Features
The shell includes common features seen in other file managers such as copying, moving and renaming files as well as the ability to "launch" applications with a double-click. The shell could be run by the command "dosshell". It had the ability to set simple colours and styles. The shell was one of the first successful attempts to create a basic graphical user interface (GUI) type file manager in DOS, although it is properly referred to as a text user interface (TUI) or Character Oriented Window (COW) even though graphical modes were available on supported hardware (VGA equipped PCs). The shell is very much like a DOS version of Windows File Manager.
The shell also has a help system, "program list", and a "task swapper". Like modern file managers it had the ability to display dual hierarchy directory and file lists, i.e. left and right panes. The mouse was supported, however, like any other DOS application, it required an appropriate device driver.
One feature was the ability to list all files on a hard drive in a single alphabetized list along with the path and other attributes. This permitted the user to compare versions of a file in different directories by their attributes and easily spot duplicates.
Read more about this topic: DOS Shell
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