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CHAPTER 11 LISTS OF SIMILAR PERSONS, FAMILIES AND NOTES
OR
SEARCHING YOUR FOLDER FOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION
PART B: A GLOSSARY OF GIM LISTS COMMANDS WITH EXAMPLES...
In the previous section, you saw four GIM LISTS commands,
namely MAKE, FROM, WHERE, and GO. You also saw the ORDER
command briefly.
Actually, GIM LISTS offers 24 different commands. In
alphabetical order, they are:
APPROX CASESENS CLEAR COMMANDS DISPLAY EXACT
EXIT FILE FROM GO HELP INTRO
KILL LISTS MAKE ORDER PLACES PRINT
PRLIST PROMPT QUIT SCRIPT SHOW WHERE
Each of these commands will be discussed in some detail in
this section. A summary of the information presented here is
also available from within GIM LISTS by using the HELP
command. For example, type HELP MAKE at the GIM LISTS prompt.
The APPROX Command...
The APPROX command means exactly the same thing as the
CASESENS OFF command. See the CASESENS section below for
more details.
The CASESENS Command...
CASESENS is an abbreviation for "case sensitivity". Case
sensitivity is a term that refers to whether or not GIM LISTS
pays attention to whether a character string is in upper or
lower case.
In other words, if case sensitivity is OFF, GIM LISTS will
treat "Vermont", "vermont", and "VERMONT" as the same place
name. Any search for "Vermont" will also find references to
"vermont", "VERMONT", and for that matter, "VeRmOnT".
On the other hand, if case sensitivity is ON, GIM LISTS will
pay attention to differences in upper and lower case. If you
search for persons born in "Vermont", GIM LISTS will not find
persons born in "vermont".
You must decide which of these searching methods is best for
you. If you prefer case sensitive searches, type CASESENS ON
(or else EXACT, which is the same thing). Otherwise, type
CASESENS OFF (or else APPROX, which is the same thing).
If you type CASESENS all by itself, GIM LISTS will tell you
whether case sensitivity is on or off.
GIM LISTS remembers from one session to the next whether you
have turned case sensitivity on or off. Therefore, you'll
only need to set it once, and then only thereafter when you
change your mind.
The CLEAR Command...
Until you type GO, GIM LISTS remembers what you typed into
the MAKE, FROM, WHERE, and ORDER commands. You may decide
that you don't like what you typed, and you may want to start
over. The CLEAR command does this for you; after typing
CLEAR at the GIM LISTS prompt, anything you have typed into
these four commands is wiped out.
To see what you have typed into the MAKE, FROM, WHERE, and
ORDER commands, use the SHOW command. (See below.)
The COMMANDS Command...
This command tells you what commands GIM LISTS will accept
(APPROX, CASESENS, CLEAR, and so on). It can be useful to
jog your memory, but otherwise, it's pretty boring.
The DISPLAY, FILE, PRLIST, and PRINT Commands...
These commands are all related, and are all used to display
existing lists.
First, a quick summary:
DISPLAY -- display the PRLIST list on the screen
FILE -- send the PRLIST list to a named file
PRINT -- print the PRLIST list on the printer
PRLIST -- tell GIM LISTS which list to display
Now, a little more detail:
Let's say you want to display a list. If you were just to
type the DISPLAY command, GIM LISTS wouldn't know what you
wanted to display -- All Persons? All Families? All Notes?
Something else? -- and would complain. To keep it from
complaining, you first have to tell it what list you want to
display, by typing the PRLIST command.
For example, let's say you have a number of lists to choose
from, and you want to display the one called "Octogenarians".
At the GIM LISTS prompt, type "PRLIST Octogenarians" and
press the enter key.
GIM LISTS now knows what you want to display, so you can type
DISPLAY at the GIM LISTS prompt and press the enter key. If
the Octogenarians list is a list of persons, you'll see a
list of persons' names displayed to the screen.
(Note that it's not necessary to type PRLIST in all cases.
In some situations, such as just after you've created a new
list, GIM LISTS assumes that the new list is the one you want
to DISPLAY, so the PRLIST command is only necessary if you
want to DISPLAY something besides the latest list.)
You can display more about these people than just their
names, though. You can use the DISPLAY command to include
their pin and gin numbers, birth dates, death places, burial
source notes, or whatever. For details on this, see the
section below entitled "How to Get the Most Out of the
DISPLAY Command".
You can also send lists to the printer or to a file. To do
so, use FILE or PRINT commands instead of the PRINT command.
If you type FILE OCTO.LST, GIM LISTS will send the list to a
file on your disk with the name OCTO.LST. If you type PRINT,
GIM LISTS will send the list to the print device -- usually
LPT1 -- that you selected in the Setup Area.
The EXACT Command...
The EXACT command means exactly the same thing as the
CASESENS ON command. See the CASESENS section above for
more details.
The EXIT Command...
This command is identical to the QUIT command, and causes GIM
LISTS to terminate and return to the Multi Area. This same
thing will happen if you press the F10 Key or the Escape Key
at any time.
