Night Owl's CDROM File Retrieval System User's Manual i CONTENTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Introduction .............................................. 1 1.1 About the Manual ........................................ 1 1.2 Night Screens ........................................... 2 2.0 Getting Started ........................................... 2 2.1 Quick Start ............................................. 2 2.2 Full Installation ....................................... 3 2.3 Problems Starting ....................................... 4 3.0 The Main Menu Screen ...................................... 4 Table 3.1 Main Menu Command Information .................... 5 3.1 DOS Shell ............................................... 5 3.2 Format Floppy ........................................... 5 3.3 Go to User Directory .................................... 6 3.4 Mouse Window for Main Menu .............................. 6 Table 3.2 Main Menu Mouse Window Command Information ..... 6 3.5 On-line Help............................................. 6 3.6 Search All Categories ................................... 6 3.7 Select Category ......................................... 7 3.8 Exit .................................................... 7 4.0 Category Listing .......................................... 8 Table 4.1 Category Listing Command Information ............. 8 4.1 Mouse Window from Category Listing ...................... 8 Table 4.2 Mouse Window from Category Listing Command Indformation ................................... 8 4.2 Print Category Listing .................................. 9 4.3 Search Category Listing ................................. 9 4.4 Tagging and Untagging Commands .......................... 9 Table 4.3 Tagging Command Information ..................... 9 4.5 Exit Category Listing ................................... 10 5.0 Category Information Window ............................... 10 Table 5.1 Category Information Window Commands ............. 10 5.1 Copy Files From the Nightowl CD ROM ..................... 10 5.2 Execute a Program ....................................... 11 5.3 Extract File(s) ......................................... 11 5.4 Go to Work Area ......................................... 12 5.5 Mouse Window from Category Information Window ........... 12 Table 5.2 Category Information Window Commands ............. 12 5.6 Exit Category Information Window ........................ 12 5.7 Show Picture file ....................................... 13 5.8 View File Contents ...................................... 13 6.0 Work Area ................................................. 13 Table 6.1 Work Area Command Information .................... 14 6.1 Print File .............................................. 14 6.2 Read Text File .......................................... 14 Table 6.2 Read Text File Command Information ............. 14 6.2.1 Print File .......................................... 15 6.2.2 Search Text File .................................... 15 6.2.3 Mouse Window from Read Text File .................... 15 6.2.4 Exit Reading Text File .............................. 15 6.3 Mouse Window for Work Area .............................. 15 Table 6.3 Mouse Window from Work Area Command Information 16 6.4 Exit Work Area .......................................... 16 7.0 Shareware Information ..................................... 16 8.0 Credits and Acknowledgements .............................. 16 9.0 Glossary .................................................. 17 10.0 Error Messages ........................................... 18 1 1.0 Introduction Welcome to the Nightowl CDROM File Retrieval System. You have just purchased the most up-to-date single source of Shareware, Freeware and Public Domain software available on one CDROM. Many hours of work have gone into making the Nightowl CDROM as enjoyable and user friendly as possible. Your ROM contains many thousands of compressed files. Nearly 660 Mb to be more precise. They are all Shareware, Freeware or Public Domain. Night Owl's Publisher takes pains to insure that no commercial software appears on the ROM. Please tell us if you find any commercial software on this CD! The Night program and accompanying files allow you to easily search for, find, examine, and copy the desired file(s) from this cornucopia of software. On-line help, mouse support and many other features are included to help you in this process. We beleive (and have been told by others) that it is this is the best retrieval system in the world today! We are interested in your suggestions to help keep it that way. Contact us at: Night Owl's Publisher Inc. Office 