
 DataCom Shareware Review

 HDM IV (Hard Disk Menu) v4.62

 The need for menuing systems and DOS shells is something that is debated at
 many levels among PC users.  These programs are often seen as a way to avoid
 learning anything about DOS.  However, they are used frequently by power
 users and novices alike.  I honestly am addicted to both.  Were all such
 programs to suddenly vanish, I would be able to survive exposure to the DOS
 command line with a minimum of brushing up, yet I believe that a good menu
 and/or shell adds a feeling of high organization to my work and an eye-
 pleasing appeal to the screens I look at.

 There are a lot of menus and shells on the shareware market today.  Many
 are very good, and some are not so good.  The choice of which, if any, of
 these programs to use is basically a matter of deciding what you want to do.
 During the coming months I intend to review some menus and shells that I
 consider to be the cream of the crop.  I hope you enjoy these reviews and
 benefit from them.

 A menu system that I consider the top of the line is HDM IV, the Hard DIsk
 Menu.  This program is very popular, and it deserves to be.  It is good-
 looking, flexible, very configurable, easy to set up, and easy to use.  It
 can be set up to work with very large or very small directory structures and
 is equally at home with both.  Best of all, the price is reasonable, and
 although the author would like to collect registration fees, he doesn't
 hound the daylights out of users with annoying beg screens or features that
 don't work until you register.  With HDM IV what you see is literally what
 you get!

 Installing HDM IV is simplicity itself.  The only files needed to install
 the program are INSTALL.EXE and INSTALL.HDM.  The directory where HDM IV is
 to be located must be created before the installation program is run,
 however, otherwise an error will occur, since INSTALL.EXE does not create
 this directory.  After prompting for source and destination drives the
 program asks if this is a new or upgrade installation, and requests
 permission to modify AUTOEXEC.BAT.  Then it completes the installation very
 quickly.  Whether the installation is all new or an upgrade seems to make
 very little difference.  Once the target directory is in place, installation
 proceeds without a hitch.

 The first thing the user sees when running HDM IV is a tasteful logo screen
 containing the author's name and address and the registration fee but no
 "You must register or you're a rotten egg" message.  The author's approach
 to registration is so low-key and mature that even this screen may be
 bypassed by means of a command line switch.  It's nice to be trusted that
 much!

 Following the logo screen is the main menu screen, consisting of three
 windows.  The top window fills nearly the entire width of the screen and is
 deep enough to hold from one to four lines of text, depending upon how the
 main screen is set up.  This window may be used for a user-defined title
 block or it may be used to view the menu "action strings."  More about
 action strings later.

 The other two windows fill most of the remainder of the screen and hold the
 page descriptions and the menu item descriptions that are the "business end"
 of HDM IV.  The page description window has space for 26 entries (A-Z), each
 of which represents a 10-item menu.  The ten menu items which make up each
 page are shown in the remaining window.  Moving between pages is done by
 pressing the left and right arrow keys or the PgUp and PgDn keys, while menu 
 items on each page are selected with the up and down arrow keys.  Or pages 
 and menu items can be selected by pressing the corresponding letter and 
 number keys.  The selection process is very simple and orderly.  Each set of 
 26 menu pages, each with 10 menu items, is only one of 1000 possible menu 
 files.  This represents a total of 260,000 menu items, enough to keep the 
 average user busy for at least a few hours!  The 260-item menu files may be
 selected either by a command line switch or by means of menu items created to 
 switch among these files.  Switching between menu files using HDM IV's native
 functions is so fast as to utterly disguise the fact that a new file is
 being loaded.

 Creating menu items is about as easy as anything could be.  Pressing the F10
 key activates a horizontal menu at the top of the screen.  Choosing the
 "Menu" option permits the user to add or modify items on any menu page.
 Choosing the " Add Entry" option from the "Menu" pull-down brings up a two-
 line dialog box where the title for the menu item will be entered on the
 first line.  The second line is reserved for an "action string" which
 defines what takes place when the newly created menu item is chosen.  The
 action string, when entered directly on the second line of the dialog box,
 may resemble a sort of "mini-batch file," or it may consist of one or more
 functions defined within HDM IV, one or more user-defined macros, or some
 comination of batch-file commands, functions, and macros.  If the notion of
 building the action string from scratch does not appeal, pressing F4 from
 the dialog box after the title is entered invokes an "Auto-Build"
 feature.  In "Auto-Build" another dialog box pops up in which the user
 enters the drive, path, file name, and parameters for the new menu item, and
 the program creates the action string from this information.  Those who
 don't happen to remember these details may press F4 again and be presented
 with a series of pick lists representing the directory tree.  Selecting the
 proper directory and file from these pick lists causes this information
 to be entered as the action string.  Thus the process of menu building can
 be carried out either manually or automatically with the user retaining
 control over the process in either case.  Once the menu item is created, the
 page can be named, if it has not already been named, by selecting the "Page"
 option from the top menu, then the "Name Page" option from the "Page" pull-
 down.

 For people like me who like to customize everything, HDM IV provides the
 ability to do just that.  Anyone who would like to replace the HDM logo with
 one of his own choosing may do so by building his own logo file using ASCII
 graphics characters, and calling that file with a command line switch.  Or a
 help file may be built for each menu entry (that's 260,000 help files!).
 Six different layouts are available for the main menu screen, and each menu
 file may have a different screen layout.  The main menu screens are fully
 color configurable, as are the pull-downs.  In addition, the menus are easy
 to edit so the way a menu looks and feels can evolve as a user's needs
 evolve.

 Possibly the most important feature of HDM IV is that it unloads itself
 completely from memory when it calls an application, so there is no conflict
 with TSR's (memory resident programs).  In addition HDM IV has a host of
 other features such as network compatibility, multi-level configurable
 security, usage logging, timed execution, telephone dialing, screen saver,
 and log reporting on projects.  With all these plusses and very few minuses,
 HDM IV is a program that deserves serious consideration by anyone who feels
 a need for an advanced menu program that won't be outgrown for a very long
 time.

 HDM IV (Hard Disk Menu) v4.62
 Filename:  HDM462.ZIP
 Registration Fee:  $, $$ with printed manual
 Jim Hass
 MicroFox Co.
 P.O.Box 447
 Richfield, OH  44286-0447
 (216) 659-9489 
