;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ; ; Lexa File help file; last altered: 24 October 1998 ; ; Do not edit this file! ; ;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------; ; 1Introduction ; Lexa File is a flexible file manager with which you can perform all file housekeeping and disk management tasks on your computer. There are a whole range of options available, all of which can be accessed most easily via the menu system. To activate the menus you either click the text Shift-Tab=Menus on the bottom left or right of the screen or press the Shift-Tab hot key. When you load Lexa File you are automatically presented with two windows, a tree structure and a directory listing window. One of these is always active. When the programme first starts it is the directory tree window. This can be recognised by the colour display of the top screen line on the left and by the bright bordering of the window. To move over to the directory listing window, use the Tab key. The listing which is displayed to begin with is that of the current directory. There will be a highlight bar on the first file in the directory window which can then be moved by pressing either the arrow keys or [Ctrl-]PageDown/PageUp. Remember to mark files you can use Shift- or Shift-. When a file is marked, it appears in bright lettering with an asterisk after it. The marking keys are toggles: if a file is already marked then the marking is removed. Alt-L/R Left/right window options: In each window there there is a small picklist with options which allows you to decide on displaying a directory tree or a listing of files. If you choose the latter then you can also specify the manner in which files are sorted. Note that with Alt-S you can specify ascending or descending order for sorting. ; 1 ÃÄÄLeft window ; The left window can display: 1) The tree of a logical drive 2) A second directory listing [L]ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͸ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿:\ 8 of 24 ³ ²³ Tree Structure ³ ³ ²³ Dir. Listing ³ ³ ²³ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄij ³ ²³ Sort Dir. by: ³ ³ ²³ûFile Name ³ ³ ²³ File Extension ³ ³ ²³ File Size ³ ³ ²³ File Date ³ ³ ²³ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄij ³ ²³ [ Ascending ] ³ ³ ²ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ³ ² ³ ² ³ ÃÄÄDOT ³ ² ³ ÃÄÄKEYB ³ ² ³ ÃÄÄLASER ³ ² ³ ÃÄÄSCREEN ³   ³ ³ E:\AD_ENG ³ ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ[ Shift-Tab Menus ]ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ; ; 1 ÀÄÄRight window ; The right window can display: 1) The current directory listing 2) A second tree structure which is used for: a) Copying files via a tree (Press Alt-T to copy; Ctrl-T to move) b) Examining a second tree ÕÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ[R] ³ FileName Ext. SiÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿  ³ E:\AD_ENG\*.* ³ Tree Structure ³ ² ³ DIR .LST ³ Dir. Listing ³ ² ³ ORDER .FRM 1³ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄij ² ³ ACHAIN .EXE 20³ Sort Dir. by: ³ ² ³ AD .EXE 181³ûFile Name ³ ² ³ AD .LOG ³ File Extension ³ ² ³ ADB .BAT ³ File Size ³ ² ³ ADBTXT .EXE 219³ File Date ³ ² ³ ADRAFT .ALT 3³ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄij ² ³ ADRAFT .FTR ³ [ Ascending ] ³ ² ³ ADRAFT .HDR ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ² ³ ADRAFT .INI 90 ² ³ ADRAFT .MAC 1883 01/16/90 11:18 ² ³ ADS .EXE 92474 05/16/90 12:05 ² ³ ADSB .BAT 86 05/10/90 20:45 ² ³ ² ³ File: 1 of 25 [ 691130 Bytes]  ³ Marked Files: 0 [ 0 Bytes] ³ ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ[ Shift-Tab Menus ]ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ; ; 1Drives & dirs. ; A tree is a graphical representation of the directories present on a logical drive. The branches indicate levels in the drive structure. Subdirec- tories lie below nodes in a tree; those located under a single node are subdirectories to the directory which occupies the node in question. On each level in a tree, the directories are sorted in alphabetical order. You can type the first few letters to find a directory (letter search) but only on the first level. Otherwise press the Space Bar to enter the name of a directory to find. Directories can be created, renamed or removed. The latter is obviously only possible if the directory is actually empty. Information on tree structure is stored by Lexa File in a file ADIRS.FIL and placed in the root directory of the drive in question (only applies to hard disks, i.e. C: and upwards). Copy/move/delete operations can be performed globally on directories; these commands are activated by pressing Shift-F9. Here you can also determine the size of a branch in a tree. Note that you may determine how many directory levels are displayed as follows: Ctrl-0 = All levels; Ctrl-1 through Ctrl-4 = Levels 1 to 4. ; 1 ÃÄÄDrives ; A drive can be a diskette drive or a logical drive