SnFile V 1.2 Copyright December 1996 Richard Wakelin. Shareware. See the end of this document for details. Contents 1. Disclaimer 2. Introduction 3. Installing SnFile 4. The tree window 5. The file list window 6. Copying, moving and tagging files 7. Starting applications 8. Viewing .pic (picture) files 9. Known limitations 10. Contact address and other details 1. Disclaimer Use this program at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any loss of data that may occur as a result of using SnFile. The Psion logo and other words used in this program are registered trademarks of Psion plc. Psion have no connection with this program. The Psion logo and other trademarks are used for decorative purposes only. Do not contact Psion about this program, contact me at the email address at the foot of this page. I cannot guarantee that there are no hidden bugs waiting to be discovered so make sure that you back up your data before using this (or any other shareware/freeware) program. 2. Introduction ............... Snfile12.zip contains the following files sfile.opa sfile2.opo Both these files are needed to run the program New in this version. Setting of file attributes and a few minor bugs fixed. The main features of SnFile 1.2 are (a) A fast drawing, full expanded directory tree. (b) Multiple tagging of files across different directories and devices. (c) Moving, copying and deleting groups of tagged files. (d) Start the built in apps by selecting their files from the file list. (e) Start opo and opa applications by selecting them from the file list. (f) View .pic (picture) files by selecting them from the file list. (g) Most of the usual file management facilities found elsewhere. SnFile has been written to ease the task of Siena file management, especially the task of moving and copying files between different directories and devices. The menus have been designed to behave intelligently i.e. you cannot delete a file from a ROM or write protected disk so the menus will not offer you that choice. If you have not tagged any files the menus will not show any options for dealing with tagged files. Some users may recognise this program as a rehashed version of Infowin, a file management program that I wrote for the S3a. I have attempted to make this program easier to use and have scrapped many fancy (but useless) features of that program. 3. Installing SnFile .................... Two options exist for installing SnFile. The first is the traditional method. Place sfile.opa in M:\APP\ directory and sfile2.opo in M:\APP\SNFILE\ and install sfile.opa to the system screen. Below are instructions on how to do this. Press tab while in the system screen and choose Make directory from the Directory menu. Type app in the dialog box and press enter. Press tab again and use the arrow keys to move to the app directory. choose Make directory from the Directory menu, type snfile in the dialog box and press enter. This will create the directory structure M:\APP\SNFILE\. Place sfile.opa in the M:\APP\ directory and sfile2.opo in M:\APP\SNFILE\. Second method. Copy both sfile.opa and sfile2.opo to an app directory on any drive and install sfile.opa to the system screen in the usual way. Alternatively install both files to any directory you choose although this will mean having to navigate to that directory when installing to the system screen. What ever you choose make sure that both files go into the same directory or the program will not start. It is better to use the first installation option as any future add on modules will be need to be installed in \APP\SNFILE\. 4. The tree window .................. This is the window you see after starting the program (after a brief splash screen). It displays a full expanded directory tree that can be scrolled up and down using the arrow keys and pg up-pg dn keys. The tree is fully expanded so that you can see all the directories and sub directories that exist an any drive. This window can display sub directories up to six levels deep. i.e. m:\sub1\sub2\sub3\sub4\sub5\sub6. This restriction is due to the size of the Siena screen although an average user will have no need to nest sub directories to such a level. You can view the contents of drives A: (the external ssd drive), M: (the Siena's internal ram drive) or the contents of the internal ROM::. To move from drive to drive, press either the A, M, or R keys or use the left and right arrow keys. The buttons at the top of the screen will indicate which drive is currently being displayed i.e. if the M button is depressed then that is the drive you are viewing. At the bottom of the screen is a small status bar which shows the current directory path. Both the tree and file list windows contain a scroll bar on their right hand side. This helps indicate how much of the display is currently off screen (the behaviour of this bar can be a bit erratic and needs further programming attention). To create a sub directory, move to a directory (or sub directory) and choose Create from the directory menu. To delete a directory choose Remove from the same menu. To open a directory press the Enter key. To return to the tree window press the Esc key. The menus in this window are self explanatory so I wont go into great detail here. The only thing worth mentioning is the files menu. This menu only appears in the tree window when files have been tagged and allows you to easily copy or move files to other directories or devices. See section 6 for more details of moving and copying files. 