The most important facts about HFM version 4.04 from February 15. 95

Copyright: Andreas Helke, Steckelsgasse 14, 69121 Heidelberg, Germany
Email: andreas@sirius.mgen.uni-heidelberg.de
New versions of HFM, Beta releases and support files can be found on my 
anonymous ftp server orion.mgen.uni-heidelberg.de or
http://orion.mgen.uni-heidelberg.de in the world wide web.

What is HFM?

HFM is a shareware file-manager. The licence fee is 30 DM or the 
equivalent in another currency. At the same time it is a frontend 
for using archiving programs. The aim in devoloping HFM was
to minimize the keystrokes and mouse actions necessary for the
maintanance of a PC filesystem. HFM is very easy to use, once you
have learned the necessary commands. But due to the lack of a
complete menu system, it is not quite as easy to learn the full set
of available commands. The tutorial describes the most important
tricks of HFM usage.

Characterization of the HFM filemanager:

The HFM file manager needs a 80286 or better CPU.

Suitability for: 
Inexperienced computer users unfamiliar with HFM: The usual problems, the 
user needs to understand the concept of a source and target directory and 
how to choose them.
Inexperienced computer user familiar with HFM: Seems to work well. The menu 
choices given are enough for every day work.
Experienced computer user unfamiliar with HFM: The user will probably stumble 
accross the lack of a comprehensive menu system. And he has to learn a 
functional but somewhat unusual user interface. And he has to  discover the 
power of the F find command.
Experienced computer users familiar with HFM: Few other file managers can 
compete. HFM has some unique features wich set it apart from  other file 
managers. The limited nature of the menu system is no longer of big
concern since the necessary commands can easily be given by one letter 
commands or mouse drag operations. HFM use is addictive.

HFM does not quite follow current user interface standards. Alt-keys
are used for drive switching, the mouse dragging technique is very 
functional but quite unique. If you don't get intimidated by this
lack of standard behaviour, you will find HFM to be a very convenient
to use and yet powerful file manager.

HFM has two special features, wich set it apart from the many file
managers wich I know. The first is, it constantly compares the
filelists in the two windows and highlights files, wich are equal
(same name, time and size) or similar in the two directorys. I can no
longer imagine to maintain a PC LAN with a filemanager which does not
have this feature .
The second Feature is the use of dragging a direcotry entry with the
mouse to start a action. This combines in one step the selection of
the desired file and the selection of the desired action. With this
method you can copy, move, delete, show, start a program and you can
navigate in the directory tree.

Who needs HFM most?
Everybody who has to maintain the filesystem of a computer.
especially network administrators and people who use several
computers concurrently and have to synchronize their file systems.

Everybody who uses archive programs regularly and wants a convenient
access to the archived data.

The special capabilitys of HFM:
1. HFM shows two windows for showing two directorys. Both
   filelist will be compared and identical or similar files
   will be shown in a different colour.
2. Archives of diverse archiving programs like ARJ, LHA,
   PKARC, PKZIP, ZOO are shown as simulated subdirectorys.
   These can be uses like normal subdirectorys with few
   exceptions. Starting of programs, showing and altering
   files, copying to normal subdirectorys and other archives
   and deleting are all possible. The moving and renaming in
   archives is not supported.
3. HFM can start other programs and give them the total
   available RAM.
3b. HFM has now the command W to start a Windows program from a DOS
   box. (see new Features in Version 3.19)
4. For the command lines, filenames, directorys and search
   phrases exists a permanent buffer for the last 10 entries.
5. Showing the content of files is a integrated part of HFM.
   The file display option has a delete command. This allows a
   convenient last look at the content of a file before
   deleting. Display programs for special formats for example
   VPIC for bitmap pictures can be integrated.
6. HFM warns before copying if the target file already exists.
7. HFM can copy, delete and if used with mv.exe also move
   complete directory trees including their hidden and system
   files and subdirectorys.
   With the U option only files wich exist in an older version
   in the target directory will be copied, with the S option
   newer files in the target directory will not be overwritten.
8. HFM supports a mouse for selecting files, paging, and
   starting the most important commands.
   The right button is an alternative to the RETURN key.
   The most important file operations can be invoked by
   dragging the file. Dragging into the other window will copy
   the file, dragging to the lower border of the current
   window will delete the file and dragging to the lower
   border of the other window will move the file.
   Moving a little to
     left  - Start a program which belongs to this datafile
     right - Show the file or show the directory in the other window
     down  - Show the file, start the program or show the directory
     up    - go to the last directory
9. The F find command allows fast moving to the desired
   position in the file list. The use of this feature is my prefered
   way to navigate in the directory tree.
10.HFM has two different methods of deleting, either real
   deleting or moving to a trash subdirectory, from where the
   file can easily be recovered.
11.While starting, HFM does not examine the whole drive. This
   allows a rapid start even in big partitions.
   The subdirectorys are shown at the begin of the file list
   and not in an extra window. This simplifies the access to
   the required subdirectory. (F(ind) and Return to go down,
   ESC and Backspace to go up in the directory tree)
12. The date in the file list can be changed between european
   and american style.

