ARC Shell Documentation Version 2.0 Copyright 1987, 1988, 1989 Charles F. Johnson and Little Green Footballs Software Last revision: Thursday, August 24, 1989 5:40:48 pm Part One - Introduction ----------------------- ARC Shell is a GEM program which is designed to work with the popular ST archiving utility ARC.TTP. Essentially, ARC Shell adds a GEM interface to the ARC program, letting you point and click to select the various options instead of typing a command line. (I don't know about you, but one of the main reasons I bought an ST was to get away from all that MS-DOS/Unix command line silliness.) ARC Shell also contains a complete GEM-based disk utilities package, that lets you copy files (with wildcards and with query), delete and rename files, create and delete folders, show the free space on any connected drive, and even run other programs...all without exiting to the desktop. ARC Shell's current configuration can be saved at any point, so that the options and settings you use most often will be selected when you run the program. In addition, you can use the ST desktop's "Install Application" feature to set things up so that ARC Shell will automatically run when you double-click on a file with an extension of ARC. This documentation will focus primarily on the operation of ARC Shell; it's not intended to teach you how to use ARC. However, I've included the manual for version 5.20 of ARC in the archive which contains this file and the latest version of ARC Shell. Refer to this manual if you have any questions about the ARC program itself, such as "What's the difference between Updating and Freshening?" or "What does Convert Archive do?" The original version of ARC for the ST was version 5.12, ported by Harvey Johnson. The most recent version is ARC 5.21, ported to the ST by Howard Chu. Version 5.21 is available on Compuserve, Delphi, and GEnie, and on many local ST BBSes. (Note: Since the ARC 5.21 documentation is quite lengthy, I stopped including it in version 1.98 of ARC Shell. It should be easy to find this documentation on the major info services, if you still need it.) PLEASE NOTE: At the end of this document is the revision history of ARC Shell, including any new changes implemented in the current version. Part Two - The usual shareware plea ----------------------------------- Versions 1.95 and above of ARC Shell are "shareware," which means that if you like and use my program you're expected to pay for it just as you would be expected to pay for a "commercial" program. The registration fee for ARC Shell is $15.00 ... or more if you happen to be struck by a random philanthropic impulse. I've been continually updating and improving ARC Shell since it was first written, and I think you'll be pleased with the result; letters with checks in them would please me equally! If you end up using ARC Shell regularly, please send a check to: Charles F. Johnson (ARC Shell) P.O. Box 1250 Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 And thanks for your support! Part Three - Using ARC Shell ---------------------------- When you run ARC Shell, make sure you have the ARC program (ARC.TTP) in the same directory with ARCSH198.PRG. The very first thing ARC Shell does is look in the current directory for ARC.TTP. If a file with this name cannot be found, ARC Shell will show you a file selector asking, "Where is ARC.TTP?" and you will be able to locate the ARC program with the file selector. When ARC Shell finds the ARC program, it will then display a large dialog box, with buttons representing the available options. What you're looking at. In the upper left of the main dialog box is a box containing buttons labeled "ADD to Archive," "EXTRACT from Arc," etc. The buttons in this box are the main ARC commands; you'll notice that the default ARC command is "EXTRACT from Arc." Only one of these buttons can be selected at a time - if you click on a button to select it, the previously selected button will be turned "off." (These are known as "radio buttons.") To the right of the ARC command box is a box containing the ARC "flags." The button labeled "Hold Screen" is selected by default when you first run ARC Shell. The buttons in this box can be turned off and on individually; unlike radio buttons, more than one can be selected at a time. The button labeled "Encrypt/Decrypt" is a special case; when you turn this button on, the code word entry line beneath it becomes active and the edit cursor (the thin vertical line) is placed on the entry line, allowing you to type in an encryption keyword. The code word can be up to eight characters long. Directly underneath the ARC command box is a box containing buttons to let you select the device which will be used for LIST and VERBOSE LIST commands, and the drive for ARC and DATA files. The drive buttons can be operated in two ways; you can either type in the drive letter by hand, using the up and down arrows to move from one button to another, or use the mouse to click on the button. If you click the button, a box with 16 buttons representing the 16 possible logical drives will pop up, allowing you to select the drive with the mouse. Only active drives will be selectable in this box, and hitting Return will exit without changing the current drive. Finally, along the bottom of the main box are buttons labeled "Info," "ARC," "Disk," "Config," and "Exit." The Info button will display a copyright message, and a gentle reminder to send in your shareware contribution. OK, let's do something. When you've set all the options in the ARC Shell dialog box the way you want them, click on the "ARC" button to start things going. NOTE: You may also double-click