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Peter's Many Things v 2.1b for Windows c 1996 by Peter Neuendorffer Released Mar 6, 1996 The consultant for this version was John Cofsky. Manual page Introduction = About this software 1 Putting in Data = How to store information 2 Views = How to group information 3 Edit Functions = Group editing functions 4 Options = Customization 5 Files = Three files available 5 Small Window = Easy copy paste from Windows 6 Macros = Keyboard data entry shortcut 6 Short List = short list of data used often 6 If you find yourself with scraps of paper all over your desk from phone calls, to do lists, ideas, whatever, you will find Peter's Many Things useful. It has many ways of viewing your information, including group copy, paste, delete, and print windows. You may use 800X600 (large font) or 1024X762 or 640X480 screen resolutions. You can now switch between three separate "files" of 800 items each. A serious bug in the Move items and their topics is now fixed. If you like it, please pay for it, it is not free. Send $20.00 to Peter Neuendorffer 1399 Commonwealth Ave #11 Allston, MA 02134. Email petern@channel1.com The file is complete in the evaluation version. Note in this manual the word "item" and "thing" are interchangable. Quotation marks are only for emphasis, and don't have to be used for your data entry. This software maintains a list. A "Thing" is a scrap of information that is one line (80 letters) long. In the bottom third of your main window, various Things are displayed, depending on the View Filter on your list. View Filters bring up selected items in the list. The list can be up to 800 lines. You can reverse the order of the list (the actual list is not reversed, just your view of it) by clicking on the checkbox just above and to left of the list. This is useful, as often the most recent items entered will be seen first in reverse order. You can have the software start up in reverse mode -recommended- by checking off "Startup List Reverse" from the Options menu. To move to the top or end of the list as it is currently displayed (whether or not it is in reverse mode) click on one of the two large arrows at the right of the screen. The forward-reverse checkbox determines whether or not the list is in reverse order. The two large arrows on the right move to the top or bottom of the current list. You can opt to remove the clutter of buttons, buy checking off Options/Hide Task Buttons (you can reverse this at any time). All task buttons for Searching are mirrored in the Main Menu "View" and by right clicking the mouse on the main screen. The Edit box buttons are also mirrored in the Main Menu "Edit" and by right clicking the mouse on the main screen. Introduction continued. p 2. Special Features: If you double click on a word in the long white "Thing" data entry box, a View (search) by that word is done. For example, if the current thing reads "Fred is coming next Tuesday", if you click on Fred in the edit bar (not the main list) then all items mentioning Fred will come up in the listbox. Similarily, if you double click on a topic name, all things with that topic will be brought up. Also, to repeat a view, you may click on the small graphic appearing above the list box, to repeat that type of filter. Sometimes when you enter a new thing in, it will not appear in the main list. This is because the new item does not meet the current view's Filter request. This can be disabled with Options/always show new. You may print the current list with File/Print. More on this and on copy/paste/group delete in the Edit/Options help section. A series of view filters may be applied to see different groups of Things. You may filter the list twice at any given time. More on this under Views. Thus you could filter your list by Word (search for word), Date (various date critereon), Topic (you set up your own topics), Important (items can be marked important. A second filter can be drawn from these choices, thus you could search for Word ("Bill") and 2nd search for Important, thus bringing up a list of all items containing the word "bill" and marked important. Second filter is available then the button "second filter" is lit in light blue. -----> You can get to a speed menu with Right Click on the Main Screen. Customize the colors with Options/Edit Color and Options/Background. Putting in Data Putting in Data involves filling in the"Thing" (the long white bar) and a Topic. You can use this to add a new topic name, by typing in the new topic. You can also add and maintain topics from Edit/Topic Maintenance. The topic field stays on the last thing entered. Simply reset it to [none] or another topic for further item entry. If you want the item to be marked Important, click on the Important checkbox. If you wish it date-stamped, click on "stamp date". Stamping the date can be automatic by checking on Options/Auto Stamp date. If you manually enter a date in a Thing, make sure it is in slash format, with month,day,year numbers entered. When you have filled in the new item, and topic (optional), and have the importance set, click on ADD to add the item to your list. Editing functions include, (afer clicking an a thing in the list): Replace: work with Thing already in list. Move: move the Thing to a new place in the list. Click on a thing, click Move, then click on the new place desired. The main view is changed to Forward/Complete Combine: Choose an item from the current list, then "Combine". Choose another item to combine with the first, then OK. Views p 3. View Filters: viewing the data These are the task bar buttons, or from the Main Menu, "View" View Filters provide a way to look at your data in different ways. When a Filter button is clicked, the main list at the bottom of the screen will have different contents. The entire list is still there, you are just looking at different portions of it depending on the View Filter. With all views except "complete" you are given the option to move the search list to the end of you main list. This is useful when you select Reverse by clicking on the checkbox to the left and top of the list. When you have filtered your list, and then enter a new item, the new item will only appear in the current view list if it meets the condition of the current view. However the new item has in fact been added. (See Help/Options) Here are the View Filters: Complete: Your complete list. By Word: This is a search by word(s). You may also search for two things with AND, or either one or another thing with OR. You can do this in a single filter, or even in the 2nd filter. A drop down list shows your previous requests. Also, in a single filter (Plain) you may specify whole words, so for example "book" would be found but not "bookish" where your request is part of a larger word. Your last primary search causes a graphic to be updated corresponding to the icon for each type of search. This graphic is immediately above the list box of things. You can click this icon to repeat the same type of search as the last one. Important: Brings up a list of only the things marked important. By Topic: You choose a topic name, and the list will now show those things having that topic. You can also add a topic (optional) when you enter the