                 ͻ
                  Welcome to VBX, Manfred's little Box Painter 
                 ͼ

Introduction               Current Version: 1.06               2000/08/06


VBX is a full-screen character mode box drawing tool for DOS and the
Windows 95 DOS-box.
Its main purpose is to support box drawing in text files, which is why it
contains only a very limited number of text edit functions. Complex text
editing should be done with a text editor like VDE. It is only meaningful
to work with a fixed font.

VBX in its current form was born after a discussion with Eric Meyer about
thinkable approaches to box painting during christmas holiday nights, in
order to recover from the stress of having my demanding twin daughters
(9 year old) all over me several days in a row.

I wrote VBX for my own use when writing program documentation, reference card
sketches, flow charts and the like. The operation of VBX is so simple and
(hopefully) intuitive, that I did not care to write extensive user
documentation yet. If there arises need for documentation, I'll write it.

Features


   - simple user control by single-character commands

   - fast help called by F1 (now also reachable in edit mode)

   - draw lines,boxes with single or double bar ASCII graphic characters
     by using the cursor keys only, supplying all the necessary corners,
     tees and crosses itself, NOT available characters default to BLANK.

   - draw with character under cursor or with a blank

   - select character for drawing from complete extended ASCII
     character table

   - mark rectangular regions (in VDE: column blocks) (see VBX online help)

   - draw a box onto the border of a marked region with one keystroke
          - b  for single bar box
          - B  for double bar box

   - add horizontal/vertical line to a marked box to subdivide it into
     sub-boxes with one keystroke, supplying eventually necessary tees
     and crosses itself (even mixed single/double bar)
          - h/v  for single bar line (horizontal/vertical)
          - H/V  for double bar line (horizontal/vertical)

|  - move, shrink, extend a box or marked region, preserving the line
|    graphics and NOT accidentally destroying text outside the region
|    (text being mowed down by moving or extending is saved in a "shadow"
|     buffer of the size of the marked region and will reappear, if you
|     go on moving, or shrink after accidentally extending too much.)

   - copy, clear marked regions (cut and paste), with a paste buffer,
     from which you may recover text accidentally cleared (last clear)
|    (paste will also mark the pasted text; text overwritten by a paste
|     operation is still in the "shadow" buffer under the marked region.
|     If you clear=delete a marked region into the paste buffer, any
|     shadowed text will reappear.)

   - directory wildcard select (file browser), selected directory entries
     may be shown on the screen either rowwise or columnwise arranged,
     default is columnwise. If you prefer rowwise, then add the following
     line at the end of your profile file: Directory=Rows

   - change drive

   - copy/move from one file to another (using the paste buffer)
     (there is no split-screen feature, but you can enter another file
      either with a single character command or by going into the directory
      and selecting it from there)

   - find string (forward/backward) case insensitively

   - change string with undo last change (forward only)

   - fill marked region with character currently under the cursor

   - a paste buffer indicator in the header line, which changes shape
     each time you change the paste buffer's contents ( 0 = empty )

   - save  entire file  into a file
     if extension is .EML (for E-mail), all extended ASCII graphics are
     translated to 7-bit ASCII equivalents "|-=+^v<>".

   - write paste buffer into a file
   - read  paste buffer from a file

   - tab from box to next box (left upper corners)

   - text edit the interior of a box by placing the cursor on the upper
     left corner of a box and issue 'e' (without blips for edit).
     Terminate editing by Esc.

   - text edit total file by issuing 'e' NOT on an upper left corner of a box.

   - call (spawn) VDE for intermediate text editing (see COMMAND.VBX)

   - view the contents of the paste buffer

   - use mouse for marking, selecting, escaping and moving the cursor
     To enable the mouse add "Mouse=Yes" in your profile VBX.FSP.

   - keeping a backup version of file (before update image) as name.BAK

   - color setup: choose your own combinations of standard DOS colors
                  or even use privately mixed non-standard colors
                 (Hint: If you run under W95 in the DOS box, use full screen,
                        otherwise private colors may not be ok.)

   - cursor setup: - non-blinking block cursor    (Steady    )
                   - blinking block cursor        (Block     )
                   - blinking underscore cursor   (Underscore)

Limitations


   - The no. of files VBX can simultaneously work on is limited only by the
     amount of available memory. (see future plans)
   - max no. of lines: approximately 2500 lines per 100K available DOS space
                      ( if you have 400K your file may have up to 10000 lines)
   - max recsize.....:  256 bytes  (pre-processing symbol in source code)
                      (this is the maximum text line length VBX can process)
   - DOS text mode...:   25 rows, 80 columns, color screen

   Note: If running VBX under Windows 95 in the DOS box, graphic characters
         which have both single- and double-bar arms may appear as letters.
         This may be because W95 uses code page 850 as default for the
         DOS box. Choosing code page 437 in the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
         will not help in this situation. There is no way in W95 itself to
         change this default. But in the first distributions of W95 there was a
         utility by the name CHANGECP on the CD, which could do just this!
           If you use the mouse, I recommend to use full screen. In a true
         window, you have still w95's graphical mouse pointer which is followed
         by the normal cursor only reluctantly (jerky).


Usage Policy


 The VBX utility and its documentation are Copyright 2000 Manfred Jainz, all
rights reserved. They may not be circulated in any incomplete or modified form,
nor sold for profit, without written permission of the author.  VBX.EXE and
VBX.HLP must be circulated together.  There is no fee to individuals or
companies for use of VBX.  Any software dealer or library may offer VBX for
sale as long as the price charged for the disk containing VBX does not exceed
US $5.00.  Any other sale of VBX, either alone or together with other software
or hardware, requires a licensing agreement.

