Here's a listing of some of the programs I use with their URL information.

I figured, if I was going to mention program names in the sample BTMs
included, I might as well include a little more information about
them.

Please note, the programs mentioned below (as well as command-line
options) are specific to my system. The command-line options, if any,
are included as a point of reference. Also, there are a few programs
below, that were written specifically for 386+ processors.

At the very end, there are some other program choices not mentioned
anywhere else, but that might prove useful.

If you're looking for programs to handle any sepcific task, three
excellent take-off points are:

* http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/
  (C|Net, simple search)

* http://www.filez.com/
  (you'll need to know a portion of the archive name)

* http://www.altavista.com
  (programs and information)

As a point of reference, these are some specs for my home computer:
(yes, yes... I know :)

386DX\40
20 megs ram
ISA
Sound Blaster Pro (8bit card)
1 meg SpeedStar Video Card


Now, on to the programs:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SLED.COM      -- 17k Freeware text editor. Small, fast and efficient.

                 http://www.achilles.net/~sam
                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  (sled11.zip)

Syntax:   drive:\path\sled %1

Comments: I'm sure you already have your own favorite editor :)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QV.EXE        -- Multimedia Shareware program. Displays BMP\GIF\ICO\
                 PCX\TGA, plays VOC\WAV, handles FLI\FLC\CEL animations and
                 AVIs with sound.

                 http://ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de:80/~uzs272/  (for latest version)
                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  (qv103a.zip)
                 http://www.filez.com/  (qv102)

Syntax:   drive:\path\qv %1

Comments: Fast viewer. A real workhorse for many of the popular graphics
          formats and animations. I have found that version 1.02 of QV
          provides the best overall compatibility for my system.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QVPRO.EXE     -- Animation and graphics display program. Displays GIF\BMP\
                 TGA, AVI\DL\CEL\FLI\FLC AND GIF animations. In addition,
                 there is support for WAV and VOC files

                 http://ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de:80/~uzs272/  (latest version)
                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  (qvpro211.zip)

Syntax:   drive:\path\qvpro %1

Comments: Great on DL animations and AVIs. Though I still use QV on AVI
          because of compatibility problems with my sound card. QV also
          loads more quickly, so it provides a better environment for the
          File Associations BTM.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QPV.EXE       -- Fast Shareware graphics viewer. Supports JPG\GIF\TGA\PCX\BMP\
                 IFF\LBM\PNM\PCD\PNG. Works well as a command line executable
                 and is noted for it's ability at JPG decompression

                 http://www.tu-clausthal.de/~inof/Welcome.html
                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  ("qpv" for latest)

Syntax:   drive:\path\qpv %1

Comments: Loads a bit more slowly than QV, so I generally use it on jpgs\pngs
          from within the BTM. Super JPG decoder.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FLI2GIF       -- 16k Freeware FLI viewer. Options include saving to GIF and
                 animation speed settings.

                 http://www.filez.com/  ("fli2gif")

Syntax:   drive:\path\fli2gif %1

Comments: I use to have QV run a FLI. This little 16k gem has proven a
          capable replacement for this particular function.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GRASPRT.EXE   -- Viewer for GL animations

                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  (grasprt)
                 http://www.filez.com/   (grasprt, grsprt(?), ...)

Syntax:   drive:\path\grasprt %1

Comments: The standard viewer for GL animations.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISMPEG.EXE    -- SHAREWARE viewer of MPEG animations. Support for Xing and
                 non-Xing formats.

                 http://www.i-stream.com
                 http://www.eden.com/~steved/site/products/mpeg/v10/index.html

Syntax:   drive:\path\ismpeg %1 /p /l

Comments: "/p" option to play on start, "/l" to loop. You get 14 days, after
          which the program stops working (?). (Creates hidden file in a
          path directory. 'nuf said...)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLANY.EXE     -- Freeware WAV, VOC, AU, and RAW player.

                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  (plany15.zip)

Syntax:   drive:\path\plany %1
Syntax:   drive:\path\plany %1 -s  (for example, on Mod SAMples)

Comments: One of those products that delivers everything it promises. I
          have it set up for playing WAV\VOC\AU\SND and with SAM (instrument
          samples used for MODs) as "plany %1 -s"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DMP.EXE       -- Cardware music player for MOD, S3M, STM, NST, 669, MTM
LIQ.EXE       -- Shareware music player for MOD, LIQ, S3M.

                 http://www.cs.tut.fi/~c142092  (dmp home)
                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  ("dmp" "liq100")
                 http://www.filez.com/  ("dmp2" "liq100")
                 ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/music/programs/players  (many players)


:musicx
if %@FILESIZE[%1,K] LT 425 goto music1
if %@FILESIZE[%1,K] GE 425 goto music3
quit

:music1
drive:\path\dmp.exe -q -c2 -n100 %1
quit

:music3
drive:\path\liq.exe /e /8 /O3 %1
quit


Syntax1:  I use a "if MOD goto musicx". When it gets to the "musicx" label
          it looks at the size of the MOD file. If less than "425k", it will
          use DMP. If "greater than or equal to" "425k", it will use the
          LIQ player.

