No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/INFO/IINFO56.MSA/TEXT_TRACKER.TXT

Text File | 1991-12-11 | 10.5 KB | 183 lines

 > Tracker ST 3.0  STR Review    "TrackerST 3.0 is a terrific program.."
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                 From ST Report November 15, 1991 No.7.45


                         ***  TRACKER/ST 3.0  ***
                THE MAILING LIST/DATABASE & MAIL MERGE TOOL



 by Dana P. Jacobson



      Do you maintain your user group membership listing?  Do you keep
 track of newsletter subscriptions?  Do you have hundreds of business cards
 all over the place?  Does your business maintain any kind of customer
 list?  Do you send out regular mailings to clients?  Do you need an easy
 way to send out those 'thank you' letters for wedding/graduation gifts?
 Class reunion coming up soon?

      If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions; or you can
 substitute a similar task - Tracker/ST is the software tool that will do
 it all, and much more.

      Assuming that most of you belong to a user group or any organized
 club or association, there will probably be a membership list.  Most or-
 ganizations have annual memberships, newsletters, dues, etc.  Tracker/ST
 will allow you to easily keep track (no pun intended!) of members' yearly
 dues and newsletter subscription renewal dates.  Also, you can maintain
 unlimited notes about each member and/or subscriber.  Tracker/ST will also
 allow you to create letters, reminders, and announcements to the member-
 ship without the need to type each one individually.  It even has its
 own text editor for creating letters and various notes.  Tracker/ST also
 allows you to create, edit, and save multiple mailing label formats.

      The minimum hardware requirements are a 1-meg machine (color or mono)
 and a double-sided floppy drive.  It's recommended that you use Tracker/ST
 on a hard drive system because of speed and the capability of maintaining
 large databases.  Obviously, you'll probably want to have a printer for
 taking advantage of the program's hard copy features (letters, labels,
 etc.).  Installation of the program is quick and painless.  Once you've
 got the program installed, finish reading the manual and take advantage of
 the couple of tutorials included.  Once you've done so, using the program
 will be very easy, almost intuitive.

      Tracker/ST has three main areas: The "Entry Screen", the "Power
 Station", and the "Quick Letter".  Each area has its own drop-down menus,
 buttons, and keyboard commands (quick keys) to make moving around and ac-
 cessing various functions a snap.  Whichever method, or combination, works
 best for your - use.

      The "Entry Screen" is pretty straightforward.  This is the area where
 you'll enter all of the data that you want to include in your listings.
 This includes first & last names; a salutation (how you want to address
 this person in your letters); company name (if any); 2 street address
 fields; city, state, ZIP,and country; home, work, and FAX numbers.  There
 are also fields for a "category", "rank", "date", "I.D. number", short
 "notes", "source", and the option to include "long notes" for each entry.
 These last few fields can be set up for your various needs.  For instance:
 category can signify a member or non-member; rank can be used to determine
 months left in membership or subscription; date can signify renewal time;
 I.D. number is self-explanatory (or you can devise something entirely dif-
 ferent); notes can be used for anything, usually a reminder of some kind
 (ex.: John has 20 friends who are buying STs and want to join the group
 next month!); source could signify how each member learned of the group;
 and long notes can be used to create a memo on each person entered which
 might include info about each member's system, favorite programs, etc.
 The Entry Screen also allows you to move back and forward, one entry at a
 time; or you can fast-forward or rewind which will display each entry
 quickly.  You also have the ability to add a person at any time; search
 for any entry, edit an entry, or delete one.

      One of the best and unique features of the Entry Screen is the
 ability to set defaults for _any_ of the fields that you wish to include.
 In one of the drop-down menus, you can access a "default" menu and fill in
 whichever defaults you wish to include, saving you the trouble of typing
 them all in individually for each entry.  For example, if your entries are
 all from the same city, state, and zip code - you can put those items in
 the default menu and those fields will already be 'completed' when you
 enter new names (provided you chose to use defaults!).  It makes a time-
 consuming task a lot easier.

      You can create new databases, load an existing one, rename an exis-
 ting one, delete one, import names into a current database, and more.  You
 can edit, browse, update, view, and sort any and all fields, at any time,
 as well.  And, there are even more options available!

      The "Power Station" is another of the integral areas of Tracker/ST.
 The Power Station is the area where you can display the various Tracker
 reports that are available.  It's here that you can also print labels and
 mail merges.  The Power Station consists of three main areas: "Report Set-
 tings", "Mail Merge Settings", and "Label Settings".  You're also given
 the opportunity in this area to set a "filter" so you can display only
 those entries matching the filter setting, i.e., all entries listed from
 Texas.

