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My Idea 4.2 Complete Version c 1994 by Peter Neuendorffer November 15, 1994. CONTAINS FEATURES FROM REGISTERED VERSIONS. Please read the Important Note at the end of this manual. Organize the Idea (2) Menus and Hot Keys (3) Text Editing (4) To register this software Features (6) send $22 to: Topics (7) Peter Neuendorffer List Menu (9) 1399 Commonwealth Ave Apt 11 Scratchpad/ (10) Allston MA 02134 Text Files/Menu Colors a disk of Peter's software Closing off Sections: F5 (11) catalog (Shareware) will be sent. This version contains several new features (from registered versions) "move areas" Features (6). "reminders" Topics (8). "search menu" List (9). "print page" Features (6). A hard drive is required. 1 1/2 Meg free space recommended. Are you the kind of a person who jots notes on restaurant napkins? You are always fixing things and figuring things out? You may like My idea. Run MYIDEA DEMO from DOS to see a demonstration. My idea takes you from the idea or problem, such as "build a car" or "improve my looks" or "great American novel," to describing what is involved, how to do it, and where to go for help. When you are done writing, you may be surprised at how much you already knew about your problem. This software let's you build six areas. You enter a paragraph for each area, then set up Topics for the area. You have to complete all the Topics in the Area BEFORE you can go on to the next area. I wanted to give the software the flavor of a video game where you achieve each level. The six areas "Tasks" "Resources" "Data" "Research" "People" and "Implementation" are laid out on the main menu from Left to Right on the top, then Left to Right on the bottom. You can return to previous areas, but cannot proceed to the next area until the current Working Area is finished (checked off.) To close a section, press F5. Or Escape and return at a later time. So an Area has topics. Once topics are named, you can go back and forth between them. To install, copy the files to a sub directory on your hard disk. A hard disk is required. 700K free disk space required after installation. When working on an idea, save it with a file name of your choosing. When working on it again, run <Myidea>. Then give the idea name (actually any name) and the original filename. You can run <MYIDEA FILENAME> from DOS. The software keeps track across sessions. Press Alt-X anywhere to quit the program. Press Alt-W from anywhere to return to the main menu. When editing text in My idea, Alt-N inserts a blank line, Alt-Y deletes a line, and Alt-C clears text to the end of the line. When editing, press Alt-B to manipulate the text (all text except questions and answers.) My Idea has six areas -TASKS, RESOURCES, DATA/MATERIALS, RESEARCH, PEOPLE, and IMPLEMENTATION. Each will have up to 8 topics. For each Topic write a paragraph, ask questions, answer questions, and make notes. Write progress notes and overviews. When an area is complete (checked off) you can create a report (MAKE REPORT) for the screen, a text file, or the printer. The software has three menus: MAIN MENU -The main command. AREA MENU -Work on an area (topics,notes,progress). TOPIC MENU -Work on a topic (questions, answers, notes, progress, phrase.) Organize the Idea (2) To start an idea file, run My idea. Later, when you continue work on your idea, run <My idea filename> from DOS, or just run <MY IDEA> and fill in the old idea name (any name will do). Use the correct file name for your idea. There is only one file for each idea. First, enter a paragraph about your problem-idea. You can edit this again later. Once this paragraph is "closed" with F5, you get a menu of AREAS for your idea-problem. The areas are TASKS, RESOURCES, DATA/MATERIALS, RESEARCH, PEOPLE, and IMPLEMENTATION. Start by completing the TASKS AREA, Then move to the other areas. Remember, press Alt-X to end your session. A section is marked completed (checked off) by pressing F5 from the section. Each AREA is set up identically. Start with TASKS. First, enter a paragraph about TASKS. When the paragraph is completed with F5, name the topics for the area. relating to TASKS, such as "write letters", "interview","get references","take college boards." When the topic names for TASKS are completed with F5, the menus will be updated with your topic names. When working on a topic, it is a good idea to access it from the AREA NAME in the main menu -the top (orange) item in each block of the main menu. That way an intermediate (Green) menu appears, showing the status of each topic. Complete (check off) all four sections for every topic in order ====> to continue on to RESOURCES. The sections are