Advanced Directory
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Introduction
After trying Paul Boolay's & Steve Cornell's "GIFDIR" (Rev 1.0) and Randall Walker's "PCXDIR" (Rev 1.1), which shows for GIF or PCX respectivley the resolution and the number of colours, I [Thomas Mainka] started writing an similar program but for more graphic formats.
Later I got the idea to expand the program to other formats than graphics. Therefore the second step was the testing of program and sound files. From an older project I got the National Language Support routines used in this program. A special wish from some users was the coloured output via ANSI driver which I appended later.
The author's own page about the software
Advanced Directory is, simply put, an extended version of the built-in DOS DIR command. But it's really more than that. Not only does it show the directory contents, it also shows information about the files in the directory. Loads of interesting information is added, like resolution and number of colours for pictures, number of files and compression ratio for archives, operating system and program name for executables, number of voices and length of music files and titles of word processing documents.
To add more nice features to the program, it separates the files by file type, colourizing the files differently (this is entirely configurable). Also, it is a multi-national multi-language program. It is currently available in German, Swedish and English (in order of which the language was added), with the Swedish translation being done by Peter Krefting. No setup is needed, the program will automatically detect the preferred language of the host computer, and will display its messages accordingly (this can of course be overridden).
And, best of all, the full source code (written in Turbo Pascal) is included with the archive. And it's freeware.
Screenshot
This is a simple screenshot to give you an idea of what Advanced Directory can do: (This screenshot is in Swedish)
![[ Advanced Directory screenshot - select link to download ]](../pics/adir.gif)
Get it!
The latest version of Advanced Directory is currently 0.58d and it can
be
downloaded here.
The file is 146,623 bytes, and is a ZIP compressed archive.
Supported file formats
At this time Advanced Dir supports following file formats:
i. Graphic formats:
a. CompuServe-GIF(sm)
b. ZSoft-PCX and CAS-DCX
c. MS-Windows BMP
d. IBM-OS/2 BMP
e. IFF-ILBM + IFF-PBM
f. TIFF (PC- and Macintosh type)
g. JFIF/JPEG (*)
h. HSI-JPEG (*)
i. WordPerfect (WPG)
j. GEM-images (IMG) (*)
k. MSPaint (*)
l. MS-Windows-ICO or CUR resp. and Windows-NT ANI
m. IBM-OS/2-ICO or PTR resp.
n. PIC (*)
o. TARGA (*)
p. CompuServe-RLE
q. SUN-RASterfile (modern type) (*)
r. Dr.Halo CUT (*) without colour information
s. MAC-Graph (*) as fixed format
t. ColoRix SC? (*) without true colour information
u. Autodesk FLI or FLC (*)
v. AVI multimedia files (*)
w. QuickTime MOVies (*)
x. RDIB (*)
y. PNG
the following additional informations are added to the normal dir information:
a. file type abbreviation
b. horizontal picture size in pixels
c. vertical picture size in pixels
d. number of colours
e. number of selectable colours for palletized pictures
f. additional informations like packing method or "GS" for Greyscale-
picture (a-h+o+p+t+x+y)
ii. sound formats:
a. AMIGA-MOD (*)
b. Soundblaster CMF
c. Adlib-ROL
d. Gameblaster/Soundblaster CMS (*)
e. Gameblaster/Soundblaster ORG (*)
f. MIDI
g. Windows WAVe
h. Soundblaster VOC
i. IFF-8SVX (*)
j. IFF-AIFF (*)
k. Sun/Next AU soundfile (*)
l. MAC sound (*)
the following additional informations are added to the normal dir information:
a. file type abbreviation
b. titel of song (when available)
c. number of instruments or voices resp. (a-d+g-k)
d. duration of the tune (a+g-k)
iii. text formats:
a. MS-Word TXT
b. Windows-Write WRI
c. MS-Word for Windows 1.x and 2.x (*)
d. MS Windows-HLP (*)
e. MS Advisor-HLP (*)
f. OS/2 2.x HLP (*)
g. Rich Text Format RTF (*)
h. Postscript 1 and 2 (*)
i. HTML hypertext
j. plain ASCII text
k. compressed 4DOS batch BTM
l. Fido mail packet PKT
m. Fido message MSG
the following additional informations are added to the normal dir information:
a. file type abbreviation
b. text title (a+c-i+m)
iv. database and calculation formats:
a. dBase-DBF (or Clipper DBF)
b. Lotus WKS and WK1 (Quattro Pro WQ1 and WQ2)
the following additional informations are added to the normal dir information:
a. file type abbreviation
b. number of data fields / colums
c. number of records / lines
v. programs and fonts:
a. DOS-Com
b. DOS-Exe (incl. Borlands DOS extension for protected mode)
c. Extended EXE-files (386er drivers etc.)
d. MS-Windows EXE (V 2.xx and 3.xx)
e. Windows32-Exe
f. IBM-OS/2 EXE (V 1.xx and 2.xx)
g. Novell loadable modules (NLM) (*)
h. Novell VAPs (*)
i. Windows PIFs
j. DeskView DVPs
k. DOS-device-driver (incl. NDIS-driver)
l. Windows GRPs
m. TP resp. BP units (*)
n. TrueType fonts
o. ATM fonts (PFB,PFM) (*)
the following additional informations are added to the normal dir information:
a. file type abbreviation
b. titel of application (c-n)
c. Windows version (c+d)
d. flags (d+f)
"3" - Windows program is compatible to Windows 3.x (d)
"P" - Windows program supports proportional fonts (d)
"F" - Windows Program uses a fastload-area (d)
"L" - OS/2 program supports long filenames (f)
vi. packed fileformats:
a. SEA- or PK-ARC resp. (incl. PK-PAK and NoGate-PAK)
b. PK-ZIP
c. ARJ
d. LZH (*)
e. ZOO (*)
f. SQZ
g. RAR
h. GL (Grasp animation)
i. D64 u. T64 images of the C64-emulator
the following additional informations are added to the normal dir information:
a. file type abbreviation
b. number of included files
c. packing rate in percent
d. packing method (a+b+e)
I haven't got any documentation for the file formats that are marked with asterisks (*), so I had to determine the structure of these formats empirical from some sample files. Therefore I cannot exclude possible errors for these file types.
Peter Krefting / $Date: 2023-12-06 23:15:50 $ / softwolves@softwolves.pp.se