on any of the buttons in the ARC command box (Extract, Add, List, etc.) to execute that command immediately without the extra step of clicking the "ARC" button. Depending on which ARC command you've selected, what happens next will vary slightly. In all cases however, the first thing ARC Shell will do is display a file selector to allow you to choose an ARC file. If you're creating a new archive file with the ADD or MOVE commands, simply type in a name for the new file on the file selector's "Selection" line, and hit Return or click on OK. If you're using any of the other commands (which all operate on previously-created archive files), click on the name of the ARC file you're working with and click OK. The file selector's "Cancel" button always returns you to the main ARC Shell dialog box. The LIST, VERBOSE LIST, or TEST commands only take one parameter - the name of an ARC file - so they will be acted upon as soon as you exit the file selector. Any of the other commands will now require a second parameter, the name of the DATA files on which you're operating. If you're ADDing files to an archive and you leave the "Selection" line in the DATA file selector blank, ARC Shell interprets this as "all files," and passes a search spec of *.* to the ARC program. If you type in a name on the selection line or click on a filename, only that filename will be passed to ARC. Also, when ADDing files, you will always return to the DATA file selector when ARC is finished adding a file or files, so that you can choose more files to add without having to select "ADD to Archive" every time. You must click on the file selector's "Cancel" button to exit back to the main dialog box. If you leave the "Selection" line blank when you're EXTRACTing files from an archive, you'll be faced with the following choices about how to extract the files: ALL - Extracts all files from the archive into the specified directory. When the operation is complete, ARC Shell will ask if you wish to delete the original ARC file. To Folder - First creates a folder (a subdirectory) with the same name as the archive file (minus the .ARC extension) in the specified directory, then extracts all files from the archive into the folder. Again, when the operation is complete, you'll be given the chance to delete the original ARC file. W/ Query - When you select the "Query" option, ARC Shell reads through the entire ARC file and gets the name of every file it contains, then displays all the names in a large dialog box. There is room in the box for 80 filenames; if an archive contains more than 80 files a page indicator will become visible in the lower left of the box and you can page forward and back to see the rest of the filenames. (The maximum is 720.) The Query box lets you mark individual files or groups of files for extraction by clicking on them with the mouse. You can click and hold down the button while dragging the mouse to select or deselect files, and double-click on any file to select it in one step. (Note: if you double-click on a file when other files are selected, it begins the extraction process for the entire group of selected files.) If you want to abort a multiple extraction after the process has already started, press and hold down the Alternate key. (Another note: the Query box is also available for the "Delete from ARC" and "Copy to StdOut" commands. Just choose "w/ Query from the alert box that appears afters selecting either of these commands.) Cancel - Lets you change your mind and return to the main ARC Shell dialog box. The "COPY to StdOut" command can be used to view text files contained within an archive without extracting them first. When this command is selected, ARC Shell will display an alert box with the choices "ALL" and "w/ Query." The Query option works in the same way as with the EXTRACT command; the filenames will be read from the archive, and you can choose which file(s) to view using the Query dialog box. When you use "COPY to StdOut" to view text files, you can pause the scrolling by typing Control-S and resume by typing Control-Q. The COPY operation can also be aborted at any time by typing Control-C. The LIST and VERBOSE LIST commands are used to display the files contained within an archive. You can direct the output from the LIST commands to the screen, to the printer, or to an ASCII disk file by clicking on the buttons labeled "List Device" in the main ARC Shell dialog box. There are two buttons in the ARC Shell dialog box which are intended to be used only with ARC version 5.21; "Overwrite Existing Files" and "Squash." Earlier versions of ARC will report an error if either of these two buttons are selected. The buttons labeled "Crunch" and "Squash" are used to choose between two different types of data compression schemes used by ARC 5.21 -- only the "Crunch" option is supported by earlier versions. So bear in mind that if you use the "Squash" method, people who don't have ARC 5.21 will be unable to extract those files. Part Four - The ARC Shell Disk Utilities ---------------------------------------- To access the ARC Shell Disk Utilities, click on the button labeled "Disk" at the bottom of the main ARC Shell dialog box. The Disk Utilities are a complete GEM-based file maintenance system - you won't have to exit ARC Shell to copy files, delete files, etc. You can even use the ARC Shell Disk Utilities to run other programs. When you click on the "Copy File(s)" button, a file selector appears to let you choose the source file(s) for the copy. You can use any combination of wildcards (? and *) on the 'Selection' line of the file selector to specify groups of files to be copied. When