Paragraph, Questions, Answers, and Notes. All must be completed from within the topic name. When topic names are complete -F5- you work on them. Choose a topic. First, write a paragraph, this time about the topic. After pressing F5 enter Questions about the topic. After each question, press Enter. The a short Phrase relating to the question. (F5 to close questions) Now, Answer the questions for a topic -you only see the short phrases here. Next, enter Notes about the topic. You can re edit Questions, Answers and Notes later. You can move back and forth ====> between topics. [To close out topic Notes -F5-, you must choose a topic name, then press F5 -even if you have accessed NOTES from another menu. You can complete the various topics in any order, moving between sections and topics within the Area menu. ====> After completing all four sections for EVERY topic [Paragraphs, Questions, Answers, and Notes], continue on to the next area "RESOURCE" and so on. If a topic is complete (checked off), choose that topic from the MAIN or Area menu. You will see a new menu of questions, answers,notes, and progress. You can change answers by choosing answers and pressing F2. Edit Notes and Progress as well. ====> You cannot move on to the next area, until you complete the 4 Topic sections for every topic in the current work area! You can easily move ahead by pressing the F5=Complete key when the prompt appears. Menus and Hot Keys (3) Main Menu=====> Area Menu=====> Topic Menu 1 Main Menu: =after you complete opening paragraph. --- TASKS RESOURCES DATA/MATERIALS | topic topic .... | topic topic .... | Areas | RESEARCH PEOPLE IMPLEMENTATION | ---| OVERVIEWS MAIN PARAGRAPH MAKE REPORT Topics and areas are checked off when completed. The working area will be shown with a blinking Red arrow. From the main menu, choose an AREA NAME (top selection of each AREA block, in orange capitals) to get to the Area menu. Choose a topic to bypass the Area menu. 2 Area Menu: topic (Choose a topic to work on.) topic Notes (all notes for the area) Progress (all progress for the area) The status (checked off) of each topic will be shown. (see "Completing Topics" section of this manual). If the area is all checked off, the words "Area Complete" are displayed. 3 Topic menu: Questions (for 1 topic) Answers " Notes " Progress " phrase " File " -------------------- HOT KEYS ------------------------------ | Hot Key Where What it's for: | | | | Alt X anywhere -Quit the program | | Alt W anywhere -Go to the main menu | | F5 when prompted -Close out text sections| | Alt E when text shown -Edit text sections | | F2 " " " " " " | | Alt B when editing text -Block Edit Commands | | From Menu bars: | | Alt S Main,Area,Topic menus -Scratchpad | | Alt L " " " -List Menu (see below) | | Alt H " " " -Help (this manual) | | Alt E Area,Topic menus -Edit paragraph | | Alt T Area menu -Topics changes | | Alt A Main menu -Rename area | | Alt I Main menu -Rename idea | | Alt R Topic menu -Add reminder | ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sometimee special characters next to a topic name will appear This always indicates a "completed" topic: ------------- checkmark topic is completed ! exclamation point topic currently has a reminder * star topic currently has an attached text file. star on red (or white) background: both reminder and text file. Text Editing (4) When entering in questions and answers, you must press ENTER to make the data stick, before escaping. All other text (any text black over 3 lines) acts differently- you get what you type, by pressing an Escape. Escape takes you out of any section. F5 is reserved for closing out an entire section and move on. Do not use it for just exiting. F5 is reserved for saying "I'm all done with this section." To edit the main paragraphs appearing at the bottom of an Area Menu screen, or Topic Menu screen, select Alt-E (Edit from the top menu bar). To re edit text, find it. The screen should say "F2 to Edit Paragraph" or "F2 to Edit Notes". Press F2 or Alt-E to edit the paragraph,then Escape to get out. When editing paragraphs, use the Alt-N combination to insert a blank line, Alt-Y to delete a line, Alt-C to clear text to the end of line. Alt-U will restore any text (other than questions or answers) to where it was when you began editing the text section. You may type to the end of the line and the text will automatically wrap for the whole text area. You may insert text in the middle of a line and it will wrap. You may position the cursor at the end of a line, press Delete, and all the words that fit from the next line will be moved back to the current line. Commands when Editing text: (press F2 when asked) (escape to leave edit