PC Valet Shell PC Valet Shell is copyright 1988-1994 by John A. Junod. All rights reserved. THE INFORMATION AND CODE PROVIDED IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL JOHN A. JUNOD BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF JOHN A. JUNOD HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN ANY CASE, YOU WILL ONLY BE ABLE TO RECOVER THE AMOUNT OF MONEY JOHN A. JUNOD RECEIVED FROM YOU FOR YOUR USE OF THIS PROGRAM, NOTHING. This program has been distributed under various names, including Valet, CP-Shell and AUTO. This program is tried and true and has not been modified in almost three years. While it may not do everything under the sun, it is still one of the smallest and fastest DOS shells available. This program is being released for FREE distribution and FREE use. There is NO support available, source will not be released, etc... This is DOS shell written for MS-DOS computers running MS-DOS 3.0 or later. The five required files can be located in any directory referenced in the PATH command under DOS 3.0 or later. The five required files can be located in any directory referenced in the PATH command. The five required files are: VALET.EXE The main execution file. VALET.001 Overlay file. (File Zap Sub-program) VALET.002 Overlay file. (All Files Sub-program) VALET.DOC Documentation file (Used by [I]nfo!) VALET.CNF Configuration file. (Created if not found) NOTE: FileZap (VALET.001) & AllFiles (VALET.002) require CGA compatibility. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Command Syntax VALET [drive:][directory] If a drive and/or directory are specified, VALET will display that directory upon startup. If the specified drive and/or directory do not exist or no drive or directory are specified, VALET will startup in the current directory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terms "Current file" or "current directory" refers to the filename that is currently highlighted. "Tagging" refers to the marking of a file by highlighting the filename and pressing the Spacebar. "Tagged" files may have attributes set, copied, killed (deleted), moved or printed as a batch. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keys The cursor may be moved using the arrow keys, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End. A program can be executed by pressing ENTER when the .COM, .EXE or .BAT file is highlighted. You can setup VALET to execute specified programs and pass the highlighted name as an argument depending on the extension of the highlighted name. You can change directories by highlighting a directory name and pressing ENTER. The BACKSPACE key can be used to change to the parent directory of the current directory. A file can be tagged or untagged by highlighting the filename and pressing the Spacebar. Pressing ESC will cause you to exit to DOS in the current directory. When an error occurs and an error message is displayed on the bottom line of the screen, you can press the Spacebar to acknowledge the error and continue (in the case of a batch command) or press the ESC key to cancel the current process. Critical errors are trapped and an additional choice of fail is offered. The usual reason for the appearance of this message is because the destination disk is write protected. In this case remove the write protect tab if desired and press R for re-try. Under most other circumstances you normally would wish to press F for fail. VALET will now let you define execution command strings to function keys as well as allowing a predefined command string to be executed on filenames ending with certain extensions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mouse VALET can use a Microsoft compatible mouse provided the mouse driver is loaded prior to starting VALET. One of the options on the option screen allows a user to choose if they wish to use the mouse. The mouse will then be active on most screens (with the exception of the options screen). To move the cursor to a filename, move the mouse pointer (a triangle that is initially located on the bottom line) to a filename and click the left button. If the mouse pointer is one character to the left of a filename or on the first character of the filename the file is tagged (or untagged depending on its current state). If the mouse pointer is anywhere else in the name, the cursor is moved to that location. To change directories or execute a program with the mouse, point to the filename and click the right button of the mouse. To execute a command from the menu, point to the command and click either the left or right button of the mouse. The Quit command is the only command that operates differently depending on which button is pressed. Screen paging may also be performed with the mouse by placing the mouse pointer on one of the arrows (triangles) in the screen dividers and clicking the left button. When selecting a New drive or a drive for the Space command, point to the desired drive on the bottom line and click the left button. When the message "Press to continue" or an error message is displayed, you can press the left button to act as the spacebar or the right button to act as the ESC key. If the words SPACE/ESC are displayed in the lower right corner, you can point to SPACE or ESC and click the left button and get the desired key. During Browse and View modes, you can point to the desired key on the bottom line of the display and click the left button. This will perform the same action as pressing the key. