BD 2.00.A :: The DIR Replacement

Introduction

What is BD?
BD is a `dir` replacement. What this program does is that it displays the contents of the specified folder in a colourful and more understandable way. BD displays files of different types in different colours, letting you see at a glance which files are executable, which are documents, directories etc.

Why was this program written?
The most commenly used command in DOS is the 'dir'. The limitations of this command promted me to create a "dir" of my own. The Result - Binny's DIR or BD.

Comparisons

How is BD better than DIR?
To be absolutly frank, BD is not better than DIR. DIR is a very powerful command and can be used to do many things with the command line options it has. BD is not as powerful as that, but it is much more user friendly. It shows all the files colour coded according to its extensions. For example, a folder will be show in yellow colour while a executable file is shown in blue colour. This will make it easier to understand the display.

The BD Command

C:\DOS>bd
Directory listing of C:\DOS

BINNY	UTILS	APPS	DOCUME~1	DRIVERS	BATCHS
WANTEDS	UNIX	DOS.TXT	DOS.BAT

C:\DOS>_

90% of the time we use the DIR command we just want to know what is there in that directory. We don't want to acces any of the more complicated functions of the DIR command. BD was designed to do just that.

Another advantage of BD is that it displays only the needed infomation. DIR displays a lot more data which makes it more difficult to find what you need.

DIR command


 Volume in drive C is WINDOWS    
 Volume Serial Number is 0E69-16EF
 Directory of C:\DOS

.              <DIR>        09-24-03  4:08p .
..             <DIR>        09-24-03  4:08p ..
BINNY          <DIR>        09-24-03  4:08p Binny
UTILS          <DIR>        09-24-03  4:08p Utils
APPS           <DIR>        09-24-03  4:08p Apps
DOS      TXT           626  09-24-03  5:14p dos.txt
DOCUME~1       <DIR>        09-24-03  4:09p Documentation
DRIVERS        <DIR>        09-24-03  4:09p Drivers
BATCHS         <DIR>        09-24-03  4:11p Batchs
DOS      BAT           837  04-05-04  1:26p DOS.BAT
WANTEDS        <DIR>        09-24-03 11:49p Wanteds
UNIX           <DIR>        01-20-04 12:52a Unix
BINNY    TXT             0  06-08-04  1:56a Binny.txt
         3 file(s)          1,463 bytes
        10 dir(s)        1,540.07 MB free

How is BD better than other DIR replacing programs?
There are many other DIR replacers. But a problem commen to all of them is that they try to be very visually appealing and display a lot of graphics. They are very good but these extra graphics will affect the speed with which the command is executed. If you want speed you will have to use BD.

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