as part of the hard disk inside the computer. Sometimes the hard disk is treated as one drive but it may be partitioned into more than one (to organise data better) and one then speaks of one or more logical drive which start at the letter C: and can continue to Z:. Ctrl-A, B These keystrokes allow you to directly log in the diskette drives A: and B: respectively. F4 Log in drive. Here you can specify the letter of the drive to be shown as a tree. You can also active the window for this command by pressing Ctrl + <-, ->. ; 1 ÃÄÄDirectories ; The following are the three main commands for directory manipulation: F8 Create directory Shift-F8 Remove directory Ctrl-F8 Rename directory It is frequently convenient to compare the contents of two directories with one another. For example, that of a hard disk and a diskette. To do this you must first of all activate a directory listing for the left window (use Alt-L to choose this option). Then while still in the left window, press F5 and those files which are not present in the left window are marked in the right window. Note that it suffices for two files to differ not just in name but in size, date or time for them to be highlighted. When you have a directory listing in both windows and press F10 in either to start copying, then the path of the opposite window automatically fills the input line for the target. ; 1 ÃÄÄScanning ; If you press Alt-B when in the tree window (on left) then the file display on the right is refreshed every time you move directory. This feature can be used to scan a disk by entering a file name as template (via Shift-F4). The directory display will then only show something if it matches the file template you have entered. Via Ctrl-F5 you can glean general statistics on the current disk; with Alt-D information on the logical drives in your system is offered. The utility Lexa Find should be used if you are not sure where what files are located on disk. It provides the most comfortable means of gaining information on file location and disk structure. Activate by pressing Alt-Tab and choosing the relevant option. Lexa Scan is a utility with which you comb a hard disk for files which match the template which you must enter before starting the programme. Note that Lexa Scan searches through the current directory and all subdirectories below this. Thus to comb an entire disk, move to the root directory in Lexa File before pressing Shift-F1 (to enter a DOS command, here: `kscan'). You may write the output to file by passing a file name to Lexa Scan (type it after the template). ; 1 ÀÄÄMaintenance ; The information Lexa File needs for tree display is stored in the small ASCII file ADIRS.FIL which is deposited in the root directory (if not found, Lexa File re-reads the disk and stores the information it gains on tree structure). There are four further files called ADIRS_01.FIL, ADIRS_02.FIL, ADIRS_03.FIL, and ADIRS_04.FIL which contain information on the first four levels of each logical drive. With Alt-F8 you can force Lexa File to re-read the structure of the current disk and store the results in files just mentioned. This is advisable if you suspect that the structure files no longer correspond to the actual directory structure of the current logical drive (e.g. you created, deleted or renamed directories with another programme, other than Lexa File). If you start Lexa File from a directory which is not in the structure file then the programme senses this and re-reads the structure of the logical drive automatically. ; 1File handling ; The file display (usually on the right of the screen) is a sorted listing of the current directory. It may be sorted according to 1) file name, 2) extension, 3) size or 4) date and display it in either ascending or descending order. You may enter a date filter with Ctrl-F3 and remove it again via Alt-F3. To find an entry, type the first few letters and the highlight bar jumps to the next entry which matches your entry. Mark files with Shift-, or by clicking the left mouse button (these are toggles!). To re-read a directory, press Shift-F5 or simply Escape. The display is then refreshed. You may write the current listing to a file via Alt-F5. You are then prompted to enter a name for the disk file. Alt-S The sorting order, ascending or descending, can be specified here. ; ; 1 ÃÄÄViewing ; By pressing the SpaceBar the file the highlight bar is resting on is selected for display and/or processing. You choose which programme you might want to use to view the file. The internal viewer in Lexa File is the first option. You can navigate normally here; the viewer works best with ASCII text files but recognises common word processor formats. External means of file viewing imply that an additional programme is called with the name of the file the highlight bar is resting on passed to it as a parameter. The four default programmes in question and their associated keys are: F2 This loads the file viewer TxtLook. Here you can scroll up and down, search for and count strings in the file if required. F2 Assuming that the current file in the directory listing has the extension .DBF then the database viewer DbLook is loaded (to view dBASE compatible databases). You can browse in files, search for field contents, etc. Shift-F2 The text editor Lexa Text is called when you press this key combination. With this you can edit any ASCII, RTF or HTML file. Ctrl-F2 The hex editor Lexa Byte can can be loaded with this keystroke. It allows file viewing in hex and ASCII form and you can edit stretches of a file if necessary. 