      The "Report Settings" area is defined by choices you make in a
 Reports drop-down menu.  You can display the report type, primary sort,
 and grouping.  You have the option to display headers and footers; and
 also choose between a full or summarized report.

      The "Mail Merge" settings are also defined from a drop-down menu. The
 primary setting here is which letter template you want to use (if any).
 The other setting options refer to how you want to position various parts
 of your letter: top margin to allow for pre-printed letterheads; and date,
 return address, and sender's address offsets.

      The "Label Settings" are fairly obvious.  Just select the correct
 settings from the menus.  The label area is also where you can select your
 printer type.

      At the bottom of the Power Station screen, there are six selector
 buttons, two for each of the three settings areas.  The "Run Report" but-
 ton will allow you to run a report, according to your settings, to either
 the screen (a great preview option!) or to actually print out a copy.
 "Page Width/Length" allows you to set your paper size (width by characters
 and length by lines).  "Mail Merge-Print" allows you to determine how your
 merge will be sorted (filter) and then the merge will print.  "Form Feed"
 will allow you to send a form feed command to your printer, if needed.
 "Labels Print"  allows you to set a filter also (which entries to print
 labels), how many of each, and then print.  "Test Print Labels" is a good
 way to determine if all of your label settings has been done properly for
 the type of labels you're using.  To save those expensive laser printer
 label pages, test on plain paper first and see if they line up correctly.

      The final major area in Tracker/ST is the "Quick Letter" area.  It is
 here that you can use any of the Mail Merge letter templates as a single
 letter to any of your database entries.  Different than a mail merge, a
 quick letter is sent to only one person rather than those meeting the mail
 merge filter.  You can edit any of the mail merge templates before prin-
 ting without making any permanent changes to the original template.  It's
 like being able to add some personal remarks to the template and having
 the ability to maintain the original letter for future use!

      The Quick Letter screen has selector buttons helping you to select
 which Mail Merge template to use in a Quick Letter; and others to help you
 determine to which person you wish to send the letter.  The "Build Quick
 Letter" selector button prints the letter to the screen, addressed to the
 person selected.  In this area, you can still do any editing that you
 like.

      Tracker's text editor, according to the manual, "...contains may
 powerful features such as automatic reformatting, variable margins, and
 different style attributes."  The text editor also has abilities of typi-
 cal word processors also, such as cut, copy & paste, delete/insert lines,
 etc.  Available text styles include italics, bold, and underlining.  There
 is also an optional ruler to set margins.  Unlike most text editors,
 however, you cannot move Tracker's around on your hard disk, or to flop-
 pies.  Tracker's text files are part of the program itself, so must remain
 where "placed" by the program.

      According to Nevin Shalit, many of the suggestions made by Tracker
 users have made it to this upgrade.  Some of the "significant" (my term,
 not Nevin's) are duplicate name warnings, telephone dialing (this may NOT
 be used as a telecommunications program!), auto salutation field,
 unlimited filters, and the ability to open a second file in the background
 (allowing you to copy names from the Entry Screen).  Also, the export/im-
 port menus are now combined into one menu item.

      Tracker/ST includes printer support for Epson printers (9 and 24
 pin), the NEC 24 printers, Diablo-compatible daisy wheel printers, the
 SLM804, and the HP DeskJet and DeskJet Plus, BubbleJet printers,
 LaserBrain printers, and the Star NX 10 printers.  Supposedly, the
 Panasonic laser printers are supported using the HP driver, but I had no
 luck with it.  It's been promised that the problem will be alleviated
 shortly.  There's also an area within the manual that describes how you
 can create your own printer driver by just writing the correct printer
 codes into your favorite word processor (save it in ASCII).  A sample is
 included in the manual, or display any of the .PRT files on your Tracker
 disk for more.  It will also help if you have your printer manual handy to
 find out the correct codes required!  I managed to write a driver for my
 Panasonic laser, but was only successful getting italics and underlining
 to work; bold is being stubborn!!

      Overall, if the need presents itself in such a way as I described
 early on in the review, TrackerST 3.0 is a terrific program to utilize.  I
 recommend it highly, and wish that I had picked it up earlier.  If you
 have an earlier version, upgrade it now or at the Chicago Atari Show, be-
 cause the upgrade is significant according to Nevin.