ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ F(ile) M(anager)/2 is free software from Mark Kimes ³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ READ.ME file -- read before installing ³ ³ See end of document for contact info and license details ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ File Manager/2 (FM/2) is a free OS/2 3.0 (Warp)+ PM 32-bit file/directory/archive maintenance utility (a sort of super-Drives object, something midway between the Drives objects and a more traditional file manager) with plenty of bells, whistles and utilities, drag and drop, context menus, toolbars, bubble help and accelerator keys. If you know how to use OS/2, you already know how to use most of FM/2. You can easily glean the rest from the extensive online help, including tutorials. This document explains how to install FM/2, including upgrading from previous versions. It explains command line syntaxes (parameters in a program object) and how to get the program(s) running. The online help tells you how to actually use FM/2. I'll try to keep this brief. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA FM/2 3.x installation instructions: ================================== First-time installation: ----------------------- 1. Unpack the FM2*.ZIP archive in a private directory (for example, C:\FM2). UNZIP.EXE works nicely to unpack the file. 2. Run the provided INSTALL.CMD in that directory to build a folder and program objects. INSTALL /? will give you simple command line help on a couple of options. 3. Run it -- double-click the "FM/2" or "FM/2 Lite" object in the File Manager/2 folder. Play, browse, have fun. Full help is available from within the program, and it helps you with quick initial setup the first time it's run. Upgrading existing versions of FM/2: ----------------------------------- If upgrading, just unpack the files in the FM/2 directory. Be sure to overwrite old files. You might want to skip ARCHIVER.BB2 if you've customized it -- other customizations are automatically preserved. You might then want to rerun INSTALL or just delete *.TMP and *.ICO to clean up some stuff that you won't need when upgrading. Note: don't attempt to unpack using FM/2 into the directory in which FM/2 is already running -- OS/2 locks in-use files and the upgrade won't be completed properly; not all files will be unpacked. Moving FM/2: ----------- Rerun INSTALL.CMD if you move the FM/2 directory. This will make sure all the objects in the folders and *.CMD files point to the right place. Compare to other products, where'd you'd have to reinstall if you could only figure out how to completely uninstall the existing version... Uninstalling FM/2: ----------------- If you later decide to remove FM/2, run UNINSTAL.CMD in the FM/2 directory and follow simple directions. Both installation and deinstallation are no-brainers. UNINSTAL will help you quickly and easily remove all traces of FM/2 from your system, if you don't like it for some reason. All programs should be so nice. First-time notes: ================ Starting FM/2 -- how it works, customizing parameters: ----------------------------------------------------- If you start File Manager/2 (filename FM3.EXE) with no parameters, it opens the Drive Tree window but no directory windows (unless the "Save state of dir windows" toggle is checked -- see online help). File Manager/2 optionally accepts names of directories in the parameters field of its program object; it'll open a directory window for each one. Hint: If you often do different specific things with FM/2, you might set up a WPS object customized to start up ideally for each activity. For example, if you wanted to maintain your BBS areas, you might have one object with parameters like: "D:\BBSDIR D:\BBSDIR\MAILIN D:\BBSDIR\MAILOUT", and if you also like to use FM/2 to set icons on files, you might have another object with parameters like: "E:\MYICONS D:\NEWFILES". The State quicklist can also be used for this within FM/2 itself -- see online help. You can exclude drives in the parameters by prefacing the drive letter with "/", and there can be more than one drive letter behind the "/" (i.e. "/BH" to exclude both drives B: and H:). Hint: Many people like to use /B to exclude "phantom" drive B: if they have a single-floppy system. Similarly, you can cause drives NOT to be prescanned by the Drive Tree by prefacing the drive letter with ";", drives NOT to load icons for objects by prefacing the drive letter with ",", drives NOT to load subjects for objects by prefacing the drive letter with "`" and