you click the file selector's OK button, another file selector will appear to let you choose the destination directory for the copied file(s). If the source filename contains no wildcards (in other words, you're copying a single file) the file will be copied right away. If there are wildcard characters in the source filename, you'll be given a choice to copy "ALL" files or copy "w/ Query." The Query option will prompt you whether or not to copy each file that matches the wildcard specification. You can also delete groups of files by using wildcards in the same way. If the destination filename already exists when a copy operation is being performed, a box will appear with the warning "Name Conflict During Copy." You can either click OK to write over the existing file or type in a new name for the copied file and hit Return. The "Run Program" command lets you execute a program from within ARC Shell, and return to ARC Shell when the program terminates. If the program you choose to run has the extension .TTP (Tos Takes Parameters), a box will appear to let you enter a command line to pass to the program. The operation of the other disk commands should be fairly self-explanatory. You can rename files, show the free space remaining on a disk, create and delete folders, and format a floppy disk. The format command lets you use drive A or B, and formats either single or double sided. No fancy format options here - you get the straight ahead standard format, 80 tracks, 9 sectors per track. At the bottom left of the Disk Utilities dialog is a box titled "Copy/Delete Prompts" containing buttons labeled "On" and "Off." When this option is set to "Off," you'll get no warning when you delete a file or copy a file to an already existing name. The Exit button returns you to the main ARC Shell dialog box. Part Five - Configuring ARC Shell --------------------------------- Clicking on the button labeled "Config" at the bottom of the ARC Shell dialog box will take you to the configuration screen. This screen lets you specify a pathname for both a "default" ARC utility and an "alternate" ARC utility, and also set the directory to which ARC's numerous temporary files will be written (the latter option is only valid when ARC Shell is used with ARC 5.21). You can save these options, as well as every other ARC Shell setting, with the button labeled "Save Configuration"; after you do this, ARC Shell will remember the settings the next time you run it. The default ARC utility is the one which will be searched for when the program first runs. If you haven't specified a default ARC utility, ARC Shell looks in the current directory for a file named ARC.TTP (see above). However, using the Config option, you can set it so that ARC.TTP can be located anywhere when you run ARC Shell. Click on the button labeled "Locate Default ARC Program" and use the file selector to specify a new file and pathname. Next, you can select an alternate ARC utility which can be enabled by clicking on the button labeled "Use Alternate." To specify the pathname for the alternate ARC utility, click on the button labeled "Locate Alternate ARC Program" and use the file selector. The purpose of the "Alternate" option is to allow you to switch easily between two different ARC programs; for example, some people prefer to use a shareware program called DCOPY (by Ralph Walden) to do their ARC operations because it's quite a bit faster than ARC.TTP. When ARC is adding files to an archive, it creates quite a few temporary work files on the disk. With ARC Shell, you can choose to have these files written to either the ARC drive or the DATA drive, or to another directory altogether. (Hint: directing the temporary files to a RAMdisk can really speed up ARC, especially if you have a floppy-based system.) When you click on the button labeled "Set Directory" a file selector lets you choose the directory for the temporary files. (NOTE: this option is only valid when used with ARC 5.21.) There is one small difference in the way the two versions of ST ARC handle redirection to the printer. ARC 5.12 uses the device name "PRT:" while ARC 5.21 uses "PRN:." If you're going to be redirecting the output from the LIST commands to a printer, you should choose the appropriate "Printer Device Name" at the lower left of the Configuration box. When you have ARC Shell set up the way you want it (including all of the options in the main dialog box), you can click on the "Save Configuration" button to make this arrangement your new default....in other words, after saving your configuration, ARC Shell will always start out with your settings when you run it. Versions of ARC Shell prior to 1.96 saved their configuration data in a separate file called ARCSHELL.CNF. This was changed in version 1.96; the configuration is now saved directly into the ARC Shell program file, which makes a separate data file unnecessary. When you choose to "Save Configuration," ARC Shell will first look in the directory from which it ran for a file called ARCSH198.PRG. If a file by this name is found, ARC Shell will attempt to write the new configuration data to this file. If for some reason, a file by this name exists and is NOT the ARC Shell program, you will be warned and the configuration save can be retried or aborted. If ARC Shell cannot find a file named ARCSH198.PRG (perhaps you changed the name?), you'll be given a chance to use a file selector to locate the program file no matter which name you've given it. Part Six - Installing ARC Shell as an Application ------------------------------------------------- Using the desktop's "Install Application" feature, you can set things up