CAPTURE your own
HELP screens

CAPTURE instantly turns the custom help menus, tables, or anything you type on
your screen into files you can pop up with the HELP.COM program in this
issue's PC Lab Notes.

MDULMDNMCAPTURE
Command
Tom Kihlken1988/No. 1 (Utilities)

Purpose:Saves the text and attribute bytes on the screen to a
4,000-byte file that the HELP.COM program (PC Lab Notes, 1988/No. 1) can pop
up either from within an application or at the DOS prompt.

Format:CAPTURE

Remarks:CAPTURE is a memory-resident screen-saving program. Its
default actuating key is Alt-C, though this can be changed, as described
below. The program takes no parameters and saves to filenames SCREEN.000,
SCREEN.001, etc. It will not overwrite existing filenames, but increments
the number in the extension instead. Filenames stored by CAPTURE can then be
renamed for use by HELP.COM. CAPTURE files may also be combined into
multiple-page help screens (up to the 14-screen limit of HELP.COM), by using
the DOS COPY /B option for copying binary files.

For example,

COPY /B SCREEN.000+SCREEN.001+SCREEN.002 HELP.HEP

would combine the first three CAPTUREd help screens into the file,
HELP.HEP, which might be one of the files in a \HELP subdirectory.

The Alt-C trigger key may be changed with DEBUG, by entering the
following commands:


DEBUG CAPTURE.COM
E 268 SS ;Your Scan code
E 27D MM ;Your Shift mask
W
Q

Tables containing the entry to make for SS (the scan code) and for MM
(the shift mask) above are contained in the body of the article.