Pastry Box is a multifunction PM utility that contains several useful
tools that make using the OS/2 clipboard easier or perform functions that
would usually be done via multiple cut and paste operations.
Pastry Box does not modify the OS/2 clipboard or the WPS.
Clipboard Aid
Multiple MLE Windows
File List Maker
CMD File Builder
Hex Dump Utility
General Information:
Pastry Box stores its configuration information in the file PASTRY.INI.
The .INI file is read from the working directory, so you can have multiple
.INI files by changing the working directory entry in the settings
notebook for the program object. Included in the saved configuration
information is the size and position of the application's window on
the desktop, the file loaded into the main window via the File selection,
and the search string.
The utility is WPS aware, so you may also select a file by dragging a
copy of it onto the icon object. The utility does not support drag &
drop onto the opened application.
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One problem with using the OS/2 clipboard is that it will only hold
one item. If you want to copy noncontiguous lines of text from one
file to another, each noncontiguous line takes one copy and paste
operation. Pastry Box will let you mark multiple noncontiguous lines
of text and copy them to the clipboard in one operation. Pastry Box
will load text from a file or will allow text to be pasted from the
OS/2 clipboard. Loading a file into Pastry Box is done on a thread
to allow larger files to be loaded without impacting performance.
I use Pastry Box with an off-line mail reader to select lines from
other sources to paste into replies. It could also be used to select
multiple names from an organization list to form a distribution list.
It could be used to make a subset of a list of items and copy the
subset to the clipboard.
The main window is a listbox and the text inserted into the listbox
cannot be directly edited although the user can insert, append, and
delete lines of text. The lines pasted from the OS/2 clipboard can be
appended or inserted into the existing lines of text. If there is a
marked line in the main window, the contents of the clipboard is
inserted above the marked line, if not it is appended at the end of
the text in the main window.
There is a search search function that will search for text in the
main window. If a match is found, the display text will move so that
the line that contains the matched text is at the top of the listbox,
unless the last line of text in the main windows is already on screen.
The lines that contain the search string are marked to make it easy
to find information to copy to the clipboard.
The user may save lines of text from the main window, either the
marked text may be saved to a file or the contents of the main window
may be saved. When text from the main window is saved or copied to the
OS/2 clipboard, the trailing spaces are removed. This was added
because some usenet messages I copied were padded to a fixed length
and importing them to another utility often reformatted the text due
the trailing spaces. Removing the trailing spaces prevented the
reformatting.
A time stamp option is available to insert or append a time stamp to
the text in the main window.
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Pastry Box allows multiple MLE (Multi Line Editor) windows which can be
used for temporary storage for text pasted from the clipboard. This
gives the effect of having multiple OS/2 clipboards without making
any changes in the way OS/2 functions.
There are two types of editor windows available. The normal editor
window is used for regular text and the UNIX style editor is used
for UNIX style text that does not contain cr-lf pairs.
If UNIX style text is loaded into the normal editor window, it will be
converted to normal OS/2 style text with cr-lf pairs. However, loading
normal text into the UNIX style editor will not convert it to UNIX
style text.
Pastry Box offers a way to create list of files via a File Dialog Box
that allows the selection of multiple files. The names of the files
selected are inserted into the main Pastry Box window. The file list
may be appended or inserted into the existing text. If a template
file has been loaded, the user must clear the template via the
'Clear Template' selection.
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As an extension of the file list making function, Pastry Box has the
ability to apply a template to each of the file names selected. This
allows the user to generate a set of commands that performs an
operation or set of operations on the files selected. The result is
inserted in the main Pastry Box window. The template consists of the
OS/2 commands that the user wants to apply to the files and a %s is
used to represent the file name. Up to 12 instances of %s can be used
in the template. The template can be created using the CMD template
editor or it can be loaded into the editor. File selection can be
made multiple times, so the user can select files from multiple
directories or drives. If a '%' character needs to be in the
resulting CMD file, enter two of them - '%%' - in the template file.
The substitution is done using the printf conversions, and any of
them could be used but most of them would not produce anything
useful.
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The user is given the option to load a file into the listbox in
the form of a hex dump. The hex dump is not intended to be used on
large files since it takes a relitively long time to process and
display the file in hex format. The search function can be used with
the hex dump, but to use it you must search for the text as it is
displayed in hex format.
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