Screen shot:

 dOs ESC chdir Next Find Copy Del Edit print Ren Show stArt Inc sort Help Quit
  A   B   C   D                                               29.09.92  0:31:35
Vol: HFM         H: 107 KB   M: 302 KB  Vol:                              D+ V+
A:\HFM\*.*                              D:\*.*
HFM      PAS   2911  5.09.92 22:32 a   DRDOS         <DIR> 26.09.92 17:18
HFMVIEW  PAS   7315 11.08.92  0:42 a   LMOUSE        <DIR> 26.09.92 17:39
HFM_DN4  PAS   3994  3.09.92 21:12 a   MB            <DIR> 24.09.92 23:34
HFM_EU_3 PAS   7350 24.08.92 18:36 a   TEMP          <DIR> 26.09.92 14:18
HFM_FDIS PAS  26134 28.09.92 21:18 a   DCONFIG  BAK    342 26.09.92 17:16 a
HFM_I202 PAS  38806 28.09.92 20:56 a   COMMAND  COM  52998 27.03.92  6:00 a
HFM_MA2  PAS  13959  2.09.92  0:34 a   DEVSWAP  COM   1631 29.08.91  6:00 a
HFM_MI1  PAS  12424  6.09.92  2:12 a   IBMBIO   COM  24618 27.03.92  6:00 ahsr
HFM_MIX5 PAS  58008 28.09.92 21:25 a   IBMDOS   COM  39239 27.03.92  6:00 ahsr
HFM_M_3  PAS  14792 28.09.92 21:32 a   DISKMAP  DAT 127728 28.09.92 12:13 a  r
HFM_R_13 PAS  21066  1.09.92 19:36 a   386SPART PAR 3.1 MB 28.09.92 12:14 ahs
HFM_SDA  PAS  85194 24.09.92  1:11 a   SSPARTSS SWP 119 MB 24.09.92 23:19 ahsr
HFM_SDX  PAS  66935 28.09.92 21:19 a   DCONFIG  SYS    143 26.09.92 18:01 a
HFM_VAR1 PAS  12090  9.09.92 20:58 a   SSTORDRV SYS  36646 27.03.92  6:00 a
HFM_WD1  PAS   5200  1.09.92 20:02 a
ZEILE    PAS    198 16.08.92  2:16 a
_HFMVIEW PAS   7176  7.08.92  3:57 a
_HFM_SD  PAS   4575  3.08.92  3:35 a
TURBO    TP    2183  2.09.92 18:41 a
2        TST     82  3.09.92 15:48 a
  48  Files, 174 of 1185 KB free.          14 Files,  3148  of 127226 KB free.


Screen Colours:
HFM  comes  with  three different preselected colour  palettes.
Those  can be chosen with Ctrl-F1, Ctrl-F2, Ctrl-F3 or  altered
with  the  command  Y. For the monochrome text  mode  only  the
combination  3  (Ctrl-F3) is usable, because  only  with  these
colours  you  can  see the scrollbar and the colours  used  for
showing identical files.

INI Files:
HFM requires some INI files for the integration of other programs.
It begins to search for the file HFM4.INI in the directory
c:\hfm.ah then in the directory \hfm.ah on every drive and then
in the current directory. If HFM and its additional files are
not located in c:\hfm.ah the path descriptions in HFM4.INI
have to be modified for correct operation of some features.

Integration in Microsoft Windows:
With the program pair SCHED and RUN in the archive RUN18.ZIP you can
start Windows programs from a dosbox. This allows to use HFM as an
alternative to the windows program manager.

Possible extension in future releases:
HFM  has  more  than  50 commands and in  addition  26  Alt-key
combinations for switching the drives. For beginners  it  would
be  useful  to  have  a  menu system  including  all  available
commands. HFM has at present no menu systems. It has however  a
button  line  which shows the most important commands  for  the
selection  with  a mouse. If HFM is successful as  a  shareware
program, i will create a version with a menu system to simplify
the  learning of the HFM use. For my personal use I prefer  the
command   driven  interface.  But  I  had  several   years   to
accommodate to the growing numbers of commands.

HFM does now have read support for zip archives which include 
subdirectorys.