716/484-3066 1161 Falconer Stillwater Rd. FAX 716/483-3920 Jamestown, NY 14701 BBS 716/483-3925 1.1 About the Manual The tutorial section discusses what the Night Owl's CD ROM is and how to get started. The manual is written in index fashion and heavily cross referenced to facillitate its use as a reference. Due to heavy cross-referencing we abbreviate the section number on the contextual subject. For example, we may refer to Search All Categories (3.5). The prior sentence tells us that Search All Categories is covered on more detail in section 3.5. Commands appear as shown in the format show below. Each command command is labeled by section. In our example the section number is 9.9.9. Example: 9.9.9 Command Title Here Command Keys: Keys that trigger this command, separated by commas (,). To Quit: ESC One or more paragraphs explaining the purpose and use of the command follow. Most Command Keys are case insensitive, meaning that either an upper or lower case keystroke will activate the command. 2 All the tables are listings of the commands available in the current screen context. When instructed to "enter" a line, press ENTER when the line is ready. Consult the glossary for a listing of capitalized terms that do not appear in a section title. 1.2 Night Screens A gray command bar appears at the bottom of a screen. It lists of the commands available for that screen. A short command title appears in black lettering. Command Keys for commanda appear in red lettering next to or within the command. Limited mouse support is available. No mouse cursor appears. Instead, the mouse can manuver a Highlight Bar to the selection desired. The escape key (ESC) will back you out of most places. 2.0 Getting Started If you are just looking Night over then we suggest you use the Quick Start (2.1). If you intend to run Night several times then we suggest that you install it (2.2). Everything needed to run Night is on the CD itself. Although you can take advantage of all the features of Night without installing it, installation gives a faster response time during the Night session. The Quick Start differs from an Installation in two regards. It lets you bypass entering configuration information and run Night immediately. When Night needs some information that is normally supplied during installation it will ask for it the first time it is needed. Thus, all features are available without installing. Secondly, it leaves no record of the configuration you supplied once that Night session has ended. That means that the same information may need to be reentered each time Night is run until Night is Installed. 2.1 Quick Start To Quick Start Night follow these steps: 1. Place the Nightowl CDROM in your CDROM drive and get to a DOS prompt. 2. Make the CDROM drive your default drive by entering the CDROM drive letter followed by a colon (:). For example, if your CDROM is drive D you would type the following: D: and press ENTER. 3 3. Enter NIGHT. 5. The Quick start screen appears and offers several choices. Select "C" to choose a new CD ROM drive and run from that drive. 6. Enter the drive letter as in step 2 when asked, "What drive is your CD ROM?". 7. Respond yes or no when asked, "Do you have a color monitor?". Quick start is completed. The Main Menu screen (3.0) immediately displays. 2.2 Full Installation Installation only need be done once. It will create the file NIGHT.CFG, to hold the custom configuration for all subsequent runs of Night. This configuration may be changed by selecting the Install command from the Main Menu. To use the Quick Start feature after Night has been installed just delete the file NIGHT.CFG. 1. Place the Nightowl CDROM in your CDROM drive and get to a DOS prompt. 2. Make the CDROM drive your default drive by entering the CDROM drive letter followed by a colon (:). For example, if your CDROM is drive D you would type the following: D: and press ENTER. 3. Enter NIGHT. The Quick Start screen displays. 5. The Quick Start screen appears and offers several choices. Select I" to choose to install Night Owl's CD ROM File Access Tools. 6. Respond yes or no when asked, "Do you have a color monitor?". 7. The Installation screen displays and prompts for configuration information. The text appearing in square brackets ( [] ) are the default answers. Be careful in responding to these questions since an invalid answer may cause Night to quit the installation. 8. Enter the drive letter and path where the Night Owl files will reside when asked for the "Location of the Default NIGHT directory." 9. Enter the drive letter when asked, "What drive contains the Night Owl's CD ROM?". 