Filefind Version 3.3 by Snake River Software Program and Documentation Copyright 1989, 1990, 1991 All Rights Reserved Microsoft and MS-DOS are registered trademarks and Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 1 Filefind 3.3 Introduction ___________________________________________________________________________ Overview Overview Overview Filefind is a Microsoft Windows based tool designed help you locate and manipulate files on your hard-drive or network drives. To use Filefind, enter a file specification using conventional DOS wildcards, select a disk drive from a scrollable list, and let Filefind locate all matching files on the drive. Alternately, you can select one or more directories from the current directory tree and list all the files (or all files matching the current search criteria) in the directories. Once Filefind finds all matching files, you may perform a variety of pre-defined or user defined functions. Filefind allows you to select one file, multiple files, a range of files, or combine multiple and range selection operations. Once you have selected a list of files, you can print them, delete them, copy them to a specified drive and directory, or move them to a specified drive and directory. Filefind will also allow you to run a selected file if it is a file that Windows recognizes as a program or if it has an association in the WIN.INI file (e.g. *.TXT files are associated with NOTEPAD.EXE in the WIN.INI file). Additionally, you can specify up to seven of your own menu items to run a specified program that will receive the selected file as a run parameter. Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Several people provided suggestions, inspiration, critical assessments, etc. for writing Filefind. I would like to particularly thank: Rob Davis who always provides valuable, if not always easy to take insights. Ron Steiner who can break almost any piece of code that is supposed to have all the bugs out of it. and Foofer who still thinks it was all his idea anyway. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 2 Filefind 3.3 Introduction ___________________________________________________________________________ Notations Notations Notations The following notations are used in this manual: [text] is used to identify optional information. If the option is not specified, the default action will be taken. An exception is in the discussion of the WIN.INI file. WIN.INI section headers are identified as [text] [text] [text]. These sections are boldfaced to assist in their identification whereas [options] are not normally boldfaced. Hopefully, context and the use of boldfacing will distinguish these two uses. is used to indicate a key to be pressed. For example, is used to designate the enter (or return) key. It also is used to avoid ambiguity in the documentation by specifying . For example may be used to indicate that a space is required in some text. bold bold bold is used for several contexts as explained in the appropriate sections. Additionally, it is used to identify section headings. Italics is used to identify menus and menu items. System Requirements System Requirements System Requirements Filefind runs within the Microsoft Windows. Minimum System requirements include: Microsoft Windows 3.X or higher DOS 3.X or higher Approximately 75K memory* Approximately 60K disk space Windows compatible mouse * Memory available within the Windows environment. The memory required by Filefind varies with use. The minimum memory is approximately 75K and maximum is approximately 120K. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 3 Filefind 3.3 Installation ___________________________________________________________________________ Installation Installation Installation Filefind is easy to install. Simply copy all distribution files to the disk/directory where you want to run Filefind from. This will usually be \windows or \win386. All configuration options reside in your WIN.INI file. Most of these can be set within Filefind. See the Options menu for more information. One configuration option that can not be set within Filefind is the set of user defined menu items. User defined menu items are used to define other programs that you want to operate on files that Filefind finds. For example, you can have a menu item that invokes Windows' NOTEPAD program to edit a file that Filefind finds. These menu items must be set by editing the WIN.INI file directly. The easiest way to set these up is to first invoke Filefind and set your default options. This will create a Filefind section of WIN.INI where you can insert user defined menu items. To change your WIN.INI, invoke NOTEPAD (or other text editor of your choice). Scroll through the file until you find: [SRS File Finder] [SRS File Finder] [SRS File Finder] You may insert user defined Run menu items after this line and before the next section (identified by [text] [text] [text]) or the end of the file if Filefind is the last WIN.INI section. Each user defined Run menu item must be in the following format: Runx=menutext [drive:][path]program_name Where: Runx is the menu item identifier. Replace the letter x with a single digit, 2 through 9. Thus the acceptable values are Run2, Run3, Run4, ... Run9. The menu items will appear in ascending numeric order. You do not have use consecutive items. For example you can define Run2, Run5, and Run8 only. menutext is the text that will appear in the windows menu. You may not use spaces. You may specify accelerator keys by placing an ampersand (&) in front of the key that is to become the accelerator. [drive:] is a DOS drive. It may be a network, virtual, floppy, hard drive, etc. