ASP Advantage 1993

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ ASP Advantage 1993 / The Association of Shareware Professionals Advantage CD-ROM 1993.iso / files / progming / mlrpri25 / private.txt < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1993-06-20 | 25.3 KB | 502 lines

* * * My Little Realm, v2.5 * * * - Private Library - ____________________________________________________________________ General Information ____________________________________________________________________ Important Private Library is protected by copyright. It is not freeware, and it is not in the public domain. This is the evaluation version of My Little Realm's Private Library. It is a full-featured, fully functional program. You are welcome to try it on your computer to ensure that it functions on your system as it should, and that it meets your individual needs. If after 30 days you decide to keep using Private Library, you must register the program with the author. To print an order form, press <$> in the Options Window. Bonus! Purchase any MLR stand-alone program before 12/31/94 and receive another absolutely free. See DESCRIBE.TXT for details. Thank you for trying Private Library! ______________________________________________________________________ Introduction The Private Library Routine allows you to keep track of your privately owned volumes (including books, records, tapes, cd's and videos). With Private Library you can view, edit, print and sort your file. The most powerful feature, however, is the search function. For example, if you'd like to see which books you have of a certain author, enter that author's name in the Search function and you'll get every work in your library that has that name in the Author field. If you're a Sci Fi fanatic and you'd like to see what you have on robots, tell the Search function to look for "robot" in the Title field. Would you like a way to keep your books separate from a roommate's? Use the Category field to identify your possessions and your roommate's. Then you can search on the Category field to see which works (or items) belong to whom. It can help keep the peace. ____________________________________________________________________ Getting Started The Quickeys. If you'd like to see what the Quickeys are for Private Library, enter the backslash key in the Options Window. This invokes the Change Quickeys function, and displays the following query in the Options Window: _______________________________________________ | | | Change which Quickey? __ | | ________________________________ | | | | | | | 1 fic 3 l/d 5 a/t | | | | 2 n/f 4 v/t 6 c/d | | | |________________________________| | | | |_______________________________________________| If you don't want to change the Quickeys at this time, simply press <esc> when you're finished studying them. If you'd like to make changes, enter the number of the Quickey category you want to change and type in the new definition. Read the section entitled "Extended Processing Options" at the end of this document for details on changing your Quickeys. Creating records. The most common items recorded in the Private Library program are books. They're easy to enter since there are only three fields to deal with: the Title field, the Author field, and the Category field. Example: Title Author Cat. Lincoln Vidal, Gore fic Other personal collectibles that can be recorded are videos. Enter the title, as you would a book, and in the Author field, enter the time and whether the item is black & white or color. Finally, enter the Quickey <4>, v/t, for video tape. Example: Title Author Cat. Casablanca 103 min. black/white v/t After you've entered all of your video tapes, you can obtain a printed listing (to keep by the television) by invoking the Search function and searching the Category field for v/t. Exiting Private Library. If you've made changes to your data file, Private Library will so notify you when you attempt to return to your operating system and ask if you want to save the changes. You will almost always respond with <Y> or <enter> to save the changes. If, for some reason, you do not want to save the changes, press <N>. Following either response, you'll be returned to DOS. If you press <esc>, Private Library will instead return you to the Options Window from where you can resume processing. Why would you ever want to not save changes? Home programs must take into account the unwanted help of children who occasionally get into a program and wreak havoc. Should you find that someone you love is "helping you" with Private Library, don't get angry. Just exit the program and don't save the changes. ____________________________________________________________________ Program Information ____________________________________________________________________ There are seven choices in the Options Window. ________________________________________ | | | 1 Add 2 View 3 Change | | 4 Delete 5 Print 6 Sort | | 7 Search | | | |----------------------------------------| | Choice __ | |________________________________________| There are also several extended processing options available from the Options Window. They are detailed at the end of this document. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 1, adding new records. The Add function in this program has only three entries. To back up through the fields in this function, press the up arrow. To advance through the fields, press the down arrow key or <enter>. [Note: You cannot use the down arrow to advance from the Title field to the Author field unless the Title field has something in it. In other words, the Title field must have an entry.] ~ Field Definitions ~ - Title field (38, required). Leading articles and prepositions should be put at the end of the title. For example, the title of the novel "The Agony and the Ecstasy" by Irving Stone would be entered as: Agony and the Ecstasy, The ____________________ - Author field (33, optional). An author's name should be entered with the last name first: Stone, Irving The major reason for entering titles and names in this manner is that it facilitates record sorting should you request that option (# 6 in