The Advanced Shell is Backup Manager 3.0's default shell. It allows you to manage backups easily using a menu-driven interface. This manual explains how to use Advanced Shell and its features.
This section will walk you through Advanced Shell's basic features and show you how to quickly create a group of backups, update those backups, and later restore them. Later in this manual, Advanced Shell's other features will be described in detail.
Depending on your setup, Advanced Shell can be started in several ways. If you assigned a kbdprgm to Advanced Shell, you can start it by simply pressing [Diamond]+<digit> from the Home Screen, where <digit> is the number key from 1 to 9 that the kbdprgm was assigned to.
Advanced Shell can also be started manually using the following command entered on the Home Screen:
setFold(ωbman3):shelladv()
The character ω is the Greek letter Omega, and it can be entered by either of the following key combinations:
When Advanced Shell is started, it displays this menu:
Backup Manager 3.0
|
Select an item by pressing the cursor arrow keys until the desired item is highlighted, then [ENTER] to select that item. You can also press the key corresponding to the number or letter that appears to the left of an item to select it.
The items on the main menu perform these functions:
Backup Manager allows you to organize the files you back up into groups. Groups allow you to keep similar files organized so that you can conveniently perform operations on them as a group. For instance, you might keep files that change on a daily basis in one backup group, so you can update those backups every day with a few keystrokes. You might have files that change less often in a different backup group, so that you don't have to update them every time you update the backups that you update daily.
To create a backup group using Advanced Shell, choose the Manage groups option from the main menu. You will then see a menu listing any existing backup groups that have been created before, plus items for creating a new group and viewing a list of all backups. For example:
Backup Manager 3.0
|
To create a backup group, select <New group>. You will be asked for the name of the group. Type in a name up to 18 characters long (this should be a name that will help you remember what backups are stored in the group) and press [ENTER] twice to create the group. (If you decide not to create a group, you could press [ESC] instead to return to the Manage Groups menu.) After creating a group, the above menu will reappear, and your new group should now appear on the list.
To create additional groups, you can repeat this process at any time.
Once you have created one or more backup groups, you can back up files and have those files listed in one of the groups. To exit from the Manage Groups menu, press [ESC]. The main menu is again displayed. To quickly back up files, choose Quick Add from the menu.
You will see another menu that lists all existing backup groups. Select a group that you want the backups to appear in. Alternatively, choose the <All files> option if you want to back up files but don't want the files listed in any of the backup groups.
You will be asked for the paths of the files that you want to back up. You may enter one or more files at a time. Follow these steps:
Next, press the down arrow key and check that the selection marked 'Store away' file(s)? is set to NO. If it is set to YES, press the right arrow key and select NO from the menu.
Finally, press [ENTER]. You will see a screen that shows each file name as it is backed up. If a problem occurs backing up a file (because you accidentally misspelled the folder or file names, for instance), an error message will appear. If this happens, press [ENTER] and check the names you entered, correcting them if necessary. Then press [ENTER] to try again. Should you decide not to finish backing up the files, you can press [ESC] instead of [ENTER] to return to the menu you were viewing before.
To back up more files, just select the group that you want the backups to be listed under again and repeat the above procedure.
When you back up a file, a copy of that file is made and stored in the Flash Archive. When the original file changes, however, the backup copy is not automatically updated to match the original file. Therefore, it is important to periodically update your backups to ensure that they match a recent version of your original copies. When you later restore the backups, the files you backed up will reappear in the exact state they were in the last time you updated them.
Updating a group of backups with Advanced Shell is quick and easy. Start Advanced Shell (or if Advanced Shell is already running, press [ESC] until the main menu reappears) and select the option Quick update.
A menu listing the backup groups appears. Select the group whose backups you want to update. The screen then shows the path of each original file as its backup is being updated, along with the relative progress of the operation. When the operation is finished, you are returned to the groups menu. You can then select another group of backups to update.
If you select <All files> from the menu, every backup is updated, including those that don't belong to a group.
To return to the main menu, press [ESC].
