Category : File Managers
Archive   : LC178.ZIP
Filename : README
Copyright (c)1990 By Curtis Little
All Rights Reserved
Support BBS: (209) 521-2143
Welcome to LogiCat! LogiCat was designed to allow you to easily catalog
your disks. LogiCat is the first step in bringing you a set of disk
tracking utilities that go beyond anything published to date. I'm sure
you'll enjoy the power that LogiCat brings you; finally an advance in
disk cataloging technology is available!
[------------- N O T I C E ! ! ! --------------]
There have been significant changes in the reports since the documentation
was created. Please take the time to read this file and the history file
for important notes on the new features added to LogiCat.
[-------- CHANGES IN THE DOCUMENTATION --------]
Since LogiCat was introduced there have been several changes in LogiCat
that aren't yet included in the documentation. The following summarizes
additions to the manual:
1) On the Add menu and the Delete/replace menu a new item has been added
that provides "multi-drive" support. By choosing the multi-drive item
you're allowed to log/replace files from any number of different drives
in any order you specify. The disadvantage to logging files in this
manner is that you must type the drive letter and press return for
each disk you log/replace. This feature is mainly useful for Sysops
who desire to log multiple hard drives.
Note that the other menu options that are documented in the manual
still work as specified.
2) A hard disk is REQUIRED, not just recommended as the documentation
indicates.
3) When you replace a disk, LogiCat has to keep both disks in memory
temporarily so it can copy the comments for existing files to the
new disk. If you don't have enough files configured (and LogiCat
can't automatically increase them), the disk will not be able to
be replaced properly. LogiCat will keep the files that it can,
but once it runs out of memory, it will not pick up the rest of
the files from the disk. Note that a warning message is displayed
if this happens.
4) Several new options have been added. The options for expanding an
archive, and extracting ARCHIVE comments have been modified to go from
the previous Yes/No toggle to have a third option: ASK. If you set
the associated option to ASK, LogiCat will prompt before expanding an
archive allowing you to selectively expand archives.
An option has been added that allows you to have LogiCat prompt if
the report output should go to the screen or the configured report
destination at report time. When set to YES LogiCat will prompt
you whether you want the report to go to the screen or not. If you
say 'N' LogiCat will send the file to the report destination regardless
of the printer name used.
An option has been added to the 'Report Options' that allows you to
specify whether or not double spacing is to be used.
An option has been added to the import utility that allows you to
specify whether or not LogiCat should ignore extensions when importing
comments. When set to 'NO' LogiCat will ignore the extension of files
that are configured as libraries when it imports the comments.
5) When LogiCat prompts for a disk name (other than the selection criteria
prompts) you can leave the field empty (press return without typing
anything) to cause LogiCat to present you with a popup list of the
disk names that are currently in memory. Using the cursor keys, typing
the name you desire, using home/end, etc. you can highlight the name you
desire to work with and press return to select the highlighted name.
6) You are now allowed to specify the max width of fields on the report.
In addition PCB Sysops can create PCB file lists using LogiCat! See
the history file for details.
7) Several hotkeys have been provided for the menus. They are described
in the history file.
8) The comment import utility had some major enhancements. The following
describes two new fields added to the import settings screen that
allow LogiCat to directly handle many new comment listing formats:
-------------------------------
Does FIRST space end filename:
-------------------------------
The first option listed above allows you to specify LogiCat should
consider the filename to be complete when it encounters the first
white space. This is needed to read files in a format similar to CIS,
however, for most BBS listings you should leave this value set to 'No'.
To illustrate let's assume the following is some file name lines in
a file you wish to import comments from:
BEST.ARC 76,276 Binary 12/01/90 This is the best file around!
BETTER.ARC 126,777 Ascii 1/01/91 This is even better!
LC178.ARC 113,103 Binary 1/18/91 There's no beating LogiCat!
You'll note in the lines listed above that each file name is not in
the columnar format that LogiCat's import utility previously required.
If you set the option 'Does FIRST space end filename' LogiCat will be
able to properly determine the filename in a list like the one presented
above. (Note that leading space is still ignored!). Be sure your
ending column for the filename is beyond the end of the largest file that
will be encountered when using this option.
-------------------------------
Comment line offset from file line:
-------------------------------
This option allows you to specify the offset line from a file line that
LogiCat looks for the comment to start in. For example, if you were
importing from a file that looked like the following:
FILENAME.EXT DATE TIME COMMENTS........................
COMMENTS........................
The offset would be 0 because the comments start on the same line the
file name is listed on (This was previously the only kind of comment
file LogiCat would properly import).
If your file had the following layout:
FILENAME.EXT DATE TIME
COMMENTS.........................................................
COMMENTS.........................................................
The offset would be 2 because the comments start 2 lines below the line
containing the file name.
Note that LogiCat ignores any lines between the comments and the file line.
Lastly, you should note that when the comment overlays part of the filename
LogiCat will only consider a line to contain a valid filename if the first
character position contains something other than white space.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or comments about LogiCat feel free to let me
know. You can reach me via any of the following:
Support BBS: (209) 521-2143
Voice: (209) 522-9269
CIS: 76276,3004
US Mail:
Curtis Little
2413 San Felipe Way
Modesto, CA 95355
Thanks for giving LogiCat a try!
Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!
This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.
But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/