1 ÃÄÄMarking ; Globally marking and unmarking Apart from marking files individually with Shift-, you can globally mark/unmark in the following ways: F3 Mark all files in current listing Shift-F3 Unmark all files in current listing Use Shift-F4 to enter a file template if you wish to have only those files displayed which match a certain pattern , e.g. *.DOC, CORR???.TXT. Alt-M allows you to mark all files in the current listing which either match a file template or do not match such a template. Note that, as opposed to Shift-F4, this does not filter out non-matching files from the current listing display. ; 1 ÃÄÄCopying ; 1) Copying via user input line (Alt-U; F10, possibly with Shift or Ctrl): F10 Carries out a plain copy to the target you enter (if you terminate the entry with Alt-2 and the first letter of the entry is `A', then Lexa File copies the marked files to both drive A: and drive B:. Shift-F10 If you start the copy operation via this combination then Lexa File requires confirmation of overwriting a file with the same name on the target. Ctrl-F10 Removes marking from each file which is successfully copied to target. By these means you can copy files to diskettes even if their total size is greater than the capacity of the diskette. When the latter is full, Lexa File stops and gives you the opportunity to change diskettes; resume copying the remaining files by pressing Ctrl-F10 again. Alt-U Like F10 but only updates files on target (i.e. copies more recent files). 2) Copying via tree (Alt-T = `Copy files' or Ctrl-T = `Move files'): Here you choose a drive and then a directory on that drive as target for the copy/move operation; advantages: 1) no typing involved, 2) you see the target in a drive tree. ; 1 ÃÄÄDeleting ; Means of deleting files Deleting files can be done by pressing either F6 or Shift-F6. In either case you must confirm beginning the operation. However, with Shift-F6 you must furthermore confirm deleting each individual file as you must do if you use the Delete key for removing files. You may of course delete an entire directory via Shift-F9. This is potentially dangerous as all files are deleted (albeit after the user twice confirms his/her intention to do so). ; 1 ÃÄÄDate filter ; A date filter is a mechanism for displaying only those files which have been created or altered. The three options available here are: 1) Before a specified date 2) After a specified date 3) On the system date, i.e. today Ctrl-F3 With this key combination you first of all choose the type of filter you require (one of the above three types). Be careful to enter the date in the required format to ensure that the filter works correctly. Alt-F3 This simply removes a date filter if one is set. All files are now displayed in the current directory (file template permitting). Remember that you can reverse the chronological order of appearence of files in a directory by choosing a different sorting order (ascending or descending) via Alt-S. To check on 1) file template, 2) sorting order and type, 3) a possible date filter, press Alt-F (for file information). ; 1 ÃÄÄAttributes ; Setting and removing file attributes When the right window is active with a directory listing and you press Ctrl-F4, the attributes of the files in the current directory are displayed (instead of the time stamp for each file). You may mark files in the usual manner. After having done so, press Ctrl-F4 again and a picklist appears with which you may set or remove attributes. If you just wish to view the attribute settings of files, then press Ctrl-F4 and Escape when you are finished. For the current option the programme SET_ATTR.EXE (part of the Lexa suite) must be accessible to Lexa File. You may not set/remove file attributes from a directory listing in the left window. ; 1 ÀÄÄRenaming... ; Renaming and duplicating files Ctrl-F6 The file the highlight bar is resting on can be renamed by pressing the current key combination. The input line is automatically filled with the current name of the file. Alt-F10 The file the highlight bar is resting on can be duplicated by pressing this key combination. The only pre-condition is that there is no file with the same name in the current directory. ; 1Services ; There are a number of means of executing an external programme from within Lexa File. The first is to shell