When disaster strikes, you will want to get back the files you backed up. Provided that the Flash Archive has not been erased, these files should be completely recoverable.
To recover, or restore, the files you backed up, start Advanced Shell. Select Quick restore from the main menu. A menu listing the backup groups appears. If you want to restore only backups from a certain group, select that group from the menu. A similar progress screen to the one that appears when updating backups will appear. When the operation is finished, the groups menu will reappear, and you can choose another group to restore backups from.
You can restore all backups at once (including those that don't belong to any of the groups) by choosing <All files>.
Once a backup group is created, the Manage Groups submenu allows you to rename, copy, or delete that backup group in the future.
To reach the Manage Groups submenu, start Advanced Shell and select Manage groups. A list of groups appears, along with the <New Group> and <All files> choices. When you select the name of the group that you want to rename, copy, or delete, the Mange Groups submenu appears:
Backup Manager 3.0
|
From the above submenu, choose Rename. When prompted, enter the new name for the group (up to 18 characters). When finished, press [ENTER] twice, or press [ESC] to cancel renaming the group.
Note: Each group must have a unique name. If you try to assign a new name that is the same name as that of an existing group, a warning message will appear. Press [ENTER] to acknowledge the message and enter a different name.
When a backup group is copied, all backups belonging to that group are added to another group. (Backup Manager allows backups to belong to more than one group.) The latter group may be a group that already exists and contains backups or a group that does not exist yet. If the group exists, any backups of the first group that don't already belong to the second group are added to the second group also. If the second group does not exist yet, it is created and all backups contained in the first group are added to the newly created group.
When you choose Copy from the Manage Groups submenu, a dialog box appears. You can either assign the backups to another existing group or enter a name of a new group to create.
To add backups to an existing group, choose that group's name from the Destination group drop-down menu. Then press [ENTER] to add the backups to the destination group.
To create a new group and add the backups to the new group, first choose <New group> from the Destination group drop-down menu. Then in the New group name text box enter the name of the new group. Then press [ENTER] twice to create the new group and add the backups.
Deleting a group permenently removes it from the groups list. It does not, however, delete the backups that were assigned to the group. The backups can still be accessed from the <All files> entry of the groups menu or from any other group that the backups have been assigned to.
To delete a group, select Delete from the Manage Groups submenu. If the group is empty (that is, it contains no backups), it is deleted right away. If it contains backups, Advanced Shell first asks if you want to delete the group to prevent you from accidentally deleting a group. In this case, press [ENTER] to delete the group, or [ESC] if you did not intend to delete the group.
The Group Editor is the heart of Advanced Shell. You can use it to check which backups are in a group, reorganize backups into different groups, and perform advanced backup operations.
Enter the Group Editor by using the Manage Groups submenu. Start Advanced Shell and choose Manage groups. Select a group that you want to work with. On the submenu, choose Edit. The Group Editor will then appear.
You can also choose <All files> from the groups menu to view all backups, including those that don't belong to a group. <All files> is a special group that always contains all of the backups kept by Backup Manager. This group cannot be deleted or renamed.
The Group Editor screen consists of the following parts, from top to bottom:
The appearance of this screen can be controlled using the View menu.
A right-pointing triangle cursor will point to a backup. Move this cursor by pressing the up or down arrow keys. If more files exist than can be shown on one screen, arrows will appear on the right edge of the screen. Move between screen-by-screen pages of backups in one of the following ways:
You can also press [Diamond]+Up to jump to the first page of backups and [Diamond]+Down to go to the last page.
To choose which backups you want to perform an operation on, you must select them. Backups can be selected by pressing [F4] (which activates the √ function on the toolbar). You may select any number of backups at a time. To deselect a backup, move the triangle cursor to the selected backup and press [F4] again.
You can use the Selection menu to quickly select large numbers of files without having to select them one at a time with [F4].
When you are finished with the Group Editor, press [ESC], and you will be returned to the Manage Groups submenu.
The following sections describe the operations that can be performed from the Group Editor.