mode Alt-U: Undo all the changes since you entered the screen. Alt-C: Clear the current line from the cursor to the end of the line. Alt-N: Insert a blank line at the cursor. Alt-Y: Delete the line at the cursor. Home : Go to top of text area. End : Go to next available line at bottom. Alt-B: Text block editing commands. This brings up a menu. Block commands apply to all text except Questions and Answers. - Sort Text: Sort selected lines of text. - Copy Text: Copy selected lines of text to the clipboard. - Cut Text: Delete selected lines and put in clipboard. - Paste Text: Paste lines of text from the clipboard. - Match Text: Find matches between current text and other topics -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sort: Paragraphs, overviews,notes, progress may be sorted. When editing, Press F2 if necessary. Then select the beginning line to sort (up and down arrows.) Press F7. Then select "Sort Text" from the menu. Then mark multiple lines (down/up arrow keys.) And Press Enter. Now move this block of lines up or down, and press Enter again. Copy: When editing, Press F2 if necessary. Then select the beginning line to sort (up down arrows.) Press F7, then select "Copy Text" from the menu. Then mark multiple lines (down/up arrow keys) and Press Enter to copy the text. Cut: When editing, Press F2 if necessary. Then select the beginning line to sort (up down arrows.) Press F7, then select "Cut Text" from the menu. Then mark multiple lines (down/up arrow keys) and Press Enter to cut the text. The text is in the clipboard for future pasting. Text Editing continued (5) Paste: When editing, Press F2 if necessary. Then press F7, and select the "Paste Text" option. Press Enter, and the current text in the clipboard will be pasted after the last line of the current text area, as it fits. Match: This option does not change any data. It analyzes the current text paragraph and comes up with a "fuzzy" match on one or more topic names from your idea. You may then choose the topic name to move to that topic. (Note that the list of topics used in this search only consists of topics from are in the current work area, or from areas before the current work area.) If the topic you choose is incomplete, it will take you to the current working section (paragraph, questions, etc.) for that topic. Highlight Text: Choose words that you wish to appear highlighted in color throughout the current idea. The information on this is saved in each idea data file. Access Text highlight from any text area. This is part of the block commands. Enter edit mode for a text area -you may have to press -F2. Then press Alt-B and choose Highlight Text. You get a menu: Add Word: enter a word you wish to be highlight. Delete Word: enter a word you wish NOT to be highlighted. Clear All: clear all highlighted words. Grayscalse: toggle off/on. Grayscale set to ON is suitable for a grayscale monocrhome system. If you are using a system with a color card and gray scale monitor, you may want to toggle on Gray scale. To return to color for highlighting, toggle Gray scale off again. Words are highlighted in different colors depending on the length of the word to highlight. Monochrome (no color card) systems display the highlighted words as underlined. To temporarily disable color highlighting for a session, run MY IDEA from the DOS command line with the switch /h. - Hide program prompts: for experienced users only. Shift-Tab This option is only for a user who is VERY experienced with this software. From anywhere in the program, you may press Shift-Tab to hide program prompts. This change is not saved for another session. Once the screen updates fully, the prompts will be hidden (such as "press F2 to Edit" and most other prompts that tend to clutter the screen.) To enable the prompts again, press Shift-Tab again. To see the current status of this hiding of prompts, press Alt-W from any where and then Escape to see the opening screen. Features (6) Writing sections: From the Main menu, you may write Overviews of the main IDEA and of each AREA (Tasks, Resources, Data/Materials, Research, People and Implementation). You edit notes, or write progress notes. Main Menu: From the main menu, you may jet to any area or topic. Use up, down,right, and left arrows to select an area or topic (if there are topics). Then press Enter to go to that area or topic. It is best when working your way through writing areas and topics to select from the first item of each AREA at the main menu, so you can see your progress (check marks.) Selecting a topic from the main menu instantly takes you to a topic, whatever it's status. But selecting an AREA name first will bring a menu showing the