List of the files delivered:

d.bat          Batchfile for the start of HFM
d_d.bat        Original for german version
d_e.bat        Original for english version
hfm.ico        Icon for Microsoft Windows
hfm4.ini       Configuration file for HFM version 4.00
hfm4_d.doc     German documentation as ASCII text
hfm4_d.rtf     German documentation (Winword in RTF format)
hfm4_e.doc     English documentation as ASCII text
hfm4_e.rtf     English documentation (Winword in RTF format)
hfm4_d.exe     German version of HFM
hfm4_e.exe     English version of HFM
install.bat    Calls intal_e.bat
instal_d.bat   Installation program for the german version
instal_e.bat   Installation program for the english version
arj221.ini     Configuration files for the integration
lha213.ini     of archive programs
lharc113.ini
mv.doc         Documentation of the mv command.
mv.exe         Unix like move command.
pkarc36.ini
pkzip09.ini
pkzip_e.ini    european date format, versions 1.02 1.1 and 2.04
pkzip_u.ini    us date format, versions 1.02 1.1 and 2.04
pkzip2.ini
zoo201.ini
readme_d.doc   First informations in german language
readme_e.doc   First informations in english language
rechner.doc    German documentation for the calculator program
rechner.exe    Calculator program
tvedit.exe     Text editor (Adaption of a Borland Turbo Pascal demo program)
tvedit.doc     Description of a problem with OS/2 V.3
register.d     Registration form in german language
register.e     Registration form in english language
tutor_d        Tutorial in german language
tutor_e        Tutorial in english language
run18.zip      SCHED and RUN. A program combination for
               the start of windows programs from a DOS box.

Changes in the versions:

HFM V. 3.11 First distributed version of HFM.
HFM V. 3.12 The stack of HFM was reduced to provide more memory to
   other programs.
   Bugs removed:
   The HFM version 3.11 tried a division through zero, if the content
   of a file of length zero should have been displayed.
   The line number in the file display sometimes had a wrong value.
   The screen saver got automatically active every hour.
   Test for successful file creation introduced for Ctrl-A, Ctrl-O and
   Ctrl-ENTER command.
   Sometimes HFM tried to start a program for the filedisplay, if there
   was no entry in the list of additional file display programs.
HFM V. 3.13 When dragging a file with the mouse, the program now moves
   the filename and shows the current option (copy, move or delete).
   One more bug in the calculation of the line number shown in the
   filedisplay was removed.
HFM V. 3.14 More informative error messages if HFM is not correctly
   installed. HFM can now be tested in any directory.
   Bug removed:
   HFM did reduce the window to one line if delete in the filedisplay
   was not confirmed.

HFM V. 3.15 This version is mainly a bugfix for the bugs which were
  introduced when the version 3 of HFM was developed.

   New features:
   CursorRight and CursorLeft can now be used to reread the
   directorys.
   The screen output of the archiv programs is now redirected to
   ~HFMARC.TMP If HFM is not installed in c:\hfm.ah, then the ini
   files for the archiv programs are searched in \hfm.ah from Z: to
   C: and in the current directory.

   If the archive temporary subdirectory does not exist, the
   environment variable TEMP is used or else the directory C:\TEMP
   will be created.

   The viruscheck is disabled if the size of HFM.EXE is reduced. This
   allows compression with PKLITE and comparable programs.

   In the file display you can go to the start or end of the file by
   clicking in the upper left or lower right screen corner.

   Bugs removed:
   When marking files with the mouse in the multiple-file-mode,
   screen output went to a wrong window.

   Program start with ENTER now functions with filenames in lower case.

   The mousedriver ignored some times the funtion call to show the
   mouse cursor. This call is now issued twice.

   In the file display the first line is now allways displayed.

   After leaving the file display the screen was sometimes black.

HFM 3.18
   More commands are available for dragging with the mouse:
   Start-drag to left, Next-drag to right, Return-drag down, ESC-drag up.

   The Next command uses now the additional file viewers.

   Find can now be ended with Ctrl-A for calling the Start command.

HFM 3.19
   New command W to start MS-Windows programs. The windows program
   SCHED gets from RUN the order to start a windows program. HFM tells
   RUN what to do. SCHED and RUN are included in the archive RUN18.ZIP
   [Windows Programmstart]
   c:\win\run.exe

   Verify for copying files is restricted to the drives given in
   hfm305.ini
   [Verify on drives]
   AB

   Copying and deleting directory trees has a new option. If you
   answer the question if you want to process a tree with 'A' you are
   get no longer asked for further trees in a multiple-file-mode
   operation.

   Bugs removed.

   Up to now HFM did copy the first entry in a window twice.

   The command F4 (show storage required by the selected files) lead
   to a crash, if a subdirectory with a forbidden character was in one
   of the selected directory trees. MSDOS and DRDOS can not access
   subdirectorys with some special characters like . These are for
   example produced, if you create a Macintosh folder with an  in the
   name on a fileserver. Unfortunately the files in these
   subdirectorys can not be accessed unter DOS.