To display the Operations menu, press [F1] to activate the Operations function on the toolbar. The following menu appears:
1:New backup… |
Choose New backup from the Operations menu. In the dialog box, enter the path of the file to back up. Multiple files can be entered by separating each path with a comma (,). A path consists of a folder name, a backslash (\), and a file or variable name.
If you set the 'Store away' file(s) drop-down menu to YES, the files entered will be stored away after they are backed up. (See the section Storing files away for more information about stored-away files.)
After selecting the files to update or restore, select Update or Restore from the Operations menu. A progress indicator will appear to show the progress of the update or restore operation. When the operation is complete, you are returned to the Group Editor menu.
You can interrupt the update or restore process by pressing [ESC] while the process is underway. It may take a moment or two for the process to actually stop. You are asked if you want to cancel the operation. Press [ENTER] to stop the operation.
If, when restoring a backup, a file with the same name already exists in the location that the backup will be restored to, you will first be prompted to choose an action to take in order to resolve the issue. Select the action that is the most appropriate for the situation:
You can restore a backup into a different folder or with a different name instead of restoring it back to its original location. To do this, select Restore to from the Operations menu.
For each selected backup, you will be prompted for the folder and name that the backup should be restored under. Enter the folder and file names you want, then press [ENTER] to restore the backup. To cancel the operation before it is finished, press [ESC] when you are prompted for a folder and file name.
If you enter the folder and file name of a file that already exists, you will be prompted to select an action to resolve the issue. Select the action that is most appropriate for the situation:
You can remove the backup copy of the selected files by selecting Delete from the Operations menu. When a backup is deleted, a copy of the original file will no longer be kept in Flash Archive by Backup Manager. In addition, all information and data kept by Backup Manager for that backup, such as the backup's versions, will also be deleted. The original file will be kept intact, however.
You are first asked to confirm the operation so that you do not delete backups by mistake, and you are given the chance to choose whether to archive the original files of the backups that will be deleted. If the Archive original files after delete? drop-down menu is set to Archive, the original files will be archived to the Flash Archive when their backups are deleted. If you do not want the original files archived, set the drop-down menu to Don't archive. Finally, to delete the backups, press [ENTER], or press [ESC] if you decide not to delete them.
Note: If the original files are already archived, they will remain archived regardless of the Archive original files after delete? setting. This setting only applies to original files that are not already archived.
A progress indicator shows the progress of the deleted backups. When the operation is finished, you are returned to the Group Editor menu.
If a backup's original file is missing, or the backup is stored away, you will be warned and asked if you really want to delete the backup, because the backup may be your only copy of that file. When this happens, select an action from the drop-down menu, or press [ESC] to cancel the entire operation.
You can add backups to another group besides the one that you are currently editing. Backups may belong to more than one group, and you can add backups to as many groups as you want. After selecting the backups you want to add, choose Add to group from the Operations menu.
You can add the backups to any existing group, or you can create a new group and have the backups automatically added to it. In the drop-down menu, choose the existing group you want to add the backups to. If you want to create a new group to add the backups to, choose <New group> from this menu and enter the name of a new group in the New group name text box.
To complete the operation, press [ENTER]. A progress indicator will appear, and when the process is finished, you are returned to the Group Editor menu.
The Remove from group item on the Operations menu removes the selected backups from the group you're currently editing.
You are asked if you really want to remove the backups from the group. The backups themselves will not be deleted, they simply will not appear in the group's backup list anymore. Press [ENTER] to remove the backups, or [ESC] to cancel.
If you choose Remove from group when you are viewing the special group <All files>, the selected backups will be removed from all existing regular groups. (Note that backups can never be removed from the <All files> group; this group always lists all backups.)
You can view information about a backup by using the View properties item in the Operations menu. This item always displays information about the backup that the arrow cursor is pointing to. You can only view the properties of one backup at a time.
A dialog box will display the following information about the backup:
Selecting a particular item from the drop-down lists makes no difference; the drop-down lists appear simply to allow you to view a list of version names, group names, and extended backup data. This dialog cannot be used to make any changes to backup properties.