Note that when you leave GIM LISTS, any lists that you create
are remembered by GIM LISTS until you come back.
The FILE Command...
See the description of the DISPLAY command above for more
information on this command.
The FROM Command...
For details on the FROM Command, see the previous section,
entitled "An Introduction with Basic Examples".
Note that what you type in after the word FROM must be the
name of an existing list, or else GIM LISTS will complain
when you type GO.
Note also that it doesn't matter whether you type the name of
the list in upper, lower, or mixed case; if you type "FROM
all persons", GIM LISTS will know what you mean, even though
the list is actually called "All Persons".
The GO Command...
For details on the GO Command, see the previous section,
entitled "An Introduction with Basic Examples".
The HELP Command...
The HELP command is used to, well, get help.
You can get some help on any of the GIM LISTS commands by
typing HELP <command> and pressing the return key, like this:
HELP COMMANDS
HELP WHERE
HELP PROMPT
You can get help with several other aspects of GIM LISTS by
typing any of these:
HELP OVERVIEW
HELP KEYWORDS
HELP EXAMPLES
And of course, pressing the F9 key will get help at any time.
Some of these HELP commands, and pressing the F9 key, will
bring up the GIM Help windows. For details about getting
around in these windows, see chapter 5, entitled "Getting
Help".
The INTRO Command...
This command repeats the introduction that you see when you
first enter GIM LISTS. This is in case you want to read it
again after it has scrolled off the top of the screen. Like
the COMMANDS command, it can be useful to jog your memory,
but otherwise, it's pretty boring.
The KILL Command...
After you've made a number of lists, you'll find that you
don't need or want some of them anymore. When this happens,
it's helpful to tell GIM LISTS to get rid of the ones you
don't want. This frees up computer resources for other
purposes, and also keeps the LISTS command (see below) from
getting unwieldy.
You do this with the KILL command. Type "KILL <list name>"
at the GIM LISTS prompt and press the enter key. Of course,
<list name> must be an existing list, or GIM LISTS will
complain.
Note that you can type "KILL ALL" instead of KILLing each
list individually by hand. KILL ALL will remove all the
lists (except All Persons, All Families, and All Notes),
which can be a handy shortcut. Naturally, this means that
you can't name a list "ALL", or the KILL command will get
confused.
The LISTS Command...
After you've made a number of lists with GIM LISTS, it's easy
to forget what you named them, which ones haven't been
KILLed, and which ones are still available.
To see what lists you have available, use the LISTS command.
When you type LISTS at the GIM LISTS prompt, you'll see a
table that looks more or less like this:
P 361 All Persons
F 97 All Families
N 964 All Notes
P 15 Double Spouses
P 204 Females
N 12 Other Parents
The P, F, or N in the first column means that the named list
is either a list of persons, families, or notes. (You may
also see an X in this column, meaning that it is a list of
places. See the section entitled "Six Different Lists of
Place Names" for details.)
The number in the second column is the number of members of
that list. For example, the list called "Double Spouses"
contains 15 persons, and the list called "Other Parents"
contains 12 notes. (For technical reasons, the size of the
list of All Notes is wildly inaccurate.)
The MAKE Command...
MAKE, followed by a new list name, specifies the name of a
list to be created.
For details on the MAKE Command, see the previous section,
entitled "An Introduction with Basic Examples".
Note that what you type in after the word MAKE must NOT be
the name of an existing list, or else GIM LISTS will complain
when you type GO.
Note also that the combination of upper and lower case that
you type here will be what is used by the LISTS and DISPLAY
commands when this title is written, so choose your case with
care.
The ORDER Command...
To fully understand this command, you should have read the
previous section, entitled "An Introduction with Basic
Examples", and you should have experimented a little with
creating and displaying lists.
Once you've done that, you'll notice that when you display
the contents/members of a list, they are displayed in no
particular order, unless you use the ORDER command.
Without the ORDER command, you create a list like this:
MAKE Direct Ancestors
FROM All Persons
WHERE gin NE 0
GO
You can modify this sequence to include directions on how to
sort the list as it's created by adding the ORDER command,
like this:
MAKE Direct Ancestors
FROM All Persons
WHERE gin NE 0
ORDER surname given birth date
GO
This addition causes the list of direct ancestors to be
sorted alphabetically by surname. If two people have the
same surname, then they are sorted by given name. If two
people have the same surname AND given name, they are sorted
by birthdate.
When the ORDER command is used, you will notice that the
DISPLAY command displays people in the order you specify.
A complete list of the keywords ("surname", "given", etc.)
that are recognized by the ORDER command is given in the
section below entitled "Keywords Used in ORDER Commands".
See that section for more details on the use of the ORDER
command.
Note that use of the ORDER command can slow down the
operation of the GO command. We've used the fastest sorting
algorithm we know of, but nevertheless, if you try to use
ORDER to sort long lists, you may find yourself waiting a
while. Experiment with ORDER, and see what you can get it to
do, but be warned that it slows things down a bit.
The PLACES Command...
