Once WinView has been started, the program displays a listing of the directories of the CDROM along with their content descriptions. In general, you will see the names of files and directories on the left side of the window, and their descriptions on the right. You can use the arrow keys or the mouse to select a file or directory.

Pressing ENTER or double-clicking on any of the entries will have one of several different results, depending on what was highlighted:

• Directories: These are files ending with a "\". WinView changes to that directory and shows you a new listing. Press the ESC key or click on the "Prev." icon to return to the previous directory.

• Files: If you selected a text file, WinView will display it. If you selected a binary file, such as a a file ending with .gif or a .jpg, WinView will try to use a helper program to display the file. If there is no helper program defined for that type of file, WinView will display the file as text. If you selected a file ending in .zip, .tar, .gz, or .tgz, WinView will try to extract files from it. Those four types of files are archives, meaning they contain one or more different files, compressed or uncompressed.

After double-clicking on an archive, WinView will bring up a Destination Query window. In this screen, you will specify which directory to extract the files from the archive to. You will need to know where you installed these files later, when you want to use them. When you're finished hit "OK" to extract the files.

After all of the files have been extracted from the archive, the WinView program will display another index menu similar to the previous menus, but instead it displays the contents of the directory that you extracted the files to. In this menu most of the "readme" files and other text files that were extracted from the archive will be labeled as documentation on the right side. Select one of these and hit ENTER or double-click on it to open the file for viewing. Double-clicking on an Executable Program will execute the program.

To copy a file from the WinView menu, highlight the file and click on the "Copy" icon. This will bring up a destination query window, where you will specify which directory you want to copy the file to. When you click on "OK" it will copy the file and then return to the file index menu.

You can search for text in the filenames and descriptions in the current file index menu. Enter the text in the "Word Search" box and then click on the "Fwrd" icon. The WinView program will highlight the first occurrence of the text you entered in the box. Click on the "Fwrd" icon again to find the next occurrence, and "Revr" to find the previous occurrence of the text.

You can view the entire contents of the CDROM in the file index menu. This is useful for when you want to search for certain text in files and descriptions throughout the CDROM. To do this, click on the "Go" pull-down menu, and select "Global Index". You can then search, view, or extract from this global index like you would in the normal index.

Phil Jenvey - pjenvey@cdrom.com - Walnut Creek CDROM