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This document is mailed to all paid up members and to anyone who
has attended a meeting within the past three months. Yearly membership
dues are $15.00. The text of the newsletter is available on Chebucto
Community Net and local bulletin boards. Society Mailing Address
- P.O. Box 185 Stn. Main, Dartmouth N.S., B2Y 3Y3.
Executive Chairperson - David Potter
Vice-Chair - Bill Marchant
Secretary/Newsletter Editor - Colin Stuart
Treasurer - Garth Bennett
Disk Librarian - Thayne MacLean
and also Norman DeForest, Henry Hill, Arthur Layton, Rob MacCara,
Andy Cornwall, George Richards, and Diane Smith
Last Planning Meeting was held on Monday,May 6th at the Veterans Memorial Building. A number of topics were discussed for the May 26th general meeting.
We've Moved!
Commencing in January 1996 the regular monthly
meetings of the Society will be held in Room 1613A of the Veteran's
Memorial Hospital (VMH) at the corner of Robie Street and Jubilee
Road, Halifax. The planning meetings will be held in a different
room in the same building. These facilities are provided at no
cost to the Society. There is underground parking available at
the VMH at a cost of $1.10 /hour. For anyone who wishes to use
it, the elevator from the parking area takes you directly to the
lobby. The parking bill is paid to the comessionaire in the lobby
when you go to return to your car. There is also parking available
on the nearby streets. Both Robie Street and Summer Street have
parking meters, and at our meeting time on Sunday evening they
are most likely to be uncontested by others.
Society Address Change
Please note the new mailing address for the Society: P.O. Box
185, Stn. Main Dartmouth, N.S. B2Y 3Y3 Membership Expiry Dates
For those of you who are not already aware, the membership expiry
dates are printed in the upper right corner of your newsletter
mailing label. If you wish to continue to receive this newsletter
and know what interesting meetings are coming up, you either have
to renew ($15 per year) or come to the meetings and put your name
on the list that is passed around.
DELPHI The Metro Halifax Delphi
Developers Group meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:00pm.
The meetings are held at the CCL Group Building 2669 Dutch Village
Road, Halifax. Further information may be obtained from Dave Hackett
at 835-3894, CIS:71650,2646 or from Carey Rolfe at 462 4551 or
e-mail rolfe@ra.isisnet.com.
OS/2 Users Group
This group meets
sometimes on the second Wednesday of the month at Purdy's Wharf
Tower Two. For information contact Donovan Long at 422 1975 or
by e-mail at tsst@isisnet.com.
First an ad
Norman Deforest has a copy of PreCursor, a Hard Disk Menu and Management
System. It is version 4.0 and appears to have been produced in about 1
989. Obviously it is for a DOS system. Anyone wishing to acquire this
software, along with its documentation in a three ring binder, should see
Norman at the next meeting.
The clipboard has been a feature of Windows for a long time. It was used
mostly within applications so that data could be cut, copied and pasted
within those applications. Word processors were the principle users.
Windows 3.1 allowed transfer of data between two different applications
in Windows, so that a piece of text could be copied from one
document to another, say from a spreadsheet to a word processor.
Windows 95 expands on the cut-copy-and-paste theme to include things in a
DOS window, and whole folders and the files contained in them.
First the files:
To copy a group of files to a floppy disk, go to the Windows Explorer,
and select the files you wish to copy. Go to the EDIT menu and select
COPY. Select the icon for the floppy disk drive, then go again to
the EDIT menu and select PASTE. Of course, you can still drag the
selected files directly to the floppy disk icon, and for many
people that will be easier. I am illustrating the use of the clipboard here. In either
case, of course, you have to have a disk in the drive, and the total size
of the files cannot exceed the capacity of the disk.