The extended backup data drop-down list is intended to let you see any extra data stored for the backup by other Backup Manager shells or add-ons. Advanced Shell itself does not record any extended data for backups.
To make selecting backups in the Group Editor faster, the Selection menu is provided. This menu allows you to select all backups in the current group, deselect them, reverse (invert) the selection, or select all backups whose original files are stored in particular folders.
Press [F3] to activate the Selection toolbar function, and the Selection menu will appear:
1:Select all |
The View menu lets you determine which parts of the Group Editor screen are displayed. Press [F5] to display the View menu:
1: Title |
The three items that can be controlled are the title header (which displays the name of the group being edited), the status footer (which displays the number of backups and how many are currently selected), and the backup details (which shows the type of backup and how many versions it has). A checkmark appears next to the items that are currently being displayed.
To switch an item on or off, select the item's name from the menu. The Group Editor screen is updated to reflect the change.
When details are turned on, two extra columns appear to the right in the Group Editor menu. The first column, labeled S, shows a mark next to all backups that are stored away. Backups without a mark in this column are normal backups. The other column, labeled Ver, shows the number of additional versions kept of a backup. Backups that do not have any additional versions do not show anything in this column.
Note: When details are turned on, there will be a delay of several moments before the Group Editor menu displays each time the Group Editor is invoked. Advanced Shell collects the detailed information to display in the extra columns during this time. If this delay becomes bothersome, reselect Details from the View menu to turn details back off.
The Advanced menu in the Group Editor offers some advanced backup functions that may come in handy: storing away files, keeping versions, testing backups, and deleting backups' original files. This menu is displayed by pressing [F2] to select the F2: Advanced toolbar function. The menu looks like this:
1:Store away |
Backup Manager allows you to save old or infrequently used files without their existence cluttering AMS's VAR-LINK menu or other file-selection dialog boxes. The store away function can be used to hide these files in Backup Manager's backup folder. Later, when you want to access them, you can return them back to their original locations.
To store away a file, first back it up using the New backup item on the Operations menu as you normally would when backing up a file, but set the 'Store away' file(s) drop-down list to YES after entering the folder and file names. If the files have already been backed up but they have not been stored away, you can store them away by selecting the backup(s) on the Group Editor and choosing Store away from the Advanced menu. When files are stored away, their backups are first updated, then the original files are deleted from their existing locations.
Later, to restore the stored-away files, select them in the Group Editor and choose Store away from the Advanced menu again. The files are returned to their former locations and function as normal backups again.
Note: Files that are stored away cannot be modified, which means that the Update and Restore operations will not work on them. Therefore, to return stored-away backups to their original locations, use the Store away operation to convert them back to normal backups rather than using the Restore operation.
You can save different versions of the same file. In other words, you can save a copy of a file in its current state, and save additional copies of the same file as you work on it. This allows you to keep copies of a file at various stages of its development. This feature can also be useful if you want to restore a backup over the original file but keep a copy of the file's current contents first in case you change your mind. Versions you create in Advanced Shell are kept in Flash Archive along with files' backups, so they are preserved after a RAM reset.
The Versions item on the Advanced menu lets you keep versions of files. When you choose Versions from the menu, the Versions dialog box will appear for the backup that the triangle cursor on the Group Editor menu is pointing to. The versions dialog has two drop-down menus; the Action menu determines the action to perform, and the Version menu determines which version to perform the action on.
The actions available from the Action drop-down menu are as follows:
If no versions for the file have been created yet, the only action available in the Action menu is New version.
To store a new version of the file, choose New version from the Action drop-down menu and press [ENTER].
There are two sources from which you can capture a version. You can either save a version of the file's state the last time it was backed up (current backup from the Create from drop-down menu), or you can save the current version of the original file or some other file (file from the Create from drop-down menu).
If you chose file, enter the file you want to save in the If file, make version from this file text box. By default, this is the backup's original file, which means that creating a version will save a copy of this file in its current state. If you already have a version or modification of this file saved under a different name, and you want to save it as a version, you can enter its folder and name here instead.