the Options Window). ____________________ - Category field (3, optional). Private Library displays its built-in Quickeys when it is time to enter the category field. The default categories are: Quickey Category Definition 1 fic fiction 2 n/f non-fiction 3 l/d laser disc 4 v/t video tape 5 a/t audio tape 6 c/d compact disc If the Quickeys are turned on, you will only be able to enter a category from the Quickey list. If you should delete any of the Quickey categories, leaving the category blank, Private Library will not let you enter that Quickey in the Add or Change functions. For example, say you had no need for the l/d (laser disc) category shown above as Quickey 3. If you deleted the category and left it blank, you could not enter 3 in the Category field in the Add or Change functions while the Quickeys are turned on. If you want to enter category information that is not in the Quickey list, turn off (that is, hide) the Quickeys using the <|> EPO. You can then enter any three character string you wish. To hide the Quickeys, enter <|>, the pipe symbol on your keyboard, in the Options Window. Private Library will tell you that your Quickeys are not hidden and then ask if you want to hide them. Respond <Y>, yes. If you change your mind, press <esc> or <N>. See Extended Processing Options at the end of this document for more details. You can change any of the Quickeys that come with Private Library by using the backslash EPO. If you plan to use the Dewey Decimal System frequently to categorize your works, change the Quickeys to the six DDS codes you'll be using most often. -- The Dewey Decimal System Codes -- DDS Code Definition 000 General titles (journalism, bibliographies, etc.) 100 Philosophy 200 Religion 300 Social Studies 400 Languages 500 Pure Sciences 600 Technology (Applied Sciences) 700 Arts 800 Literature 900 Geography and History You can also set up your Quickeys as the initials of the realm members so that you can identify the owner of each of the works you enter in this program. To use the Change Quickey EPO refer to the section entitled Extended Processing Options at the end of this document. Note: You cannot change the Quickeys if they are hidden. The only exception to this rule is if there are no Quickeys (i.e., you deleted all of them previously), in which case Private Library will allow you to create a new Quickey list, but then your new list will be considered hidden until you expressly state otherwise. If you leave Private Library with the Quickeys turned off, Private Library will remember that the next time you run the program. To show the Quickeys (i.e., turn them on), press <|> in the Options Window and reply <Y>, yes, to Private Library's query. ______________________________________________________________________ Option # 2, viewing your records. Private Library will ask you which record number you wish to see. You do not have to enter a record number. You can use the scrolling keys to browse through your records. Should you wish to focus on one particular entry, give the record number to Private Library and that record's information will be highlighted for you. If you have a large number of records and you're trying to find a specific title or author, use the Search function, Option # 7, described below. To exit the View function and return to the Options Window, press <enter> (without entering a record number) or <esc>. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 3, changing the contents of a record. To change the contents a record, you must first find the specific record you wish to modify. Enter the record number, and Private Library will highlight the record you have selected to change. If you tell Private Library that you want to modify one of the fields but then change your mind, press <esc> while on the input line (before you press <enter>), and it will reinstate the original entry. Remember, the Title field must have an entry. You cannot leave it blank. To exit the Change function and return to the Options Window, press <enter> (without entering a record number) or <esc>. Don't forget that if you elect to change the Category field and you want to use the Quickeys, they cannot be hidden. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 4, deleting records. Enter the record number. Private Library will highlight the entry and ask you if you are sure. You must respond <Y> for yes if you wish to effect the delete. Press <N>, for no, or the <esc> key to cancel the delete request. Be sure the highlighted record is the one that you wish to delete. To exit the Delete function and return to the Options Window, press <enter> (without entering a record number) or <esc>. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 5, printing records. The Print function prints a listing of all of your records as they appear at the time you request the printout. Thus, if you want the records sorted, you must select option 6 first, and direct Private Library to sort the array containing your records and on which field it is to perform the sort. The sort function then brings up the View procedure and shows you the sorted file. If all is in order, press <esc> to return to the Options Window and select 5 to print out the results of the sort. You can abort the printout at any time during the printing process by pressing <esc>. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 6, sorting records. Option 6 lets you sort your records by title, author, or category. After the sorting is finished, the View function is automatically invoked and your sorted records displayed. Press <esc> to return to the Options Window. Note: Private Library stores your records on disk in the same order shown in the Viewing Window. Thus, if you've sorted your records by title, they'll be stored that way, and the next time you run Private Library, that's the order in which they'll be displayed. ____________________________________________________________________ Option # 7, searching a field for a string. The Search function allows you to find all of the records with a specific character string, called a keyword, in a given field. You enter keywords without quotes. You may use the backslash as a special delimiter, described below, to force the Search function to look for external spaces. If you want the Search function to display all of the books with the word "computer" in the title, select the Title field from the its sub-menu and enter the keyword "computer" (without the quotes). In short order, the Search function would display all of the volumes it found with the word "computer" in the title. If there is more than a screenful of records, the Search function will tell you to use the scrolling keys to peruse the listing. The scrolling keys are the directional keys, <ctrl> + <home>, <ctrl> + <end>, <pageup>, and <pagedown>. You can also print the Search function listing by pressing <P>. You must be as precise as possible if you are looking for a specific record. That is to say, if you are looking for a particular author, you must give the Search function the entire name of said author or it might retrieve a number of records whose authors have the same keyword in their names. As an example, if you were searching for all of the volumes written by "Smith, Alice", you could enter "Smith" for a keyword, but you would also get all of the records with any other Smith's you had in the Author field. You would have to enter "Smith, Alice" to have the Search function display only those works by that author. The same is true for the Title and Category fields. When you can't recall the spelling of an author's name or the title of a book (or whatever it is you've cataloged), enter just enough of the keyword to have the Search function weed out the bulk of the unwanted records. For instance, if you're trying to find a book but all you can remember of its author's name is that it contains the syllable "Long", just enter that portion. The Search function will display the records it finds with that syllable in the author field, like "Longman" or "Longfellow" or "Longacre", but the number of records will have been reduced considerably, and you'll be able to find the record you're looking for much more quickly. The Search function strips off the external blanks that you enter around a keyword when it performs the search on either the Title field or the Author field. " ABC ", for example, is reduced to "ABC". You can force the Search function to search for precisely what you enter by delimiting your keyword with backslashes. To make the Search function look for a keyword like " ABC " (with its concomitant external spaces), you can enter: \ ABC \ Let's assume you have the following titles in your file: Longbows of the 18th Century Long John Silver Longacre's Mysteries If you simply entered "Long" at the keyword prompt, the Search function would show you all three of those records, even if you entered the keyword as "Long ". To winnow it down, you can force the Search function to search for "Long " (with a trailing space) by entering \Long \ and get only the second title, "Long John Silver". When using the backslash as a delimiter, however, you must ensure that you begin and end your keyword with backslashes. If, instead, you entered: \ long\acre the Search function would assume that it was supposed to look for the backslashes since one is embedded, and it will search for exactly what you entered ... including the backslashes. Notes. Private Library's Search function is not case sensitive, so "ABC" is the same as "aBc", and so on. When you search on the Category field, you must use the Quickeys if they are active. If they are inactive (hidden), you cannot use them, but you can enter any string found in the Quickey list. You simply have to key it in manually. Keywords do not have their external spaces removed when searches are performed on the Category field. So " d " (with a space on either side) is different from "d " (with two trailing spaces), and so on. ____________________________________________________________________ Extended Processing Options. EPO Definition <\> Change the Quickey categories employed by this program. The Quickeys categories can be up to three letters long, and are used to describe the categories of your personal volumes. Private Library comes with six Quickey categories that represent general purpose categories. Default Quickeys. ________________________________ | | | 1 fic 3 l/d 5 a/t | | 2 n/f 4 v/t 6 c/d | |________________________________| Quickey Code Definition 1 fic fiction 2 n/f non-fiction 3 l/d laser disc 4 v/t video tape 5 a/t audio tape 6 c/d compact disc You can, of course, change any you choose. For example, you could make one of your categories "C/B" for comic books or "BBC" for baseball cards. You can even use the initials of the owners of the works you are cataloging as a means of identifying ownership, should you wish to keep your possessions separate from your roommate's. Note: You cannot change the Quickeys if they are hidden. - - - - - - - - - <|> Hide/show the Quickeys. The Quickeys are numbers one through six in the first position of the category entry. Enter <|> in the Options Window and Private Library will tell you if your Quickeys are hidden or not. It will then ask you if you want to reverse the situation. If the Quickeys are turned on, you must use them when you are entering data in the Category field. If you want to enter categories not found in your Quickey list, you must either turn off the Quickeys or change the current Quickeys. If you turn off the Quickeys, you can enter anything you wish in the three character field. You do no harm to your previously entered records by turning the Quickeys on and off. - - - - - - - - - <+> Print a listing of a specific category. Note: This EPO is no longer supported in Version 2.x. See the Search function, option <7> in the Options Window, for this and many other new features found in Version 2.x and later. - - - - - - - - - <#> Switch between color and black/white modes. - - - - - - - - - <$> Print an order form. - - - - - - - - - <?> Display the EPO's used in this program. ______________________________________________________________________ + The End + ______________________________________________________________________ (c) Copyright 1991 - 1992 John L. Salisbury