The Pier Shareware CD-ROM Copyright (c) 1996 The Pier Exchange All rights reserved. ThePier(tm) - High Performance CD-ROM Access Retrieval Engine Copyright (c) 1994 RoboSoft Systems. All rights reserved. Table of Contents 1 ........................................ Introduction 2 ........................................ Installation 3 ..................................... Basic Operation 4 .................................... The Subject List 4.1 ............................. The Subject List Menu 4.1.1 ................................. The System Menu 4.1.2 ................................. The Search Menu 4.1.3 .............................. The Configure Menu 4.1.3.1 ............................. Configure Display 4.1.3.2 ............................ Configure Database 4.1.3.3 ......................... Configure Directories 4.1.3.4 ............................. Configure Viewers 4.1.3.4.1 .............................. Default Viewer 4.1.3.4.2 ................................ Custom Shell 4.1.3.4.3 ............................... Smart Viewers 5 ...................................... The Files List 5.1 ............................... The Files List Menu 6 .............................. The File Detail Screen 6.1 .................................. The Content List 6.2 .............................. The File Detail Menu 7 ..................... Technical Questions and Support 1. Introduction Please take the time out to fill out the registration form which can be found on the CD; file name REGISTER.TXT. It is not required, but it would help us better serve you in the event of a problem with the CD, BBS file listing, ThePier database, or a particular software application. Also, by popular demand we will be offering an AUTO Pier Shareware Program which will allow you to receive a new CD as soon as it is released, for those of you that must have The Pier Shareware CD as soon as it is released. This program is only available to credit card holders. Please check the appropriate box, and fill out all of the registration form if you wish to participate in this program. Thank you for taking the time to fill out this form. Congratulations on your purchase of one of The Pier Shareware CD-ROMs, the finest shareware CD-ROMs available. ThePier CD-ROM Access program will assist you in finding files on your CD-ROM and performing common operations on those files. It will allow you to view the filenames and descriptions of the files, search the CD-ROM files for filenames, keywords, and archive content filenames, and view many of the content files. 2. Installation To install ThePier CD-ROM Access program, change to the root directory of The Pier Shareware CD-ROM and type INSTALL. The install program will ask where on your hard drive you want ThePier CD-ROM Access program to reside and will copy all necessary files to that directory. (For performance reasons, ThePier must be installed to a hard disk. It can not be run directly from the CD-ROM.) ThePier requires approximately 1MB of disk space for the program and associated data files. Additional disk space will be used for the comments you enter in the comment database. 3. Basic Operation You should find ThePier very easy and intuitive to operate. To start ThePier, change to the directory where ThePier was installed (for example, CD \THEPIER) and type THEPIER. ThePier is designed to use the best available video mode your computer will support. By default, it will try to use graphics mode (EGA or VGA required) and resort to text mode if graphics mode is unavailable. If you have problems viewing the screens in graphics mode, you can force the program into text mode by using a /T parameter on the command line (i.e. THEPIER /T). Graphics mode also requires the file EGAVGA.BGI to be present in the directory where THEPIER.EXE resides. (The install program will put it there.) If this file isn't present, ThePier will use a text mode display. Online help is available throughout ThePier. Press F1 to view the context-sensitive help screens. 4. The Subject List The first screen you see when you start ThePier is a list of the subjects available on The Pier Shareware CD-ROM. If you have a mouse on your system, a mouse pointer will be displayed. You can use the mouse to click on any of the subjects, the items on the menu bar on the top of the screen, or on the scroll bar to the right of the screen. If you click on a subject, a list of the files in that subject will appear. 4.1 The Subject List Menu At the top of the subject screen you'll see a drop-down menu bar containing System, Search, and Configure. 4.1.1 The System Menu At this point there are three options on the System menu: 1) Shell to DOS, keeping ThePier in memory and ready to go when you type EXIT at the DOS prompt. 2) Execute a Custom Shell program. (This will be covered in more detail under Configuration.) 3) Exit ThePier. 