Syntax:   drive:\path\dmp -q -c2 -n100 %1
Syntax:   drive:\path\liq.exe /e /8 /O3 %1

Comments: There are many, many DOS mod players. DMP happens to be the one
          I use for most MODs that fit in conventional memory. The music
          really sounds great here. There are command line options for
          surround sound, sound cards, etc...

          For MODS larger than conventional memory, I use Liquid Tracker.
          It's super fast and has handled 2+meg MOD files without any
          noticeble cpu drain -- no easy feat. Sounds great too! It does
          lack command-line options for mid\surround play. It's also a
          tracker (editor), but it's small size and super fast load make
          it ideal for large MODs\S3M files. There are later versions which
          I haven't looked at yet...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAY.EXE      -- Player for MID and CMF music formats, as well as WAV and VOC

                 http://www.dareware.com  (???)

Syntax:   drive:\path\play %1

Comments: Dareware use to bundle "play.exe" with some of their Multimedia
          packages. I searched C|Net and Filez, but didn't turn up the
          zip package. Perhaps getting in contact with Dareware would
          be best if you need a simple but effective MID player. Of course,
          there are also BBSes and maybe some of your CD-ROM disks...

       ** [Note: I had a bunch of old ROL files that I finally converted
          to CMF with "rol2cmf". You might find it on C|Net or FileZ.
          I also put together the below one-line batch in order to do a
          mass conversion of all ROLs. "rol2cmf" will only do one conversion
          at a time.

          "for %a in (*.rol) do rol2cmf %a *.cmf /bstandard"

          It worked fine, but please make back-ups into a seperate DIR
          to be on the safe side if you use this] **

          There's a full-featured player called "cubic" that uses real
          sound samples (gus patches) (if you don't have a wavetable
          sound card, as in my case). I wouldn't recommend it for this
          'file-associations' btm, because of the size, but... It's the
          only way to really hear MIDs (the way they were meant to be
          heard) on a 'waveless' sound card. Try C|Net, FileZ, or Alta Vista
          for the Cubic Player (~1meg) and the Gus Patches (~5megs). I've
          stayed w\version 1.6 for the time being. It will also allow MOD and
          MID files to be converted to WAV, among other things.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FREEVIEW.EXE  -- Freeware command-line RIP viewer. Supports all RIP
                 commands.

                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  (freevi12.zip)

Syntax:   drive:\path\freeview %1

Comments: The best displayer I've come across for RIP.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISPICON.EXE  -- Part of the "Rip Sketch" distribution. Will display
                 RIP icons (ICN) files.

                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  (rip&sketch (?))
                 http://www.filez.com/  ("rsketch" ?)

Syntax:   drive:\path\dispicon %1

Comments:  displayer for RIP icons. I didn't get a chance to determine if
           the 'rip sketch' package was available. But you may turn it up
           at the two urls above, or through Alta Vista.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PKUNZIP.EXE   -- The Standard decompressor for ZIP format files

                 http://www.pkware.com
                 http://www.pkware.com/download.html

Syntax:   md %@NAME[%1]
          c:\codecs\pkzip204\pkunzip -d %1 %@NAME[%1]
          md %@NAME[%1]\misc
          move %1 %@NAME[%1]\misc

Comments: Creates directory based on the first name of the zip, extracts
          the zip in the newly created directory with the directory tree
          intact (using the "-d" switch), creates a subdirectory to place
          the original zip file into.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RAR.EXE       -- Powerful new codec. Special multimedia compression makes
                 this a must have.

                 http://www.ivsoft.com/ivcs/RAR.HTM   (Official Home Page)
                 http://www.m2computers.com/rar/index.html  (unOfficial)

Syntax:   md %@NAME[%1]
          c:\codecs\rar\unrar x %1 %@NAME[%1]
          md %@NAME[%1]\misc
          move %1 %@NAME[%1]\misc

Comments: Same as for the "pkunzip" above. Uses "x" to recreate the directory
          tree. My personal tests already reveal that the compression here
          on sound files, binaries, and uncompressed graphic formats make
          RAR a viable new alternative as a general compression tool.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ARJ.EXE       -- Compressor\decompressor for ARJ type files

                 http://www.websoftware.com/arj.htm

Syntax:   md %@NAME[%1]
          arj x -y %1 %@NAME[%1]
          md %@NAME[%1]\misc
          move %1 %@NAME[%1]\misc

