-----------------------[Attribute Manager V.0.42 beta]-------------------------

-------------[(c) 1997 Alessandro Cantatore * Team OS/2 Italy]--------------

This program is freeware and it is beta code. Anyway it should be safe and
not able to cause any loss of data. You can freely use it until July the
31th 1997 or as soon as a new version will be released.

As a standard disclaimer:

Under no circumstances the author is liable for any loss or damage.
The use of the program implies acceptance of the conditions stated above.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is new with this release
=============================

- The main window is resizeable and its size/position is stored in the
  program INI file.
- Read/edit both ordinary and extended attributes.
- File/directory name with wild chars accepted as arguments.
- A different INI file can be specified as argument.
- It is possible either to show just the attributes of the current file or
  show both attributes and the drive/path/file selection window.
- A small toolbar with contextual help for the main functions.
- Contextual menu in the various part of the main window.
- A lot of options can be specified by a preferences notebook.
- A new directory selection listbox

    
Introduction
============
The program allows to easily add, edit or delete the .SUBJECT, .COMMENTS and
.KEYPHRASES extended attributes of your files.
I have a lot of archived files I downloaded from the internet and often cannot
remember their content or cannot find a particular file. Comment manager
allows to add a small description (it can be as long as about 32 KB in this
release) and some "Key Phrases" you can use when searching files.
Even if the "Find" button is not yet operative in this release, the OS/2
built-in Find utility allows file search based on the content of the
"Key Phrases" extended attribute.
Suppose you run a BBS and have archives of various kind of applications for
different operating system, you could use various key phrases describing for
example:
-1) the author of the application
-2) the operating system it is designed for
-3) kind of application (file manager, game, etc.)
-4) your evaluation (good application, useful, etc)
-5) anything else
This way, through the object find utility, you could automatically create
folders containing all your "OS/2 text mode file managers", or all
applications of your favourite software author and so on...


Installation
============
Just put it where you like and run it. It doesn't need any runtime library
(i.e. DLL files) other than the operating system DLLs and won't mess with
your INI files!
All the informations needed by the program will be stored in its own INI
file (ATTMAN.INI). Nothing will be added to OS2.INI or OS2SYS.INI.
If you want to use a different INI file, you can pass its name as argument
using the "P" option. The option is case insensitive and can be introduced
either by "/" or by "-". So if you want to store your program preferences
in "D:\PROGRAMS\MYINIFILE.INI" and open the program with the attributes
of "C:\OS2\BITMAPS\*.GIF" you must type:
ATTMAN -pD:\PROGRAMS\MYINIFILE.INI C:\OS2\BITMAPS\*.GIF
The arguments cah have any order: the profile name can be specified either
before or after the file name.


Starting the program
====================
You can start it from the command line, double click on its icon, or
just drag a file/directory on its icon.
In future I could add as option the chance to start it by the contetextual
menu of any file object and will make the title bar accept operations
of drag & drop in order to display the attributes of a different file.


Help
====
At the moment there is no on line help. To tell the truth there are
still a lot of not yet implemented features so do not wonder if some
menu option or button doesn't work.
If you click with your mouse button 2 on a toolbar button you'll get
some explanation about that button.
Import, Report and Find still do not work.


How it works
============
It is like a file dialog box: just select a file and edit the attributes.
If you have changed some attribute and select a new file or directory
a dialog box will ask you if you want to save or discard what you modified.
Click on the Save button to avoid that.
If you chosed to work with the Extended selection option (see "Preferences")
you can select one or more files in the same way you do that with other
WPS objects:
 - swiping the mouse pointer on the "File:" list box while pressing down MB1
   (mouse button one)
 - clicking with MB1 while keeping the "Ctrl" key pressed down for selecting
   not-contiguous files
 - clicking with MB1 while keeping the "Shift" key pressed down for selecting
   all files betwen the previous selection and the current selection
The file specifics and attributes showed concern the topmost selected file.
If you want to set the same attribute for all selected files you must click
on the "Save" button in the main window. A dialog box will then be displayed
to allow you to choose which attributes to set for all the selcted files.
For instance if the selected files have different "comments" and you want them
to share the same "key phrases" without affecting "comments" or any other
attribute, you must select only the "Key phrases" check box in the "Multiple
File Save" dialog.
The first button on the left allows to show/hide (browse/nobrowse mode) the
drive/path/file selection window. For the same purpose you can use the menu
by clicking with mouse button2 anywhere in the window and selecting:
File->Select->Browse.


Preferences
===========
To open the preferences notebook select from the menu:
Options->General Preferences.

[Common buttons]

- Undo:              It reverts the various buttons to their previous
                     state.

- Default:           Not working.

- Help:              Not working

[General Page]

- Disable logo:      allows to hide/display the startup logo.

- Subject length:    unchecking the "Default" button you'll be able
                     to specify a non default lenght (the default is
                     40 characters and the maximum is 255)

- Read only mode:    If this is checked you can read the attributes, but
                     cannot modify them.

- Font:              The button doesn't work yet. Anyway, to set a new
                     font just drag it on a free region of the main window
                     or on the window border from the font palette.
                 
[Selection page]

- Extended file selection:     Allows to select multiple files.

- Select all files in directory:     If the program is opened by passing it
                     a directory name as argument, if the "Extended selection"
                     is enabled, all files contained in the directory will
                     be selected.

