wxqt2
Contents
wxqt2 is a graphical front end for qltools
and qxltool.
qltools is a Unix and Windows program to access QDOS formatted
floppy from Unix, Windows and other operating systems, qxltool
does a similar job for QDOS formatted hard disk container files
(so called QXL.WIN files). wxqt2 is available for both WIN32
(Windows 95/98/NT) and X Window (Unix) platforms thanks
to the remarkable wxWindows
C++ class libraries that make it possible to write graphical
applications for both platforms using the same (well almost) APIs.
Using wxqt2, you can perform almost all file operations on QDOS format
media using a graphical interface on Windows or Unix platforms.
The left hand pane shows a QDOS file system (in this case from a
"qxl.win" hard disk container file), the container file is
/var/tmp/qxl.win, in the QDOS directory
exe. The right hand panel shows a QDOS floppy system,
no-label, 758 free sectors on Unix device /dev/fd0.
wxqt2 may be launched from the command line or from a file or
program manager.
The devices loaded are configurable from the File/Options item.
Icons are used to indicate various files. Directories (folders)
are denoted by a standard folder symbol, 
; for example the foobarbaz directory in the
above example. Some special folder are '.' (the current
directory), '..' (go up, indicated by a folder with a up arrow
in it 
).
In a window, double (left button) clicking on any of these
folder symbols will open that directory.
The rather pathetic QDOS directories are fully supported, even
on floppy disks. You can click on them and recurse through the
device just like a real file system.
Other icons represent files, the red corner indicates an
executable file 
, while a grey
corner is a normal file 
, as far
as wxqt2 can distinguish.
The File menu contains the following options.
Selecting Options display the options dialogue.
The OK button causes the displayed values to be current. These are
also saved on exit. The Cancel button causes the changes to be
lost. The main window size is also saved between invocations.
The two columns of button at the extreme right hand side define
while file system will displayed in the respective panel, in the
example the QXL container file /var/tmp/qxl.win is
shown in the left panel and the QDOS floppy disk in the right.
The QXL I/O Mode window defines whether you can write to a
QXL.WIN container file. For some bizarre reason, the
documentation for the structure of the QXL.WIN file is a closely
guarded secret that is not available to the authors of free
programs; you use the Read/Write setting at your own risk!
The Fixed Font button allows you to choose a preferably
mono-spaced font for display of text files using the
Popup/View menu option. In the
example, the fixed width font lucidiatypewriter at 12pt
has been selected. An operating system specific font selector is
used to choose this font.
It is possible to format a new QXL file at any time (to format a
displayed QXL file, you need to have set QXL I/O Mode to
Read/Write). Selecting this menu option displays the following
dialogue.
The browse button will use an operating system specific file
browser to choose a file/directory for the new QXL.WIN file.
This will exit the application. Your current settings are saved.
The menu option will display some trivial version information
about wxqt2.
The QDOS panels (flp_ and qxl.win) have a right mouse button
pop-up menu. This menu offers the following options.
The options available depend on whether any files are selected,
and in the case of QXL.WIN container files, whether the qxl file
system is writable.
The Delete option will delete, without further prompting any
highlighted QDOS files; it will recurse into any highlighted
directories. If no files are selected or a QXL.WIN file system is
read-only, then this option is greyed out.
A progress box is displayed during deletion, where multiple files
are being deleted, the operation may be aborted by clicking
Abort.
The Format option allows you to apply a QDOS format the the
currently selected QDOS device or disk image.
The format routine depends on whether you are formatting a floppy
disk for a QXL.WIN container file.
wxqt2 will attempt to determine the format (DD or HD) as follows.
-
If the supplied label has a * as the 11th character and either
'd' or 'h' (or 'D' or 'H') as the twelfth character then
appropriate format will be assumed without further
checking. If label does not contain extra formatting
information then:
-
wxqt2 for Linux and NT will examine the disk/image and attempt
to decide. Other Unix will examine a disk image, and maybe a
floppy device if you send me the code to do so.
-
wxqt2 for Windows 9x can only examine a disk image, again
unless someone provides an example of how to that works on
both W95 and NT (i.e. DeviceIoControl() appears not to work
on W95).
-
If none of these conditions are met, a dialogue box is
presented asking you to decide. You can force this to happen
by giving a label with a '*' as the eleventh character and
something other than d/D/h/H as the twelfth.
The label dialogue is presented as:
Press OK to continue with the format, or Cancel to
abandon. The label will be truncated to 10 characters.
If wxqt2 is unable to determine the correct format for the disk,
then the following dialogue is presented.
Press OK to continue with the format, or Cancel to
abandon.
Parameters for the QXL file are entered in the following dialogue.
The Info item will provide information on the QDOS device /
image. A scrolling window is presented, with different views for
QXL.WIN and floppy file systems.
Note that the window in non-modal, and any resemblance to the
View window is entirely non-coincidental (see polymorphism).
The Mkdir option will create a level 2 directory on the QDOS media
according to the usual QDOS rules. A dialogue box is presented
asking for the directory name.
Press OK to continue with the directory creation, or
Cancel to abandon.
A version dialogue is displayed.
The View item will invoke a scrolling window to view a text (i.e.
non-directory, non-executable) QDOS file. If no suitable files are
currently selected, then this option is greyed out.
The scrolling window is presented as:
Note that the window in non-modal, and multiple views may be
invoked.
Files may be copied between panes using the central arrow
buttons. Files to be copied are selected by clicking with the
mouse. Modifiers of Control and Shift allow
selection of dis-contiguous files and ranges in sadly incompatible
operating system specific ways.
When a directory is selected for copying all files in the
directory will be copied.
When copying, which may be slow, particularly for Windows and
floppy disks, a progress box is displayed.
Clicking Abort will terminate the copy.
wxWindows v2.1 is still in beta, however it is sufficiently
robust to be usable for a project like wxqt2.
-
X
-
GTK (Gimp ToolKit) or Motif (Lesstif)
-
wxWindows 2.1 (wxGTK requires GTK, recommended 1.23 or later)
-
g++ (2.90 or later recommended)
-
Windows 9x or NT
To build from source
-
wxMSW 2.1
-
C++ compiler (gcc/g++,
2.90 or later, maybe VC++ with some hacking)
- Cygwin GNU tools if using g++
- RCS for Win32
-
qltools v2.13 or later
-
qxltool v1.10 or later
Jonathan Hudson <jrhudson@bigfoot.com>
wxqt2 is Copyright (c) Jonathan Hudson and is distributed under
the GNU General Public Licence, a copy of which is included in the
wxqt2 archive.
The following links may be useful if you want to investigate some
of the tools used to create wxqt2.