BscIt v1.0 (pronounced "biscuit")
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The binscii routines in this program are based on BinSCII v1.0.3,
written and copyrighted by David Whitney in 1989.

The next version of this program will include Base64. At presstime (3/15/97)
I have the decoder working but no facilities to encode. Hopefully the next
version will also include uu-coding and BinHex, but I make no promises. :)

 1. Introduction

    The only drawback to BinSCII has been the spartan user interface. I've
    been known to write a few of those myself, so when I wrote a more user
    friendly interface for another program of mine, I thought that it would
    make a nice front end.

 2. How it works

    The default mode when you enter is decode, so I'll discuss this first.

    A. Decode

       This is pretty easy, select the file(s) with the browser and it will
       decode them into the chosen directory. Note that when launching icons
       from the Finder only one file can be processed at a time and the
       program will end when it is finished. Press "D" to switch to Decode
       if you have used Encode.

    B. Encode

       Press "E" to switch to Encode. Select the file(s) to encode with the
       browser. You may first want to set the...

    C. Options

       Press "O" to bring up the encode options.

       a) Apple/Unix

          Use the Left and Right arrow keys to toggle between whether you
          want to use Apple or Unix line termination. Any other key exits to:

       b) Segments

          This is how many binscii segments will stored per file. The main
          benefits to storing multiple segments per file are speed and not
          gumming up your directories with lots of little files. You can
          choose from 1-9, or "?" which lets it store up to 256 segments in
          one file (that's 4 megabytes!).

       c) Size

          This is how big the binscii segment will be. The default, 16k, is
          the best; smaller sizes may allow you to better use binscii in a
          bulletin board environment. The binscii header is fairly large so
          stick with the largest size if at all possible.

       In other words, if you have segments set to 5 and size set to 4k,
       encoding a good sized file will result in at least one encoded file
       that contains up to 5 blocks of 4k chunks of code.  The default
       setting (3 segments, 16k) produces 48k encoded files.

 3. The browser

    The browse-king mini-browser represents the state of the art in mini-
    browsers in the prodos 8 environment. Um, yeah. Anyway, functions are
    mostly patterned after the gs/os open file dialog. Here are the commands
    this time around.

    - Up and Down move up and down the list of files.

    - Left moves back one directory level.

    - Space allows you to mark multiple files.

    - Tab lets you select from a list of online volumes.

    - Cmd+Left|Right switches to the previous|next online volume with files.

    - Return and Right select a directory or file.

    - O allows you to set the encode options.

    - D sets Decode mode.

    - E sets Encode mode

    - Ctrl-Z toggles between normal and showing all files.

    - Esc exits the program.

 -eof-