down to DOS with Ctrl-F1; the second is to execute a single command for DOS via Shift-F1 or Insert. Alt-Tab This command opens a file which consists of a list of programme calls, each of which causes some external command or programme to be executed. By default this file is KDATA.BFG. Take a look at the supplied file to see what it does. The third method is to press Ctrl-Return when the highlight bar is resting on a file with the extension .EXE, .COM or .BAT; the programme is loaded and control is passed to it. On exiting the latter an automatic return to Lexa File is made. If you press Ctrl-F9 when on a file you are given the opportunity of entering the name of a programme to which you wish to have the current file passed as a parameter on loading it. After unloading the latter, you return to Lexa File. Alt-F7 This keystroke presents you with a window of options which users are likely to want for everyday work with the operating system. All these options involve a DOS command being activated. Any of these commands can be interrupted by pressing Ctrl-C either before they have started or during their execution. ; 1Interfaces ; Apart from loading an external programme with one of the options outlined in the previous section, one can interface with two types of programmes directly, a text editor and an online diary, described in the following two sections. ; 1 ÃÄÄText editor ; The internal editor of Lexa File (activated via Alt-F12 in a directory listing) is a reduced version of Lexa Text and all its commands are derived from those of the latter programme (consult the online help for this editor for more information). Up to eight texts can be edited at once. All the usual options of block marking, find and replace, various types of file loading and saving are available. With Alt-Backspace or Numeric 5 you are offered a picklist for the texts which the editor can handle. The picklist will contain the names of any files already loaded. If a text area does not contain a file, then an empty line is displayed. Moving the highlight bar to this and pressing Return leads to a new, empty text being opened. You can then enter text, copy selected text or load another file into this area. ; 1 ÃÄÄOnline diary ; Alt-F2 This key combination activates the appointments diary within Lexa File. The screen changes and you are presented with a screen which you can fill with text; this page is that for today (the current system date, as you can see from the top line of the screen). With [Ctrl-]PageUp, PageDown you can move within the current month. To edit the page for a given day, press Return; press the same key to terminate editing, Escape if you wish to abandon the text entered. Via F3 you may change the month and with F4 the year (up to 2010). For each month in each year an ASCII text file is created. The year is reflected in the extension of a diary file, e.g. KF_DIARY.99 for 1999. There is also a text which accompanies the diary and which can be used for taking notes. This text would be stored in the file KF_DIARY.99X for 1999. The diary notes file can be accessed from the diary by pressing Alt-F12. The directory in which diary files are to be kept is specified in an initialisation file; the default is the home directory of Lexa File. The legal editing commands for a diary text are those of the User Input Editor, Alt-C, F11 With these keys an online calendar is displayed. The diary can be activated from Lexa Text and DatabaseText by pressing Ctrl-Tilde in either of these programmes. Pressing Ctrl-Shift-Tilde leads to a switch to the diary notes file directly. ; 1 ÀÄÄDatabases ; There are two means of accessing a database in Lexa File. To begin with users should note that in Lexa File, as in Lexa Text and DatabaseText, there is an option which allows you to view, search for and copy contents of an address database, the name of which is specified in an initialisation file. This option is activated by pressing Shift-Back of choosing the relevant item in a menu. The database is displayed directly. Copying data is only allowed if you are on the text editing level. If you wish to process the address database, i.e. enter new data or alter existing data, then you can do so via Alt-F1. Here you can specify the name of the database (the default is that specified in the current initialisation file). The input window also shows what programme will be used (the default is the database editor DatabaseText). ; 1Miscellaneous ; F7 Exit Lexa File to DOS. Shift-F7 Exit Lexa File and change to the current drive and directory (which may well be different from the outset drive/directory). F12 has the same effect but without requiring confirmation of exit from user. F8 Print file from directory listing (only to be used with ASCII text files!) F9 Displays relevant information on the environment one is working in, free disk space and memory, date and time, current and original directory, etc. Alt-H Show details of the hardware