of his creations so 4DOS users can look forward to future issues. 'Till next month, Enjoy!
Reprinted from the November 1994 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
