Hello, Welcome to Bmenu .... SETTING UP THIS DEMO DISK Since MSDOS is not a public domain program you will have to supply Your own. Format a disk with the /s (system) switch then copy the contents of this disk there.Copy COMMAND.COM if the format didn't. Some of the menu items require MORE.COM, copy that to the disk as well. Then to see the demo boot on your new disk. I have prepared a sample menu that calls all of the other programs. Contents of the disk: BMENU.EXE This is a menu program. It reads its menu file and presents you with a menu. You can edit the menu with any text editor. Once the menu is displayed you can choose menu items by pres- sing the up and down arrow keys or pressing a letter key. When you press a letter key the menu item with that letter capitalized leftmost will be chosen and the pointer will move there. When the pointer is on the choice you want press return. ESC.COM This program will detect the press of an escape key without stopping your batch file. Do you want to be given a choice when you run the batch file but if your not there you want the batch file to continue? Escape will fill that bill. I use escape in my autoexec.bat to controll some options while I start my computer. If I am doing my normal work I can just walk away while its booting, if I am doing somthing special then I hit escape at the proper time to modify my bootup environment. To use in a batch file: Esc sets the dos batch variable ERRORLEVEL according to what goes on while it is running while it is running. If escape is pressed at the proper time then Errorlevel is set to 2, If any key is pressed then errorlevel is set to 1, and if no key is pressed then errorlevel is set to 0. ECHO PRESS ESCAPE TO PREFORM SPECIAL PROCCESSING ECHO PRESS ANY OTHER KEY TO ABORT ESC IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO SPECIAL IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO ABORT -- normal proccessing -- . . . :SPECIAL -- special proccessing -- :ABORT -- abort code -- MENUGET.EXE Build menus into your batch files! Menuget waits and accepts a single ascii character then creates a small file that you can test for in your batch file. When Menuget exits there will be a file named MENU$.$$$, where x is the letter the user pressed. (Display your menu (use type or echo)) ECHO A Do "A" stuff ECHO B Do "B" stuff :GETAGAIN MENUGET IF EXIST MENU$A.$$$ GOTO ASTUFF IF EXIST MENU$B.$$$ GOTO BSTUFF IF EXIST MENU$.$$$ ECHO An error message because the user picked the ECHO wrong thing... GOTO GETAGAIN :ASTUFF . . . GOTO SKIPOTHERS :BSTUFF . . . GOTO SKIPOTHERS . . :SKIPOTHERS ---- continue with other things... ---- DATIME.EXE I got tired of entering the date and time on separate lines and having to enter it just the way the computer wanted. Datime accepts the date and the time in any order on one line and in many formats: HH:MM{:SS} {AM|PM} 10:25 13:45:20 1:45 pm D{D}/M{M}/YY{YY} 3/5/85 10/4/85 10/12/1985 D{D}-M{M}-YY{YY} 3-5-85 10-4-85 10-12-1985 MONTH D{D},YY{YY} MARCH 5,1985 MAY 12,2010 {optional stuff} LINES.EXE These three are graphic demonsrations. Great to watch. Only EGGS.EXE Lisajous needs an input, the others will run unattended but LISAJOUS.EXE can accepth input. COOKIE.EXE A fortune cookie program, randomly selects a peice of wisdom from COOKIE.DAT for your enjoyment. COOKIE.DAT may be edited with any ascii editor (wordsar in non-document...). HANGMAN.EXE Can you guess the word before its too late?? The program chooses from over 1000 words, and you can add words of your own. Words are kept in WORDS. BMENU.MNU File Format: The first line of the file Bmenu gives the menu title. This data will be written in the box above the menu. The text is taken littaraly and should not be enclosed in any delimiters Each of the following lines deals with a menu item. For each menu item there should be a line in the BMENU.MNU file. Each will have this format: ,,, Prompt Field Format: P The text will be used as a prompt if this menu item is selected to prompt for an input string. If no text is provided the prompt will be `Enter Parameter'. - A dash in this field marks a non menu item. These may be used to