4 10. Enter the file name of the executable file that will be used to view any picture files when asked, "What is the name of your picture file viewer?". The file you select must be in the DOS path or Night won't find it. Refer to your DOS manuals for more information on the DOS path command. 11. Respond with "Y", "N", or "Q" to respectively verify your answers, try again, or quit the installation process when asked, "Is the above information correct?". Remember, responding "Y" with invalid answers may cause the installation to abort. 12. Finally, tell if the Nightowl DIR Category Listings should be copied to your hard drive. Copying these files gives a faster response time when displaying a new Category Listing. These files require approximately 1 Mb of disk space. "Y" continues the installation from step 13. "N" takes no action. The Nightowl dir text files on the ROM will be used when needed. If you choose not to copy the Category Listings then go directly to step 14. 13. Name the directory where the Nightowl dir text files will be stored when asked for the "New location for the DIR text files." Files will be copied to the specified directory. This process takes a little while so please be patient. 14. The installation is complete. Any key displays the Main Menu Screen described in the next section. 2.3 Problems Starting If some required files are not found then an error message (10.0) will be issued for each unlocated program. Night will search through the DOS path first before looking on the CD ROM. Although all the decompression software is included on the ROM, an erroneous declaration of the ROM drive during nstallation (2.2) will trigger this error message. 3.0 The Main Menu Screen Welcome to the Nightowl CDROM File Retrieval System. The Main Menu Screen should appear upon starting Night. If you get the installation screen (2.2), or error messages (10.0) then refer to the section noted here. The screen includes a title bar, a listing of all of the categories of software covered, and a Command Bar at the bottom of the screen. Due to screen space, not all commands are visible on the Command Bar. Table 3.1 has a complete command list. 5 Upon initial entry the upper left category is hilit. The only command affected by the position of the Highlight Bar is the Select Category command. Use Manuvering Keys or mouse to move the highlit bar to the software topic desired before Selecting. Table 3.1 Main Menu Command Information Command Refer to Command Name Keys Section ------------------------------------------------- DOS Shell D, d 3.1 Format Floppy F, f 3.2 Go to Work Area G, g 6.0 Go to User Directory U, u 3.3 Help F1 3.4 Install I, i 2.2 Mouse Window Click Right 3.5 Search All Categories S, s 3.6 Select Category ENTER, 3.7 Click Left Exit ESC, 3.8 Mouse Window 3.1 DOS Shell Command Keys: D, d To Quit: type EXIT at the DOS prompt This command creates a DOS shell which access to all DOS commands, subject to RAM storage requirements. Each new shell starts from the directory containing the Nightowl files. To return from the DOS shell type "EXIT" at the DOS prompt. Night will return to the place that the shell was invoked from. 3.2 Format Floppy Command Keys: F, f To Quit: ESC, Enter N when asked "Format another (Y/N)?". This command allows formatting either the A: or B: drive via the DOS format command. It is useful for preparing disks to receive files via the Copy command (5.1). Respond with 'A' or 'B' when asked which drive to format. Then choose one the media type of that drive from the menu that then appears. ESC here to quit or formatting will proceed when a choice is entered. 6 3.3 Go to User Directory Command Keys: G, g To Quit: ESC The User Directory (3.3) is a Category Listing (4.0) of all current search results. The User Directory itself can be searched by invoking a Category Search (4.3) and then exiting and reentering the User Directory. 3.4 Mouse Window for Main Menu Command Keys: Click Right To Quit: ESC, Click Right, Click Left on Exit This feature opens a window lets you perform some commands with the mouse. Table 3.2 lists those commands. Move the highlit text to the desired command with Manuvering Keys or mouse and trigger it with ENTER or Click Left. Table 3.2 Main Menu Mouse Window Command Information Refer to Command Name Section ----------------------------------- DOS Shell 3.1 Format Floppy 3.2 Go to Work Area 6.0 Go to User Directory 3.3 Help 3.4 Search All Categories 3.6 Exit 3.8 3.5 On-line Help Command Keys: F1 To Quit: ESC This command pops up a window with context sensitive. If the help information for a particular topic takes more than one window then use the up and down arrows or mouse to make off-screen text visible. 