Dash42 Documentation

Table of Contents

• Purpose
• Installation
• Getting Started
• Options
• Importing
• Uninstalling
• Acknowledgements

Purpose

The purpose of Dash42 is to expand the capabilities of the standard Windows copy functionality.

Installation

Dash42 is meant to be lightweight. So lightweight that, as of yet, it has no installer program. The executable is the only file you need. Be sure to always get the executable (dash42.exe) from an offical source.

After downloading the executable, place it in a location of your choice. Dash42 will always read/write its configuration file from the folder that you run the dash42.exe from.

Getting Started

Dash42 is designed to have an intuitive graphical interface. When possible, it works very similar to a windows folder.

File lists
The two file lists are independently operating folder views. Each can be navigated by

• 1) Entering a directory into the edit box at the top.
• 2) Navigating the directory tree
• 3) Navigating folders in the list by double clicking

The Queue
The queue is a display of all pending file transfers. All items to be transferred are first added to the queue. The queue then processes pending items in a top-down manner. By selecting items and right clicking, many options to alter items in the queue are available.

• Pause: The transfer is stopped and can be resumed at a later time. The item is also moved to the bottom of the queue
• Resume: The item is unpaused
• Remove: This is the same as pause, except the item is removed from the queue as well. The item can be resumed by adding it to the queue again.
• Clear Error: If an item encounters any errors while attempting to transfer, it will be placed in an error state. By selecting this, the error will be cleared and the item will be set ready in the queue for another attempt.
• Reset Stats: This will reset the statistics on the status bar of the application. This is like resetting the odomoeter in your car ;)

The Share List
The share list displays remote shares that your computer is connected to. This list is automatically updated about every 10 seconds. By selecting items and right clicking, some options are available.

• Connect: If an item is in a non-connected state, a connection will be attempted.
• Disconnected: If the item is connected, a disconnect attempt will be made. Note: If any files or folders are open on the remote share, the disconnected will fail.
• Remove: Remove a disconnected item from the list.
• Clear Error: If an error was encountered while connecting, the item will be placed in an error state. All connection requests to this share will fail. Selecting this will clear the error state allowing connections again.

Options

Connection Settings

• Timeout: After this amount of time, remote shares will be disconnected. This only applies to shares connected by Dash42 during the current session.

Queue Settings

• Simultaneous Transfers: Use these settings to limit the number of simultaneous transfers.
• Overwrite Settings: This will set the default action to take when an existing file is found. If set to something other than "Ask", it will override any existing settings.
• Advanced: Set the read/write values for file transfers. In general, these should be proportional to your connection speed. For a LAN type situation, 250000 is probably a good value. For a cable modem, I would suggest 25000. For a dialup modem probably 4000.

Directories

• Default Download: This is the location to which items will be downloaded to if there is no explicit destination. This occurs when importing items into the queue, when dragging items to the queue from another window, and when using the "Open Location" menu option. If the default location is invalid items will not be queued when these type of attempts are made.
• Startup Folder: Use this option to set the folder that the views will automatically browse to when starting up.

Importing

Dash42 supports importing items to be queued from external XML sources. These XML sources may exist as files or as resources on website. In order to use this feature, you must associate the .dash42 file extension with Dash42. This is easily done via the menu "Tools->Register .dash42 filetype". This will associate the .dash42 file extension with Dash42. It will also add a MIME type so that your browser will know that Dash42 XML sources are to be opened with Dash42. The registry keys that Dash42 creates are listed below:

• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dash42
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Dash42_File
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/x-dash42

Uninstalling

• Run Dash42 and choose the menu "Tools->Unregister .dash42 filetype".
  
• Delete Dash42.exe and Dash42.xml, if it exists.

Acknowledgements

This is the first Windows application I have written from scratch and I owe much thanks to Tim Kosse and his project FileZilla for excellent examples of how to accomplish many user-interface tasks. The file list/tree controls are directly borrowed (and heavily modified) from his FileZilla v2.2 project. Many of the GUI concepts from FileZilla are also used.

I also owe thanks to many of the people on CodeGuru.com and CodeProject.com that write handy utilities classes for Windows applications. Also thanks again to FileZilla for leading me to those sources.