README.TXT - MaxFile/PM WIDE BETA VERSION 1.20

REMEMBER THIS IS A BETA! BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP! I'm fairly certain that I
have gotten most of the nasties taken care of, but doo-doo happens, be safe and
backup before you even think about running this version.

Please be thorough in your testing. *I can not stress this enough* I made
a number of mistakes on the earlier versions of MaxFile/PM that would have
been caught had there been more testing done on each beta as it was
released. Please, please, run the program multiple times, stress it out.
Open tons and tons of windows, etc... I want to shake as many bugs out now
as I can. I am particularly interested in performance when run under 2.10
and the Service Pack and 2.11, these have been my major headaches.

[06/20/94] - I have not been able to find the problem (because I can't
reproduce it) when running under 2.11 that occurs with the View and Test
Archive functions. I have installed an exception handler, I don't know what
good it is going to do but hopefully it will catch the problem and at least let
me know where the error is occuring.

Please use the worksheet at the end of this document when reporting
problems. It will help me to document the problems fixed and also give me
the necessary information that I need to find any problems.

-- 06/14/94 --------------------------------------------------------------

The FILES.BBS Windows are now almost complete, until I can get the
semaphores working correctly do NOT attempt to run any of the options on
the FILES.BBS context menu in more than one FILES.BBS window at a time. I'm
in the process of deciphering the new MSGAPI from Scott Dudley, as soon as
I get it figured out and the Announce function working I'll be moving
forward to the Settings options. After that all is left is the Install
program and some documentation (I'm still looking for volunteers here! :-)

The File Announce option on the FILES.BBS window context menu is now
active.. **** NOTE: YOU *MUST* HAVE MSGAPI32.DLL INSTALLED IN YOUR LIBPATH
FOR THIS VERSION OF MaxFile/PM TO WORK! ****

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

The layout for the File Area Window Context Menu follows:

      Open...
      Area Sort
        Tag
        Description
        Files Dir
      Check for Duplicates
      Search...
      All Files List
      Outdated Files...
      Settings... (*)
      Product Information

(*) - menu option is disabled.

The All Files Generator will run in batch mode by specifying the -A switch
on the MaxFile/PM command line.

-- 06/06/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
Shredder drops are now functional.

Direct editing in FILES.BBS Window is now enabled.

FILES.BBS menu options activated
  Save FILES.BBS
  Insert-><All>
  Remove Items
  Select All
  Deselect All
  Area Statistics

-- 06/07/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
Added Country specific support for number and date formatting in the All
Files Generator and Area Statistics dialog. Use OS/2_System_Setup->Country
to change the country settings to test this.

FILES.BBS menu options activated
  Files->Touch
  Sort Ascending-><All>
  Sort Descending-><All>
  Description->Edit
  Description->Copy
  Description->Format

-- 06/08/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
FILES.BBS menu options activated
  Files->View
  Files->Virus Scanner
  Description->Get FILE_ID.DIZ

-- 06/09/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
FILES.BBS menu options activated
  Description->Set FILE_ID.DIZ
  Files->Adopt
  Archives->Test Archive
  Archives->Extract To...

-- 06/14/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
File Database Utility is now activated. I've added specific support for
Lora, the code should now work properly for the case where "Always" has
been selected for "Run File Database Utility" and no file areas have been
changed (It should run the utility over the entire file database now.)
All menu options EXCEPT for the following are active:
  Main Area Window->Settings...
  FILES.BBS Window->Settings...

FILES.BBS menu options activated
  FILES.BBS Window->Archives->ReArchive-><All>
  FILES.BBS Window->Files->Announce

-- 06/17/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
The Settings Notebook for the Main Area Window is now operational.
Most of the semaphores are now in place.
Corrected problem in Settings where registration key number was getting
put in the field for the registration name.

-- 06/17/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
Registration nags :-) are now working, it is still the same as before, the
only nag is the Product Information dialog at start up.
Shift-Fxx external programs are now working. It works differently now,
each item selected gets sent to the external program, one at a time.
The Vertical bars in containers now have their position saved.
Squashed a little stupidity on my part with regards to Lora and the way I
was parsing the SYSFILE.DAT, it WILL read them correctly now.

-- 06/18/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
FIXINI.EXE will set the Installed flag that is required for this version of
MaxFile/PM in your existing MAXFMPM.INI, simply run it with the path and
filename of your MAXFMPM.INI, I.E, FIXINI D:\MAXFILE\MAXFMPM.INI
If you don't run this utility, you will have to completely reconfigure
MaxFile/PM.
Default descriptions are being recognized and used again.
If you don't have an extended character defined descriptions are limited
to 255 characters, CR, LF and high-ASCII characters are stripped from the
description.
FILE_ID.DIZ's are being recognized on adoption and insertion now.
Download Counters are working again.
Date and Size display toggle in FILES.BBS windows works again, it's only
temporary and not saved, FILES.BBS windows will always open according to
the stored settings.
Hotkeys are back! (Happy now guys? ;-)
Here's the list:

    ^ = CTRL, ! = SHIFT

    Sort Ascending
        Name        ^1
        Date        ^2
        Size        ^3
        Description ^4
    Sort Descending
        Name        ^5
        Date        ^6
        Size        ^7
        Description ^8
    Description
        Edit        ^E
        Format      ^F
        Get DIZ     ^G
        Set DIZ     ^S
    Files
        Adopt       ^A
        Announce    ^N
        Touch       ^O
        View        ENTER
        Virus Scan  ^C
    Archives
        Test        ^T
        Extract to  ^X
        ReArchive
            to ZIP  !F2
            to ARJ  !F3
            to LZH  !F4
            to ARC  !F5

Added a button bar (menu actually) to the FILES.BBS windows. It takes up screen
real estate, but it was a heavily requested item. Eventually, it will be a
configurable item but for now it is hard wired to always be on and have a set
list of options. The actions for each button, moving from left to right, are:

    Sort
        Uses the last sort type selected from the context menu in a
        FILES.BBS Window. If no sort has been selected it defaults to
        Name/Ascending.

