FLEXI-ARC

FLEXI-ARC Rel 3.1a

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by William Wong ProbeHouse Software, Sept 1993

An amazing shell! For all past, present and future archivers.

- Dvorak

We have a similar product for the NT but requires at least 16 Meg to run and 20 Meg HDD storage. We have 330 software engineers working 24 hrs to get the size down.

- Gates

We were able to unarchive election results much faster than them ... thats our advantage - oh? we do use Ataris ...

- Clinton

In this world, there have always been new archivers that are faster and smaller. Most of them come in non-user friendly IBM-style command line. A shell is needed to enhance it ... and so we wait for someone to do it ...

Now there is new shell on the block .... FLEXI-ARC the most flexible archive shell there is. FLEXI-ARC will allow users to configure for any past, present and future archive programs.

Using FLEXI-ARC

Before you can you FLEXI-ARC, you need to configure it for your system. After configuring it, you now just push buttons to do all your archives. Just 4 steps to perform a fuction.

1. Select the [ARCHIVER] to use.
2. Select the [ARCHIVED FILE] button to get a list of archived files using the system file selector.
3. Select the archived files to work on by highliting it. Use the [UP] and [DOWN] arrows buttons to scroll the entire list. You can add additional archived files anytime by selecting the [ARCHIVED FILE] button.
4. Select the function you want to use. That's it !

HOLD IT !!!!!!!

You can now have the option to either hold or not hold the output screen after each archiever run. The default is HOLD, to unhold search for the [HOLD] button and un-hilite it. To hold just hi-lite tye [HOLD] button.

Move/Add option

There are 3 modes of operations (if you find another let me know) :

1. Highlite an archived-file, and the selected file will be move/add into that highlited archived-file.
2. No highlited archived-file & selected file in a sub-directory.
   The selected file will archived and the archive name will be that of the sub-directory name.
3. No highlited archived-file & selected file in root-directory.
   The selected file will archived and will have the default name FLEXI.

If no single file is selected from the system file selector, then all the files are selected (ie *.*) and are moved/added.

Delete Option

The archived file and the file to delete from the archived must be entered. The system file selector is used to input the file to delete.

Configurating FLEXI-ARC or The difficult part

To configure FLEXI-ARC, select the [config] button.

Select the ARC-BUTTON to configure, by selecting from [ARC1] to [ARC5]. ARC-BUTTON not configured will not be able to be selected in the main dialogbox.

You will be able to edit for each of the ARC-BUTTON -

1. The archiver name (use the 3 character extension). This is used to select files in the selector & name of the button.
2. The archiver program file location. Click on it to change.
3. View command line.
4. Extract command line.
5. Move command line.
6. Add command line.
7. Delete command line.

These command lines will be expanded to include the directory and filename information and will be pass to the archiver. A command line parser is used to expand these command line as follows :

d = directory of the archived file.

f = filename + extension of the archived file.

#n = filename only of the archived file.

#s = pathname obtained from system file selector.

example :

x #d\#f will be expanded to -x c:\directory\filename.lzh

v #f\#n will be expanded tp -v c:\directory\filename

Suggestions for LZH -

View  : v #d\#f

Extract : x #d\#f #d\#n\

Move  : m #d\#f #s

Add  : a #d\#f #s

Delete  : d #d\#f #s

Because of this configurable stuff, you can come up with many different configurations that not even I know of, if you do please let me know.

How to get technical support & others stuffs

If you have a problem or discovered a bug in FLEXI-ARC, please forward a Email to me at D'Voice or Clavis or just send me a postcard at the address displayed by selecting the [FLEXI-ARC] sign. Both registered and unregistered users will be support and replied as soon as possible.

This is a public domain program. But hey, you can register for it if you want to. You can also hack it if you want.

If you find this program useful, I expect you to register. Registered users will get a deluxe 56 page hard cover printed manual, the full release of FLEXI-ARC on 3 high density 1.44 M high quality diskette ( please specify low dense diskette if you have a low dense disk drive ). All for US$1500 only. This will help me get my Falcon.

Source codes for the FLEXI-ARC also available at a bargain price of US$3000. Full license, documentation and explanation for the FLEXI-ARC are included in this deal. On site support available as well (exclude transport fee).

FLEXI-ARC release 3.1 was developed on an Atari 520ST with 4meg RAM, Tos 2.06 with a SCSI HDD using the Pure C compiler. It was tested inhouse on a Tos 1.02, Tos 1.04 (disk) and Tos 2.06 with various TSR programs loaded.

For internalisation of this program, please drop me note on this.

Revision history

release 0.0
A simple one that I was using since I have my first ARC program.

release 0.9
A nicer one than rel 0.0 with help from a resource editor & me gal.

release 1.0b
Beta tested by 1040 ST users worldwide to guarantee compatibility.

release 3.1
No major change. Just changed VERSION NUMBER to maintain version equality with a major competitor. Shows that we (ProbeHouse) do have stuff that are at least the same level of complexity if not better.

release 3.1a
Arrg !! A bug was found, so changed to a better insecticide. Added screen holding option. Seperated RSC file for internationalisation, following the action of a major competitor.

Thanks to -

A special thanks to the following for distribution, bugs reports, compliments and comments -

Tan JJ (Clavis BBS)

Mike Fung & Lee CL (D'Voice BBS, home of the Atarians)

David (STone BBS, the specialised ST PD lib)

Lai HL, Jason Julyan & Bruce Campbell

Have Fun

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