Epilogue  -  An open file manager

by Matt Browne

This program is for RISC OS 3.1 or greater

Epilogue is a utility for programmers and experienced users that allows you to monitor open files on your system. 'Open' files are ordinary files of any type that are currently being used by a program. A method of investigating which files are open on your system at any time is a very useful utility for programmers (or indeed anyone else who is interested) for debugging purposes.

Epilogue's user interface follows normal RISC OS conventions -
so if you can't work out how to use the interface, please consult your
Welcome Guide.

Epilogue is written in 100% ARM Assembler for maximum speed and efficiency.

Using Epilogue
Epilogue is very simple to use. It is run in the normal way from the RISC User menu system or by double-clicking on its icon in a Filer window. An icon is installed on the icon bar. The icon bar menu has three options: Info and Quit, which perform their usual functions, and Close all which enables you to close all currently open files.

Clicking on the icon bar icon
with Select or Adjust will open the main Epilogue window. This window,
listing the open files on your system, is automatically updated whenever you
click on the icon bar icon or click on the Update icon inside it with
Select or Adjust.

The main Epilogue window includes a list of open files (if there are any, and
irrespective of which filing system they were opened on) and an icon showing
the number of files open on your system. Clicking on Close all files
attempts to close all files on all filing systems and updates the list (this
can also be achieved by selecting Close all from the icon bar menu). If
there were no files open when the list was last updated, the Close all files
icon and Close all menu entry will be greyed out. Clicking on Update will
force the list of open files to be updated.

If there were any files open the last time the list was updated there
will be a series of white icons in the pane inside the main window. Each item
describes the file handle, filename, length, read, write, and modification
status of each file. If the file has read access, write access or has been
modified it will be represented by Y(es), or N(o) if not (incidentally,
these letters can be changed by editing the Messages file inside the
application's Resources directory).

Double-click on any of the items with Select or Adjust to close the file and
update the list. Clicking on any item with Menu will open the File menu.
You can click on a number of items with Adjust to select more than one.
File info can be used to discover more detailed information about the
selected file. Close file or Close selection attempts to close the
current selection and will update the list. Ensure data is only available
if the selected file has write access, and makes sure that all data that has
been written to it from its owner is actually stored in the file, and not
being temporarily held in a buffer managed by RISC OS. Select all selects
all the files in the list and Clear selection deselects them.

Feedback
Feedback about this application would be very much appreciated! Please feel
free to contact me at the following address:
	Matt Browne
	5 Inglefield
	Potters Bar
	EN6 1HD
	Email matt@hell.btc.uwe.ac.uk

Copyright  RISC User 1996