    Edit Description
        This is the same as ^E and Edit Description on the context
        menu. Allows you to edit the description for the highlighted
        file, if more than one file is highlighted the file with the
        dotted cursor focus is the one that will have the edit box
        opened for it.

    Get FILE_ID.DIZ
        Attempts to extract the FILE_ID.DIZ from the selected files.

    Touch Files
        Touches all the selected files.

    Virus Scan
        Runs the defined Virus Scanner on all highlighted files.

    Test Archive
        Runs the archiver tests on the highlighted archives.

    Remove Items
        Just like 'Remove Items...' from the context menu.

If there are any artists out there that have a bitmap editor that would like to
come up with some decent button bitmaps for the different functions, I'd REALLY
appreciate it if you would send some my way. 32x32 16 color VGA bitmaps are
what I am looking for. I'm busy enough being creative with the code, drawing
takes too much time and from the looks of the buttons I drew you can tell that
I am no artist. :-)

And now the moment you all have been waiting for...

                        FEATURE FREEZE MODE *ON*

Nothing else will be added until what is already in MaxFile/PM now has been
tested. No ifs, ands or buts, I wanna see what is wrong now before I get in any
deeper. I've banged out 430k of code in the past 3 weeks, that is a LOT of code
to look through to find errors. If this one is cool, I want to go with a wide
beta release next week sometime. There are some anxious folks out there.

-- 06/19/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
Fixed up the 'About to Shred' dialog so that the listbox doesn't show any items
selected. All that listbox does is show the items that are going to be trashed.
Also, added the logic to test for the existence of a file in the shredder code
so that if the file does NOT exist the user gets prompted and asked if they
want to remove the entry from the container. (Elliott :-)
Fixed the 'fix' for Default Descriptions..
Added support for HA, RAR and UC2 archivers.

-- 06/19/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
Fixed a limit on the number of FILES.BBS windows that can be opened in one gang
move, you can only mark and open 64 windows at one time. You CAN have more than
64 windows open, you just can't open more than 64 in one move. I'm not sure
what's causing the problem, but limiting the number of windows opening at one
time stops the problems with the windows opening. Besides, it's not very likely
you are going to have the screen real estate to effectively be able to use
that many windows anyhow. :-)
FILES.BBS windows now inherit the presentation parameters from the main file
area window.
The buttons will now tell you what they do when you click them. To view a
button's function without activating it, press and hold button 1 down, when you
are done viewing it drag the mouse pointer down into the window and release
button 1.
Added more error testing, to see if I can squash the Viewer bug, let me know
how it goes.

-- 06/20/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
I've worked on the viewer/tester bug some more, hopefully this time I fixed it.
I'm still not able to reproduce them here. :-/ If nothing else you should at
least see an error message now. I'm at my wits end with this and the white
window lockups, I can't figure out either one. I am still working on them! So
keep the reports coming in..
Added a label to the Adopt page in the Settings notebook to identify what the
Add/Remove/Listbox controls are for.
The button bar can now be toggled as a default for opening windows, its on
Main - Page 2 in the Settings notebook.
I found a tricky one.. :-) The mutex semaphore for serializing tasks wasn't
getting released after displaying the Product Information dialog when selecting
it from the File Area Window context menu. Hopefully this was the cause of the
"white window lockup."

-- 06/25/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, okay I lied about not adding anything else.. :-) But what I did add is
going to blow the socks off of most the people that actually give the program a
try. Built in REXX support, it is COOL! Please see MAXFMPM.TXT for a complete
list of the extensions to REXX I have added and the general idea of how to go
about integrating your REXX knowledge into MaxFile/PM.

-- 06/27/94 --------------------------------------------------------------
INSTALL.CMD can now be used to install MaxFile/PM into its own directory.
I do believe I have *finally* found out what was causing the lockups on the
view and list functions! I wasn't setting up the IMPORT/EXPORT parameters
before I started to import text into the MLE. This has been fixed. Why it never
trapped here I'll never know..

==========================================================================

                       PROBLEM REPORTING WORKSHEET

Please be as complete and specific as possible when reporting problems that
you are experiencing when working with MaxFile/PM. This worksheet is a
guide to assist you in providing me with the necessary information to find
and fix any problems with MaxFile/PM.

OS/2 Version:

CSD Level:

MMPM/2 Installed?   [ ] No  [ ] Yes, Version:

CPU:

Display Subsystem:

Is your Display Subsystem S3 based?

Memory installed:   [ ] 4 MB
                    [ ] 8 MB
                    [ ] 16 MB
                    [ ] 32 MB
                    [ ] Other, please specify:

Disk Subsystem:     [ ] IDE
                    [ ] SCSI
                    [ ] Other, please specify:

MaxFile/PM Version and EXE Date:

BBS Software:       [ ]  Maximus,   version:
                    [ ]  Lora,      version:
                    [ ]  SuperBBS,  version:
                    [ ]  Other, please specify:

Other applications running:




Is the failure or problem repeatable?   [ ] No  [ ] Yes

If yes, what steps are necessary to repeat the problem:









How many items were selected and in what type of window:


Are there any symptoms prior to the problem?    [ ] No  [ ] Yes

If yes, what are they:








Briefly, any other information that you think might be related to the
problem:








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