EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO READ THE DOCUMENTATION, PLEASE READ THIS FILE. IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT SETTING UP AND USING DF! Directory Freedom (DF) Version 4.61 Copyright 1989 - 1993 by Gordon Haff. All Rights Reserved. Shareware: $25 registration w/ diskette; See REGISTER.DOC for complete ordering information and manual/disk/update pricing . Gordon Haff is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals. A product of Gordon Haff and Bit Masons Consulting 3205 Windsor Ridge Dr. Westborough MA 01581 Compuserve ID: 72561,2637 Phone: (508) 898-3321 (no collect calls please) Descriptions for BBS operators and Vendors: ------------------------------------------- Short: Directory Freedom 4.61: Small, fast, configurable file manager Long: See FILE_ID.DIZ Feature Summary: ---------------- Directory Freedom 4.61 offers users a fast, compact alternative to DOS Shells and a wide range of features including: A scrollable environment for examining files and directories Selective file and directory operations such as Copy/Move file; Rename/Delete file or directory; Change file/directory attribute; Create directory User-defined keys which can operate upon highlighted files (such as defined editors) SmartViewers which call different user-defined viewers depending on the highlighted file's extension Archive (e.g. .ZIP) creation File date/time modification Volume label editing Support for extended screen modes (e.g. 43/50 line) Extensive configuration through an external, user-friendly configuration program A very complete system information screen There are many DOS shells on the market, but DF is small and fast. Yet at the same time, DF is powerful and highly configurable. DF lets you continue to use the utilities (such as file viewers) which you have become comfortable with but it ENHANCES those utilities by providing a scrollable environment from which they can be called. Important operational notes for 4.61: ------------------------------------- If you are a 4.50 or 4.60 user, you can bring over your user-defined settings. Please read the installation section of the manual! Files in DF461.ZIP: ------------------ DF.COM Directory Freedom program file DF460.TXT Documentation (version 4.60) DF461.NEW Info on DF 4.61 new features DFCONFIG.EXE Configuration program DFCONFIG.HLP Hypertext help file for DFCONFIG DFHELP.TXT New help text in a text file DF.ICO Windows 3.0 icon LIBERTY.ICO Another Win3 icon (from Phil Baltzer) READ_ME.DF This file REGISTER.DOC Registration and update info VENDOR.DOC Distribution info for vendors and BBS's FILE_ID.DIZ File description for BBS systems (The X-Ray file viewers version 1.03.) ZR.COM Zip X-Ray AR.COM ARJ X-Ray LR.COM LHA X-Ray ZOR.COM ZOO X-Ray UNARJXR.EXE ARJ listing file generator XR103.TXT Archive X-Ray documentation ZR.ZIF Patch files AR.ZIF LR.ZIF ZOR.ZIF PATCH.COM Patch program file PATCH.DOC Note: in the interests of providing smooth integration, the current revision of the X-Ray file viewers is included as part of the DF461.ZIP archive. Updates to the X-Ray viewers may be made available through electronic distribution as XRAYxxx.ZIP where xxx is the version number. The DF archive available through electronic distribution may not be updated solely to include new versions of the X-Ray utilities. Hardware Requirements and Important Information: ------------------------------------------------ Directory Freedom does not require any special hardware to operate. It has been tested across a wide range of IBM compatible hardware. Graphics cards and hard disks are NOT needed to use this program. The Directory Freedom user-defined commands and archive creators come preconfigured with command lines which use some common shareware and freeware software. Most of this software is NOT supplied with DF. If you do not have the appropriate programs on your system and accessible through your PATH statement, the pre-configured commands WILL NOT WORK out of the box. DF will function with DOS 3.0 and later (DOS 3.3 and later recommended). To run DF, you must set the DOS COMSPEC variable (e.g. SET COMSPEC=c:\command.com). This requirement is discussed in detail in the manual. Directory Freedom is a shareware program. If you use DF and find it useful, registration with the author is required. Please see the REGISTER.DOC file for more information on registering. Known Incompatibilities: ------------------------ A very few older systems have experienced a condition whereby certain actions such as swapping the source and target directories can result in DF going "blind" and being unable to read the directory contents. This blindness persists even after dropping to DOS and doing a 'dir' from the command line. NO DATA CORRUPTION OCCURS. Rebooting the system clears the "blindness." The cause of this problem is unknown but started with revision 4.60. The only current workaround is to use DF 4.50. Versions of PKUNZIP 2.xx prior to 2.04g should not be used. EMS and XMS corruption caused by earlier PKUNZIP 2.xx revs has been reported in conjunction with a variety of programs. In the case of DF, this corruption can clobber the XMS or EMS memory used to store the active directory while shelled out to DOS or a user-defined command such as one which UNZIP's a file. There are no known issues either with PKZIP/PKUNZIP 1.xx or with 2.04g. The patch files for the X-Ray utilities contain an undocumented option for enabling mouse support. Enabling this mouse support has caused problems on a number of test systems and was therefore removed from the documented features of this release. You are welcome to try enabling this feature on your system but be aware that it may not work. Distribution Points: -------------------- I frequently am asked: "Where can I download future versions of DF when they appear?" DF actually makes the rounds pretty well -- you can usually pick up a copy on most major BBS's. To make certain of a few specific locations, however, I will try to make sure DF gets to the following boards. The name is always DFxxx.yyy where xxx is the revision number and yyy is the archive name (typically ZIP for now). So, for example, this version is DF461.ZIP. I don't guarantee DF will make it to all these boards immediately, but they are all on my distribution list. Channel 1, Cambridge MA (617) 354-8873 Xevious, Cambridge, MA (508) 875-3618 Kandy Shack (714) 636-2667 Chips (714) 760-3265 (To the best of my knowledge, at the time of this writing, the above boards allowed downloads without membership -- although membership may be available to offer access to more nodes and other benefits.) and on Compuserve in the IBMSYS area, LIB 5 (DOS Shells).