thing, or replace it. By Date: You have choices of all things on a certain date, those which were enter today, those on or before a given date, those on or since a certain date, and those between two dates (inclusive). An item has to be stamped with the date for it to be recognizedi in a date search. Edit functions p 4. These are functions for editing large portions of your data. The Main Menu / Edit menu has several ways to handle your data. Copy brings up a copy of your current Window, with the same filter of items. Click on those items you wish to copy, then click on Group Copy. Things are now in the Windows Clipboard. Paste when clicked displays the current contents of the Windows Clipboard. You may have copied a paragraph of a story into the clipboard previously. Then click on those items you wish to Paste to the end of the main list. Then Click Group Paste. Group Delete functions like Copy, except the selected items will be deleted from your list. The items are not copied to the Windows Clipboard. Complete list allows a listing like the Filter Complete - the complete list, but the list is much roomier, and the screen is not cluttered by controls. You have no editing functions in this complete list. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edit/Topic Maintenance: Bear in mind that this section has a direct bearing on your data. You can add a new topic, delete an existing topic, rename a topic -including renaming a topic to another topic to consolidate; You can sort the main list by topic, or Sort the topic name list itself. From this screen you can also unmark important items. When deleting a topic, you have the option (a checkbox) to also remove the data assigned to that topic. You can assign a group of items to a given topic by selecting "Group Assign" Options p 5. There are several options to control how the program behaves. Starred items are recommended set to on. Screen: * Reverse list on Start: Always show the list in reverse when it is first loaded. Arrange screen: You can put the list of things at the top or at the bottom of the screen. Edit bar color: You can customize the color of the main edit bar, and opt to have the background screens remain black. Data control: * Auto Stamp Date:when checked, when the current data bar is cleared, the current date will be stamped. * Follow Highlighted Item: When checked, the software will track the highlighted item into the next View Filter you choose, if it is also present in the new View. * Always Show New: when clicked on, when you add or replace an item, it will temporarily appear in the main white list, even if it doesn't meet the current condition. For example, if you do a Filter by Word ("hello"); then if you add in a new thing, "this is goodbye", then the new thing will appear in the window. When Always Show New is not checked (off) then this new item would not be displayed in the filtered window, although it would still be added to the main list. Ask Shortlist Question: (recommended off) You will be asked every time you enter an item if you also want it on the Shortlist. Automatic Paste Screen: You may hide the intermediate Paste screen that appears when you press paste. Then, if you choose Paste, the clipboard will be put in the current List, with out asking you first which items you want. Reverse Paste will cause the items on the clipboard (or in your paste screen where you select items) to be pasted in reverse order to the list. You may choose to hide many of the buttons with "Hide Task "Buttons." This may be reversed later. The menus for View and Edit contain all of the commands that are no longer seen as buttons, making the screen less cluttered. Also, you can right-click the mouse at any time on the main screen to get to editing and view functions. --------------------------------------------------------------- Files You can switch between 3 separate files of 800 things each with File/Open. If you wish to move items including the topics for the items between files, use Edit/Move to File, and select those items from the current view which you wish to move. You can set the names for the files from File/Open as well. You needn't use file names, just the word you wish to describe the file. Files are color coded by the background of the main screen. Small Window p 6. You can easily copy lines of information from other applications into this software. Click on "Small Window" on the main screen. A small window appears which will float on top of other applications. Open the application you wish to copy data from - such as Notepad, or a word processor. Highlight the text lines to copy, and choose Edit/Copy from the application. Then click on Paste in the Small Window, and you will get a large screen to choose the items to paste to Peter's Many Things. Choose "Select All" and Group Paste to paste them all, or click on the items to paste, then Group Paste. You will be brought back to your desktop as it was. To leave the Small Window click on "To Program." To Quit the Peter's Many Things program altogether (the new data will be saved) click on Quit. Macros If you have frequently used words for entering in Things or Topics, you may set up keyboard macros from Options/Macros. Choose Options/Macros. You will be assigning a word(s) of up to 20 characters to be associated with Alt-letter combinations. For example, you could choose C from the listbox, then type in Company. And OK. Then from the main data entry Window, on either the long "things" edit box, or the short "topic" editbox, if you type Cntrl-C (the control key held down and press C) the word "Company" will be automatically entered. There is one macro list for all files. Short List You may wish to maintain a short list of items you refer to often. When entering in a Thing, before choosing Add as usual to add the item, choose "put on short list" from the edit bar. Now the item is also added to the Short List. If this item is deleted from the main list later, the item will be removed from the short list. To modify the item, you must choose the item at the main screen, modify it, click "addd to Short List" and then Replace. If you only click on Replace, the item will be removed from the shortlist. To call up the short list at any time, click on Short List from the View Filter options at the top of the main screen. There is a separate shortlist for each of your three files. From Options in the main menu, you may elect to have "shortlist question". When this is checked off, you will be prompted every time you enter a thing in the main window if you also wish it to be a shortlist item. It is recommended that you leave this item off. To recap, edit a new item, and click on to short list, then click on Add. To modify an item on the shortlist, select and edit the item, click on to short list then Replace. All items on the short list are also items on the main list. Deleting a short list item from the short list still leaves the item intact in the main list. However, deleting an item in the main list will also delete that item from the shortlist. Think of the shortlist items as copies of those on the main list. When replacing an item on the main list, You must click again on "to short list" as well as the Replace button to update the item on the short list.