   The DRDOS move command gets no loger iritated by trailing . in
   subdirctory names. The command move c:\test. c:\new\test. does not
   work.

HFM 3.20
   New command Ctrl-I to mark all files, wich do not exist in the second
   window.

   New options for copying directory trees. With U only files wich exist
   in the target tree in a older version will be copied. With the S option
   the overwriting of newer files in the target tree will be prevented.

   Bugs removed:
   Up to now the target file list was not updated if the . directory entry
   was copied.

   If in a multiple file delete operation the deleting of a directory tree
   was not allowed, the file selector did not move to the next entry.
HFM 4.00
   HFM is now able to read PKZIP archives which contain subdirectorys.
   The benchmark option P has been removed. P is now used to toggle path
   and file displays in ZIP archives.
   HFM now allows to remove or overwrite write protected files. (One more
   level of questions is involved.)
   The registration reminder screen has been removed. 
   The right mouse button is now used to mark files for multiple file 
   operations which are invoked by clicking on Copy, Del or Ren with the
   right mouse button.
   HFM automatically notices changes in available network drives.
   HFM has better chances to distinguish between comments and file names
   in archive directory listings.
   The delete key can be used as an alternative to the d key.
   Two step marking with i and ctrl-i. The first keypress markes the files,
   the second one alsop marks the subdirecotrys.
   Better compatability of the internal file display with unix less. You can
   search with / and n. (No regular expressions and no case sensivity. After
   using this n no longer goes to the next file but to the next text hit.
   You can then move in the file list with :n and :p
   New option [Print File] in hfm4.ini to give the logical printer name (eg.
   prn lpt1 lpt2 lpt3).
   
Bugs removed: (some still survived and more were created) 
   HFM managed to confuse subdirectorys with names like arc or zip with 
   archive files. No you have to use a directory name like test.zip if you
   still want to experience this behaviour.
   If you started the F find command and pressed the CursorDown key instea of
   typing in a search string, HFM followed a not initialized pointer.
   J command now functions inside of archive files. This was an old bug which
   escaped my notice up to the testing of HFM version 4.
   Printing did not work with binary files, because DOS copy was used without
   the /B switch.

HFM V. 4.02
  New command Ctrl-U shows the content of the last archive handling command.
  You can now toggle between interal and external file viewung with G or by
  clicking on E- in the third line. The external command is called directly
  by exec () to provide better memory handling. Therefore the complete path
  has to be given. HFM asks if it can not find the specified file viewer.
  A mv command is now used to move files and directory trees. This requiered
  some changes in the hfm4.ini file. The mv command needs the path seperators
  in unix style. c:/hfm.ah/hfm4_e.exe. In the configuration which I did 
  choose mv will not move a directory tree if the target already exists. In 
  this case use copy followed by delete to move the tree. It will ask for
  confirmation if a write protected target file already exists.
  HFM no longer asks for every directory if you copy with the U or S option.
  The behaviour of HFM when you interupt multiple mode commands has been 
  improved.
  Output from executables started from an archive has been routed to the 
  CON device. This output can be accessed afterwards with the Ctrl-S command. 
  Del can now be used to confirm the delete dialog question.
  W command for starting windows programs will now use the the file 
  associations of your Windows setup. 
  The program code of HFM got too big to be compilable in 8086 mode. 
  Therefore HFM is now a 80286 specific program. If a 8086 version is still
  necessary tell me and I will rearange my program code and revert back to
  8086 mode.
Bugs removed:
  A new one was introduced with 4.00. If you did switch from a floppy drive
  after removing the floppy, a missing IO error check did lead to the 
  termination of the HFM session.
  The F4 command (calculating direcotry sizes) did ignore directorys which 
  had a file extension.
  OS/2 does not allow to change the date of a file which is opened read only.
  The corresponding misbehaviour of the copy command has been fixed.
  The file list was not updated when deleting from archives.
  If the two windows showed different types of archives, only files from one
  type could be displayed.
  HFM did not update its file list display if files were deleted from an 
  archive.
  Typo found which lead to undesired behaviour of the screen saver timing.
HFM V. 4.03
Bugs removed:
  Version 4.02 no longer kept the file attributes when copying files.
  HFM up to now stopped a multiple file copy operation after the first file, 
  if the source drive was write protected (or a CDROM).

HFM V. 4.04
  HFM now calls interupt 21-134 if nothing important is to be done. This tells
  multitasking systems that they can lower the priority of HFM. Consequently
  the CPU load caused by HFM is considerably reduced.
  HFM no longer shows volume names in the file list because this did not work
  well in OS/2 V.3.
  HFM will now switch to drive C: if HFM can't find a drive and if C: exists.
