================================== VIEW.TXT =================================== CDROM Browser - DOS/Windows Documentation >------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents -- Introduction Using View Running VIEW.EXE File/Directory Indexing Reading Text Files Uncompressing Files Dynamic File Index Menu Copying Files The Global Index General Tips Troubleshooting Credit >-------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction -- For better accessibility of our CDROMs, we at Walnut Creek developed a CDROM browsing program called "View." With this program, you can traverse through the directories and examine all the file descriptions. "View" can search for files, as well as extract and uncompress them from the CDROM to your hard drive. It is a very useful program. There are DOS and Windows versions available: view.exe - (DOS) located in the root directory of the CDROM w16view.exe - (Win3.x) located in the CDROM \utils directory w32view.exe - (Win95/NT) located in the CDROM \utils directory >---------------------------------------------------------------- Using View -- _____Running VIEW.EXE To use the view program from DOS, change the current drive to your CDROM drive. Type "VIEW" at the root directory and press enter to start the program. To use the view program from Windows 3.x, use the "Run" option under Program Manager. Assuming the CDROM drive is accessed through "D:", type "D:\utils\w16view.exe" into the command line box and click on the "OK" button. The view program can also be accessed through the File Manager. There may also be an icon labeled "CDROM Browser - WINDOWS" that appears after you run setup.exe from this CDROM. To use the view program from Windows 95/NT, click on "Start", then "Run", then type in "D:\utils\w32view.exe". Be sure to change "D:" to your CDROM's drive letter. In many cases, View will automatically appear when you insert the CDROM so this will not be necessary. There may also be an icon labeled "CDROM Browser - WINDOWS" that appears after you run setup.exe from this CDROM. _____File/Directory Indexing Once started, the view program displays a listing of the directories of the CDROM along with their content descriptions. In general, you will see the names of files and directories on the left side of the window, and descriptions on the right. Use the arrow keys or the mouse to move the cursor bar up and down the list to select the desired directory. Pressing or double-clicking on any of the entries will have one of several different results, depending on what was highlighted: Directory : View changes to that directory and shows you a new listing. Press the key or click on "Back" to return back. File : If you selected a text file, view will display it. If you selected a binary file (like a .gif or .jpg), view will try to use a helper program to display the file. If there is no helper program defined, view will display the file as text. If you selected a file ending in ".zip", view will try to uncompressed it (see "Uncompressing Files" below). _____Reading Text Files To read a text file from the file index menu, position the cursor bar onto the file entry and press or double-click. The view program will open up the text file, and will allow the user to read and scroll through the document. While scrolling through a text file, searching of a text string is accomplished by pressing the key 'S'. (The key 'R' searches a string in the reverse direction.) To return back to the file index menu after reading the text file, press the key. _____Uncompressing Files To uncompress an archived file from the index menu, select the file entry with the cursor bar and press . In general, archived files have names that end with the file extension of ".zip". After selecting an archived file for extraction, a "destination query" screen will appear to ask for the directory where the archived file is to be uncompressed. A default destination directory will be already suggested by the view program, printed and highlighted in the destination box. Press here to use the default directory, or modify the default entry before pressing . The user may also scroll through some "suggested" default directories by using the down-cursor key. Once the key is pressed, the view program will then create the destination directory if it doesn't already exist, and begin to uncompress the archived file into that directory. _____Dynamic File Index Menu After the archived file is successfully uncompressed, the view program then displays another index menu similar the previous one based on the files extracted from the archive. Here most of the "readme" files and text files extracted are be labeled as documentation on the right side. Use the cursor bar to select these files to open them for viewing. Extracted files that have ".bat", ".com", or ".exe" as extensions are executable files and are labeled as such on the right side. Selecting these files will run these applications on top of the view program. If wished, the extracted files can be removed from the hard drive at this point by pressing the keys "Alt-R" (DOS View) or by hitting the key (Windows View). To return back to the first index menu, press the key. _____Copying Files To copy a file from the index menu, again highlight the file entry with the cursor bar, and press the 'C' key. A screen similar to that from the archive uncompressing process will appear asking the user for a destination. Enter the desired directory name where the file is to be placed, and press . The view program then copies the file to the destination directory, and returns back to the file index menu. _____The Global Index You can also perform all of the above functions on the Global Index File. To jump into the Global Index File mode, press the keys "Alt-G" (DOS View), or select "Go" -> "Global Index" from the pulldown menus (Windows View). You will then be viewing the global index containing all of the files on the disc. You can search, view, and unzip from this one large index file instead of having to enter multiple directories. _____General Tips At any stage of the program, hitting the key (DOS View) or clicking on "Back" (Windows View) always brings you back to the previous state -- so don't worry about accidentally hitting a wrong key. The On-line help is also provided at all stages of the program. Pressing the '?' key any time can bring up the help screen. >---------------------------------------------------------- Trouble Shooting -- Due to memory problems and the restrictions of other software, the view program may at times conflict with other applications when running them on top of itself. Whenever any newly uncompressed program retrieved from the cdrom doesn't run from the interactive file menu, please try running it directly from MS-DOS or MS-Windows. And in most cases, a shareware program usually comes with its own documentation and instructions. These instructions are normally stored in files such as "readme.txt". Please read all documentation included with a file before running a program. Doing so will prevent the occurrence of common problems that many users often encounter. >-------------------------------------------------------------------- Credit -- The view program uses the SPAWNO routines by Ralf Brown to minimize memory use while shelling to DOS and running other programs ================================== VIEW.TXT ===================================