4.1.2 The Search Menu The Search menu will allow you to search ThePier database for matching file names, keywords, or content file names. In this context, file names refers to the names of the files on The Pier Shareware CD-ROM, many of them archive files; keywords refers to significant words used in the file descriptions; and content file names refers to the files that are contained within the archive files. At this point (on the Subjects List screen), searches will included all subjects. If you wanted to search for all files that might have something to do with Windows, you would select Keyword from the search menu and type WINDOWS in the prompt box. ThePier will then display a list of all the files containing the word "windows" somewhere in their description. Wildcard characters are not recognized in search strings, but partial strings are allowed if the Exact Match box is not checked. For instance, you could have entered WIN in the search above and matched all occurrences of Windows (along with all other keywords that begin with the letters WIN). 4.1.3 The Configure Menu The Configure menu allows you to change the operational parameters used by ThePier. You can force the display to text mode (meaning you wouldn't need the /T on the command line), change the active database (useful if you have more than one The Pier Shareware CD-ROM), change the directories used by ThePier for temporary files, and set up viewer programs to be called automatically when certain files are selected. On all of the configuration screens, if you press ESCape, any changes you entered on that screen will be thrown away and the old data will be restored. 4.1.3.1 Configure Display The Configure Display screen allows a simple choice between forcing ThePier to use text mode displays or allowing it to use graphics mode displays. (Graphics mode requires an EGA or VGA display system.) Graphics mode displays are slightly larger than text mode, allowing more subjects and files to be displayed on a single screen, but they are slightly slower than text mode displays. Other than these minor differences, the two modes are functionally identical. 4.1.3.2 Configure Database The Configure Database screen can be used to select an alternate ThePier database. If you have more than one The Pier Shareware CD-ROM you can use this screen to select the database associated with one of the other CD-ROMs. If you only have one The Pier Shareware CD-ROM, do not change the settings on this screen. You can select any of the directories shown in the lower right section by clicking on them with your mouse. If you don't have a mouse, use the TAB key to switch to the directory section, then use the arrow keys to highlight the desired directory. Press the ENTER key to select the directory. If the desired directory is on another drive, position to the Dir field and type the desired drive letter. When you've selected the proper directory, position to the left window and select the desired database file. To finalize the database selection, position to and select the OK button. 4.1.3.3 Configure Directories Directories Configuration allows you to specify the directories used by ThePier. The Work Directory is used by ThePier for temporary files. A default value is set up by the installation program, but you can change it if desired. The Work Directory should be on a drive that has free space at least as large as the largest file you intend to view. (Five megabytes should be more than sufficient.) The Default Copy/Extract Directory specifies the default directory used when copying or extracting archive files. This is just a default and can be changed on the fly when copying or extracting files. The Comment Database Directory specifies the location of the comment database. By default, this is the directory where ThePier program resides. It is recommended that you stay with the default. CD-ROM Drive specifies the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive. The installation program initially sets this value to the drive from which ThePier was installed. If you have more than one CD-ROM drive, you will need to change this value if you move The Pier Shareware CD-ROM to a different CD-ROM drive. 4.1.3.4 Configure Viewers The viewers are one of the nicest features of ThePier. They allow you to associate programs with data files on the basis of the data file extension. The Viewer configuration screen is divided into several areas. 