5. The file list window ....................... This is the window you see after having pressed the Enter key in the tree window. This shows what files, if any, are in a particular directory. This window does not attempt to show any sub directories that may be in a directory as this is clearly displayed in the tree window. The movement keys in this window are the same as for the tree window. The menus in this window are also self explanatory. As in the rest of the program, the menus that are displayed depend on the type of device you are looking at and whether any files are tagged. A special mention needs to be given to the sort menu though. This menu, as its name suggests, allows the displayed file list to be sorted by name, size, type and date. Sorting by name or type sorts only by the first letter of a file name or extension. The order of sorting also changes each time you sort the list. For instance, the first time you sort by size the list will show the files in descending size order. Sort again and the list will show the files in ascending size order. This also applies alphabetically A..Z then Z..A. At the bottom of the file list window is a status bar showing the number of files in the current directory and the total size of these files in bytes. If you have tagged any files then the total size, in bytes, will be shown on the right hand side of the status bar. This is the total size of ALL tagged files across different directories and devices. 6. Copying, moving and tagging files .................................... One of the reasons this program was written was to make the task of copying and moving files as easy as possible. If you have used Microsoft Windows you will be used to the concept of copy and paste. SnFile follows this convention to a degree. Instead of copy and paste it is tag and paste that is used here. To tag or untag a file in the file list window press the spacebar. The highlight will move down to the next line to ease the task of tagging whole lists of files (for deleting perhaps !). You can also use the shift and arrow keys to tag files in the same way as you do using the built in file manager. When you tag or untag a file its name and location is copied to, or removed from, a temporary data file. Think of this data file as being a clipboard. When files are tagged the menus will display various options for deleting, copying, moving and untagging the tagged files. What options are shown depends on what device you are currently looking at. You cannot copy or move files to a ROM drive so the menu will not offer you that choice. Here is an example of copying or moving files. In the tree window go to the directory you wish to copy files from. Press enter to open the directory and tag the files you wish to copy or move. Press Esc to return to the tree window and go to the directory you wish to copy or move the files to. From the files menu choose copy or move to this directory. You can also open the target directory first and then copy or move files to it. All the files that are currently tagged are copied or moved. For instance, you can tag a few files in the Sienas ROM, go to disk A: (if fitted) and tag some files there and then tag some files in the internal RAM drive. When you choose 'copy to this directory' from the file menu all the tagged files, from each device, will be copied to the current directory. If you choose move instead, only the files that can be moved will be moved (not the rom files). 7. Starting applications ........................ All the built in applications that use files (Word, Data, Sheet ect) can be started by selecting a file (pressing enter) in the file list window. For instance, open the DAT directory and select a data file. The Data application will start loaded with that file. Exiting the application returns to the file list window. OPO and OPA files can also be started by selecting them from the file list window. Selecting other types of files has no effect. 8. Viewing .pic (picture) files ............................... Psion .pic files can contain more than one picture. Typically a .pic file contains two picture (or bitmaps), one for the black plane and one for the grey plane of the screen. The icons on the system screen are an example of this. They can also contain only one or any number of pictures. SnFile has a built in .pic file viewer that allows you to view all the pictures in a .pic file. When you select a .pic file from the file list window SnFile first checks how may pictures are in the file. If only one picture exists then it is displayed on screen. If two pictures exist SnFile checks if they are the same width and height. If they are then it is assumed that they are a black grey bitmap and both planes are loaded to the screen. If they are not the same width and height or if there are more than two bitmaps then a dialog box appears and you can view each bitmap in turn. If you press Psion Enter then this dialog will appear in any case. 9. Known limitations .................... There is a limit to the number of directories or files that can be displayed at any one time. If you try to display a directory tree that contains more than 130 directories and sub directories or you open a directory that contains more than 130 files the program may exit prematurely. This is because of operating system memory limitations. Very few people should be bothered with this though. The program is also fairly memory hungry. When a tree or file list is displayed the program grabs a large enough chunk of memory to display up to 130 items. This is obviously a waste when only a few lines need to be displayed. I am currently experimenting with dynamic memory allocation which I hope will resolve this problem in future versions. 10. Contact address and other details ..................................... I hope you find this program useful. Please redistribute this program along with this text file. I have only uploaded this program to CIX and CIS so please cross post any other library or BBS A version of this program for the 3a/c called X3Tree is also available. X3Tree features side by side tree and file list windows. If you would like a copy of this program then contact me at the email address below. SnFile is shareware. Hundreds of hours have been spent developing this program. IF you use this program on a regular basis then please consider paying for it. Send a small cash donation of £10 to the address below. If nothing else it will encourage me to develop the program further. Any comments or suggestions by email only please. Richard Wakelin 8 Ezard Street, Stockton On Tees, Cleveland, TS19 0BZ England UK Email rbenno@cix.compulink.co.uk Email 106305.466@compuserve.com