display static text that many not be selected as an action. Note `-,,,' will produce an blank, non-selectable line in your menu. Color control Commands: A special subset of comment fields are the color control commands. Each of these commands control the color of particular parts of the display. For each part the forground and background colors can be defined. -POINTER,fg,bg Sets the foreground and background colors for the pointer. -BORDER,fg,bg Sets the foreground and background colors for the border around the menu. -TEXT,fg,bg Sets the foreground and background colors for the text displayed on the screen Colors are defined using the same parameters as the color command from basic. Here is the list: Background Colors Foreground Colors 0 Black 8 Grey 1 Blue 9 Light Blue 2 Green 10 Light Green 3 Cyan 11 Light Cyan 4 Red 12 Light Red 5 Magenta 13 Light Magenta 6 Brown 14 Yellow 7 White 15 Intense White Background colors may be used in the foreground. Adding 16 to any color will cause that item to blink (foreground only). Pointer Arrow Display You can select the charactors that make up the pointer arrow. What ever you enter will be used. Example -arrow,Arrowtext> ,, -arrow,,, The second example displays no pointer, this is good for menus where you have set the pointer color so the pointed to item is very visible (such as reverse video). Help File Bmenu displays the contents of a help file whenever the `?' key is pressed. The name of this file may be specified in the menu file. If no filename is specified then the default of BMENU.MNU is used. -help,{filename},, X Any other character marks a menu item that execute its action without prompting for input Case of the first charachter in the prompt field controlls the inclusion of the "Strike any key..." prompt after the menu selection finishes. Capitalize if no pause is desired, use lower case if you want the "Strike any Key... " prompt. Menu Item Field: Text entered in this field will be shown on the menu. Leading and trailing spaces are ignored. The text is centered. If the prompt field is a `-' the the pointer will not come to this text. If the user enters a letter while the menu is displayed, the pointer is moved to the menu item that has that letter capitalized closest to the begining. Example: All these menu items are together in one menu. Menu items: Press to select Note xAxYx Y A wont work because of last line xxxxB B This is the only menu with a capital B Cxxxx C AxxDx A or D An A in the first column beats any other A Command A and Command B: A dos command may be split between these two fields. When the user is prompted for input (P in the prompt field) that input string is placed between CommandA and CommandB. "'" may be used to enclose parts of a command that have important spaces (example: 'dir ' the space after dir is important because the user will be prompted for a file name and there must be at least one space between the file name and the command DIR.) Hints Sub Menus: Bmenu.exe reads the file Bmenu.mnu each time the menu is displayed. If you were to copy a new menu file to Bmenu.mnu a new menu will be displayed when bmenu returns. To do this NONE of you menus must be named Bmenu.mnu. This way any of them may be copied with one command to bmenu Example: Main.mnu Main Menu X,Call First,Copy first.mnu bmenu.mnu, X,Call Second,Copy Second.mnu bmenu.mnu, X,END,, First.mnu First Menu X,Call Main,copy Main.mnu Bmenu.mnu, X,Call Second,copy second.mnu bmenu.mnu x,END,, ect... Each submenu is loaded when it is copyed into bmenu.mnu. Any sort of menu structure may be built. Calling Batch files from menus: X,Call the batch file,command /c , Setting Up Bmenu: Copy BMENU.EXE to a disk with a system. Write your menu files using any ascii text editor. (wordstar in non-document,edlin,sidekick notepad...) or copy BMENU.MNU If you are using a multiple level menu be sure that the main menu is copied to bmenu.mnu to start with. Execute bmenu.exe (type BMENU) when the menu appears press Escape. This step will generate a file MENU.BAT. To run bmenu type MENU. If you wish bmenu to start automaticaly, put MENU at the end of your autoexec.bat file