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 4 Filefind 3.3 Installation ___________________________________________________________________________ [path] is a standard DOS path identification. This parameter is optional. If you do not specify a path, the program must exist in the current directory or available from the PATH environment. program_name is the fully qualified program name. This is usually a name that ends with .EXE, .COM, or .BAT. Filefind uses the windows WIN.INI [windows] [windows] [windows] programs variable to determine whether a file is executable. For example, you may wish to run PIF files. The programs entry should then look something like: programs=com exe bat PIF For more information, consult your windows manual. Example: you might want to define the Run2 menu item to invoke the windows notepad. The entry will look something like: Run2=&Notes e:\windows\Notepad.exe You may also wish to add to or change the associations defined to windows. These associations are used by Filefind when you choose Selection under the Action menu and Filefind can not run the selection. If Filefind can not run the selection directly, it looks for the file's extension in the [Extensions] [Extensions] [Extensions] section of the WIN.INI. If Filefind can find the extension, it invokes the program specified passing the selection as a parameter. The [Extensions] [Extensions] [Extensions] section contains entries that appear as: txt txt txt=notepad.exe ^.txt where txt txt txt is the extension and notepad.exe ^.txt is run by Filefind after substituting the selection for ^.txt with the selection. Simply edit the WIN.INI as described above to add any additional associations desired. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 5 Filefind 3.3 Usage ___________________________________________________________________________ Usage Usage Usage Filefind is invoked like other windows programs. 1. From the MS-DOS Executive, click on FILEFIND.EXE, the File menu, and the Run menu item. 2. Double click on FILEFIND.EXE. 3. Select Filefind from the Filefind Run menu. Modes of Operation. Modes of Operation. Modes of Operation. Filefind operates in one of two basic modes. In file list mode, Filefind displays a list of files based on a search specification. You may select files in the list and then copy them, delete them, etc. In directory list mode, Filefind displays a directory tree of the requested disk drive. You may select one or more displayed directories, and instruct Filefind to switch into file list mode for that directory. Filefind allows you to list all files in the selected directory or all files that match the current search specification that reside in the selected directory. Filefind may be started in either one of these modes depending on how you set the initialization options in the default dialog. You can also set Filefind to not automatically start in either mode. If you do this, you will have to specifically request a file list or directory tree. File List Mode. File list mode presents you with a list of files. You can also display file dates, times, attributes and sizes. In this mode, you can select one or more files to copy, print, run, etc. There are several ways to enter file list mode. You can set the default startup to invoke the Filespec dialog when Filefind is started. You can also invoke the Filespec dialog from the main menu at any time. This dialog will allow you to enter a search specification and set the disk drive to search on. You can also enter the file list mode from the directory list mode. When you invoke file list mode from the directory mode, you will display a list of all the files in a selected directory(s) or all the files ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 6 Filefind 3.3 Usage ___________________________________________________________________________ in the selected directory(s) that match the current search specification. Finally, if you are in the directory list mode and a file list is currently active, the main menu will contain a List menu item. If you select this menu item, you will switch over to the current file list. Directory List Mode. Directory list mode presents you with a tree of the current drive's directories. You can not do a whole lot in directory list mode except examine the organization of your disk's directory structure or invoke the file list mode for one or more specific directories rather than all files on the disk. Directory List mode can be entered in several ways. You can set the default startup to invoke the Tree dialog when Filefind is started, or you can press the Bld Tree button in the Search dialog. You may also select the Tree menu item in the Select menu at any time. Finally, if you are in the file list mode, the main menu will contain a Tree menu. If you select this menu item, you will switch over to the directory tree. If one or more directories in the tree are selected, you can choose the List Directory or the List Directory w/Spec items under the Select menu. List Directory will invoke the file list mode and display all files in the selected directories. You may also double click on the desired directory to select it and invoke the file list mode. List Directory w/Spec will invoke the file list mode and display all files in the selected directories that match the current search specification. Mouse Usage Filefind uses the mouse pretty much the same way as all other windows programs. You can size, move, scroll, minimize, restore, maximize, ad nauseam. The only special Filefind mouse functions are in the selection process. When you are in the directory list mode, you can double click on a directory and switch to file list mode with a display of all the files in that directory. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 7 Filefind 3.3 Usage ___________________________________________________________________________ When you are in the file list mode, you may select some or all the files in the list. Many of the other functions require that you select one or more of the files found. Filefind recognizes two different selections. The current selection is generally the last file that has been clicked on (delete, move, and copy functions can alter this). A selection list is a list of all currently selected files including the current selection. Files in the current selection list are displayed by Filefind in reverse video (white letters on black if you are using the default colors). The current selection is further identified by a dotted rectangle around the displayed file. All selections are made using the left mouse button. To select a file, simply click in the desired file's display line. If you click on another file, Filefind deselects the first file and selects the second file. To deselect the current selection click on the selection. If you deselect the current selection, you will not have a current selection. To select multiple files, first click on one of the desired files. Then, while holding the key down, click on the rest of the files desired for the selection list. Pressing the key tells Filefind to retain the current selections. To select file ranges, first click on the file at either end of the range. Then, while holding the key down, click on the file at the other end of the range. Pressing the key tells Filefind to select all files in the list from the current selection to the file being clicked on. You may mix multiple file selection with range selection. Just press the appropriate key before you click on the next file. If you are pressing the key, you will select an additional file. If you are additionally pressing the key, you will extend the range from the current selection to the newly selected file. You will retain all files in the current selection list until you click on a file when you are not holding down either the key, or you deselect the files. When you have a selection list active, you may deselect individual files in the list by clicking on the highlighted file while pressing the key. You may scroll through the file list and Filefind will maintain the current selection or list until you select another file or deselect all files. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 8 Filefind 3.3 Menus ___________________________________________________________________________ Menus Menus Menus Filefind contains the following high level menu: Select Edit View List Search Action Options This section describes the contents of these menus. Italic text describes menus and menu items. ______ Italic __________ underlined characters denote accelerator keys. Sele_ ct Select contains menu items that allow you to select different file lists, search drives, or directory trees. Additionally, as the first menu item, Sele_ ct contains the About... dialog and Exit command. Build _ Tree... Build _ Tree allows you display a directory tree for a new disk drive. List Dir(s) List Dir(s)splays all files for the selected directories in the tree. List Dir(s) w/spec List Dir(s) w/spec, displays all files for the selected directory in the tree that match the current search specification. E_ xit quits the Filefind program. A_ bout... displays a dialog box containing version, copyright, file counts and directory counts for the current search. _ Edit The _ Edit menu enables a displayed file list or selection list to be copied to the clipboard. Copy _ List copies the entire file list to the clipboard. The list is copied as shown. File attributes such as date and size are written to the clipboard if they are currently being show. Copy _ Selections copies files in the current selection list to the clipboard. As above, whichever attributes are ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 9 Filefind 3.3 Menus ___________________________________________________________________________ currently showing are copied to the clipboard also. _ View The _ View menu determines what is displayed in the Filefind window and how the items are displayed. _ Date is a toggle. When checked, the each file's date is displayed. When unchecked, it is not. This item is only available in file list mode _ Time is a toggle. When checked, the file's time is displayed. When unchecked, it is not. This item is only available in file list mode. _ Size is a toggle. When checked, the file's size is displayed. When unchecked, it is not. This item is only available in file list mode. _ Attribute is a toggle. When checked, the file's attributes are displayed. When unchecked, they are not. The attribute appears as rxdahsv where: rx is 'rw' for a read-write file or 'ro' for a read-only file; d is 'd' if the file is a directory, space if not; a is 'a' if the archive bit has been set, space if it has not; h is 'h' if the file is a hidden file, space if it is not; s is 's' if the file is a system file, space if it is not; v is 'v' if entry is a system volume id, space if it is not. This item is only available in file list mode. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 10 Filefind 3.3 Menus ___________________________________________________________________________ Concatenate Path Concatenate Path causes Separate Path the file name and file path to appear as one long string. Separate Path causes the file name and file path to appear as two strings in separate columns. These two items act as a toggle. This item is only available in file list mode. Unsorted displays the files (or directories) as they were found. This item is available in both file list and directory list modes. by Name displays the files in filename (or directory name) order. The sort actually sorts filename then file extension so that x.a is guaranteed to appear before x.b. For the directory tree display, subdirectories in a directory are sorted with each other and separately from subdirectories in another directory. This option is available in both file list and directory tree modes. by Kind displays the files in file extension order. The sort actually sorts on the file extension and then the file name so that a.a is guaranteed to appear before b.a. This option is only available in file list mode. by Date/Time displays the files in the order that they were created. The sort is a two part sort. The full date is the high order part of the sort key and the time, the low part of the sort key. This option is only available in file list mode. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 11 Filefind 3.3 Menus ___________________________________________________________________________ by Size displays the files according to their size. The only option is an ascending sort with the smallest file appearing at the top of the window and the largest file at the bottom of the window. This option is only available in file list mode. _ List _ List and _ Tree are alternating menu Ids. _ Tree When Filefind is in directory list mode, List will appear and clicking on it will toggle you into file list mode. Likewise, if you are in file list mode, Tree is the displayed menu Id, and selecting it will toggle you into directory list mode. _ Search allows you enter the file specification for Filefind to search on. When _ Filespec is chosen, a dialog that allows search pattern specification and disk drive selection is presented. _ Action contains menu items pertaining to actions that can be taken with entire selection lists. _ Delete Selections... allows you to delete all or some of the files in the current selection list. _ Print Selections... allows you to print all or some of the files in the current selection list. _ Copy Selections... allows you to copy all or some of the files in the current selection list to a different directory on the same disk or a directory on a different disk. _ Move Selections... allows you to move all or some of the files in the current selection list to a different directory on the same disk or a directory on a different disk. Move actually performs a copy to the ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 12 Filefind 3.3 Menus ___________________________________________________________________________ destination and then erases the source file. _ Selection attempts to run the current selection. The file extension must be a program as defined in the WIN.INI file. If the selection is not an executable, the extensions in the WIN.INI are checked for an associated program which is invoked using the selection as a parameter. File_ Find runs another copy of Filefind. The rest of this menu consists of user defined menu items. Each of these will run the program defined for the menu item. The currently selected file concatenated to its drive and path will be passed as a command parameter. Options Options allows setting of defaults, options, initializations, etc. Printer Setup... displays the dialog box for the current printer driver. The contents of this and the user interactions are device dependent. Set _ Defaults... allows the setting of most initialization and default options. See the WIN.INI appendix and the installation section for further information on options that can not set within this dialog. Set Options to Defaults resets display options to the defaults. Register License invokes the registration dialog box. Once Filefind is registered, the supplied license id is entered through this dialog. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 13 Filefind 3.3 Dialogs ___________________________________________________________________________ Dialogs Dialogs Dialogs This sections describes the various dialogs presented by Filefind. These dialogs are presented alphabetically according to the invoking menu item. _ About... displays version, copyright, etc. information. The current drive, number of directories, number of files, and the total size of the listed files are also displayed. An OK push-button is provided to exit the dialog. _ Copy Selections... copies all or part of the current selection list to a new disk\directory. Two dialog boxes are used. The first dialog allows you to specify the destination drive and directory. Double click the list box in this dialog until the drive and directory are satisfactory. Click on the OK push button to proceed. If you wish to abort the copy operation, click on the Cancel push-button. The second dialog displays a list of the selected files. Below the list is the file that is about to be processed. Click the OK push-button to copy the file, Ignore push-button to bypass copying this one file, and Cancel to bypass all the remaining files. There is also a check box that allows you to bypass clicking on the OK push button for each file. If you un-check this box, all remaining files in the selection list will be copied without further intervention. Be aware that if you do this, you will have no opportunity to intervene or stop the process once the automatic operation has started. If directories or volume entries are in the selection list, a message will be displayed and they will be left uncopied. _ Delete Selections... deletes all or part of the current selection list. The dialog displays a list of the selected files. Below the list is the file about to be deleted. Click the OK push-button to delete the file, Ignore push-button to bypass deleting this one file, and ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 14 Filefind 3.3 Dialogs ___________________________________________________________________________ Cancel to bypass all the remaining files. There is also a check box that allows you to bypass clicking on the OK push button for each file. If you un- check this box, all remaining files in the selection list will be deleted without further intervention. Be very aware that if you do this, you will have no opportunity to intervene or stop the process once the automatic operation has started. If directories are in the selection list, they will be deleted if they are empty (contain no