Finally, enter a name for the version in the Version comment text box. This name will be used to identify the version later. You can enter up to 18 characters in the name.
When you press [ENTER], the version will be saved and be listed in the Version drop-down menu of the Versions dialog box.
To retrieve a version that you saved, choose Restore as from the Action drop-down menu and the version you want to restore from the Version drop-down menu and press [ENTER]. When prompted, enter the folder and name where you want the version to be saved. If the file you enter already exists, you are asked if you want to delete the existing file and replace it with the version.
You can change the name or comment that you assigned to a version by selecting Change comment from the Action menu, selecting the version whose name you want to change from the Version menu, and pressing [ENTER].
To change the name, enter the new name and press [ENTER] twice.
To delete a stored version, choose Delete from the Action menu and the version to delete from the Version menu and press [ENTER]. You are asked if you really want to delete the version. If so, press [ENTER]; press [ESC] instead if it was a mistake.
You can cause a file's backup to be set to the same state as a saved version of your choice, so that when you restore the backup of the file, the file will be restored to the version chosen. To do this, select Use as backup from the Action menu and the chosen version from the Version menu and press [ENTER].
A message appears describing the consequences. Press [ENTER] if you choose to perform the operation. The backup of that file is replaced with the current state of the version you chose, but the original file is left alone. Note that the next time you update the backup of the original file the backup will return to the state of the original file when you update it. You will need to repeat this procedure if you want the backup to match the version instead.
The Sort by comment action in the Action drop-down menu selects how the versions are sorted in the Version drop-down menu. By default, versions are listed in the order they are created. If you would rather have the versions listed alphabetically by comment, choose Sort by comment from the Action menu and press [ENTER] (it does not matter which version on the Version menu is selected). The sort order changes.
This setting applies globally to the Versions dialog boxes of all backups. To change the sorting back to chronological order, execute the Sort by comment action again.
The Test option from the Advanced menu allows you to quickly check a group of backups to make sure the backups' original files are intact and the actual archived backup and version files themselves exist as they should. This operation allows you to quickly spot any problems with missing files.
Select the backups you want to test from the Group Editor and choose Test from the Advanced menu. A progress indicator appears while Advanced Shell tests the backups. When the process is finished, a new menu appears listing the backups and three columns to the right of the backups:
If a backup's original file is missing and you did not purposely delete the original file, it is likely that you will want to restore the backups to get the last backed up version of the originals back where they belong. If an archived backup file is missing, you should update the backup immediately, because you will not be able to restore the backup in the event of an emergency otherwise. (Normally, this should never happen, but in case there is a bug in Advanced Shell or Backup Manager that causes this to happen, you will know about it before it is too late.) If a version file is missing, nothing can be done unless you have a copy of that version elsewhere. You will not be able to restore the version because its file is missing, so you will simply have to delete it.
The toolbar at the top of the screen changes slightly when the test menu is being displayed. The F1: Operations function displays an operation menu where you can perform the Update, Restore, Delete, Store away, and Versions operations. These menu items function the same way they do in the Group Editor.
The F2: Info toolbar function displays a summary of a backup's status along with a list of the actual version files that are missing, if any. The versons are shown in a drop-down list. Like the Show properties operation, this operation does not make any changes; it simply lets you view the backup's status. This option works on only the backup that the triangle cursor is currently pointing to.
The other toolbar functions operate the same way they do in Group Editor.
When you are finished, return to Group Editor by press [ESC].
The Delete originals option on the Advanced menu allows you to delete the original files of the selected backups. The backups themselves remain stored in Flash Archive, but the original copies of the files are deleted. You might use this whenever you want to delete both an original file and its backup. First use Delete originals to delete the original files, then delete the backups themselves.
This function should be used with caution. The original files will be deleted even if they are locked or archived. The only copies that will be left will be the backup copy in its last updated state and any versions kept with the Versions dialog box.
When you choose this option, you are asked if you are sure. Press [ENTER] to remove the original files, or [ESC] to cancel. If you press [ENTER], a progress indicator appears as the original files are deleted. When the operation is finished, you are returned to the Group Editor.