[3968] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
FREEWARE: Free OS/2 + DOS Software (Mainly Power User Utilities, but some general purpose)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dennis Bareis)
Sat Apr 4 04:08:01 1998
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 29 Mar 1998 11:01:00 -0500
From: dbareis@ozemail.com.au (Dennis Bareis)
Reply-To: db0@anz.com
Reply-to: db0@anz.com
[Followups directed to comp.os.os2.utilities]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have written a lot of utilities and made them available as freeware on my
home page at "http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dbareis". There is some DOS
stuff but most of it is OS/2.
While there are some general purpose programs, they are mostly of use to web
designers, programmers or integrators.
I have cut and pasted one of the pages below (looks good in a fixed font),
sorry about formatting otherwise (its a two column table)...
[Image] OS/2 FreeWare [Image]
This software has all been written by Dennis Bareis. Please read the
disclaimer before downloading or using any software from these pages. You
should also check out my recommended software page for other very useful
code.
In this table the top entries are the latest to be added or updated. This
makes it easier for you to recognize changes when you next log on.
Package Information
This rexx preprocessor can be used to generate HTML code
from source files. It supports commands such as
"#include", "#define", "#if" and much more.
HTMLPP
98.087 I maintain two differing home pages from the same
64,831 bytes source, all the html you are seeing has been
[updated] processed/generated by this program. Note that the '#if'
processing is very powerful and that you can execute any
rexx commands and use the output. The #define command
supports parameters.
This program compiles rexx code to create ".EXE" files.
REXX2EXE The resultant executable does not contain the source and
98.085 by default is compressed and encrypted so people can't
194,224 bytes even patch text strings. You can generate 2 types of
[updated] ".EXE" files, a larger standalone or a much smaller one
that requires a "DLL" at runtime. If you are interested
in this program you should also check out REXBUILD.
This rexx program is an automated text editor. It allows
TEXTEDIT you to easily modify files such as "CONFIG.SYS". It has
98.085 not been specifically written for "CONFIG.SYS" but does
64,191 bytes have some specialized commands to make editing this file
[updated] easier. It is very powerful and can make decisions based
on return codes, environment variables etc.
ARCHIVE Creates icons which turn OS/2's archiving on & off. It
98.076 allows you to click on an icon to turn archiving on and
3,408 bytes automatically turn it off again after the archive has
[updated] taken place on the following boot. The install program
takes care of WARP 3 / WARP 4 differences.
Netscape This is a sample which makes use of a recommended tool
Security called RESMGR to automatically patch OS/2 netscape 2.02E
Patch to remove options, change buttons and links etc.
This utility can be used to "patch" files rather than
distribute the whole thing. There are two utilities
included. MAKBUILD.EXE compares the current and previous
PATCHIT version of a file and creates a much smaller 'patch'
96.280 file. REBUILD.EXE takes the patch file, performs as many
64,059 bytes verifications as possible and then applies the patch to
the older version on a users machine to build the
desired file. Note that you can also sometimes get quite
good gains even with using an unrelated file as an old
version.
This rexx utility accepts user input and generates one
or more output files from a template. You specify
(without coding) what questions will be asked and what
validations should occur. Some basic validations are
TEMPLATE built in and rexx code can be called for more complex
98.021 requirements.
46,250 bytes
An example is included in the documentation which shows
how a CM/2 response file is tailored after a few simple
questions have been answered. Also included is
"CursorT.EXE" which can be used to change the shape of
the OS/2 cursor (can be handy in rexx code).
This small rexx program processes .GIF and .JPG files
either by dropping files or directories onto the icon it
installs or via the command line.
If using the icon then information about the images
(Width, height, & size) along with the image itself are
IMGINFO displayed in the NETSCAPE browser (these can then be
97.335 printed if you wish). Depending on which icon you used
5,070 bytes either a single directory or a directory tree are shown
so you could display all images on a drive at once.
The command line version gives you more control than the
icon and by default has a simplistic output mainly
listing the width & height of the images. You can
greatly speed up the display of web pages by specifying
the image sizes on "<IMG" html tags.
This program reads in a text file which describes the
INIWRITE changes you wish to make to one of more INI files and
97.319 makes these INI file changes. It can also take a single
5,593 bytes command from the command line. It can take some very
complex expressions.
