                             DescEdit 2.5 beta
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                      Description editor plugin for FAR
                 Written by Dmitry Jemerov <yole@yole.ru>
                   http://www.yole.ru/projects/faruinst/

                   FidoNet 2:5030/654, ICQ UIN 84614327

                      Release date - 06 May 2002

This FAR plugin allows you to use the FAR internal editor for editing
file descriptions. Its main features include:

  * Convenient interface for editing descriptions. Just select
    "Edit description" from the plugin menu, and the description
    file (files.bbs or descript.ion) is automatically loaded into
    the editor. If the description for the selected file already
    exists, the cursor is positioned to it. Otherwise, a new
    default description is created according to the template
    specified in the plugin configuration dialog.

  * Support for extracting descriptions from archives. The same
    "Edit description" command, if the selected file is an
    archive, will extract a file with the archive contents
    description (file_id.diz) it and insert its contents into the
    description file. It is even possible to select multiple
    archive files and have all their descriptions extracted with
    a single command.

  * Possibility to copy and paste descriptions. This allows you
    to apply the same description to multiple files. Just put
    the cursor on the file whose description you want to copy,
    select "Copy description" from the plugin menu, then select
    all the files that should receive the same description and
    select "Paste description" from the plugin menu.

This plugin is free software and may be used without any restrictions.
Its source code is available, and distributed under the GNU Lesser
General Public License.

The plugin requires FAR 1.60 or higher and has been tested with
FAR 1.70 beta 4.

In order to install the plugin, you should unpack the archive into the
subdirectory Plugins\DescEdit in the main directory of FAR and restart
FAR. After this, the plugin can be invoked by choosing the command
"Description editor" from the plugins menu of FAR. You can create a
macro for running the plugin more quickly.

In the plugin configuration dialog, which is opened by choosing the item
"Description editor" from the "Plugins configuration" menu, the
following options can be configured:

  Description list names     Allows you to specify the names of
                             description files separated with commas.
                             The first existing one will be edited.
                             If none of the files exists, the file
                             with the first name specified will be
                             created.

  Archive description names  Allows you to specify the names of files
                             containing archive descriptions,
                             separated with commas. It is used when
                             the option "Extract descriptions from
                             archives" is set.

  Default description        Allows you to specify the default for
                             new file descriptions. For BBS SysOps:
                             you may enter here a zero download
                             counter (for example, [000]).

                             The default description string may
                             contain the following special tokens:
                             %S - file size;
                             %D - file date (in the format DD-MM-YY);
                             %T - file time (in the format HH:MM).

  Description indent         Allows you to specify the indentation
                             for descriptions. If you leave it empty,
                             the filenames and descriptions will be
                             separated with a single space.

  Long description indent    This option sets the indentation of each
                             line after the first of a long
                             description extracted fron an archive.

  Long description prefix    This option specifies the characters
                             that are added to the beginning of each
                             line after the first of a long
                             description extracted fron an archive.

  Capitalize filenames       If this option is selected, the first
                             letters of filenames for which new
                             descriptions are created will be
                             uppercased.

  Always use short           If this option is selected, short file
  filenames                  names will always be used when creating
                             new descriptions. If it is not checked,
                             the current value of the FAR option
                             "Show long names" is checked to
                             determine whether a short or a long
                             name should be used.

  Extract descriptions from  If this option is selected, the plugin
  archives                   will try to extract the descriptions
                             for archives from the description
                             files they contain (like file_id.diz).
                             DescEdit uses the same archiver
                             configuration and second-level plugins
                             as MultiArc.

  Skip empty lines in long   If this option is selected, the empty
  descriptions               lines in archive description files will
                             not be copied to files.bbs.

  Prompt for description     When this option is enabled and multiple
  file                       description file names are specified in
                             the configuration dialog, a menu is
                             shown every time the plugin is invoked,
                             allowing to specify the description file
                             to be used.

  Path to MultiArc           Here you can specify the path to the
                             MultiArc plugin, if is is not located
                             in the subdirectory of the same
                             directory as the DescEdit plugin.
                             DescEdit uses MultiArc format plugins
                             to extract descriptions from archives.
                             The path should not be enclosed in
                             quotation marks.


This is only a beta version of the plugin. It may contain bugs. Please
send bug reports, comments and suggestions to the author (Dmitry
Jemerov, yole@yole.ru or 2:5030/654@fidonet).