drives NOT to load longnames for objects by prefacing the drive letter with "'". This can be handy if you have a very slow drive like a CD-ROM or Zip drive. FM/2 Lite recognizes these switches, too. See also the Drive Flags dialog in FM/2. If you place the plus sign "+" (alone, separated from anything else by spaces) in the parameters, FM/2 will log, to FM2.LOG, delete, rename, move and copy operations that are performed by drag-and-drop or with the menus. FM/2 Lite recognizes this switch, too. The parameter "-" (alone, separated from anything else by spaces) causes FM/2 to ignore, not load or save, the previous state of directory windows (see the "Save state of dir windows" toggle under Config Menu->Toggles in the online help) for that invocation. You can specify the name of an alternate INI file with "-" -- for example, "-C:\FM2\MYINI.INI". You can also specify the INI file location with the environment variable FM2INI -- for example: SET FM2INI=C:\FM2\MYINI.INI. How to get started using FM/2: ----------------------------- Please read the following sections in the online help when you start FM/2 for the first time: "How to use FM/2's Help," "Terminology" and "General Help," then "Hints." A peek at the labelled "Window Layouts" pictures would probably be a good idea, too. The rest you can browse as you get time/feel the need; for instance, if you want to know what a toggle does, read the help under Settings notebook for that page (each Settings notebook page has its own Help button). If you prefer hardcopy help, print this file, run FM/2, press Ctrl + F1, click the "Print" button at the bottom of the help window that appears and then print both the "Contents" and "All sections" (keep an eye on the printer, after page 100 of "All sections" as the Help Manager will begin printing its own help then -- you may want to abort printing at that point). Advanced and/or curious users may also want to print FM3TOOLS.DAT and ARCHIVER.BB2. Be sure you have plenty of paper and ink handy -- the package is well documented. You'll probably also want a three-ring binder and hole punch to get it bound, as staples aren't going through that puppy. You can, of course, print only the sections that are of particular interest to you. You may want to either move ARCHIVER.BB2 (the data file containing information about archiver programs and archive files) to a directory in your PATH= statement or erase this one if you've customized an old one. FM/2 can still find, use and maintain ARCHIVER.BB2 on the PATH; it doesn't have to be in FM/2's directory (this allows it to be used by other programs as well, like XGroup, XBBS/2, LA, AV, ZTreeBold, etc.). Remember, FM/2 works best with OS/2, not DOS, archivers. Additional documentation: ------------------------ FM3.HLP: FM/2's online help file. Look in the FM/2 Docs subfolder of the File Manager/2 folder for easy access to all documentation. Bonus programs: ============== You'll note the extra objects that the Install program creates in the FM/2 Tools subfolder of the File Manager/2 folder. FM/2 is modular, so that you can get directly to some of its components without running the entire ball of wax. This may allow you to enhance the behavior of some of your other applications in the WPS tradition. You don't _have_ to keep these around, of course -- FM/2 itself contains all their functionality. Archive Viewer/2: Intended for drag-and-drop operation (or WPS association) with WPS objects or other applications. Drag an archive onto it, drop it, get an archive listing box. FM/2's installation program sets up some associations between archive files and this program by file extension (run INSTALL with "NOASSOC" as an argument if you don't want them). AV/2 will try to display whatever you give it as sensibly as it can. Filename AV2.EXE. EA Viewer: Drag a file system object onto it and it'll show you the object's extended attributes. Filename EAS.EXE. INI Viewer: Drag an .INI file onto it and it'll show you its contents. Filename INI.EXE. Bookshelf Viewer: Shows all .INF files in a listbox and lets you pick the one(s) you want to view. If you give any command line argument, the .HLP files on the HELP path will be shown instead (the Helpfile Viewer object calls VIEWINFS.EXE with "dummy" for an argument, for example). Filename VIEWINFS.EXE. Process Killer: Lets you kill off renegade processes. An English version of PSTAT.EXE must be on your PATH. Filename KILLPROC.EXE. Undeleter: Lets you undelete files (via interface with UNDELETE.COM). Drag a file system object onto it and it'll let you