3.6 Search All Categories Command Keys: S, s To Quit: See below This command opens up a window which prompts you for the text string to search for. This search is not case sensitive. 7 Enter the phrase to search for. All Category Listings (4.0) except the User directory (3.3) will be searched for the phrase. A spinning triangle in the lower right hand corner of the screen moves each time a new file is being checked. When the first screen is filled you may enter further commands as shown below. The User directory is where search results are kept. Choose to "A" or "C" respectively to append this search to the current User directory or create a fresh User directory. Appending allows several searches to be stored at once in the User directory. Note that appended searches are added such that the User Directory remains as one big alphabetical listing. Each new search has its results appended to the end of the current User Directory. As each Category Listing is searched, a listing will be created and displayed on the screen. The phrase being sought and the number of successful finds is displayed in the Command Bar. To continue the search when a screen has been filled type "N" for Nonstop Search mode or ENTER to fill the next screen. Search also pauses when it has completed searching a Category, unless a Nonstop search is active. Nonstop Search mode causes the search to continue without stopping until the search is complete, or until ESC is pressed. All lines found during the Search are placed in the User directory (3.3). When the search is complete a window appears to remind you of this fact. 3.7 Select Category Command Keys: ENTER, Click Left To Quit: ESC, or Mouse Window (4.1) This command will display the Category Listing (4.0) of the currently highlit category title. A Category Listing contains the file name, file size in bytes, date the file was created, and a description of the file's contents for each file in the category. Further commands become active on the Category Listing screen. 3.8 Exit Command Keys: ESC Quitting from the Main Menu quits Night and returns to DOS. 8 4.0 Category Listing Command Keys: ENTER, Click Left Quit: ESC, Mouse Window (?.?) A Category Listing contains the file name, file size in bytes, date the file was created, and a description of the file's contents for each file in the category. Files are listed in alphabetical order by file name. Scroll the screen with Manuvering Keys to examine the listing. Indicate the file to Select with the highlight bar. Either tag files for copying before Selecting, or trigger an available command. Table 4.1 Category Listing Command Information Command Refer to Command Name Keys Section ----------------------------------------------- Select ENTER, 5.0 Click Left DOS Shell D, d 3.1 Format 3.2 Mouse Window Click Right 4.1 Print Category Listing P, p 4.2 Search Category Listing S, s 4.3 Tag/Untag Commands 4.4 Exit ESC 4.5 Note that some of these commands do not appear in the command bar. The Category Information Window gives you access to further features that aid in examination of selected files. 4.1 Mouse Window from Category Listing Command Keys: Click Right To Quit: ESC, Click Right, Click left on ESCAPE This feature opens a window lets you perform some commands with the mouse. Table 4.2 lists those commands. Move the highlit text to the desired command with Manuvering Keys or mouse and trigger it with ENTER or Click Left. Table 4.2 Mouse Window from Category Listing Command Information Refer to Command Name Section ----------------------------------- Print file list 4.2 Format floppy 3.2 Help system 3.4 Exit 5.6 9 4.2 Print Category Listing Command Keys: P, p Before printing the Category Listing, Night requests confirmation by asking, "Do you want to print this directory?". A 'Y' or Click Left causes Night to check the printer before printing the file. A 'N' or Click right quits without printing. If the printer is not ready then Night says "Printer not ready - Any key continues." Any key or click then returns to the Category Listing. 4.3 Search Category Listing Command Keys: S, s This command is the same as Search All Categories (3.6) except that only the current Category Listing is searched. 