4.1.3.4.1 Default Viewer At the top of the screen is the default viewer. This is the viewer program that is called whenever the selected file does not match one of the file extensions specified on this screen. ThePier has a built-in viewer that is used as the default viewer unless you specify something different. Leave the Default Viewer field blank if you want to use the built-in viewer. (The built-in viewer is designed to work only with plain ASCII text files and will view only the first 32k bytes of any file. If you plan to view non-ASCII files or very large files, you will probably want to specify a different program as the default viewer. Vern Buerg's LIST program is an excellent choice for the default viewer.) To specify a different default viewer, enter what you would normally type at the DOS command line to start that program. Where you would ordinarily type the name of the file to be viewed, enter $F. ThePier will replace the $F with the name of the file you've selected for viewing. If you wanted to use Vern Buerg's LIST program as your default viewer, your default viewer line might look like: Default Viewer: LIST $F 4.1.3.4.2 Custom Shell The next field allows you to specify a "shell" program. This is intended for use with DOS "shell" programs such as PCTools Shell and Norton Commander. ThePier will allow you to jump directly to the program specified in this field and return to ThePier when you exit the shell program. If your DOS shell can accept a directory on the command line, you can use $D to designate the current working directory. If you use the Extract and Custom Shell option, $D will be the directory into which the file was extracted. If you wanted to use PCTools Shell as your shell program, your shell program line might look like: Shell Program: PCSHELL $D 4.1.3.4.3 Smart Viewers The other viewers are all paired with a line of file extensions associated with that viewer. Anytime you select a file with an extension from the viewer list, the viewer program associated with that extension will be executed. The viewer command lines are just like the Default Viewer line as far as format goes. Use $F in the command where you want the file name to go. 5. The Files List When you select one of the subjects on the Subjects List, you'll see a list of the files in that subject along with as much of the file description as will fit on a single line. If you select one of the files by clicking on it with your mouse or pressing enter when the file is highlighted, you'll see detailed information about that file. 5.1 The Files List Menu At the top of the files list screen you'll notice the menu bar has changed. System is still there, though it now contains an additional "Return to previous menu" item. (You can also return to the previous screen by pressing ESCape or clicking on the little box in the upper left corner of the file list window.) The Search menu is still there too, but its function has changed a bit. At this point searches will not scan the entire database, but will be limited to the subject currently selected. 6. The File Detail Screen The File Detail Screen contains detailed information about the file you've selected. In the upper left of the detail screen is the file name, location, size, and date. In the upper right is a list of the contents of this file. (If the file is not an archive file, you'll just see the file name again.) In the middle of the screen is the full file description. The scroll bar at the right of the file description box can be used if the full description doesn't fit in the available lines. Toward the bottom of the screen is a box where you can enter your own comments about this file. These comments will be saved in a database on your hard disk and redisplayed when you view this file's detail information again. At the very bottom of the screen is a prompt bar. Pressing any of the specified keys will perform the indicated action. You can also click with your mouse on any of the words to take the indicated action. 6.1 The Content List The content list in the upper right of the detail screen is where the viewers come in. If you select one of the files in the content list, that file will be extracted from the archive (if necessary) and passed to the appropriate viewer program. If no viewer is associated with the selected file extension, the default viewer will be used. (When ThePier executes a viewer, it swaps all but about 10k of itself to EMS or to disk, so the viewer program should have plenty of memory available.) 6.2 The File Detail Menu At the top of the file detail screen you'll see the familiar System menu along with a File menu. The File menu will allow you to copy a complete file or to extract an archive file. If you select either of these options, you'll be prompted for a destination directory for the copy or extract operation. These directories will default to the Copy and Work directories specified in the configuration menu off the subjects screen. You can change them by selecting a different directory from the displayed list. If you want the files to go to a different drive, you'll have to type the drive letter on the directory line. The File menu will also allow you to Extract and execute the Custom Shell or Extract and Shell to DOS. Both of these options will allow you to select a directory for the extract operation and will then either execute your Custom Shell or shell to DOS in the extraction directory. 7. Technical Questions and Support If you have trouble installing ThePier(tm), contact The Pier Exchange at: Info (716) 875-4931 BBS (716) 875-3130 If you have detailed technical questions or comments about the access software, you can contact RoboSoft Systems, the authors of the retrieval engine, at: RoboSoft Systems P.O. Box 2221 Orange, CA 92669