undelete files for that drive. Filename UNDEL.EXE. Visual Tree: Opens a Drive Tree window (like the WPS Drives object with more horsepower). Filename VTREE.EXE. Visual Directory: Opens a Directory Container window; drag a file system object onto it and this will open its directory (like a WPS directory Folder with more horsepower). Filename VDIR.EXE. Collector: Opens a Collector window. Filename VCOLLECT.EXE. Two other objects, "See all files" and "Seek and scan" are created which call up the Collector and go directly to dialogs for the appropriate purpose. Global Viewer: Opens a global view of a drive or drives. Filename GLOBAL.EXE. Databar: Opens a databar showing some system information. Filename DATABAR.EXE. DirSize: Shows where drive usage is concentrated. Filename DIRSIZE.EXE. FM/2 Lite: A simplified interface for "dummies." Filename FM4.EXE. FM/2's install creates FM2.CMD, AV2.CMD, VDIR.CMD, VTREE.CMD, VCOLLECT.CMD, UNDEL.CMD, KILLPROC.CMD, INI.CMD, EAS.CMD, DIRSIZE.CMD, VIEWINFS.CMD and VIEWHELP.CMD files for you in a directory "utils" off the install directory. You should add this directory to your PATH= statement in CONFIG.SYS (type HELP PATH at a command line for more info). If you prefer, FM/2's INSTALL builds a SETENV.CMD in the FM/2 directory which you can call to set the PATH for FM/2 in any given session without modifying CONFIG.SYS. Troubleshooting: =============== If FM/2 won't run, the probable culprit is CONFIG.SYS. Your LIBPATH statement should contain a ".\" entry. If yours doesn't, add it. It's standard for an OS/2 installation, but some buggy install programs knock it out because they translate entries to their full pathname before rewriting (so ".\" gets translated to whatever the current directory is for the buggy install program). What this ".\" entry does is allow a program to find and use .DLL files in the program's current directory -- obviously something you want programs to be able to do, otherwise you'd have to put every application's .DLLs into directories already on the LIBPATH, or add the directories of all applications to the LIBPATH, a rather huge pain in the, uh, neck. If things in FM/2 are suddenly acting strange after an upgrade, first make _sure_ you unpacked _all_ the files and overwrote the old ones, then ran INSTALL.CMD to update your WPS objects. If the "FM/2 Online Help" object in the "FM/2 Docs" subfolder won't work properly, you've got a version of VIEW.EXE that won't directly display help (.HLP) files. Use SEEHELP.EXE from the FM/2 Utilities package to get around this problem (or upgrade your version of OS/2). Don't drag files over Netscape -- it will lock up if files (not WPS objects; there's a subtle difference) are dragged over it. If you get a popup dialog that needs to be reported to the maintainer, you can either take a screen shot or you can capture the information from STDERR with FM3 2>STDERR.LOG This technique works for all the FM/2, FM/2 Lite and all the standalone applets. If you are having trouble with Drag and Drop operations, try the + command line switch described above. The content of FM2.LOG may be helpful. Known problems/shortcomings: =========================== - FM/2 does not properly report sizes of some files with long name resident on Win95/NT drives. - File List Container fails to fill after drive change SYS0039 error. - Tree switching on Focus/Directory Change appears to be slower than expected. - Access to LS120 and FAT32 drives slower than expected - Icon display in Directory Container does not always match WPS icons - Spurious WPS Objects Handles created during some operations About FM/2: ========== FM/2 was originally written by: Mark Kimes He has kindly allowed me to take over maintenance and support of FM/2 and to release the program under the GNU GPL license. I'm sure he would appreciate a Thank You note for his generosity. Support: ======= There is a Yahoo group devoted to fm/2 at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fm2user/ You will find lots of friendly folks ready to help. FM/2 is moving to Netlabs (thanks Adrian) Check it out at http://svn.netlabs.org/fm2 Not everything is in place yet, but this is the place to enter defect tickets and enhancement requests. Eventually, the mailing list and the file archives will all move to the Netlabs server along with the source code. You can reach me directly at: Steven H. Levine steve53@earthlink.net I also monitor the comp.os.os2.apps newsgroup and several others in the comp.os.os2.* hierarchy. Thanks and enjoy. $Id: README 549 2007-02-04 03:14:36Z root $