4.4 Tagging and Untagging Commands The purpose of tagging files is to mark them for inclusion in the Copy Files command (5.1) when ready to copy all the selected files or the highlit file. Upon entering a category the first file is highlit and no files are tagged. The highlit file appears with a gray background instead of the usual blue. The Highlight Bar is used to select the file that will be acted upon by the Category Information Window (5.0) or the Copy Files command. Files stay tagged until untagged or until leaving the Category Listing. A tagged file has different colors than a file that is both tagged and the highlit file. A tagged file always has either a green foreground or background color. The highlit file will always have a gray background. Files can be tagged or untagged individually or all at once. Table 4.1 lists the tagging commands Table 4.3 Tagging Command Information Command Refer to Command Name Keys Section ----------------------------------------------- Toggle highlit file tag space Tag whole listing + Untag whole listing - Tagging with the space bar also advances the highlight bar to the next file. This accomodates advancing through the file and tagging at will with a minimum of keystrokes. 10 4.5 Exit Category Listing Command Keys: ESC Exiting returns to the Main Menu (3.0). 5.0 Category Information Window This window is accessed from a Category Listing (4.0). It displays some category information and activates a new command bar of features. This command bar varies depending on the extension of the highlit file in the current Category Listing. Table 5.1 lists the available commands in these Command Bars. Table 5.1 Category Information Window Commands Command Refer to Available with Command Name Keys Section File Extensions ---------------------------------------------------------------- Copy C, c 5.1 all extensions DOS Shell D, d 3.1 all extensions Execute ENTER, 5.2 EXE, COM, BAS, BAT Mouse Left Extract File X, x 5.3 ZIP, ARJ, LZH Format floppy F, f 3.2 all extensions Goto work area G, g 5.4 all extensions Help F1 3.4 all extensions Mouse Window Mouse Right 5.5 all extensions Print File p, p 5.6 Show Picture file S, s 5.7 GIF, PCX View File Contents V, v 5.8 ZIP, ARJ, LZH Exit ESC 5.9 all extensions 5.1 Copy Files From the Nightowl CD ROM Command Keys: C, c To Quit: See below This command allows copying the highlit or tagged files to the path and drive you specify. Night verifies the target path, gives information about storage on the target drive, and gives progress messages during the copy process. If some files are tagged then enter a "T" or "H" when asked, "Copy agged or ighlighted files?". Enter the complete target drive and path name when requested. If tagged files are to be copied then the number of tagged files will be restated in this window. To quit, enter a blank line. The target path will be checked before copying begins. If the path does not exist then an error message is issued. Press any key to clear the message and return to the Category Information Window. 11 The available storage on the target drive will be checked. If copying to A: or B: drive then Night tells how many blank disks are needed to hold the source files. If the target hard drive has insufficient storage to contain the source files then Night tells how many bytes short the drive is. If the foregoing messages are satisfactory, then press "Y" when asked to confirm the copy command. Once final confirmation is given the copy command cannot be aborted. File(s) are copied in the order they appear in the Category Listing window. Progress messages issued during the copying process tell which file is being copied, how many files have been copied, and how many total files will be copied, and if any errors are encountered. If a copy command fails then a warning is issued. Night will prompt for the insertion of the next diskette when the current one can not hold the next file to be copied. When the copying is completed Night returns to the Category Information window. 5.2 Execute a Program Command Keys: ENTER, Mouse Left To Quit: See third paragraph below If the highlit file has a BAS, BAT, COM, or EXE extension then Night asks for confirmation before offering an opportunity to enter command line arguments for the program. If the program has a BAS extension then Night must find BASICA or GWBASIC in the path before executing. If either of those files cannot be found then Night say so before any key returns to the Category Information Window. Once the program is done a message window pops up and asks for a keystroke before returning to the Category Information Window. This was done to make ending messages from the executed program visible on screen. If the last keystroke of the executed program normally shows up on the DOS prompt when the program is run from DOS then no ending message will appear. This is because Night is fooled into thinking that the last stroke was your confirmation to return to the Category Information Window. 