topics' status. Make Report: From the main menu you may create a report of the entire idea. This is generated automatically. Choose "Make Report". Decide whether to send the report to the screen, to a text file, or to the printer. Then select an Area from the menu, or all areas. The new menu is to choose selected sections to include in your report: paragraphs, questions/answers, notes, progress, and overviews. Just press enter (====OK===) to select all, or move the highlight bar to section and press SPACE BAR to toggle it on/off. (* means on .) Cancel will clear all the sections. Press Enter when done. If sent the report to the screen: use Alt-S to search for a word or phrase, and Alt-L to search for the next occurrence. Page Up and Page Down to move through the pages. Control-Page-Down goes to the last page, and Control-Page-Up returns to the first page. The report reflects the current information about your idea. If you change the information, future reports have your new information. ====> If you are reading a Report on your display screen that was generated from the main menu MAKE REPORT, at any time you may press F2. Move the shade bar up and down with the up and down arrows. Press Enter, and you will be returned to the main program, but IN THE SECTION that that text comes from, whether paragraphs, questions, answers, notes, progress, or overview. You will now be out of the report. Remember Alt-W, or repeated escapes returns you to the main menu. Renaming Areas: You can rename areas. Select an area (such as TASKS) from the MAIN MENU (orange on blue). Highlight the area name, the top (orange) bar for each area. Now press F10. Type in the new area name and press enter. Please note: in order to make things compatible with the first version of My idea -1.0- version 1.0 will display the original "factory" names. But this version will always display your new area names. Moving Areas: (new) You can move an entire area to another place in the main menu. This sort will affect the Make Report order of the areas, as well as the order of searches. Select an Area that has topics from the Main Menu. Then press Alt-M, and sort the area name with the left and right arrow keys. Press Enter to commit to the change, or Escape to cancel. Note you cannot sort past an area that has no topics. Care should be taken if there is an incomplete area, as the placement of the Working Area could change. Areas are completed in order top row first, left to right, then bottom row left to right as the area names appear on the main menu. An area to the "right" (or bottom) of a working area may not be worked on until the working area is first checked off. Renaming the Idea: Press Alt-R from the Main Menu to rename the Idea. Print Page: (in addition to printing reports). From anywhere in the program you can print a page by pressing Alt-P. Then enter a heading if desired, and select the top line to start printing the page. If you wish to print all the way to the bottom of the page, you do not have to select the bottom print line. Topic Options (7) Rename, Sort, Add, Delete. Move, Phrase Renaming Topics: You can rename topics. Select an area (such as TASKS) from the main menu (orange top bar) PRESS ENTER) Now Highlight the topic name you wish to rename. Press Alt-T and choose Rename Topic from the menu. Type in the new name, and press enter, or Escape to cancel. Very importantly, this will NOT move any data around. If you want to sort topics, sort them as described below. It's a good idea to use a new name that means about the same as the old one -now ALL the titles for this topic will have your new name. Sorting topic names: You can sort the order of a topic in an area menu. Select an area from the Main Menu (orange top bar on main menu). Highlight a topic to sort in the area menu, and press F10 (or Alt-T.) Then choose Sort Topic from the menu. Then move the topic name with up or down arrow keys, and then press Enter. Add Topics: You can add a new topic to an area. The only restriction is that the new area must have at least one topic already. Press F10 (or Alt-T) from the Area Menu (green), and choose Add Topic. Now enter in the name of the new topic. If their are already eight topics in the menu, the software will refuse to add a new one. Please note, that adding a topic can change the Current Working Area, as the new topic is incomplete (not checked off.) Delete Topics: You can delete a topic from an area. Care must be taken not to delete large volumes of data, as once the topic name is deleted, it's data no longer exists. Choose an Area (enter), then press F10 (or Alt-T.) Then choose Delete Topic from the menu. Answer "Y", Enter, "Y" to get past the safety screens. The