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tagging Files (press SPACEBAR to tag or untag a file) Files may be tagged (marked) for batch processing by the Attrib, Copy, Kill, Move and Print commands. Only files in the current directory can be tagged and processed. If you tag files in one directory and change to a different directory, the tagged files in the first directory are "lost". If a directory contains more files than can be displayed on the screen at one time, tagged files that are not currently visible on the screen do retain their tags. When selecting a command that processes tagged files and tagged files exist that are not on the current screen, you will be asked if you wish the process to include those tagged files that are not on the screen. You must respond with Y or N to continue the process. The "*" key will cause the state of tagged files to reverse. The scope | of affect is determined by the "Tag all" option. | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- File System Command descriptions (press first letter of command while at main screen) ATTRIB Sets the file attributes of one or more files. Attributes that may be set are Hidden, System, Read-only, or Archive. Additionally attributes may be reset by specifying N for none. Pressing ESC will abort the process. BACKUP Automatically tags and copies files to a different disk or direc- tory. File selection is done by files in the current directory have the Archive flag set or all files created or modified after a specified date. If the Backup Clear Ar_Flag option is YES, each file will have the archive flag reset after the copy. This command will prompt for disk swaps when a disk becomes full. When prompted for the destination drive/directory, you may press the ESC key to abort the process and still retain the tags. NOTE: This feature will not split a single large file over numerous diskettes. COPY Copies one or more files to the specified drive or directory. If the Copy Clear Ar_Flag option is YES, each file will have the archive flag reset after the copy. This command will prompt for disk swaps when a disk becomes full. NOTE: COPY and BACKUP perform identical functions except that BACKUP automatically tags files while COPY lets you tag files. When prompted for the destination drive/directory, you may press the ESC key to abort the process and still retain the tags. If the specified directory is not found, VALET will assume that you entered a filename and ask you if you wish to copy the file(s) to the specified filename. If you respond with Y, VALET will still do overwrite checking. If more than one source file is tagged, the the first tagged file will be copied to the destination file and all subsequent tagged files will be appended to that file. If only one file is tagged, that file will replace the destination file. DIRS Changes the display to a directory tree to facilitate the selection of a new directory. EDIT Invokes an editor of your choice to edit the current file. The full path to the editor including its extension is specified in the options screen. FILES Used to specify a mask use to display files. This follows the MS-DOS wildcard specification. Pressing ENTER without entering a mask will revert the file mask to *.*. Up to 32 characters of | multiple masks may be entered provided they are separated by a | single space. I.e.: *.asm *.h *.exe | GO Waits for another key press. The cursor will then move to the next file in the displayed screen that starts with that letter. HELP Displays a single screen of quick help. INFO Displays this file in list mode. This function is contained in the file VALET.DOC and will only work if VALET.DOC is in the same directory where VALET.EXE is located under MS-DOS 3.0 or later, or if VALET.DOC is located in the root directory of the current drive under earlier versions of MS-DOS. KILL Kills (deletes) one or more files. If a file has the Read-only flag set, the user is prompted for deletion of the file. When you select this command, you are asked if you really wish to delete the tagged files or current file. You will have to press either the Y or N keys in response to this prompt. The removal of a directory containing files will fail unless the | "Dir Delete" option is set to YES. If this option is set to yes, | and you respond to the "Directory contains files." prompt with a | Y, all files and sub-directories below the directory will also be | removed. | JUMP User is prompted to enter a new current drive and/or directory. Pressing ESC at the prompt will leave you in the current directory. LIST Invokes a full screen browse mode in which the user can page up, down, left and right. This always displays the current file and does not reset tags. List contains a "case insensitive" search function. Input will be locked into upper case. TABS and other special keys cannot be used in the search string. MOVE Moves the directory entry from one directory to another directory on the current drive. The file is not copied, only the directory entry is moved. Pressing ESC at the prompt will cancel the process. If the destination is located on a different drive or device, the | file is copied to the new location and the original is removed. | If a file with the same name exists on the destination, you will | be prompted to overwrite. If you do not overwrite then the | original file is not removed. | NEW Allows easy selection of a new current drive. A list of the valid drives in the system will be displayed on the bottom line of the screen. To change to a new drive, press the letter of the desired drive or press ESC to abort the change. Mouse users can point to the desired drive and click the left mouse button. OPTIONS Brings up an option screen allowing the user to customize the program. This includes colors of the screen, sorting of filenames, editor and basic pathnames and many other options. (See later page). PRINT