HfvExplorer

HFV/DSK Explorer v. 1.3.0 -- a tool for vMac and Executor(DOS/Win32) users. Experimental freeware software.

Disclaimer

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, IN HOPE THAT IT WILL BE USEFUL BUT WITH NO GUARANTEES WHATSOEVER. ANYGRAAF DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL ANYGRAAF BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS OR SPECIAL DAMAGES. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Installation of HFVExplorer

1. Extract all of the files to the directory of your choice. HFVExplorer initially shows all HFV and DSK files from the directory of the executable, so it is convenient to place them into a directory where you have your HFV and DSK files.

2. CDENABLE.VXD is needed under Windows 95 to give access to HFS/hybrid CD:s. Must be moved to "\Windows\System" directory.

   CDENABLE.SYS is needed under Windows NT 4.0 to give access to HFS/hybrid CD:s. Must be moved to "\Winnt\System32\Drivers" directory. After moving the driver, the program must be run once with system administrator rights. Later normal user rights suffice.

3. Start HFVExplorer and go to the options dialog (View menu). Check all of the property pages to suit your needs.

Features of HFVExplorer

• A read/write, Explorer-like view to ARDI HFV files and vMac DSK files (the same thing essentially).
• A tree representation of the corresponding HFS file structure.
• Direct access to floppies, works in both Windows 95 and NT 4.0.
• Direct access to CDs, works under Windows 95, 98, NT 4, NT 5.
• You can launch the applications or documents by double-clicking them.
• After you have run the program once, you can start it by double-clicking HFV file name.
• Drag&drop a HFV file to open it.
• Drag&drop file copy/move. If target volume is the same as source, the file will be moved, otherwise it will copied. Override by holding down Shift or Control keys - again, just like in Explorer. Drop item on top of the "up" button and it goes to parent directory.
• Rename by clicking the highlighted name, or by pressing F2. Just like in Windows Explorer.
• Delete by pressing the "Delete" button.
• Create new folder: right mouse click in an empty window area.
• Press "Tab" to switch between list and tree views.
• Press F5 to update screen, for example, after inserting new floppy disk.
• Enter or double-click opens Application/Document/Folder.
• Format floppies. File menu.
• Commands to dump HFV/DSK files to floppies, and create them from floppies.
• Create and format new HFS/DSK files. File menu.
• AppleDouble support. Special characters in names not handled.
• Automatic type conversions when moving between FAT and HFS. This code is directly from HFS tools. fat -> hfs: *.bin (Mac Binary II) -> data & resource forks *.hqx (binhex) -> data & resource forks hfs -> fat: data & resource forks -> *.bin (Mac Binary II) txt, c, h: CR/LF conversion, file name extension
• File copy mode selection for HFS -> FAT and FAT -> HFS. Selected from Options dialog (new property page). Maybe in future there will be file type mapping.
• Multiple item selection -- move, copy, delete. Works as in Explorer (or in any multi-selection list control). Shift-click, control-click or drag a marquee.
• "Create shortcut" command implemented for Executor/DOS, Executor/Win32 and vMac, including a launcher app for vMac. Places an icon on the Windows desktop, pointing to either a document or an application. Automatic Mac icon extraction. If you want the special characters to be shown in icon names, change the desktop icon font (Control Panel/Display/ Appearance/Icon "Font") to something else than MS Sans Serif, perhaps Arial, which may be ugly but has more visible characters. Icons and parameter files are placed into subdirectory "Links". Helper directory "vMacLink" contains a link to a vMac installation.
• "Open with" supports the tree emulators (E/DOS, E/Win32, vMac). *** IMPORTANT *** : DO NOT try to copy/move/delete/create new files in HFVExplorer when the emulator is running. MacOS doesn't like anything happening behind its back. The file accesses are not properly synchronized, and if unlucky, you may suffer data loss. HFVExplorer tries to protect you from this, but its protection schemes are far from perfect. It takes care that its own data structures are always in sync, but the emulators don't do this. After the emulator terminates, HFVExplorer checks if it needs to update the file structures and if so, it does this. That's the reason why it takes a while when emulator terminates -- if one bit of data has changed in a volume file, the only safe way is to reload the whole volume. Pressing return or double-clicking now opens Executor/Win32 by default. You can change this behavior from the options dialog.
• You should normally use the alias launching method with vMac, and only try the Apple events method if this fails. Executor users should not be concerned with the launching method since appropriate way is selected automatically. Just make sure that you don't claim in the setup dialog that your Windows Executor is DOS or vice versa -- this information have to be correct.
• Possibility to hide/show "invisible" files.
• Automatic file type mappings. Mappings are easily exported and imported.

