Pastry Box is a multifunction utility that contains several useful tools that are easy to use but difficult to explain.

Clipboard Aid:

One problem with using the OS/2 clipboard is that it will only hold one item. If you want to copy noncontiguous lines of text from one file to another, each noncontiguous line takes one copy and paste operation. Pastry Box will let you mark multiple noncontiguous lines of text and copy them to the clipboard in one operation. Pastry Box will load text from a file or will allow text to be pasted from the OS/2 clipboard. Loading a file into Pastry Box is done on a thread to allow larger files to be loaded without impacting performance.

I use Pastry Box with an off-line mail reader to select lines from other sources to paste into replies. It could also be used to select multiple names from an organization list to form a distribution list. It could be used to make a subset of a list of items and copy the subset to the clipboard.

The main window is a listbox and the text inserted into the listbox cannot be directly edited although the user can insert, append, and delete lines of text. The lines pasted from the OS/2 clipboard can be appended or inserted into the existing lines of text. If there is a marked line in the main window, the contents of the clipboard is inserted above the marked line, if not it is appended at the end of the text in the main window.

There is a search search function that will search for text in the main window. If a match is found, the display text will move so that the line that contains the matched text is at the top of the listbox, unless the last line of text in the main windows is already on screen. The lines that contain the search string are marked to make it easy to find information to copy to the clipboard.

The user may save lines of text from the main window, either the marked text may be saved to a file or the contents of the main window may be saved. When text from the main window is saved or copied to the OS/2 clipboard, the trailing spaces are removed. This was added because some usenet messages I copied were padded to a fixed length and importing them to another utility often reformatted the text due the trailing spaces. Removing the trailing spaces prevented the reformatting.

A time stamp option is available to insert or append a time stamp to the text in the main window.

Multiple MLE Windows:

Pastry Box allows multiple MLE (Multi Line Editor) windows which can be used for temporary storage for text pasted from the clipboard. This gives the effect of having multiple OS/2 clipboards without making any changes in the way OS/2 functions. The editor windows were added as part of the CMD file builder, but they make a convenient place for temporary storage of clipped text. Text pasted or copied from the editor is not modified - trailing spaces are not stripped.

File List Maker:

Pastry Box offers a way to create list of files via a File Dialog Box that allows the selection of multiple files. The names of the files selected are inserted into the main Pastry Box window. The file list may be appended or inserted into the existing text. If a template file has been loaded, the user must clear the template via the 'Clear Template' selection.

CMD File Builder:

As an extension of the file list making function, Pastry Box has the ability to apply a template to each of the file names selected. This allows the user to generate a set of commands that performs an operation or set of operations on the files selected. The result is inserted in the main Pastry Box window. The template consists of the OS/2 commands that the user wants to apply to the files and a %s is used to represent the file name. Up to 12 instances of %s can be used in the template. The template can be created using the CMD template editor or it can be loaded into the editor. File selection can be made multiple times, so the user can select files from multiple directories or drives. If a '%' character needs to be in the resulting CMD file, enter two of them - '%%' - in the template file.

The substitution is done using the printf conversions, and any of them could be used but most of them would not produce anything useful.

Hex Dump Utility:

The user is given the option to load a file into the listbox in the form of a hex dump.

General Information:

The font, text color, background color used in the listbox may be configured via the drag & drop method. Configuration changes may be saved by using the save settings option which is under Exit. Included in the saved configuration information is the size and position of the application's window on the desktop, the file loaded into the main window via the File selection, and the search string.

The configuration is saved in the file PASTRY.INI. The .INI file is read from the working directory, so you can have multiple .INI files by changing the working directory entry in the settings notebook for the program object.

The utility is WPS aware, so you may also select a file by dragging a copy of it onto the icon object. The utility does not support drag & drop onto the opened application.