Copies one or more files to PRN, using lines per page and margins set under options. To disable margins (when printing formatted files), set top and bottom margins to zero. QUIT Exits to the original starting directory. ESC can be used to exit in the current directory. Also if the mouse is active, clicking the left button on the word Quit will exit in the original start directory, while clicking the right button on the word Quit will exit in the current directory. RENAME Renames a file or directory. VALET will allow you to change the name of a file or a directory to a name that will not be considered valid by MS-DOS. Names should be restricted to letters and numbers. Pressing ESC will abort the process. SPACE Displays the free space of a specified drive on the bottom line of the screen. Drive selection is in the same manner as the New drive command. TAG Tags (marks) all files in the current screen. This does not affect tags on files not displayed on the screen unless the | "Tag all" option is set to ALL. | UNTAG Untags (unmarks) all files in the current screen. This does not affect tags on files not displayed on the screen unless the | "Tag all" option is set to ALL. | VIEW Displays the contents of a file in hex and/or ASCII. Allows paging up and down in the file. Pressing the TAB key in View mode toggles between Hex/ASCII and straight ASCII. WHERE Searches the current drive for all occurrences of a specified file. Wildcards are valid and the use of *.* will display all files on the disk. Scrolling can be stopped using CTRL-S. X-DOS Execute a single DOS command before returning to the shell. Y-LSTARC Displays the contents of archive files. By default, ARC, ZIP, PAK and ZOO files are supported provided that the archiver is found somewhere in the current path. The archiver for each of these may be changed and others added by going to the options screen and pressing F3. Refer to PREDEFINED COMMAND STRINGS. ZAP Invokes a hex editor on the current file. This function is contained in the file VALET.001 and will only work if VALET.001 is in the same directory where VALET.EXE is located under MS-DOS 3.0 or later, or if VALET.001 is located in the root directory of the current drive under earlier versions of MS-DOS. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Directory System Command descriptions (after pressing D at main screen) ALL FILES Displays all files that are located on the current drive. These are initially displayed in the sequence they are found on the drive. Pressing F1, F2, F3 or F4 will sort the filenames by filename, extension, date or size. Files may be tagged for deletion by highlighting the name and pressing the space bar or the letter T. After all files to be deleted are tagged, press the D key. You will then be prompted before deleting each tagged file. Obviously this feature is to be used for cleaning up a hard drive of unwanted files. You cannot use any of the other VALET features in this mode. This feature is contained in the sub file VALET.002. FILES Same as pressing ENTER. You will be changed to the highlighted directory and changed into files mode. KILL Deletes the current directory, provided it is empty. You are prompted to verify deletion. MAKE Makes a sub-directory under the current directory. You are prompted for the name of the new directory. Pressing ESC will abort the function. NEW DRIVE Allows easy selection of a new current drive. A list of the valid drives in the system will be displayed on the bottom line of the screen. To change to a new drive, press the letter of the desired drive or press ESC to abort the change. Mouse users can point to the desired drive and click the left mouse button. OPTIONS Brings up an option screen allowing the user to customize the program. This includes colors of the screen, sorting of filenames, editor and basic pathnames and many other options. (See later page). QUIT Exits to the original starting directory. ESC can be used to exit in the current directory. Also if the mouse is active, clicking the left button on the word Quit will exit in the original start directory, while clicking the right button on the word Quit will exit in the current directory. RENAME Renames a directory. VALET will allow you to change the name of a directory to a name that will not be considered valid by MS-DOS. Names should be restricted to letters and numbers. Pressing ESC will abort the process. SPACE Displays the free space of a specified drive on the bottom line of the screen. Drive selection is in the same manner as the New drive command. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Options The upper portion of the options screen allows you to change the colors of the different portions of the screen. Move the option marker to the area that you wish to change and press the spacebar for a color selection table. Select the color you desire by moving the marker with the arrow keys and then pressing the spacebar again. In the middle of the option screen, you can specify the pathname to to your favorite editor. This name must contain the files extension. If the file cannot be located in a directory that is specified in the Path command, the full pathname including the drive should be specified. Names are changed by moving the option marker to the name and pressing the Spacebar. The line editor used to change the names will only allow you to overtype the old name. Make sure you space over un-needed characters on the line. Press ENTER when completed. The options on the bottom portion of the screen are used to configure other options that are available including if you want the filenames sorted and how to sort them. Some of the options that may not be clear are described