DOSTask

Manual 1.0

What does it do?

Say you have a list of files:

• a.txt
• b.txt
• c.txt

And a program you want to process these:

• process a.txt
• process b.txt
• process c.txt

In Windows, you have to do this from the command-line, by typing in the command 3 times. You can process it using Cygwin and the '*' operator, but that is a large install and it means learning to use the shell.

With DOSTask, you just set up the profile like so:

And then you run the file requester by hitting 'Select File(s)':

And it will run process.exe on each of: a.txt, b.txt, c.txt.

Output parameter

If you want to do this:

• process a.txt a_out.rtf
• process b.txt b_out.rtf
• process c.txt c_out.rtf

In this case, you just put an output mask in like so:

So it will take the input filename, remove the extension, and supply it in place of %2. You can add to the filename, and add your own extension.

The input filename will be supplied in place of %1.

So this allows more complex expressions to be built up:

• -ld %1 -out %2_processed.rtf

Running the program process.exe with the arguments a.txt, b.txt and c.txt, we get:

As we can see, the files have been processed, and if we scroll down we can see the remainder of the output.

Application name

This is the name of the profile

Threading priority

One feature is that you can set the priority of the tasks to be run, something you can't easily do using Windows' CLI. Click on "Idle" and select the most appropriate priority.

Profiles

Selecting a profile from the drop-down box will load up all the data for that profile. This is for convenience as you use DOSTask regularly.

Hitting the "<- Save Application Details" button will ask you for a profile name. Once you've entered this and clicked 'Ok', it will save all the details on this page (apart from filenames) to the registry.

Hitting "Delete Application Details" will erase the profile and find the next available one.

Hitting "Clear Application Details" will blank all the boxes to allow you to enter new data.

There is no "Export Profile" yet because the actual amount of data is tiny.

The profile system is just there for convenience, and the amount of data saved (to the Windows registry) is tiny.

Possible uses

*Registering a number of OCX or DLL files with RegSvr32

Upgrades and suggestions

This is version 1.00, so send me your feedback and I'll try and improve the featureset, tidy up the GUI, and fix bugs, etc.

• Console output to multiple text files
• Files from more than one directory

A license payment will ensure upgrades for up to 6 months.

Testimonials

"It lets me register lots of OCX's and convert my ebooks using a utility" - Jeremy Smith BSc (Hons) ;-)