so that whenever you double-click on a file with the extension .ARC, ARC Shell will automatically load and run. To do this from the desktop, click once on ARCSH198.PRG to select it, then move to the "Options" menu and select "Install Application." In the box that appears, enter a document type of "ARC," and then click on the button labeled "Install." (DON'T hit Return after entering the document type....Return will exit without installing!) Now save your desktop, so this setting will be remembered the next time you boot up. If you double-click on an ARC file after ARC Shell has been "installed" in this way, a dialog box will appear showing the name of the ARC file you selected. You can extract files from this archive, do a verbose list of its contents, or cancel the operation by clicking on one of the three buttons in the box. If you choose to extract, you'll be given the same extract options as explained above in the section titled "Using ARC Shell." When the extract or list operation is complete, you can either enter ARC Shell (to do some more archive maintenance) or quit back to the desktop. Part Seven - Update Notes ------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.97b ARC Shell 1.97b adds compatibility with the modified "Install Application" feature of Neodesk, while retaining compatibility with all currently released versions of the TOS desktop (as of January 2, 1989). Another new feature of 1.97b -- when you extract ALL files from an ARChive, ARC Shell will ask if you wish to delete the original ARC file when the extraction is complete. (This feature was previously only available after extracting "To Folder.") -------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.97c Version 1.97c fixes a bug in the 'Delete' option which was very hard to track down. ARC Shell 1.97c will now properly delete the original ARC file (if you choose, of course) after an 'Extract' operation. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.98 ARC Shell 1.98 has several substantial improvements. All of the options in the main dialog box can now be selected with keypresses, as well as with the mouse. The active keys are: Control A - Add to Arc Control M - Move to Arc Control U - Update Arc Control F - Freshen Arc Control D - Delete from Arc Control T - Test Arc Control X - Extract from Arc Control R - Run from Arc Control C - Copy to StdOut Control L - List Control V - Verbose list Control O - Convert Arc F1 - Info F2 - ARC F3 - Disk F4 - Config F5 - Exit Undo - Exit (same as F5) To help you remember the keypresses, the letter corresponding to the active key is capitalized in the first word of each option. (e.g. eXtract, cOnvert, Add, etc.) Another new feature is the 'Buffer Screen' option in the Configuration dialog box. When this option is set to YES, ARC Shell will keep a copy of the main dialog box in memory, and very quickly 'blit' it to the screen every time it needs to be redrawn. This speeds up the operation of ARC Shell (a lot), but it costs 32K of RAM. If you'd like to free up that 32K, just set the 'Buffer Screen' option to NO. This may enable you to run ARC Shell in tight memory situations where you previously couldn't. The status of 'Buffer Screen' is saved (along with everything else) when you save your configuration. Still another new feature: when you save your configuration with ARC Shell 1.98, the full paths of the ARC and DATA drives are saved, not just the drive letter. And yet another new feature: the 'Copy to StdOut' option will now copy to the printer as well as the screen. This is very handy - it lets you make hardcopy listings of files contained in archives without first extracting them. To 'Copy' to the printer, the button labeled 'Printer' must be selected in the 'List/Copy Device' box. ('Copy to StdOut' cannot be directed to a file -- that would be the same as 'Extract'ing the file!) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.98.1 This version (released April 11, 1989) fixes a small bug in the "Save Config" option, that only showed up after following a certain sequence of steps. Thanks to Tim Hitchings for pointing this one out. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.99 Version 1.99 adds the ability to configure ARC Shell so that each ARC option (Extract, Add, Move, etc.) can use EITHER the default ARC utility OR the alternate ARC utility. (The default and alternate ARC utilities are defined in the 'Config' screen.) When you first run ARC Shell 1.99, all options are set to use the default ARC utility (usually ARC.TTP or ARC521.TTP). To change any option, just hold down the Control key while clicking on the option; a dialog box will pop up with two buttons labeled 'Default' and 'Alternate.' Choose which ARC utility you wish to use for this ARC option, and click the OK button. You can go through and set all the ARC options this way, and when you save your configuration this information will be saved along with everything else. Notice in the 'Config' screen, that the Alternate ARC Utility box no longer has a button labeled 'Use Alternate.' This is because you now set each ARC option individually. The most common use for this feature is to set something like DCOPY or David Ramsden's KWIKARK.TTP as the 'Alternate' ARC Utility, then set the 'Extract' option to use the Alternate utility (by holding Control while you click on 'Extract'). Now you can have the compatibility of using ARC.TTP for all your archiving work, combined with the speed of DCOPY or KWIKARK for extractions, without having to go to the 'Config' screen and change the 'Use Alternate' button. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 2.0 ARC Shell 2.0 is now compatible with the new LHARC format, which uses a file extension of LZH. In testing, I've found that LHARC provides a significant increase in compression over ARC 5.12 or 5.21; in one case, a 217K text file compressed to less than 57K, or just over a quarter of its original size! By comparison, the original ARC.TTP produced a compressed file of over 100K, or just about half the file's original size. In another case, several program and text files totalling over 130K were compressed into an archive that ended up being only 45K...a mere 35% of the original size of the files. Impressive results indeed. When you first run ARC Shell 2.0, it looks for a file called ARC.TTP in the same directory. If ARC.TTP is found, you'll be delivered immediately to the main ARC Shell dialog box. If ARC Shell can't find this file, it will ask you 'Where's ARC.TTP,' and present you with a file selector. Use the file selector to locate the program you use to manage files that have an extension of ARC (probably ARC.TTP or ARC521.TTP). It doesn't have to be in the same directory with ARC Shell. Looking at the main screen of ARC Shell 2.0, you'll see two new buttons directly underneath the options (Add, Move, Delete, etc.), labelled 'Def:' and 'Alt:'. These two buttons are used to tell ARC Shell which archive utility goes with which option. (See the revision history for ARC Shell 1.99, above, for an explanation of the 'Default' and 'Alternate' archive utilities.) Note that the 'control-click' feature of ARC Shell 1.99 no longer exists in version 2.0; you now set the archive utility for each option simply by clicking on one of the 'Def:' or 'Alt:' buttons. As you click on different options, the 'Def:' and 'Alt:' buttons will become selected and deselected, to show you which options go with which utilities. Using version 2.0 with LHARC ---------------------------- As mentioned above, the LHARC program uses a file extension of LZH instead of ARC. In the main ARC Shell dialog box, you'll see a new option called 'File Type,' with two buttons labelled 'ARC' and 'LZH.' When you select the LZH button the ARC Shell file selector will use an extension of LZH. Also, and more importantly, selecting either ARC or LZH switches between two sets of 'Default' and 'Alternate' archive utilities. This way you can set up ARC.TTP and DCOPY (for example) as your 'Default' and 'Alternate' utilities, and still use LHARC and some other LZH-oriented utility simply by clicking the LZH button. The first time you click on the LZH button, both 'Default' and 'Alternate' utilities will be blank. To install LHARC as the default utility for LZH files, first select the LZH button, then enter the Config screen (by clicking on the Config button or by typing function key F6), and click on the button labelled 'Locate Default Archive Utility'. Use the file selector to locate LHARC.PRG (or whatever it's called on your system). When you do this, its full pathname will appear in the first box in the Config screen. When you exit the Config screen to the main ARC Shell dialog box, the button labelled 'Def:' will now contain the name of the LHARC program. If you also have some other utility for managing LZH files, you can follow the same procedure for setting up an 'Alternate' utility. That's all there is to it; you are now set to use either the standard ARC.TTP (or DCOPY or ARC 5.21) or the new LHARC program, simply by clicking on the ARC or LZH buttons. If you'd like to make this your default configuration, be sure to click on the 'Save Config' button in the Config screen (see above). PLEASE NOTE: All ARC functions are not implemented in the current version of LHARC, so some ARC Shell options may not work. ALSO, the LHARC format and the formats used by ARC.TTP are _not_ compatible; you should not pass the name of an ARC file to LHARC, or pass an LZH file to ARC.TTP. ARC.TTP acts very strangely when passed the name of an LZH file, and it may even crash and do nasty things to your disk directory. Be careful. (Unfortunately, there's nothing ARC Shell can do to prevent crashes here -- the problem is in ARC.TTP.) The other important new feature in ARC Shell 2.0 is the ability to 'globally' set all ARC Shell options to use either the 'Default' or 'Alternate' Archive utility. Immediately to the right of the ARC button at the bottom of the screen are two buttons labelled 'DEFAULT' and 'ALTERNATE.' Click on either button to change all ARC Shell options to use that utility; this only affects the settings for the current file type, ARC or LZH. When you switch from one file type to another, the option assignments are preserved. The function key mapping has been changed in ARC Shell 2.0 to reflect the two new options at the bottom of the main box ('DEFAULT' and 'ALTERNATE'). The new function keys are: F1 - ARC F2 - DEFAULT F3 - ALTERNATE F4 - Info F5 - Disk F6 - Config F7 - EXIT Undo - EXIT (same as F7) ***************************************************** * * * This document and all versions of ARC Shell are * * Copyright 1987, 1988, 1989 Charles F. Johnson * * and Little Green Footballs Software. * * All Rights Reserved. * * * * ARC Shell may NOT be sold. It may, however, be * * freely distributed as long as this document is * * included and neither program nor document are * * altered IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. This document * * may not be reprinted without permission. * * * * While every effort has been made to ensure that * * this program is free of bugs, I cannot be * * responsible for any damages or loss of data * * resulting from the use or misuse of ARC Shell. * * * *****************************************************