Now the DOS window:
The Windows 95 clipboard allows text from a DOS windows
to be cut and pasted. As an example, I have several DOS database
programs which work just fine under Windows 95, so I have not
bothered as yet to reprogram them for windows. If I find an
address I want to have on paper, I can copy from the DOS window,
paste into word pad and print it. I
admit that my address program should have a built in PRINT feature. Someday
I will rewrite it and fix that deficiency. Right now, copying for
the DOS screen does the job.
Did you ever want to print the file list of a directory using Windows 95?
As long as the list is shorter than the screen height you can do it using
the Explorer, but a long list will require multiple clipboard operations.
The problem is solved at the MS DOS prompt. Here's the scoop: Select
the DOS window through the Startup Button. Use the DOS "CD" command to
go to the directory of concern. When you are at the directory prompt, enter
the command "DIR > DIR.TXT . Now go to the Windows Explorer. Locate
the directory of interest, and select the file DIR.TXT which will be in
that directory. Use the right mouse button to get the floating menu and
select PRINT. That's it! While you are in the directory you could delete
the file DIR.TXT unless you have some reason to keep it. Again, use the
right mouse button and select DELETE The clipboard can be responsible f
or memory problems with DOS applications. Suppose you have a program which
always ran before, but today you find you are out of memory. (Remember,
DOS applications are normally restricted to the lower 640 Kbytes of memory).
If you have been using the clipboard, it may be the culprit. Whatever
is in the clipboard takes up memory. You could always run the clip
board and empty it, but you could also simply put something smaller into
it. Select a single character from any application and copy it to the clipboard.
Because every copy operation to the clipboard erases what was there before,
the single character will displace the large object obstructing
memory, and your DOS application should now run.
You can use the clipboard only with those applications which are written
to accommodate these functions. DOS applications are included in this group
when in Windows 95 because windows provides the program, but are not
in the group when run in earlier versions of Windows. Other problems could
occur, if the applications concerned do not have compatible file formats.
This would occur if you tried to copy a WordPerfect file into the
Notepad. Since Notepad handles text without formatting, it will
reject things like bolding, underlining and paragraphing.
Presentation of DOSKEY
To load DOSKEY: put the command LH C:\DOS\DOSKEY. /INSERT in the
Autoexec.bat file. You can always load DOSKEY at the DOS prompt,
but that is doing it the hard way, and you don't get it loaded in
high memory.
2. To repeat a command:
A. Use the up arrow for the previous command
The down arrow for the command after the one showing
The Page Up button for the first command
The Page Down button for the last command
B. Press F7 for a numbered list of commands
Press F9, enter the number of the command you
repeat. Press enter.
C. At the prompt enter the first significant
letters of a command you have already used press F8 .
The command will fill out and can then be executed.
D. To edit a command: Any command showing at the prompt can be edited for modifications
or corrections before execution. Use the BS, DEL, Left Arrow, Right Arrow, Home and END keys.
If INSERT is on, you will edit in the insert mode, otherwise, the
Overlay mode is the default.
E. To Delete the Command Buffer: Press Alt + F7
F. To place more than one command on a line:
Use Ctrl + T between the commands. Thus 'CD\BATFILES[Ctrl+T]DIR'
G. DOSKEY Macros: DOSKEY macros can be used wherever a command needs to be simplified,
used many times or overwritten.
A. Simplified example. Enter 'DOSKEY C=Chkdsk/f'
To execute the macro Enter C
B. Because DOSKEY macros are in memory, they are
lost when t he computer is shut off.
C. Many people keep the Read-Only attribute on
their AUTOEXE C.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, to avoid accidental
deletion. But when you need to edit these files, it can be a major
nuisance. You must: (i) Remove the Attribute, (ii) Do the edit,
(iii) Save the file, (iv) Replace the attribute.
Let DOSKEY do it for you. Enter the following three (3) Maos:
DOSKEY R-A=Attrib -R AUTOEXEC.BAT
DOSKEY EA=Edit AUTOEXEC=BAT
DOSKEY R+A=Attrib +R AUTOEXEC.BAT
You can test these one at a time if you want, but we can execute them all together.