order of the Working Area may be different in the Main Menu, as once an incomplete topic is deleted, it may allow the Area to be checked off as complete. If the topic to delete is the only one on the Area's list, the software will not let you delete it. Topic Options continued (8) Move Topics: You can move a topic, with all it's data to a different area. The topic cannot be the only one on the Area list. Choose an Area Menu (enter) and press F10 (or Alt-T). Now choose Move Topic from the menu. Now choose the new area from the next menu, and press enter. I hope you enjoy using My idea and register it soon. For product support, call Peter Neuendorffer at 617-254-2213 (voice). Topic Phrases: This option allows you to enter in a short catch phrase for any topic. Access this option from the Topic Menu. Select "phrase" from the Topic Menu (magenta.) Enter a phrase. This phrase will only be used on the topic menu display screen. For example, if the topic was "buy truck" you might enter in "See the USA with a Tom Truck" for the topic phrase. To remove a phrase, select the phrase and enter in the word none alone on the line. Analysis of how much text is entered This option will now tell you at any time how much text is entered in the various sections and topics of an Area. Select an Area menu by pressing enter on one the Top bar of the first six areas in the Main Menu. If the area is beyond your working area, you will not be able to access the Area Menu at this time. Once the Area menu is displayed, press Alt-T as if you were going to edit the topic names. However, a new item on the Topic Change menu is now present. Choose "Analyze the topics," and press Enter. You will see (after a few seconds) a table showing how many lines of text are entered in for each section and topic in your area. Note the numbers for questions and answers refer to the number of questions or answers. The numbers for the other items refer to how many total lines of text excluding blank lines are entered in. This table is always current. Text = the topic paragraph ? = topic questions Ans = topic answers Note = topic notes Prog = topic progress notes Reminder blurbs You can add a pop up reminder to any topic that is completed with it's own menu. Select the Topic so the topic menu appears. Then press Alt-R (Reminder is mentioned on the menu bar). Enter in a reminder phrase. Next time the topic is accessed, the reminder will pop up. Press Enter or Escape to pop it off, or "D" to delete the reminder entirely. When a topic name has a reminder, a "!" exclamation point next to it in a menu, this means the topic currently has a reminder. Also, a '*' next to name (indicating there is an attached file) that is on a red (or white in monocrhome) square indicates the topic currently has a reminder. List Menu (9) - Search You get to this List menu by - Address book pressing Alt-L from any Main, Area - To Do List or Topic menu. Make sure you are - Go to Topic not in F2 Edit mode if there is a - Change Menu Colors paragraph displayed. -Search: Enter a word or phrase to search your Idea for. Then press Enter, and the entire idea will be searched up to and including the current Work Area. Or you may choose a section such as "paragraphs" to search. With each match, the screen will show the section containing your search request. To continue on, press Enter. To stop searching, press Escape. To jump to the live data area shown on the screen, press F2. Once you are in the live data area, you can edit the information and move about the program as usual. -Address book: -Display list: see your address and phone list. Page through the list with PgeUp PgeDn. Press Escape to exit. -Edit item: Add or edit an item in your address list. -Delete item: Delete an item from your address list. The address list, unlike all other data in My Idea, is stored only once, and is stored in your .EXE file. THis means that whatever idea you are working on, you will have the same address list. The address list holds up to 200 items. ----------------------------------------------------- Upgrade information for Address Book: Read this paragraph only if you have been using an address book already in the Unregistered Version 3.0 of MyIdea, and wish to transfer your addresses to your new registered copy. Change to the directory containing the old UNREGISTERED Myidea.exe. If in the unlikely coincidence a file there is named "mmm.mmm", move it elsewhere. Now run the UNREGISTERED Myidea.exe as MYIDEA /DL A file will appear in the current directory named "mmm.mmm". Move this file to REGISTERED Myidea.exe directory. Move to this new directory. Run the REGISTERED Myidea.exe as MYIDEA /UL The "mmm.mmm" will be deleted, and