- Single mouse click: Allows to select drive/directory/file with one mouse
                     click rather than with a double click.

- Show file selection window: If checked the window is displayed in its
                     its full size. When it is unchecked only the attributes
                     of the current file are diaplayed.

- Only directory:    If the previous checkbox is enabled the window will
                     be displayed in it full size only when the argument
                     of the program is a directory.

[Import page 1 of 2]

The following options haven't yet been implemented.

-Enable:             If the file doesn't have .SUBJECT or .COMMNET EA,
                     the program will automatically search for a file_id.diz,
                     4DOS-4OS/2 description or other, as specified in
                     Import page 2.

-View only:          If any description of the current file is found in 
                     it will be showed in the "Subject" or "Comment" field
                     of the main window but it will not be copied to the
                     file EAs.

-(Import to) Subject: If any description is found it will displayed in the
                     subject field and imported in the .SUBJECT EA if the
                     "View only" option is unchecked. If the length of the
                     imported text exceedes the defined Subject length it
                     will be truncated.

-(Import to) Comment: As above, but the target of the import operation will
                     be the Comments field or .COMMENT EA.

-(Import to) Auto select: The target of the imported operation will be the
                     "Subject" field if the text is shorter than the
                     defined subject length, otherwise the text will be
                     imported to the "Comments" field.

[Import page 2 of 2]

The following options haven't yet been implemented.

(Default import mode) Allows to choose where to search first for the current
                     file description:

-4 DOS - 4 OS/2      The program will search in a 4 DOS - 4 OS/2 description
                     file in the current directory.

DESCRIPT.ION         Allows to specify the name of the 4 DOS - 4 OS/2
                     description file.

-file_id.diz         Looks for a file_id.diz in the file if it is an
                     archive of a known type.

-Enable user defined file  Looks for the description in a file defined by
                     the user in the "File name" field.

-Other               Prompts the user for a file name from which to import.

-Run external program Allows to specify an external program in the "Program
                     name" field for formatting or extracting the text to be
                     imported.

[Report page]

The following options haven't yet been implemented.

-Auto report         Allows to generate a report with all file data and
                     attributes. The report will be showed in a separate
                     window. It will be possible to print it and save it
                     to file. If this checkbox is selected, usually, both
                     the main program window and the report window will
                     be displayed. If this checkbox is unchecked it will
                     always be possible to generate a Report by selecting
                     the button in the toolbar of the main window or by
                     selecting from the menu File->Report.

-Show only report    Only the report window will be showed.

-Only directory      The report will be generated only if the argument is
                     a directory.

-Selected files      Only the selected files will be included in the report.

-All files           All files in the current directory will be included
                     in the report.

-Full Tree           All files in the current directory and, recursively,
                     in all its subdirectories will be included in the
                     report


Menu
====
There are two pop-up menus. Clicking with mouse button 2 on the edit controls
(Subject entryfield and Keys/Comments fields) you will get the most complete
menu. The menu you'll get by clicking elsewhere will not have the Edit
submenu.

Submenu File
Select->Browse       Show/hide drive/directory/file selection window
Select->Select all   Selects all files in the current directory
Select->Deselect all Deselect all files
Select->Mask         Allows to specify a selection mask (not yet implemented)
Refresh              Refresh the contents of the drive/directory/file selection
                     window.
Save attributes      Saves the current attributes.
Report               See Preferences: [Report page]
Find                 Not yet implemented
Exit                 Terminate the application.

Submenu Options
General Preferences  See the Preferences section
Font                  "   "       "         "
Read only mode        "   "       "         "

Submenu Edit         not yet implemented
Submenu Help         not yet implemented


Known limitations
=================
-1) The inner controls will not be resized correctly if the maximized size
    of the windows is limited by the "Warp Center" of OS/2 4.x.
-2) I've used standard "list box" controls so there could be problems if
    you have large amounts of files in your folders (32765 files with
    OS/2 Warp 3 or 4 - I'm not sure about OS/2 2.x).
-3) The code has not yet been optimized, neither for size not for speed.
    The program works very well with my P100 machine, and I think the speed
    could be acceptable even with a 386 (let me know if you have any problem).
    It still does all work in a unique thread, so some operation like
    modifying attributes of a alrge number of file, will not allow you to
    interact with the system until the end of it.
    The next release will be multithreaded.
    The program has not been packed, but if you have warp 3 or 4 you could
    shrink it up by LXLITE. (It is a free utility by Andrew Zabolotny.
    You can download it from:
    hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/archiver/lxlt118.zip).  
-4) If multiple files are selected, selecting a new file (and deselecting
    previously selected files) will display the "Save..." dialog. Clicking
    on the "Save" button in this dialog will allow to save only the topmost
    of the previously selected files. So in order to set the same attribute
    for multiple files it is necessary to click on the save button in the
    main window.
-5) Since control size depends on the system default font size rather than
    on the font used by the controls or by their owner window, the program
    window could be too large with the default system font.
    In a future release I'll add a routine to make all controls automatically
    resize themselves according to the size of the font used in the window.


What will be in the future releases?
====================================
I will implement the still missing features as soon as possible.
Besides that I'll add drag & drop capability and an "Attribute" menu
item to every file object menu.

For any suggestion or bug report write to me:

Alessandro Cantatore - Team OS/2 Italy
email:    alexcant@tin.it
          alex.cant@iol.it
fidonet:  2:335:705/2