The PLACES command is a very powerful, very handy addition to
the GIM LISTS function. It collates all the place names in
your folder into six different lists, sorted and formatted in
six different styles. This function can be very helpful in
locating place names that are misspelled or incomplete.
For details on the PLACES command, see the section below,
entitled "Six Different Lists of Place Names".
The PRINT Command...
See the description of the DISPLAY command above for more
information on this command.
The PRLIST Command...
See the description of the DISPLAY command above for more
information on this command.
The PROMPT Command...
Ordinarily, GIM LISTS prompts you for commands by printing
the words "GIM Lists >". However, if you would like to use
something else as your prompt, you can use this command.
For example, at the GIM LISTS prompt, type:
PROMPT Genealogy is fun!
Then you'll see what the PROMPT command is all about.
The QUIT Command...
This command is identical to the EXIT command, and causes GIM
LISTS to terminate and return to the Multi Area. This same
thing will happen if you press the F10 Key or the Escape Key
at any time.
Note that when you leave GIM LISTS, any lists that you create
are remembered by GIM LISTS until you come back.
The SCRIPT Command...
GIM LISTS is a very powerful tool, but if you use it a lot,
you'll notice that it involves a lot of typing. Some really
powerful WHERE commands can get very long, and it's easy to
miss a typographical error. Some really useful WHERE
commands get used over and over, and it's wasteful to keep
retyping the same commands again and again.
The SCRIPT command is an attempt to alleviate some of this
typing. With the SCRIPT command, you can create a script
file with an ASCII text editor (NOT a word processor!), and
then simply type SCRIPT <file name> from the GIM LISTS
prompt. GIM LISTS will read its commands from this file and
execute them exactly as if you had typed the same commands by
hand.
A SCRIPT command example: ERRORS.SCR...
As an example of the SCRIPT command and of script files,
see the sample script file in Addendum L of this chapter.
When you copy that addendum to a file and strip out the
introduction, call it ERRORS.SCR. Then when you type
SCRIPT ERRORS.SCR at the GIM LISTS prompt, GIM LISTS
will execute the commands in ERRORS.SCR as if you had
typed them in by hand.
The commands in ERRORS.SCR will create a number of lists
of problems or potential problems with the data in your
folder, such as persons who died before they were born,
or were christened before they were born, and so forth.
To take advantage of the ERRORS.SCR script file, go to
the GIM LISTS prompt, type SCRIPT ERRORS.SCR, and wait a
while. When things stop happening, and the script file
is finished, type LISTS at the GIM LISTS prompt to see
what lists have been created.
Feel free to edit the ERRORS.SCR file with your own
editor to add or remove any items you do or don't need.
Note that you can create as many of your own script files as
you want, and keep them for use whenever you repeat a GIM
LISTS search frequently.
The SHOW Command...
Until you type GO, GIM LISTS remembers what you typed into
the MAKE, FROM, WHERE, and ORDER commands. You may want to
verify that you typed a certain command correctly, or you may
just want to see what GIM LISTS thinks you typed.
To do so, use the SHOW command. At the GIM LISTS prompt,
type SHOW and press the enter key. Any MAKE, FROM, WHERE, or
ORDER commands that you have typed so far will be displayed,
with the notation that GIM LISTS is waiting for you to type
the GO command, so that it can begin processing.
To erase what you have typed so far, use the CLEAR command.
(See above.)
Note that GIM LISTS remembers what you typed until it makes a
non-empty list. If you type GO, and GIM LISTS doesn't find
any members to put into your new list, it will retain the
values for MAKE, FROM, WHERE, and ORDER. This has two
purposes:
One purpose is that this way, you can review what you
typed in case you feel that what you typed should have
yielded a non-empty list. Often, having a second look
with the SHOW command can shed helpful light on what
went wrong in situations like this one.
Another purpose is that if the command you typed failed
to produce a non-empty list, you may want to revise the
WHERE command slightly -- e.g., change the search from
mothers under age 14 to mothers under age 17 -- without
having to retype the whole MAKE-FROM-WHERE-ORDER
sequence.
GIM LISTS adds a handy feature for new users: if you choose,
you can tell GIM LISTS to SHOW you your MAKE commands at each
prompt. This provides a helpful way to verify that GIM LISTS
understood what you typed the way you wanted it to. It also
helps to jog your memory.
This feature is initially on by default; however, you'll find
that as you become more familiar with GIM LISTS, this feature
becomes less useful, and eventually, actually an annoyance.
You can turn this feature off by typing SHOW OFF, and you can
turn it back on by typing SHOW ON.
The WHERE Command...
For details on the WHERE Command, see the previous section,
entitled "An Introduction with Basic Examples". Also, see
the next three sections, entitled "Operators Used in WHERE
Commands", "Operands Used in WHERE Commands", and "Conjunc-
tions Used in WHERE Commands".
Note that the WHERE command can be as simple or as involved
as you want it to be. When entering longer, more involved
WHERE commands, be very careful that you type what you mean
to type; this is an area where it's easy to make typing
mistakes.