Comments: Same as for the "pkunzip" above. Uses "x" to recreate the directory
          tree, and "-y" to auto-confirm requests.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using the menu system below, I can edit an htm file, and view the results
using any number of DOS based viewers... Below is my present configuration.
This method works very quickly. It's almost like having one giant HTML
processing machine :)

:htm1
echo.
echo.
echo                  Press 1  to view (BOBCAT)
echo                  Press 2  to view (KNOTS)
echo                  Press 3  to view (ARACHNE)
echo.
echo                  Press 4  to edit (SLED)
echo.
echo.
inkey /K"1234" /P Press 1, 2, 3 or 4: %%mykey
   if "%mykey" == "1" goto htmview1
   if "%mykey" == "2" goto htmview2
   if "%mykey" == "3" goto htmview3
   if "%mykey" == "4" goto editor
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOBCAT.EXE    -- DOS text-based browser for the WWW. Works great with
                 the file-associations btm for viewing single pages.

                 http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/getbobcat.htm

Syntax:   drive:\bobcat\lynx file:///%1

Comments: Excellent text-based browser based on Unix Lynx. Works well
          with the BTM. You only need the files "lynx.exe" and "lynx.cfg"
          present in the same directory for local access to your pages.
          The html rendering is done about as well as it's Unix counterpart,
          from what I've been able to see.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KNOTS.EXE     -- Graphical viewer and browser for local htm files.

                 http://www.soton.ac.uk/~ng194/knots/

Syntax:   drive:\path\knots %1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ARACHNE.EXE   -- Terrific new graphical browser for DOS. With some
                 tweaking, becomes an ideal single page viewer.

                 http://www.naf.cz/arachne/

Syntax:   drive:\arachne\core %1
          erase arachne.pck tadyjsem.byl tohleuz.mam > nul

Comments: At this point, I'm still using Unix Lynx through a shell account
          to access the web. But to get an idea as to how my pages might
          look to a graphical browser, I use Arachne. After extracting
          the files, I moved "*.ikn" "*.fnt" "svga.set" "core.exe"
          "fontinfo.bin"  to AnyDir. All told, about 880k w\version
          1.0 beta 7

          The first time I ran "core file.htm" it set the video parameters
          (in the process, it created the three files you see above
          following "erase".) You can reset the video and test out various
          display options by erasing those same three files. Once configured,
          it loads html files without any problems, but keeps recreating
          "arachne.pck", "tadyjsem.byl" and "tohleuz.mam" in any directory
          you load it from, hence the use of the "erase" command. I just
          ran this few days ago, so there might be another solution I didn't
          come across. I might eventually add some of the included EXE files
          for further enhancements to the viewer.

          Note: The recommendation above is for viewing single html pages
          with the 'file-associations' BTM.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST.COM      -- Arguably the most popular File\Dir manager for DOS.

                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/
                 http://www.buerg.com/   (??)
                 http://www.filez.com/  ("list", "list9"..)

Syntax:   None

Comments: LIST calls the 'file-associations' BTM by pressing the letter "E".
          Version 9.1m

          I've looked at the latest version (9.2a, dated 1/97), but
          experienced some minor problems when switching between columnar
          display of directories (pressing 1-9)

          If you have a ramdisk set up, LIST always works much faster
          by placing this line in your autoexec.bat:

          SET LIST=D:\   (where "D" is your ramdisk)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK.COM      -- Allows linking any EXE and COM file to a zero-length file.
                 Shortens your path statement, saves a ton of diskspace
                 otherwise used by batch files.

                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  ("linkln10")
                 http://www.filez.com/  ("linkln10")

Syntax:   None

Comments: Although not part of the "fa" BTM, LINK is a terrific way of
          further integrating your DOS environment. It allows a direct
          link to an executable file (much like a batch file in your path
          that points to an executable) without taking up any hard\ramdisk
          space. Below is some brief setup information...

          LINK functions under DOS\4DOS. In fact, I use LINK instead
          of 4DOS's "alias" for most simple program 'connections'. Whenever
          I had to load "command.com" all my aliases were lost. LINK now
          provides an effective bridge between the two shells.