the address book has been transferred to the registered copy. If you get a box saying "file not found" then the old copy is not version 3.0 or later. -------------------------------------------------- -To Do List: There is a seperate To Do list for each idea you work on. Done items are displayed in green, and To Do Items are in red (or white background if monochrome.) Enter in an Item that is yet to be done in the To Do section. Enter in an Item that is done already in the Done section. To toggle an item between Done and Not Done, select the item with the cursor, and press Tab. This is understood by trying it out. -Go To Topic: You may enter in a topic name from your current idea, and the software will jump to that topic. Only topics from completed areas will be allowed here. -Change Menu Colors This is described in the New Features section below. Scratchpad/ Textfiles/ Menu colors (10) - The Scratchpad: Alt-S from Main, Area, Topic menus. You now have a half page to make general notes. This page is seperate for every idea file you start. This page functions just like any text section, except that it is not attached to any particular topic or area. To get to the Scratcpad, you must be at either the Main Menu, and Area Menu, or any Topic Menu. Make sure that you are not in text edit mode (where the cursor shows in the paragraph below). Then press Alt-S. The Scratcpad should appeaer. You can now edit text in the Scratchpad and can copy, cut, paste and undo. To exit the scratchpad, press Escape. There is a single scratchpad for each entire idea. - Text file attachments. "FILE" from Topic menus You can now install text files in any topic menu or at the main menu. To access the textfile option from the main menu, select the bottom right item marked TEXTFILE (Enter). To access the text file attachment for any topic, select the topic (it must be checked off) and access the new "File" menu selection in the topic menu (below Questions, Answers and Notes). All text file attachments function in the same way. To attach a text file, choose "set file name" after choosing the File option from a Topic Menu (or TEXTFILE from the main menu). Now enter in a full path name for a text file on your system. To display the file, choose View File from the menu. To remove an attachment, simply enter the word none alone in the "set file name" option. You may choose "Directory" to peruse the file names on your system. When you find a file to attach, press Enter on the name. Pressing Enter on a directory name will switch to that directory listing, and pressing Enter on the name ".." will movee up one level in the DOS directory structure. You may copy text out of a textt file that is displayed by displaying the file and choosing Alt-B and copy the text as described in Text Copy above. - Change menu colors Alt-L from Main, Area, Topic menus You can now change the colors of most of the menus. Access the "List" menu by pressing Alt-L from either the Main, an Area, or any Topic menu. (Make sure you are not in edit mode for the paragraph below -when the cursor is blinking. If so, press escape once.) Select "Change menu colors" from the List menu. Choose a color for the Area, the Topic, and for Other menus. To skip changing a menu, choose Finished, or Escape. This information is stored in the .EXE itself, so there are never any additional data files to contend with. These colors remain for ALL ideas, until you change the colors again. Important Note (11) Closing off Sections: When you fill in Topics by writing paragraphs, questions, answers and notes, you close off each of those sections with F5. In order to "close" the Notes section, you access Notes by Pressing ENTER on a Topic name, then pressing F5. When closing off notes, do NOT access notes from a menu item named "notes." Thus, say, to complete a topic "practicing the piano", you press enter on "practicing the piano", enter a paragraph, close the paragraph with F5, enter questions, close with F5, enter in answers, close answers with F5. To Close off Notes: PRESS ENTER ON THE TOPIC NAME "practicing the piano" and enter in Notes from there. Then Press F5 from there. As you "close" each section, a check mark appears next to topic name in the (green) Area Menu. You get this Area Menu when you select an Area Name from a top bar in the main menu (orange on blue). Short Cut: You may now add additional questions to a topic from the Area/Topic /Questions option, by choosing F2 and pressing Enter to get past the last question. THis means that you can press F5 after each section in a topic (paragraph, questions, answers, notes) is partially done, and go back to add more later. That way you can proceed through each Area.