5.3 Extract File(s) Command Keys: X, x To Quit: See third paragraph below If the highlit file has an ARJ, LZH, or ZIP extension then this feature will decompress that file by calling the appropriate decompression software from a DOS shell. If Night could not find that software then it would have already mentioned it at the start of the program. 12 If Night was Quick Started (2.1) and this is the first decompression then it asks which directory the files should be decompressed in. As soon as the decompression is complete Night goes to the Work Area (6.0) to await further commands. Night returns to the Category Information Window upon exiting the Work Area. 5.4 Go to Work Area Command Keys: G, g To Quit: ESC, Mouse Window (5.5), See also Section 6.0 This command displays the Work Area (6.0). It contains all the files that have been extracted (5.3). If the work area is empty then Night issues a message saying so. 5.5 Mouse Window from Category Information Window Command Keys: Click Right To Quit: ESC, Click Right, Click left on ESCAPE This feature opens a window lets you perform some commands with the mouse. The available commands are shown in Table 5.2. The up and down arrows and ESC key also work while in this window. Table 5.2 Category Information Window Commands Command Name Refer to Section ----------------------------------- Exit 5.6 Extract highlit 5.3 View highlit 5.8 Show picture file 5.7 Go to work area 5.4 Copy file(s) 5.1 Print file 5.6 DOS Shell 3.1 Format floppy 3.2 Help system 3.4 5.6 Print File Command Keys: P, p To Quit: N or Click Right This will allow printing the highlit file. Night asks, "Do you want to print ?" to confirm. Press N or Y appropriately. If the printer is ready then the file prints immediately. Otherwise Night says the printer is not ready and awaits an acknowledging keystroke. 13 5.7 Show Picture file Command Keys: S, s To Quit: Quit your picture viewer If the highlit file has an GIF or PCX extension then this command allows that picture file to viewed. Usually the viewer selected during installation (2.2) is used. If this is the first time viewing a file during a Quick Start (2.1) then Night asks for the name of the picture viewer to use. This viewer must be in the DOS path for Night to find it. When done viewing the file, Night returns to the place it was called from. 5.8 View File Contents Command Keys: V, v To Quit: ESC, Click Right, or Mouse Window (5.5) The decompression software used by Night allows a list of the contents of a compressed file to be viewed without extracting the file. The informaion displayed varies with the compressed file extension. Each type of display carries appropriate column headers so there should be little trouble interpreting the information. 5.9 Exit Category Information Window Command Keys: ESC Exiting returns to the Category Listing (4.0). 6.0 Work Area This window allows further examination of the files that were extracted with the Extract command (5.3). It may be entered from the Main Menu (3.3), or the Category Information Window (5.4). If there are no files in the work area then Night says so before quitting the command. To use a file specific command just manuver the hilit bar to the desired file and press the appropriate command key. Table 6.1 lists the commands available from this screen. "File Specific" in table 6.1 is marked if a command applies to the hilit file. The remaining commands are not sensitive to the hilit file. Night allows you the freedom to perform a command on a file even if it may not make sense; reading an EXE file or viewing a TXT file for example. Even when a mistake is made the command is usually harmless to Night. It just returns quickly from the execution of that command. 14 Table 6.1 Work Area Command Information Command Refer to File Command Name Keys Section Specific ------------------------------------------------------- DOS Shell D, d 3.1 Execute File ENTER, 5.2 Mouse Left Print File P, p 6.1 X Read File R, r 6.2 X Extract File X, x 5.3 X Format floppy F, f 3.2 Help F1 3.4 Mouse Window Mouse Right 6.3 Show picture file S, s 5.7 X Exit ESC 6.4 6.1 Print File Command Keys: p, p To Quit: ESC, Mouse Window (6.3) Before printing the highlit file Night requests confirmation by prompting, "Do you want to print ?". A 'Y' answer causes Night to check the printer before printing the file. If the printer is ready then the file is printed. If the printer is not ready then an error message pops up to notify you. 6.2 Read File Command Keys: R, r To Quit: ESC This allows reading the contents of the highlit file. It is meant for ASCII text files and works best when the lines are under 80 characters long. Scroll the screen by use of the Manuvering Keys or select a command. Table 6.2 Read Text File Command Information Command Refer to Command Name Keys Section ---------------------------------------------- DOS Shell D, d 3.1 Mouse Window Click Left 6.2.3 Print File P, p 6.2.1 Search Text File S, s 6.2.2 Exit ESC 6.2.4 15 6.2.1 Print File Command Keys: P, p To Quit: N The message "Do you want to print ?" asks for confirmation before printing. Enter N to abort printing or Y to confirm it. If the printer is not ready then a warning message appears. Any key removes this message and returns to the Work Area (6.0). Beware printing executable or other files that do not contain text. If unsure about the contents of a file then read it first with Read File (6.2). If there are garbage characters in it then printing the file will be of little use. 6.2.2 Search Text File Command Keys: S, s To Quit: Automatic A window appears and asks, "Text string to search for?". Press ESC to abort the search or enter the search phrase. Night starts searching from the second line on the screen and brings the next occurance of the search phrase to the top of the screen and highlights all occurances. If no matched are found then Night advances to the bottom of the file. The last phrase entered becomes the default phrase to allow searching again by just ENTER. To remove the highlit phrases, start a search and ESC from it. 6.2.3 Mouse Window from Read Text File Command Keys: Click Left Table 6.2 Contains all the commands available from this Mouse Window. Use Manvuering Keys or mouse to highlight your choice. Then Click Left or ENTER to trigger that choice. 6.2.4 Exit Reading Text File Command Keys: ESC, Mouse Window (6.3) Exiting the work area return to the place where it was called from. 6.3 Mouse Window for Work Area Command Keys: Click Right To Quit: ESC, Click Right, Click Left on Exit This feature opens a window lets you perform some commands with the mouse. Table 6.3 lists those commands. Move the highlit text to the desired command with Manuvering Keys or mouse and trigger it with ENTER or Click Left. 16 Table 6.3 Mouse Window from Work Area Command Information Refer to Command Name Section --------------------------- DOS Shell 3.1 Extract file 5.3 Format floppy 3.2 Help system 3.4 Print file 6.1 Read file 6.2 Show picture file 5.7 Exit 6.4 6.4 Exit Work Area Command Keys: ESC, see below Night asks if the files in the work area should be deleted before leaving. Press Y or N appropriately. A Click Left is the same as 'Y.' A Click Right is the same as 'N.' 7.0 Shareware Information Shareware programs are not FREE programs or public domain programs. They are copyrighted programs that the authors have released to the public for the purpose of examination and test use only. You should register the program with the author if you like it and want to continue to use it. Night Owl's Publisher Inc. takes pains to insure that no commercial software appears on the CD. If you find any such software on the CD then please notify us as soon as possible. Our address is listed in the Introduction (1.0). 8.0 Credits and Acknowledgements (c) Copyright 1993 All Rights Reserved ASP Trademark of (c) Association Shareware Professioals PKUnzip.exe Trademark of (c) PKware Inc. VPIC Trademark of (c) Bob Montgomery WordPerfect Trademark of (c) Word Perfect Corporation Pascal Trademark of (c) Word Perfect Corporation List Trademark of (c) Vernon D. Buerg Lotus Trademark of (c) Borland Inc. Windows Trademark of (c) Microsoft Corporation Gap Trademark of (c) Gap Development Company Night Trademark of (c) Night Owls 17 We also want to take the time to acknowledge the scores of other trademarks and copyrights found throughout the zipped files on the Nightowl CDROM. Again, support shareware authors by registering their programs. Special thanks to: Phil Katz For allowing us to use his program as a part of the Nightowl CDROM. PKZip is a very useful program. 9.0 Glossary: Category Listing Window - See section 5.0 Command Bar - A command bar appears at the bottom of the screen. It shows a list of keystroke commands that are active for the current screen. Command Key - A key which, when pressed, will trigger a specific feature of Night. Compressed Files - Files whose contents have been compressed to minimize storage requirements. Night handles compressed files with ARJ, LZH, or ZIP extensions. Configuration File - Holds custom settings for an installed version of Night. ENTER - The "Enter" or "Return" key. ESC - The Escape key. Usually labeled as "Esc". Work Area - See section (6.0). file specific command - A command that will process only the selected file or files. Only the Category Listing allows several files to be included in a file specific command. Highlight Bar - Sometimes refered to as the being "hilit." Some commands act