here. FILE_SIZES Determines the method of computing the directory space and tag space. If set at ACTUAL, space displayed is the amount of actual space required on the current drive to store the files. If set at FLOPPY, space displayed is in multiples of 1024 bytes which is the most common allocation unit used on 360k drives found in IBM-PCs. VISIBLE Toggles between only normal files displayed (non-hidden) and all files displayed. OVERWRITE The copy (and backup) commands automatically check to see if a file with the same name exists on the destination. This option controls the action if the same file is found. When set at ASK, you will always be prompted before overwriting. When set at OLDER, the shell will overwrite older versions of the file and ask about all others. If set at SAME & OLDER, you will only be asked if the destination file has a newer date. If set at NEWER, the shell will never ask before overwriting a file. AUTO UNTAG If set to YES, files will automatically be untagged after processing. If set to NO, tags will remain after a Copy, Backup or Print. BACKUP CLEAR AR_FLAG When set to YES, the archive bit will automatically be cleared after the successful copy of a file when using the Backup command. COPY CLEAR AR_FLAG When set to YES, the archive bit will automatically be cleared after the successful copy of a file when using the Copy command. SCREEN SAV When set to ON, the screen will be blanked after approximately 7 minutes of inactivity. Any key press or mouse click will re-awaken the shell. NOTE: THIS OPTION MUST BE SET TO NO IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER SCREEN BLANKER IN USE IN YOUR SYSTEM! VIDEO SNOW If you don't see "snow" on your screen, this option should be set to NO. Should only be set to YES for those CGA systems that have snow. CLOCK If set to ON, a clock is displayed in the upper right corner of the screen. TIME FORMAT Sets time format of the clock and of file times. DIR DELETE If set to YES, directories that contain files can be removed | with the KILL command. If set to NO, an error is displayed | if the directory contains files. | TAG ALL If set to VISIBLE, the TAG and UNTAG commands only affect the | files currently displayed on the screen. If set to ALL, all | files matching the file mask in the directory are affected. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRE-DEFINED COMMAND STRINGS Pressing F1 at the options screen will allow you to set the programs that will be executed for different filename extensions. It this screen, you can set the programs for up to 18 different extensions or Function key combinations. The intermediate execution command must contain the extension of the program to be loaded. The intermediate program MUST be a .EXE or a .COM file. (Pressing F3 instead of F1 allows you to specify the command lines that are used when you press Y-lstarc. They follow the same syntax as command lines and additional command lines can be placed there.) If the desired execution command contains arguments they may be specified. If you wish to have the highlighted filename be in the command line in some position other than at the end of the line, use "&1" to indicate the desired position. I.e.: "kermit.exe take &1, stay". You can use the "&1" at the end of the line if you wish as in "td.exe &1". (Sometime in the future, VALET will REQUIRE the &1 in an execution command line if the current high- lighted filename is to be included.) &0 can be used to reference only the base name of the highlighted file. (FILENAME instead of FILENAME.EXT) The line editor used to define character string is very primative. To make changes to any line on this screen you will have to overtype to make changes. You will need to space over unwanted characters in the lines. If a command does not appear to work correctly, re-enter any spaces contained in the line. As an example, you may have "BAS \basic\basica.exe" and "DOC word.com" specified in this screen. Then when you press ENTER when a filename ending with .DOC is highlighted, Word will start up and automatically load the highlighted file. Some special extensions can be entered to make the function keys perform a desired command. "Fn " is Fn, "AFn" is for ALT-Fn, "CFn" is for CTRL-Fn and "SFn" is for SHIFT-Fn. (Replace the "n" with the desired function key number. F0 is for F10. Sorry, but F11 and F12 are not supported.) If you have a definition such as "AF3 \dos\debug.com &1" then when you press ALT-F3, debug.com will start up and load the current highlighted program. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEFINING PRINT OPTIONS Pressing F2 at the options screen will allow you setup a few printer options. You can enable/disable the automatic form feed after the printing of each file. You can also specify a string to be sent to the printer before and after each file is printed. (All files are printed to PRN.) The setup string cannot contain spaces. To specify characters below ASCII 32, VALET uses a quote character of a grave accent (`) [NOT '!!]. The character following the grave accent is 'anded' with 1FH. To enter a grave accent, use two (``). chr(0) = `@ chr(1) = `A chr(2) = `B ... chr(13)= `M (ENTER) ... chr(27)= `[ (ESC) NOTE: You cannot exit this screen if the Top and Bottom margins add up to more than the total page size. Page size has a minimum value of 2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES: NONE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John A. Junod junodj@css583.gordon.army.mil 267 Hillwood St. 72321.366@compuserve.com Martinez, GA, 30907 jjunod@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- VALET copyright (c) 1988-1994 by John A Junod. All rights reserved.