1) Autoexec.bat: (below are three lines I have in my AUTOEXEC.BAT)

   [note: drive "d" is my ramdrive. "d:\dos1" is in my path. "Link.com"
   takes ~600 bytes in memory. The "call" is used to run another batch
   file and then return to the original, which in this case is "autoexec"]

   lh c:\dos2\link\link.com > nul
   copy c:\dos2\link\link$ d:\dos1 > nul
   call c:\dos2\link\zero.bat

2) Sampling of contents of the file "link$"

   [note: The names of the executables (exe\com) are capitalized *and*
   in alphabetical order. The spacing between the executable and the
   location of the actual executable isn't important -- simply visual.
   The executables listed below are all "zero-length" files. They take
   up no drive\ramdrive space]

   ARJ.EXE      c:\codecs\arj250\arj.exe
   L.COM        c:\utils\list91m\list.com
   LIST.COM     c:\utils\list91m\list.com
   PKUNZIP.EXE  c:\codecs\pkzip204\pkunzip.exe
   PKZIP.EXE    c:\codecs\pkzip204\pkzip.exe
   PLANY.EXE    c:\sound\plany15\plany.exe
   PLAY.EXE     c:\sound\play\play.exe
   SHOWSIZE.EXE c:\utils\showsize\showsize.exe
   SLED.COM     c:\wordproc\sled\sled.com
   SWEEP.COM    c:\utils\sweep\sweep.com
   UDEC.EXE     c:\utils\udec\udec.exe
   VMODE.COM    c:\ss24\util\vmode.com

3) Sampling of the contents of the file "zero.bat"

   [note: Instead of keeping a bunch of "zero-length" files on my hard
   drive, I create them when booting up. The DOS "copy" command doesn't
   work on "zero-length" files, and "xcopy" is slower than the method
   below]

   REM > D:\DOS1\ARJ.EXE
   REM > D:\DOS1\L.COM
   REM > D:\DOS1\LIST.COM
   REM > D:\DOS1\PKUNZIP.EXE
   REM > D:\DOS1\PKZIP.EXE
   REM > D:\DOS1\PLANY.EXE
   REM > D:\DOS1\PLAY.EXE
   REM > D:\DOS1\SHOWSIZE.EXE
   REM > D:\DOS1\SLED.COM
   REM > D:\DOS1\SWEEP.COM
   REM > D:\DOS1\UDEC.EXE
   REM > D:\DOS1\VMODE.COM


[final note: The ~600 byte TSR (LINK.COM) reads the file "LINK$" to
find the location of the actual executable. Even if you don't have alot
of memory, a small ramdisk would easily fit the "zero-length" files
as well as the "link$" file.]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAGICKEY.EXE  -- TSR that will autotype anything placed in it's *DAT files.

                 http://www.shareware.com/SW/Search/Simple/  ("magic120")
                 http://www.filez.com/  ("magic120")

Syntax:   None

Comments: At the last minute I decided to include this program -- in keeping
          with the theme of tying your environment together. I keep all
          kinds of URLs in the *DAT files (email, http, ftp, telnets, etc).
          When logged on to my ISP, this gem does all the retrieving of URLs
          and the typing. It also allows text captures of any portion of
          the screen. Additionally, it ties all those programs I have with
          complicated command-line syntax into one place.

          I have 'data' files for "codecs", "music", "modem strings",
          "ascii codes", "search", etc, in addition to Internet *DAT files.
          If I want to zip a whole directory tree, for example... I pop
          up Magickeys and load my "codecs" file. I scroll to the correct
          line, press 'enter' and presto!:

          pkzip -rp -whs -o -Jrhs filename.zip *.*

          I use the command-line editing to make changes. Also included
          in the *DAT files are little help aids -- so I know what each
          parameter stands for. Read the docs once, and never read them
          again :) You can walk away from your programs for years and never
          lose your expertise.

          Or if I want to play a MID file with Cubic Player:

          e:\cp16\cp -mpe:\gus-pat -mc1 -vp0 -cl+ (file.mid)

          Also good for keeping information ready, Magickeys will load
          any text file. DOS\4DOS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anarkeys and Toddy

Comments: These are two older programs that provide command-line editing
          and history recall, among other things. Though 4dos provides
          the most comprehensive tools for the command-line, when I run
          my file\dir manager (list.com), I lose all command-line editing
          and recall capabilities.

          Anarkeys and Toddy, both TSR programs, continue to function
          when a program like LIST is running and empowers it with
          these two added functions. I haven't run these two programs
          in a while, but the more I find myself in LIST (as a result
          of this BTM), the more I'd like to have command-editing\history
          recall as part of my interface.

          I've looked at a few others, and these two proved to be the
          front runners. This was during a time when I actually thought
          I could recreate the 4dos shell under regular DOS. It didn't
          happen (LOL). I used these TSRs, batch enhancers, ansi drivers,
          the works!

          I have no recomendations now on how to set them up or the conflicts
          they might cause with 4dos. I just wanted to point them out.

          They are both available through regular distribution channels.

Well, that's it for now. If you got this far... thanks! and best wishes.

Christian

