Led's Change Directory Copyright (c) 1990 by Keith Ledbetter LCD is a program designed to make changing directories much easier, especially when you have a large hard drive with lots of different partitions. LCD is a work-alike to Peter Norton's NCD command, but with one significant difference. LCD works "across all drives" by maintaining the directory database of ALL drives on drive C:, instead of one database on each individual drive like NCD does. This means that you don't have to specify a drive letter when changing across drives, like you do with NCD. For program instructions, simply invoke LCD with no command-line parameters. If you like, LCD can be renamed to GO.EXE, TO.EXE, or any other name that you prefer. Keith Ledbetter Bulletin Board Numbers: ----------------------- You can always find the latest versions of all of my PC utilities (such as WhereIs, LCD, DelDir, AdMenu, etc.) on the following BBS's: Name Location Number ------------------ ---------- ------------ Blue Ridge Express East coast 804-790-1675 (21 lines) Hard Disk Cafe Midwest 618-684-3990 (file area "Z") C & C Midwest 618-253-3608 ATT-PAC West coast 415-829-6062 ------------------------------------------ V1.4 Additions and Changes - Nov. 24, 1990 ------------------------------------------ o For detailed help, just invoke LCD with no parameters. LCD's entire "manual" is now on-line and can be viewed at any time by simply doing "LCD ". You can also print this info to the printer with the command "LCD >prn". o LCD can now be used as a TOTAL replacement for DOS's "cd", "rd", and "md" commands. LCD will now try to immediately change to the directory name that you specify; if that fails, only then will it go to the directory database to search for fuzzy matches. In other words, if you have the following two directories somewhere: C:\TELIX\DOWNLOAD C:\PROCOMM\DOWNLOAD and you are currently in the C:\PROCOMM directory, then "LCD download" will change you to the \PROCOMM\DOWNLOAD directory without invoking the dialog box. Since I use 4DOS, I have aliases set up as follows: alias cd `lcd %1` alias md `lcd md %1` alias rd `lcd rd %1` o LCD can now create and delete directories itself, with immediate updating of the directory database at the same time. The syntax is: LCD md directory_name LCD rd directory_name These commands are most useful when used with an aliasing shell like CED or 4DOS. See the detailed on-line help for information on setting these up. o You can now set an environment variable named LCD to the drive that you'd like your LCD.IDX file stored on (for example, SET LCD=D tells LCD to maintain your database in the file D:\LCD.IDX). If there is no LCD environment variable, the file will be kept on drive C: just like before. o When in the scrollable dialog box, you now have use of the full movement keys (PgUp, PgDn, Home, End, arrow keys). You can also press C through Z to go immediately to that drive's directories. This is most useful when doing "LCD *" to see all directory names in the database. ------------------------------------------ V1.3 Additions and Changes - Oct. 15, 1990 ------------------------------------------ o Fixed a bug where LCD would get confused if you had a one-letter directory name, and that letter also occurred in its parent directory (ie: "c:\aRc\R"). This problem is now fixed. o Of course, the above change can be a problem if (a) you have a one-character directory name, as in R, and you also have a lot of other directories that begin with R. So, I have changed LCD so that it understands an asterisk ('*') as a wildcard character. Some examples are the easiest way to explain: LCD r* : find all paths that BEGIN with the letter 'r'. LCD *on : find all paths that have the word "on" in them. LCD * : show me all paths in the database. o A few people wanted to be able to change to either (a) the parent directory, or (b) the root directory while still using LCD. LCD will now allow this, so you can do: LCD .. ;go up one level LCD \ ;go to the root. ------------------------------------------ V1.2 Additions and Changes - Oct. 11, 1990 ------------------------------------------ o A lot of people (in fact, everyone who has contacted me) have suggested that LCD should give the highest priority to the first positions of the pathname specified. In other words, if you have the following 2 paths on your hard drive: c:\testing\programs c:\atest\data then "LCD TEST" should change to the \testing\ subdirectory immediately. v1.2 now does this. o Overall, the matching logic in v1.2 has been greatly improved. It now does a much better job of figuring out what you really wanted it to do (did I REALLY just say that??). But, it will probably help if you know exactly how LCD does it's searching. In a nutshell, here is what LCD does: 1. Look for an EXACT match on the directory name specified. If more than one found, display the dialog box. If none found, go to step 2. 2. Look for a "fuzzy" match on the name. By LCD's standards, a fuzzy match is the name you specified followed by any extra data. For example, if you specify "LCD data", then all of the following would match: c:\data1 c:\database f:\dataset If more than one match found, display the dialog box. If none found, go to step 3. 3. At this point, LCD just looks for the partial string anywhere in a path name, preceeded or followed by any characters. o Since so very few people use extensions on their directory names, I changed the logic to once again use "*." for directory searches instead of "*.*". This speeds the /SCAN function up by about 50%. If you have directory names with extensions on them, then you must use the /ESCAN switch instead of /SCAN. Operation is the same, except that LCD will then use the slower scanning method. ----------------------------------------- V1.1 Additions and Changes - Oct. 4, 1990 ----------------------------------------- o Since the .IDX file is stored a little differently, you MUST do a /SCAN before using LCD v1.1 (this is for those of you currently using v1.0). o LCD is now much smarter on "fuzzy" directory names. For example, "lcd pcp" will now change you to your "d:\pcplus" directory always, even if you have "pcplus\downloads" and "pcplus\uploads", etc. o When LCD can't figure out which directory you really want, it will now pop up a scrollable dialog box with all of the matches found in it. You simply move the highlighted bar to the directory that you want, and then press . A lot of people requested something like this, and I wasn't sure how I was going to like it at first. But, after playing with it for a couple of days, I think it was a good idea. It's much more logical than LCD trying to "cycle" through all of the matches one invocation at a time. If any of you have any feedback, please leave me Email and let me know what you think about it. o A few people also complained about LCD not seeing directories that have an extension on them (ie: MYDATA.DIR). I still can't sneak by anybody on this issue! So, LCD v1.1 now sees directories with extensions; you will notice that the /SCAN function takes around twice as long to run now. Enjoy, Keith