lane@cs.dal.ca (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) (06/23/89)
I feel almost silly asking about this as it's so simple (I imagine
people will say "It's a two line C program" or something) but I've
been looking for a while and haven't seen anything that really suits
my needs.
What I want is just a program that allows a user to type in a directory
path and/or drive name and changes the default drive/directory accordingly.
Most of the pgms I've looked at for this (Norton's NCD, Mefford's DIRMAGIC
are too damn fancy or have some other crucial drawback). Picking the
directory from a list or tree with the cursor keys or mouse would be nice
but not if its going to make the program take forever to start up (like
old versions of XTREE) or force the user to use that pgm for creating and
deleting directories (as NCD does). I'm also not keen on the thing creating
its own files (like NCD) and not working on SUBSTed drive is a killer
(again like NCD - Mr. Norton, I'll buy your programs when they work on
my SUBST'd drives). DIRMAGIC is the closest I've found but it tries to
do too much and IMHO has a confusing user interface. Its companion pgm,
DM, doesn't work on SUBST'd drives oddly enough.
The reason I want this is for use with dumb pgms that don't let you change
directories once in them and thus require the user to get to the appropriate
directory first. Also for use with simple menu systems (like Magee's
AUTOMENU) so the user can have a menu item "Change drive/directory".
Alternatively, I would be interested in *simple* menu systems that do
allow the user to move around on the hard disk - again, I find most things
like Norton's Commander, Xtree and Pathminder to be too complicated and
involved for the intended use - ie. for *very* novice users; I want
something that is mainly a menu and not a file management package with
menu abilities stuck in.
Yes, I know it's a two line (or whatever) C program but I'm really lazy
and I figure there's just *got* to be something out there already (and
I hate re-inventing the wheel).
Many thanks for any suggestions.
--
John Wright ////////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527
Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8
Cdn/Eannet:lane@cs.dal.cdn Uucp:lane@dalcs.uucp or {uunet watmath}!dalcs!lane
Arpa:lane%dalcs.uucp@uunet.uu.net Internet:lane@cs.dal.cajwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (06/28/89)
In article <3311@cs.dal.ca> lane@cs.dal.ca (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) writes: | What I want is just a program that allows a user to type in a directory | path and/or drive name and changes the default drive/directory accordingly. | | The reason I want this is for use with dumb pgms that don't let you change | directories once in them and thus require the user to get to the appropriate | directory first. | | Yes, I know it's a two line (or whatever) C program but I'm really lazy | and I figure there's just *got* to be something out there already (and | I hate re-inventing the wheel). How about a 3 line batch file: cd z:\path\to\your\application application /with /your /favorite %1 %2 %3 /switches %4 %5 cd c:\ Gets you in and out painlessly. I've got tons of these that get dumped to a ramdisk at startup. Thus my path only has about 3 entries in it. -- Jim Wright jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (07/11/89)
In article <1146@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes: > How about a 3 line batch file: > cd z:\path\to\your\application > application /with /your /favorite %1 %2 %3 /switches %4 %5 > cd c:\ ^^^^^^^ and what if my original directory was not c:\ ? -- Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG || ..!uunet!rosevax!elric!hawkmoon!det w(612)681-6986 h(612)789-8643 "A proper king is crowned" -- Thomas B. Costain
lfk@mbio.med.upenn.edu (Lee Kolakowski) (07/16/89)
You could of course get a real shell that is programable (MKS toolkit's ksh) then On 11 Jul 89 03:11:40 GMT, det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) said: >> cd z:\path\to\your\application >> application /with /your /favorite %1 %2 %3 /switches %4 %5 >> cd c:\ > ^^^^^^^ > and what if my original directory was not c:\ ? could be written as where_i_start=$PWD >> cd z:\path\to\your\application >> application /with /your /favorite %1 %2 %3 /switches %4 %5 >> cd c:\ # instead of cd c:\ cd $where_i_start and then your finished. BTW, I am only a very satisfied customer of MKS.....etc -- Frank Kolakowski ===================================================================== |lfk@mbio.med.upenn.edu || Lee F. Kolakowski | |kolakowski@mscf.med.upenn. || Univ. of Penna. | |c/o jes@eniac.seas.upenn.edu || Dept of Chemistry | |kolakowski@c.chem.upenn.edu || 231 South 34th St. | |bcooperman.kolakowski@bionet-20.arpa || Phila, PA 19104 | |AT&T: 1-215-898-2927 ||--------------------------| |#include <litigate.h> || One-Liner Here! | =====================================================================
vgopal@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (venu.p.gopal) (07/17/89)
In article <1046@hawkmoon.MN.ORG> det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes: >In article <1146@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes: >> How about a 3 line batch file: >> cd z:\path\to\your\application >> application /with /your /favorite %1 %2 %3 /switches %4 %5 >> cd c:\ > ^^^^^^^ > > and what if my original directory was not c:\ ? You can use the utilities "pushdir" and "popdir" to do this (I believe they are published by PC Magazine) as: pushdir cd to_wherever_you_want do_whatever_you_want popdir There are other ways, one I like more uses putenv startdir %%cwd to place the start directory into the env. variable startdir. At the end of your batch file, you can say "cd %startdir%" to get back. IMHO, however, you should set up these batch files and configure your applications so that you DO NOT NEED to change directories. The data files should end up in the current directory. The data can thus be organized into directories that belong to different projects you are working on, rather than belonging to different tools you may use. I have been able to do this for with almost all software packages. Venu P. Gopal UUCP: att!ihuxy!vgopal Internet: vgopal@ihuxy.att.com BITNET: com%"vgopal@ihuxy.att.com" or com%"vgopal%ihuxy@research.att.com" Silence those silent letters, save the world 500 million keystrokes a day.
kevinc@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Kevin Crocker) (07/19/89)
In article <1793@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>, vgopal@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (venu.p.gopal) writes: > You can use the utilities "pushdir" and "popdir" to do this (I believe they > are published by PC Magazine) as: > > pushdir > cd to_wherever_you_want > do_whatever_you_want > popdir One other way to do this is to use anarkey ver 2, which I just got, because it allows aliases. There is also a program called cdd.com which even allows you to change drives. I use batch files, generally, of the form above and change to both my program directory as well as my project or data directory. I usually keep all my data on a separate partition because it is much easier to back up. I really don't want to back up my programs all the time as I have already made the legal backup copy when I got the original disks. My batch files also reset the directory on exit to the root for that partition so that things are just a little more sane. This seems to drive my coworkers crazy as sometimes they come in to use my programs and they can never get them to work -- I also password protect my executables just for safety -- you know -- a lot of sensitive data and so forth. My data is usually in hidden directories and is generally password protected. > Venu P. Gopal Kevin Crocker -- Kevin "auric" Crocker Athabasca University UUCP: ...!{alberta,ncc,attvcr}!atha!kevinc Inet: kevinc@cs.AthabascaU.CA