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1997-04-06
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================================================================================
The Quoteriser, Version 1.00
User's Guide
================================================================================
Contents:
1. Installation
2. How the Quoteriser Works
(a) Quote Databases
(b) Author Databases
3. Using the Quoteriser
(a) Using Databases
(b) Managing Quotes
(c) Managing Authors
(d) Quoteriser HTML
(e) Settings
4. Quotes of the Day
5. The Future
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Installation
The zip file, when expanded (with -d if using PKZIP), automatically creates the
directory structure assumed by the Quoteriser. The files are:
doc\COPYING - a copy of the GNU General Public License
doc\intro.txt - an introduction to the Quoteriser
doc\quoter.txt - this file
bin\quoter.exe - the Quoteriser's main program
bin\qotd.exe - the Quote-of-the-Day program
bin\quoter.ico - the Quoteriser icon
Of course, you don't need the documentation to run the program. However, the
Quoteriser expects a file "..\doc\COPYING" to exist when you try to view the
license from within the program and if you move the .EXE's, this function will
no longer work correctly.
You will probably want to create icons on your desktop to start up quoter.exe
(the interface to the database manager) and qotd.exe. Put a shadow of the
qotd.exe object in your StartUp folder if you want a quote to be displayed every
time you boot up.
If you decide to move the Quoteriser, the other file you will need to move is
bin\QUOTER.INI. This contains the settings information for the Quoteriser. It
is created by the Quoteriser main program when it needs it (i.e. when you
select non-default settings or set a Quote-of-the-Day database).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. How the Quoteriser Works
Every quote in a Quoteriser database is associated with a unique alpha-numeric
code that can be up to 19 characters long. Every author in an author database
similarly has a unique code up to 19 characters long. These codes are what the
program uses to uniquely identify the information stored in a database.
(a) Quote Databases
A quote database is composed of two files, <database>.qdb and <database>.tdb,
where <database> can be any valid file name stem. Both files are GNU DBM files.
The .qdb file stores the following information about the quote:
* a code identifying the quote's author [up to 19 characters]
* a string containing information about the quote's source [up to 99
characters]
* up to five keywords describing the subject matter of the quote [each
keyword can be up to 19 characters long]
The author code is the one assigned to the quote's author in the author
database being used. Of course, there is nothing stopping anyone from having
the same author in two different databases with a different code, and this
may cause trouble when using the system. It is not recommended that the user
keeps more than one author database.
The .tdb file stores the text of the quote itself, which can be typeset using
simple HTML commands (see below).
(b) Author Databases
An author database is also composed of two files, <database>.adb and
<database>.ddb, where <database>, again, can be any valid file name stem.
Both these files are also GDBM files.
The .adb file stores the following information about the author:
* the author's given name [up to 49 characters]
* the author's surname [up to 49 characters]
* the author's year of birth
* the author's year of death
The .ddb file contains a free-form biographical entry for the author, which can
also be typeset with simple HTML commands.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Using the Quoteriser
All real interaction with the Quoteriser is done via the main program. This
application allows the user to manage quote and author databases in all the
obvious ways.
(a) Using Databases
Quote and author databases are open and closed like any other file using the
File menu. You must have a quote database open to be able to use to use quote
management functions, and you must have an author database open to be able to
use author management functions. Only one database of each type may be open at
once.
When you try to open a database, you will be presented with the standard OS/2
file dialogue, which shows *.qdb files (for quote databases) or *.adb files (for
author databases). You can open a database that already exists, or create a new
one by typing in the name of your new database. The *.tdb and *.ddb files are
assumed from the *.qdb or *.adb file you are using; hence, you should not rename
your database files to a non-standard convention.
In addition to the open and close functions on the file menu, you will see two
more options to re-organise the quote database and the author database. These
functions will de-fragment the open database. When data is deleted from a
database, it leaves a gap. The Quoteriser will try to fill these gaps when new
information is stored in the database; however, if you have done a lot of
deletions without any additions, you might wish to pack your database to save
some disk space.
(b) Managing Quotes
Once you have opened a quote database, you can manipulate the quotes within
by adding more quotes, editing old quotes or deleting old quotes. You can also
view quotes, and perform some simple searches on them.
To add a new quote, choose "Add" from the Quote menu. A dialogue box will
pop up into which you can enter information about the quote. You *must* enter
a quote code; everything else is optional. If there is already a quote with
the same code in your database, that quote will be overwritten with the new one.
In the "Keywords" box, type in your chosen keywords separated by spaces.
If you press the "Text" button, you will be able to edit the text of the quote
itself using the editor of your choice (see "Settings" below). Text can be
entered in a simple HTML format, described below. Save the text and exit the
editor to come back to the Quoteriser.