files or subdirectories). Volume Id entries in the selection list will cause a message to be displayed and the entry left un- deleted. The dialog displays a list of the selected files. Below the list is the file about to be deleted. Click the OK push-button to delete the file, Ignore push-button to bypass deleting this one file, and Cancel to bypass all the remaining files. There is also a check box that allows you to bypass clicking on the OK push button for each file. If you un-check this box, all remaining files in the selection list will be deleted without further intervention. Be very aware that if you do this, you will have no opportunity to intervene or stop the process once the automatic operation has started. If directories are in the selection list, they will be deleted if they are empty (contain no files or subdirectories). Volume Id entries in the selection list will cause a message to be displayed and the entry left un- deleted. _ Move Selections... moves all or part of the current selection list to a new disk\directory. Two dialog boxes are used. The first dialog encountered allows you to specify the destination drive and directory. Double click in the list box until the drive and directory are satisfactory. Click on the OK push button to continue. If you wish to abort the move operation, click on the Cancel push-button. The ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 15 Filefind 3.3 Dialogs ___________________________________________________________________________ second dialog displays a list of the selected files. Below the list is the file about to be moved. Click the OK push-button to move the file, Ignore push-button to bypass moving this one file, and Cancel to bypass all the remaining files. There is also a check box that allows you to bypass clicking on the OK push button for each file. If you un-check this box, all remaining files in the selection list will be copied without further intervention. Be aware that if you do this, you will have no opportunity to intervene or stop the process once the automatic operation has started. If a directory or volume id entry is in the selection list, a message is displayed, and the entry left unmoved. _ Print Selections... prints all or part of the current selection list. The dialog displays a list of the selected files. Below the list is the file that will be printed next. Click the OK push-button to print the file, Ignore push-button to bypass printing this one file, and Cancel to bypass all the remaining files. There is also a check box that allows you bypass clicking on the OK push button for each file. If you un-check this box, all remaining files in the selection list will be printed without further intervention. Be aware that if you do this, you will have no opportunity to intervene or stop the process once the automatic operation has started. If directory or volume id entry is in the selection list, it can not be printed. Printer Setup... invokes the dialog to set up the currently selected printer. This dialog is device dependent and is the same dialog that you see when you select a printer from the Control program supplied with your Windows software. Register License... Invokes a simple edit dialog box. This box allows you to type in the ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 16 Filefind 3.3 Dialogs ___________________________________________________________________________ license id that you receive when you register your copy of Filefind. The case of letters is not important. Clicking the OK box causes Filefind to validate and store the id. If it is valid, it will be stored in the WIN.INI file and you will exit the dialog. If it is invalid, a message will be displayed, and you are left in the dialog. You may click on Cancel to leave the dialog. Filefind will not store an invalid license id. Once you have entered your valid license id, there is no point in ever invoking this dialog again. _ Search The _ Search dialog is where you enter the file specification used for the search or building a directory tree. You also specify which drive to search on in this dialog box. When the file and drive specification are satisfactory, you can take one of the following actions: _ Search Will search the selected disk drive for all files that match the file specifications. _ Bld Tree Will build a directory tree. Se_ t Sets the current file specification, exits the dialog, but does not search for any files or build a directory tree. This is useful when you have a directory tree and wish to change what files List Dir(s) w/spec will list. Cancel Exits the dialog without doing anything. _ More >> Expands the dialog for additional file search filtering based on file attribute or file date. If .EXT Directories .EXT Directories .EXT Directories is checked, FileFind will include directories with extensions in the tree building, otherwise directories with extensions are ignored. Check this option if you have directories with extensions. Otherwise, leave it unchecked as FileFind will build the directory tree up to twice as fast. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: January 11, 1991 Page: 17 Filefind 3.3 Dialogs ___________________________________________________________________________ The More>> More>> More>> button will display additional filtering of files during search opertaions. Checkboxes for file attributes allow you to include certain file types. Normal files are always included. By checking one or more of the options, you may include other file attributes in the file list. For example, checking Read Only will include read only files in addition to normal files. Checking the Within Within Within box opens the edit field to its right. When Within Within Within is checked, Filefind will only include files with file dates within n n n days of the current date. The More>> More>> More>> button turns into a <