Disclaimer


                   You undertake to use VBX at your own risk.
            The author assumes no liability for damages of any kind
                        resulting from your use of VBX.


Sources


 Copies of VBX may be ordered directly from the author by E-mail.
 Currently it is also available via Internet at

    Evan Slawson's   http://www.punky.com/vde/vdefiles.htm
 or Bill Wolff's     http://members.aol.com/wolffsoft/vde.htm
 or Short.Stop's _Mostly VDE_ Software Page
                     http://short.stop.home.att.net/index.htm
 or Rich Green       http://members.home.net/rlgreen2/txted02.htm#editorrelated


 Note: VBX.EXE, help file, and documentation are freely distributed. I will
       NOT distribute program source code.

Future plans

   - use vmalloc of C++, so that file size becomes practically unlimited
   - keyboard key mapping of scan codes (for strange keyboards like AT)
     (it is already there, but cumbersome to document, so if you have problems,
      ask me)
   - make a UNIX (LINUX) version using CURSES (for those who want to know)

The low level code necessary for this is ready, but implementing this
in VBX will take some time...

Installation

- Unzip the archive with PKUNZIP. (I assume you have already done that)
  There are sixteen files, of which only the first two are needed to run VBX,
  the rest is "decoration", like more sophisticated setup and diagnostic tools.

        - VBX.EXE     (the program)
        - VBX.HLP     (the help source)
        - README.TXT  (this file)
        - COMMAND.VBX (short overview over VBX's single character
                       commands and how VBX uses the mouse)

        - FILE_ID.DIZ

        - VBX.FS0     (VBX color setup: standard)
        - VBX.FS1     (VBX color setup: text=dark BG,light FG)
        - VBX.FS2     (VBX color setup: private non-standard colors)
        - VBX.FS3     (VBX mono  setup: example)
                      (for color screens: I recommend VBX.FS2, my favourite)

        - VBX.BUG     currently known bugs
        - VBX.HST     history of changes
        - VBX.WSH     user wish list

        - VBXATR.EXE  (tool to help diagnose screen problems    )
                      optionally takes a setup profile filename as parameter
                      like VBX, but as first and only parameter

        - VBXMIX.EXE  (toy to mix private colors for color setup)
                      (does NOT work with MONO screens!)
                      if the scan function in VBXMIX is too fast, VBXMIX takes
                      a numeric DELAY parameter, which will delay VBXMIX
                      during scanning by DELAY milliseconds after each color
                      shown. ( Example: VBXMIX 50 )
                      (Now you can view the colors in RGB.TXT in VBXMIX, if
                       you happen to have X-window's RGB.TXT)

        - VBXSCN.EXE  (tool to find scan codes of keyboard keys)

        - COLOR.ZIP   additional color setups for VBX with seasons' colors,
                      (spring, summer, autumn, winter colors)
                      which were mixed by my daughters with VBXMIX,
                      they told me explicitly to include them.
                      - *.FSP: dark   BG, bright FG
                      - *.FSR: bright BG, dark   FG

- Move the .exe file into a directory in your PATH somewhere.

- Move the .hlp file into the SAME directory, where .exe resides

- If you want to run VBX with non-standard colors, then try the color setups
  VBX.FSx by running:   VBX TEST.TXT VBX.FSx  (with x=0,1,2 or 3 for mono) .
  Copy the VBX.FSx you like best to VBX.FSP.  (FSP = Full Screen Profile)
  Place VBX.FSP into the SAME directory, where .exe resides.
  Now you can run VBX with only one parameter, but your favourite colors.

- Runnning:  VBX ?   gives you details of the command line.

  - If you plan to use the mouse:
   - Make sure that a mouse driver is loaded in your AUTOEXEC when running
     under plain DOS.
   - Add the following line to your VBX.FSP profile:
       Mouse =Yes     ('Y' MUST immediately follow '=' )

   - You may overwrite the Double_Click time (default=250 ms) with an
     additional line in your VBX.FSP profile:
       Time =nnn      (nnn milliseconds D_Click time)

   - To suppress excessive beeping when the mouse hits top or bottom line
     add the following line to VBX.FSP:
       Beep =No

  - If you plan to call VDE from VBX for text editing:
   - If the VDE.EXE is not in your DOS path or if its name is not VDE.EXE
     add the following line to your VBX.FSP profile (I assume your VDE's name
     is V.EXE and is residing in C:\TOOLS):

       Editor      =c:\tools\v.exe        -- your VDE's name and path

If you have a color screen, you should really try the profiles from
COLOR.ZIP. My daughters will be glad to hear that somebody uses their colors!

Acknowledgements

  Robert Bull, Steve Adelewitz, and Gary R. Welles where busy testers.
  They found bugs and came up with a bunch of new design ideas.
  Thanks for your patience.

If you find bugs or major inconsistencies, please let me know.
If you like VBX, let me also know, I like to be in contact with users.

Have fun, Manfred.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manfred Jainz                         Email: jainz@medinfo.uni-kiel.de
Institute for Medical Informatics     Phone: 0049-431-597-3172
and Statistics                        Fax:   0049-431-597-3193
CAU University of Kiel
Kiel                                  *** Author of VPC (VDE tool)***
Germany
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