Press "Okay" to add your new quote to the database, or "Cancel" if you have
changed your mind. Warning: you will not be warned if a quote this code already
exists.
To edit a pre-existing quote, choose "Edit" from the Quotes menu. You will
be given a list of all the codes of quotes in the database, and asked to choose
one to edit. Once you have chosen one, you will be taken to the same dialogue
box as for adding a quote, where you can edit the information as you see fit.
To delete a pre-existing quote, choose "Delete" from the Quotes menu. As for
editting, you will be presented with a list of codes to choose from. Choose the
offending code and the quote will be deleted.
You can view quotes by choosing "View" from the Quotes menu. A sub-menu will
appear, allowing to choose which codes are displayed:
"List all" lists all quotes in the database.
"By keyword" lists only quotes with a given keyword, which you will be asked
to type in.
"By text" lists only quotes with a given sub-string, which you will be
asked to type in.
"By author" lists all quotes by a given author; you will need to supply the
program with the appropriate author code.
(c) Managing Authors
Once you have opened an author database, you can manipulate the authors within
exactly the same way as you edit the quote database.
When viewing authors, you are able to choose which codes are displayed:
"List all" lists all authors in the database.
"By name" lists only the authors with a name you type in; this can be
either their first or last name.
"By description" lists only the authors containing a given sub-string in
their description.
(d) Quoteriser HTML
Both quote texts and author descriptions can be typeset using simple HTML
tags:
<i> ... </i> - enclosed text is in italics
<b> ... </b> - enclosed text is in bold
<br> - insert a line break here
<p> - insert a paragraph break here
These tags are hopefully sufficient for the purpose of reproducing quotes
in their original form. At this stage, I may add the <pre> tag in a later
version, but I will not add any other tags unless someone can convince me
that they would be useful in reproducing quotes.
You can also use HTML macros beginning with the '&' character, such as:
& - ampersand
< - less-than sign
> - greater-than sign
Since '&', '<', and '>' have special meaning in HTML, you *must* use the above
macros to be able to typeset these characters. In fact, all of ISO Latin-1 is
supported; however, the program blindly sends characters to the screen using
their ISO Latin-1 number. Hence, non-ASCII characters may not turn out correctly
if your font and codepage do not match ISO Latin-1 (which, I'm afraid, counts
for most of them, I think). Other character sets are not supported at all, I'm
afraid.
You can find the complete list of ISO Latin-1 characters and HTML macros from
the W3 Consortium at http://www.w3.org.
(e) Settings
This release of the Quoteriser has just one setting, albeit a setting that
comes in two parts. This is the selection of the editor to be used to edit
quote text and author biographies. If this is not set, the Quoteriser will
use the OS/2 system editor, E.EXE. Any editor that saves its output in normal
plain text or HTML format should do; however, many HTML editors add a lot of
extra code that the Quoteriser does not understand and will only use up your
disk space and memory area to no purpose.
In the "Editor" field of the settings box, type in the name of the program
you want to use as your editor. In the "Paramaters" field, type in the
command-line parameters to pass to your editor. The % symbol represents the
name of the temporary file used by the Quoteriser (i.e. the file to be editted).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Quotes of the Day
Like any other quote-of-the-day program, the Quoteriser's Quote-of-the-Day
program is simply a program which chooses a random quote from a database and
displays it on the screen.
Use the Quoteriser main program to set up the Quote-of-the-Day utility by
choosing the Quote-of-the-Day option on the main menu. This will present you
with a dialogue box which allows you to enter the name of the quote database
and the author database.
The quote database must be set (obviously). The author database is optional;
if you do not set it, your quote will appear without its author. It will also
appear without its author if you don't set an author code, or its author code
is not found in the specified database.
When the quote appears on the screen, you have only one choice of action:
choose "Exit".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. The Future
I hope future versions of the Quoteriser will be improvements upon the humble
version 1.00. In no particular order:
- more friendly choose-quote and choose-author dialogue boxes
- a scrolling main window (for long quotes and biographies)
- regular expression searching of databases
- DLLs to cut executable duplication in quoter.exe and qotd.exe
- better handling of non-English text (but non-Latin languages will probably
have to wait for the W3 Consortium to finalise Unicode).
- various utilities for merging databases, fixing broken databases, etc.
- font and colour selection
- many little improvements to the interface
On-line documentation will also come if I one day decide to part with enough
of my money to buy a copy of IPFC. At the moment, I'm far too stingy. Maybe
I'll HTML it one day...
I will accept feature requests and suggestions at nps@modemss.brisnet.org.au;
whether or not I act them, and how quickly I act them, depends on how desirable
I consider the features, how difficult they are to implement and how much time
I have on my hands (in that order). Please refer to the source code
documentation (qsource.txt) if you want to fiddle with the source code yourself.