upon the highlit file. Main Menu - You know... the Main Menu. Geez everybody knows that. Manuvering Keys - Keys usually used when moving a reference point on the screen. The keys that comprise all manuvering keys are PgUp, PgDn, Up and Down arrows (), Home, End. Night - The program name for the Nightowl CDROM File Retrieval System user interface. Nightowl CDROM File Retrieval System - The CDROM itself. Picture file - A file that holds a graphic mode picture. GIF or PCX extensions currently recognized as picture files. Quick Start - See section 2.1. Allows operation of Night from ROM without the full installation process. Night will ask for needed information as required by the features selected. This information is recorded and used for the remainder of the program session. User Directory - See section 3.3. Work Area - See section 6.0. 18 10.0 Error Messages Some error messages mention varying items. A general decription of those items are enclosed in angle brackets (<>). Those errors that may be correctabe will have remedies listed. Cannot find file info - Night requries special information about some of the files it opens. This special could not be discerned. Cannot find home directory - Night could not save the name of the current directory before switching to another directory. Cannot open in read_dir_file - The Night routine read_dir_file() could not find the requested file. Check configuration by the Install command (2.2). Cannot open - Could not open the requested file. Cannot open file for printing - Could not open the requested file. Cannot open Main Categories File - Could not find the Main Menu file. Try deleting NIGHT.CFG and reinstalling Night. Cannot write to - Could not write the new configuration file. See if the path exists from DOS. Chmod error copying - File attributes prevented copying. Alter the attributes with the DOS "attrib" command. Drive is to full. - The destination drive for a copy command did not have enough remaining storage to copy the last file requested. Delete some files on the target drive. Smaller files mayu still fit. Error copying - DOS copy command failed for unknown reason. Try the copy command from DOS. Error restoring text in - Could not restore an the screen under the pop up window. Any key continues. This may result in garbage on the screen. Exit and reenter the screen if garbage appears. Error saving text in - Could not save a portion of the screen for later redisplay. Press any key to contine. This will probably result in garbage on the screen when returning from the pop up window. Exit and reenter the screen to remove garbage. Error writing to - Could not open the User directory (6.0). Try searching with the Create option (3.5, paragraph 3). You may wish to save the existing User Directory file named DIR.USR before doing this. Failed dirlines [] malloc in malloc_dirline - The Night routine malloc_dirline() ran out of memory to hold a Category Listing in the dirlines array. Remove TSRs or other programs that take up RAM. Failed malloc for global_malloc - Could not allot memory for a needed variable. Remove TSRs or other programs that take up RAM. Failed malloc in - Ran out of memory when requesting needed space in the named routine. Remove TSRs or other programs that take up RAM. Failed to copy - DOS copy command failed for unknown reason. Try the copy command from DOS. No PKUNZIP.EXE in path. Need it for *.ZIP decompression. - Could not find pkunzip.exe in the DOS path. Change your path or move pkunzip.exe into a directory that is in the path. No ARJ.EXE in path. Need it for *.ARJ decompression. - Could not find pkunzip.exe in the DOS path. Change your path or move pkunzip.exe into a directory that is in the path. 19 No LHA.EXE in path. Need it for *.LZH decompression. - Could not find pkunzip.exe in the DOS path. Change your path or move pkunzip.exe into a directory that is in the path. Not enough free space. - The destination drive for a copy command does not have enough remaining storage to copy all of the files requested. Some files may be able to fit. Delete some files on the target drive. does not exist. - Could not find the specified path. Check spelling. is an invalid path name - The entered path contains illegal characters or could not be found. Check spelling. Printer not ready - Check to see if the printer is connected and on line. Search phrase to broad. - There were to many matches for the search phrase entered. Up to 500 matches are allowed. Make the search phrase more explicit. Target drive to full. - The destination drive for a copy command did not have enough remaining storage to copy the last file requested. Delete some files on the target drive.