INIREAD This small rexx program dumps all or part of the INI
97.312 file specified on the command line. I have used it to
3,096 bytes look for differences between INI files.
This program creates a database of CRC 32 calculations
for the files you specify and allows you to compare
CRC32 these at a later stage to report the changes. It is
97.310 possible to automatically create lists of changed files.
39,508 bytes It can be very useful to record your whole hard drive
and then report on changes after a program has been
installed.
STRINGS This program scans binary files and finds strings. You
93.116 have a lot of control as to what is defined as a string.
15,478 bytes For example you can decide that strings don't contain
digits 0-9 etc.
This program is used to add "#include" and "#define"
REXBUILD support to rexx programs. This allows you to easily
97.305 create header files of standard routines so that you
42,215 bytes never need to duplicate source code again! If you are
interested in this program you may wish to compile the
generated output using REXX2EXE to produce ".EXE" files.
UTLBCOMP This program will compare 2 binary files. It formats
93.090 results much better than the standard "comp" command and
23,835 bytes does not stop at 10 mismatches. It will handle files of
different length but will stop on EOF of the smaller.
WPSOBJ This program has many commands related to the
97.256 manipulation of WPS objects and classes. It can create
31,153 bytes objects based on a database (which can use commands such
as #include and #define).
This program is used to modify a floppies' boot sector
so that when its in the drive and the PC is rebooted it
FLOPBOOT will boot off the hard disk. I use this for all my data
97.212 floppies (see enclosed format1.cmd). There are other
39,562 bytes programs that do this but all had bugs and I could find
none for OS/2. This package also contains "DRIVE_FB.EXE"
which can reset/read/write diskette or hard disk boot
records as well as hard disk master boot records.
VFILE This is a text based file viewer. It has some nice
96.196 features including the ability to highlight lines that
55,778 bytes contain specific text such as "error". It can also
accept its input via a pipe.
This tool is basically for debugging or tracing code,
this tracing code may be left in place as the impact is
not that large. This is an extensive enhancement to the
PMPRINTF PMPRINTF code you may have seen elsewhere, this code
96.179 allows you to debug SOM/WPS code as well as REXX and 'C'
183,114 bytes code. The viewer which has also undergone many
enhancements is supplied along with the programming
interfaces and online help. A program to redirect
PMPRINTF queue output to a log file is also attached.
MSGDCOMP This program decompiles OS/2 message files. This would
95.316 allow you to examine/modify the file and recompile. This
11,248 bytes program was written in rexx with a small DLL written in
'C' to overcome a OS/2 bug which IBM is not keen to fix.
FILTER$ This is a do heaps filter program. Amongst other things
94.239 it does case conversion, hex dumps (ASCII/EBCDIC/Custom)
16,768 bytes and binary to text representation and back.
EADUMP This rexx program dumps a files Extended Attributes. Its
94.216 written in rexx and makes use of the OS/2 EAUTIL.EXE
3,108 bytes program.
This program is very useful in make files and can also
STDT be of use in batch files. Its task is to capture the
93.239 output of a command to a file while also displaying the
16,134 bytes output. This functions much like "tee" programs however
the return code of the command is not lost.
Some of the packages contain very detailed documentation while others don't
contain any. For almost all of my programs if you make a command line error
a summary of the correct syntax is produced. If I have placed a package
here without documentation then I have done so because I believe there is
enough information available (and because I have too many other things to
do!).
I would appreciate some feed back on how you use or find my programs. I am
also interested in fixing any bugs you might find or hearing about any
enhancements that would make your task easier.
As long as you are not making money by reselling or including my software
as a selling feature then I don't care who uses this software or whether
its for individual use or used by a large corporation. If however you will
make money from my work then we need to talk!
Note that many of the programs above are written in rexx and since rexx is
available for DOS, Windows 3.1/95/NT etc these programs would require
little if any conversion to work on other operating systems.
Last modified: Saturday March 28 1998 at 5:57pm
--
Dennis Bareis
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA.
email : db0 @ anz.com (remove spaces!)
HomePage: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dbareis
(Contains heaps of freeware written by myself)
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