HOWBIG.BA is an enhancement utility for the M100 main menu. The program adds two
of the most often missed features - a file size calculation and a KILL feature. 
Both features are accessible directly from the main menu based on the file 
selected with the wide bar cursor. HOWBIG.BA installs itself and becomes 
invisible. Since it is a BASIC program, it won't interfere with any of your 
machine language programs and, because it is only about 950 bytes, it consumes 
little RAM.

HOWBIG.BA is intended as a small, unique alternative to the usual menu manager 
programs which always seem to take up too much RAM and provide many features 
which are not often used.

To keep it short, no comments are provided in the program but, for anyone with 
some programming knowledge, it shouldn't be too hard to add additional function 
key subroutines or change the existing ones to suit your needs.

The program was written for the M100 but it should work on the M102 but probably
not on the M200.


INSTALLATION

After downloading HOWBIG.BA, convert it to BASIC and save it to your main menu 
as HOWBIG.BA then return to the main menu. To install it, place the main menu 
cursor on HOWBIG.BA and press ENTER. The screen will blank for a second and then
HOWBIG.BA will no longer be shown on the menu. However, the name, BASIC, on the 
main menu will now include three periods as a reminder that the utility is 
active.

For the installation process to work, it is important that the program be save 
initially in your M100 as HOWBIG.BA and that you select it the first time with 
the cursor, not by typing its name on the Select: line.


USING THE SIZE AND KILL FUNCTIONS

With the main menu cursor, 1)select the BA, DO or CO file you want to size or 
kill, 2)enter three periods (these will appear on the Select: line and you must 
use exactly 3 periods!) and 3)press ENTER. The name of the selected file will be
shown along with its length. Press F5 to kill the file. Press F8 to redisplay 
the full main menu. Pressing F1 will uninstall HOWBIG.BA as explained below.

HOWBIG.BA does not size or kill the built-in ROM programs or option ROM 
software.


UNINSTALLING

Once installed, HOWBIG.BA is invisible on the main menu and is stored in the 
M100's directory as a non-standard file. It won't kill itself and you can't kill
it from BASIC so a means of removing it from your machine will be needed 
occasionally. That's what the F1 key is for.

While accessing the file size screen for any file, pressing F1 will immediately 
convert the utility back to its original visible form as HOWBIG.BA. It can then 
be killed from BASIC in the normal way.



Howard Sprow (73625,365)