Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cs.dal.ca!lane
From: lane@cs.dal.ca (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Looking for an interactive directory change pgm.
Message-ID: <3311@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 23 Jun 89 09:34:04 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Lines: 42

I feel almost silly asking about this as it's so simple (I imagine
people will say "It's a two line C program" or something) but I've
been looking for a while and haven't seen anything that really suits
my needs.

What I want is just a program that allows a user to type in a directory
path and/or drive name and changes the default drive/directory accordingly.
Most of the pgms I've looked at for this (Norton's NCD, Mefford's DIRMAGIC
are too damn fancy or have some other crucial drawback). Picking the
directory from a list or tree with the cursor keys or mouse would be nice
but not if its going to make the program take forever to start up (like
old versions of XTREE) or force the user to use that pgm for creating and 
deleting directories (as NCD does).  I'm also not keen on the thing creating
its own files (like NCD) and not working on SUBSTed drive is a killer 
(again like NCD - Mr. Norton, I'll buy your programs when they work on
my SUBST'd drives).  DIRMAGIC is the closest I've found but it tries to
do too much and IMHO has a confusing user interface.  Its companion pgm,
DM, doesn't work on SUBST'd drives oddly enough.

The reason I want this is for use with dumb pgms that don't let you change
directories once in them and thus require the user to get to the appropriate
directory first.  Also for use with simple menu systems (like Magee's
AUTOMENU) so the user can have a menu item "Change drive/directory".

Alternatively, I would be interested in *simple* menu systems that do
allow the user to move around on the hard disk - again, I find most things
like Norton's Commander, Xtree and Pathminder to be too complicated and
involved for the intended use - ie. for *very* novice users;  I want
something that is mainly a menu and not a file management package with 
menu abilities stuck in.

Yes, I know it's a two line (or whatever) C program but I'm really lazy
and I figure there's just *got* to be something out there already (and
I hate re-inventing the wheel).

Many thanks for any suggestions.

-- 
John Wright      //////////////////     Phone:  902-424-3805  or  902-424-6527
Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8 
Cdn/Eannet:lane@cs.dal.cdn  Uucp:lane@dalcs.uucp or {uunet watmath}!dalcs!lane
Arpa:lane%dalcs.uucp@uunet.uu.net  Internet:lane@cs.dal.ca