Enter R-A[Ctrl+T]EA[Ctrl+T]R+A
Try it!
D. To overcome the problem of losing macros when
shutting off, put them in a batch file.
E. Put the above three macro statements in
AUTOEDIT.BAT
F. The batch file can be executed at the DOS
prompt, or by including the line "CALL AUTOEDIT" in the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
3. DOSKEY Replaceable parameters in Macros:
Lets replace the DOS HELP command with a simple '?'. DOSKEY ?=HELP
Try it, it works.
That got us the DOS HELP Screen, but suppose we want to get
a specific DOS command..
Rewrite the macro thus. 'DOSKEY ?=HELP $1'
Now when we execute the macro we can use '? DOSKEY' for example, to get help on DOSKEY.
If we want general help, just neglect the parameter, and the HELP screen come up in general mode.
4. Disabling other commands:
You may not wish passers by to get a directory of your computer.
Enter 'DOSKEY DIR="This is a forbidden action'.
Now the command DIR will simply print the message, but will
not do a DIRectory.
If you have a number of these goodies, and you wish them
always to be present, put them in a batch file, and call it from AUTOEXEC.BAT.
5. Miscellania:
a. Macros are stored in the DOSKEY Buffer, if you need more
room, use the switch /BUFSIZE=nnn on calling DOSKEY. DOSKEY uses 4KB as
well as the buffer. Be sure to load it high.
b. Macros cannot execute other macros.
c. You cannot put [Ctrl+T] in a macro, but you can link macros with
[Ctrl+T]
d. You cannot execute macros from a batch file.
e. To remove macros from memory, use [Alt+F10]
Newsletter Articles We are almost always in need
of good articles. We tend to have many of the same people producing
articles which is fine, but sometimes we can run out of ideas.
It is always interesting to hear from some of the other members
from time to time. If anyone has something that they feel would
make a good article, an interesting story to tell, or even a good
meeting topic, please don't hesitate to pass it on. You can submit
articles in almost any format, ASCII text, AMI Pro, MS Word, Windows
Write, WordStar and of course WordPerfect. What is the best way
to get an article to me? Various ways are available. You can bring
it to a meeting or give me a call and upload it to me. If you
are on the Chebucto FreeNet, Internet, or any type of e-mail system
that has a gateway to the Internet, you can send something to
me via the Internet to where I work - stuartce@ednet.ns.ca. or
hlfxtrad.educ.stuartce@gov.ns.ca It does work, but if you are
sending a file attachment to your message to me at the gov.ns.ca
address, it should be UUencoded and not a mime attachment. The
ednet email works fine with regular mime encoding and I think
it is a bit quicker than the gov.ns.ca address.
Newsletter Production Notes
For those who may be interested, the newsletter is formatted
with WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 running on either a Pentium 75
or 120. Both have 16 megs of RAM. Much of the clipart used is
from Novell (formerly WordPerfect) Presentations 3.0 which comes
as part of the Perfect Office Suite. The only problem is that
there isn't a printed list of the images so you have to root'
around a bit. The original was printed at 600 dots per inch resolution
on a HP Laserjet 4 Plus. The main body of the newsletter is set
in 10 point Palatino with the article headings being 14 point
bold. The title on the first page is ITC Zapf Chancery Medium
Italic 19.2 and 16 points. There were about 65 copies produced
this month of which around 50 were mailed out. Any extra copies
from the previous few month's issues that I have will be brought
to the next meeting for those who are new to the group or may
not be in regular attendance. I do have a complete set of all
the previous newsletters and if someone wanted to look through
these, let me know and I can bring them to the next meeting.
The dates for this year's meetings are listed below:
26 May, 23June
The planning meetings are normally held on the second Monday
(8 days) after the general meeting. They are also located at the
Veteran's Hospital. Anyone is welcome to assist in the planning of
future meetings or events. Any changes to the scheduled dates will
be announced where possible at the regular monthly meetings and/or
in this newsletter.