CD support:

ISO9660 CD:s of course. HFS. Hybrid HFS/ISO. No High Sierra. ISO with Apple extensions is shown as DOS CD, with no additional resources, that is, icons and types/creators.

CDENABLE.VXD is needed under Windows 95 to give access to HFS/hybrid CD:s. Must be in either Windows or Windows\System directory.

When HFVExplorer is running, DOS Executor is also able to see HFS CD:s, using protected mode drivers. No MSCDEX is needed. If you close HFVExplorer, Executor will continue to see the current CD, but will not see the next one inserted.

NEW note: released a separate utility, CDENABLE.EXE, to allow people who do not need HFVExplorer to use protected mode drivers in Executor. This file is now shipped with Executor and is not available from me any more (to avoid unnecessary version conflicts).

TECHNICAL NOTE: the way CDEnable.vxd is implemented is incompatible with future Windows versions. It works (at least) with original Windows 95, OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2, "Windows 95 B") and Windows 98 release build.

CD auto insert notification supported, just pop in the CD and it should appear in the tree view, if it contains recognizable volume. In some machines, the auto-insertion/arrival messages take long time to reach applications. HFVExplorer can't help it, press F5 if you don't want to wait.

Starting from version 1.1.1i, full CD support under Windows NT 4.0, too. CDENABLE.SYS must be copied to your System32\Drivers directory. After copying the driver, the program must be run once with system administrator rights. Later normal user rights are enough.

Hook1508 released. A tool to help DOS Executor see the HFS (non-hybrid) CD's under Windows NT 4.0. Not included in this archive. If you intend to use Hook1508 with HFVExplorer shortcuts and/or launching, you should either create a .bat or modify AUTOXEC.NT, or make a custom version AUTOXEC.NT. The procedure is described in Hook1508 read me file.

Tips:

Use shortest possible paths. Application launching imposes some limits to path lengths. There is nothing I can do for it. It depends on system and the program to be launched only.

All icons from the icon cache file HFVICONS.DAT are always loaded into the memory when HFVExplorer starts. You may save some memory and time by deleting the icon cache file HFVICONS.DAT once the startup gets intolerably slow.

Platforms:

Microsoft Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Windows NT 5.0 beta 1 and beta 2, Windows 98.

Availability:

http://www.nic.fi/~lpesonen/HFVExplorer/

Could be in a subdirectory below. File is named for example "Hdexp130.zip" for version 1.3.0, etc.

There is no web page, just the zip file.

Documentation:

This file.

License:

Freeware. See the disclaimer.

Credits:

• Marcus Better, for "HFS tools". Much better than my own HFS code. Probably I will discard my own code altogether. HFS tools can be found: http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~f96-bet/hfsutils/ email: Marcus.Better@abc.se Originally Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 by Robert Leslie, email: rob@mars.org

• ARDI (http://www.ardi.com/). Executor is great. HFV Executor uses a snippet from ARDI Browser code; resource bundle hash table.

• vMac team (http://www.vmac.org/). vMac is great, too.

• Paul Hargrove. HFS CD partition table handling was taken from Paul's Linux sources. GNU GPL as well.

• Mr. Noda (noda@lyra.vega.or.jp) for his help in Japanese language support.

• Peter van Sebille; vxd sector read routine is inspired by his Win95 Linux FSD.

• Everybody else I forgot to mention.

  GNU GPL (General Public License) now. See "Copying". Source code available by request, email: lpesonen@nic.fi

Copyrights

TODO: put here a comprehensive copyright list (with urls).

Anygraaf Apple ARDI (Executor) Bauer, Christian (Shapeshifter) Better, Marcus Cummins, Philip (vMac) (and other members) Hargrove, Paul Leslie, Robert Microcode solutions (Fusion) Microsoft Ortmann, Mathias (WinUAE) Schmidt, Bernd (UAE)

• more?

E-mail:

"lpesonen@nic.fi" or "lauri.pesonen@anygraaf.fi"

History:

Things fixed/changed (oldest first):

Versions 1.1.0-1.0.4

• 32 MB limit in HFV files fixed (Misunderstanding between logical sector size and physical sector size).

• Better support for special chara