your computer consists of. Ctrl-V Screen size. Apart from the standard 25 row by 80 column display there are three others which are available in Lexa File. The first is 50 x 80 which allows you to view more of the drive tree and longer directory listings. The other two use an intermediary screen height (30 lines) with a width of 80 or 90: 30 x 80 and 30 x 90. ; 1 ÃÄÄUser input ; Whenever the user is prompted to enter something (file name, target directory, etc.) an internal line editor is activated with the following command set. Return Terminate entry positively; continue with command Escape Cancel entry and abort associated command <-, -> Move left and right a character at a time Home/End Jump to beginning or end of line Ctrl-End Delete from cursor to end of line Insert Toggle insert or overwrite entry mode Ctrl-A ASCII chart (for choosing special characters) ,  Retrieve previous entries in line editor queue F12 Recall previous input lines (history function) ; 1 ÃÄÄOther programmes ; Lexa Text A compact and fast text editor intended primarily for editing ASCII text files from within Lexa File or independently. Contains a large range of editing commands. TxtLook Permits viewing of any input file (but not editing, for this use Lexa Text). You can search for and count strings. DbLook An equivalent for viewing the contents of databases. These must be in the dBASE format (which nearly all databases are). A fuller form of this viewer is also available (DatabaseText). Lexa Byte Displays a specified file in hex format. At any stage you can edit a piece of text as either hex or ASCII and save the changes to disk. Lexa Scan A disk search facility which enables you to comb through your disk for a file you specify. The legal DOS wildcards * and ? are permissible. Lexa Find A visually effective file finder; gives you a list of all files on disk; shows the home directory for each in a tree. Many other features besides. ; 1 ÃÄÄInitialisation ; Lexa File can in many cases take user-specified values for internal parameters. These can be entered into an initialisation file which is a normal ASCII file which one can edit with any text editor. Alternatively you can press Alt-P from within Lexa File and the current initialisation file is loaded with the editor Lexa Text. For any alterations to the initialisation file to take effect, you must exit and restart Lexa File. There are more than 70 parameters which can be specified for Lexa File. Users who intend using the programme regularly should take the time to examine the initialisation file LFILE.INI and see what options are available with this file. In many cases Lexa File can be customised to suit individual needs, e.g. by specifying your own programmes to be loaded on pressing certain keys (F2, Alt-Tab, etc.) by entering the names at the appropriate points in an initialisation file. ; 1 ÃÄÄSize limits ; File manager Files per directory 1024 Directories per logical drive 1024 No. of logical drives 26 (A - Z) Text editor The text editor can process up to eight texts simultaneously. Text files are loaded completely from disk and the only limitation on the size of files is the physical of your computer. There are eight block buffers for storing selected text; deleted text is held in a parallel array of eight buffers. The maximum size of these buffers is 64K for selected text and 16K for deleted text. ; 1 ÃÄÄCommand line ; There are a number of command line options with Lexa File which can be useful when customising the programme. Note that the options for display and for the online diary are mutually exclusive, i.e. only one option can be specified. lf /i, /t, a: [/m, /v, /8, /9] [/d, /n] /i Load initialisation file /t Just read tree structure a: Log in a specific drive /m Force monochrome display (for laptops) /v VGA 50 line display /8 30 x 80 display /9 30 x 90 display /d Consult diary /n Consult diary text To start Lexa File using an initialisation file other than LFILE.INI enter the command line as follows: lf /i-NAME (NAME = initialisation file name) For full operation TxtLook, DbLook, Lexa Text, DatabaseText, Lexa Byte, Lexa Find and Lexa Scan from the Lexa suite must be accessible via the DOS path. ; 1 ÀÄÄMouse support ; ³ Mouse support ³ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÚÄÁ¿ ³^^³ ÀÄÄÙ You can use your mouse to scroll in either window, to choose a directory or mark/unmark files, to accept or reject an input line, etc. Note that during user input: Left Button Return Right Button Escape When scrolling in a directory listing: Left Button Shift highlight bar to mouse cursor Right Button Mark file at cursor (drag to repeat) Otherwise you move the mouse cursor to the text Shift-Tab=Menus at the bottom of the active window and click either button to activate the menu system. When a menu is displayed, clicking the right button will close it; this is functionally equivalent to pressing the Escape key. ; ; ; End of file LFILE.HLP ;