Shareware 1 2 the Maxx/sw_1.zip/sw_1/DBASE/CDS102.ZIP/CDSCAN.SCN

Text File | 1992-05-29 | 23KB | 624 lines

           CD SCAN Version 1.02 Copyright (c) 1992 By Joseph Dunn.
                         All rights reserved.



                              USER MANUAL













Foreword:

This project has taken many hours to complete. I would appreciate it if due
respect was given to my hard efforts and you were honest enough to register
your copy if you continue to use it after a 30 day trial period. See the
README.1ST file for more information about registration.

A bit about me: I am a blind student studying at The Flinders University of
South Australia. I enjoy listening to music, playing drums and being a
friend. I hope to complete my B.SC. degree and major in Computer Science
and use this as a basis to go on writing software to aid the disabled.

Credits: Special thanks to: - my girl friend Joanne Pearce for her love and
support, - to my family who try desperately hard to tear me away from my
machine, - To Rohan Lewis for his help with colour choices and other
suggestions - to Tony Galliford for his help and suggestions - The LORD
JESUS CHRIST who is my inspiration and saviour - to you for choosing this
software.


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Contents: Page

Foreword ____________________________________________1
Credits ____________________________________________ 1
Contents ___________________________________________ 2
Introduction _______________________________________ 3
Installation and system requirements _______________ 3
How Cd Scan works __________________________________ 7
Getting started ____________________________________ 8
Entering data ______________________________________ 9
Quitting Cd Scan __________________________________ 12
Browsing your cd collection _______________________ 13
Pasting data to file ______________________________ 16
Searching _________________________________________ 18
Printing __________________________________________ 20
Pack (house keeping) ______________________________ 21
Errors and Trouble Shooting _______________________ 23
Final Word ________________________________________ 25



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INTRODUCTION:

Cd Scan is a powerful music cataloging system specifically designed for
cataloging a compact disk collection. Up to 1200 cds each containing up to
30 tracks may be accommodated on the registered version.

The program includes a powerful and flexible search facility, a quick scan
browse facility and the ability to print a short or long form listing of
all compact disks.

You will never have to guess how many tracks can fit on the side of a tape
again because Cd Scan also gives you the ability to calculate track times
for recording purposes and A special "Pasting" function is available to aid
in creating cassette labels.

A "house Keeping" facility is included to always ensure optimum performance
after many changes have been made to the catalog.

Installation and system requirements:


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To run Cd Scan you need an IBM compatible with at least 256k ram and DOS
2.11 or later. A hard disk is recommended for fastest and most reliable
performance.

Cd Scan should be distributed in a self extracting archive file, that is, a
file which when run, extracts files out of itself. These files should be
placed in a directory by themselves. For the uninitiated, a directory is a
place on the disk which contains files belonging to a particular group,
i.e. all these files belong to Cd Scan and therefore should be placed in an
area by themselves to distinguish there function from say your word
processor files.

To make a directory and place Cd Scan into it do the following: Exit any
application you may be running and get to the DOS prompt. It may look
something like

C>

From this point type:


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CD\

(after pressing enter) type

MD CD-SCAN

(after pressing enter), type:

CD\CD-SCAN

(and press enter again)

Place the disk with the Cd Scan files on it into drive A and type:

COPY A:\*.*

then, after pressing enter again, type:

CDS102


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Several messages will be displayed concerning the extraction process.

Once you have been returned to the DOS prompt, you may run Cd Scan.

See your DOS manual about creating batch files if you wish to run Cd Scan
from a batch file or see the appropriate documentation if you wish to run
Cd Scan from a menu program.

The command to run Cd Scan is:

CDS






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A sample batch file which can be typed in from the DOS prompt follows:

CD\BATS
COPY CON CDS.BAT
@ECHO OFF
CLS
C:
CD\CD-SCAN
CDS
CD\
^Z

How Cd Scan works:

Cd Scan maintains two special files on disk, one contains the main text of
the compact disk data and the other is an electronic index for quick access
to the cds. Like a book's index, this file basically contains a key and
reference field for all cds. You, the user will not directly come in
contact with either files but you must be made aware of their presence and
warned not to modify, move or delete these special "data" files. Cd scan

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also creates text files for printing and editing and these will be
discussed later (in the section on printing and pasting).

Cd Scan communicates with you via menus. You select an item from a menu by
pressing the indicated letter or in the case of the main menu, you can move
the highlight bar with the cursor keys to highlight the item you wish to
select and then press enter.

Getting Started:

Run Cd Scan by typing CDS (enter) or by choosing it from your menu system.

Your screen clears and a menu bar is written across the top of your screen
with the item Browse highlighted. By pressing the left and right cursor
keys, you can move the highlight bar to any of the six items.

At this point, selecting some of these items will result in a warning being
displayed to the effect that your index is empty. This is because your
index currently contains no cds. In fact, the only options available to you
as a new user are the option of Entering new data and the option of leaving


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(quitting) the program.

Entering data:

Well, lets get the show on the road! Lets begin by entering a compact disk
into the system.

Select Enter by either pressing e or in the manner discussed above.

Cd Scan keeps track of several items of information about your cds. These
are: The Artist, Title, Track times, Track names, and a short comment about
the cd.

In entering any data, the following keys may be used:

left and right cursor keys: move cursor left or right one space,

back space: move the cursor one space to the left and delete the character
there,


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delete: delete the character at the current cursor position,

home: move the cursor to the first character in the field

end: move the cursor to the last character in the field

insert: toggle between insert or over-strike mode.

enter: give completed data to program

escape: quit operation.

Briefly: the cursor is the flashing square which appears when you are asked
for a response and which indicates where the next character will be placed
on the screen.

Insert mode is where characters typed are inserted before other characters
on the line rather than over the top of them as in over-strike. You will
notice that all characters typed will be converted to uppercase. This
feature standardizes all data as many publishing companies can't make up

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their minds about how the information on cd covers should be printed. If
all text is in one case it is faster to search through.

After you have typed in the Artist name, and are happy with it you should
tell the system that you are finished by pressing enter as in all cases of
entering data. (If you make a mistake, don't worry, you can correct it
later).

Cd Scan will now respond with a prompt asking you to type the Title of the
cd. After you have typed in the Title of the cd and pressed enter the
screen will display a box with three columns in it and the artist and title
centered above the box.

This box will become familiar to you as you use the program. The three
columns are the track number (1..30) in the registered version, the time
(mm:ss) and the track name. You will be asked to enter the second two
pieces of information. If you don't wish to enter a time in, leave it blank
by just pressing enter.Once all the tracks have been entered in, press
enter on a name field and you will be asked to type in a comment for the
cd. If you don't wish to include a comment then just press enter until the

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box disappears or press the escape key.

Once the data for a cd has been entered, the program will store the cd on
disk and add its artist name and title to the index. (Cd Scan will
automatically sort the index each time an addition is made)

Repeat this enter process until you have several cds in the index.

Quitting Cd Scan:

If you have had enough for this session and wish to quit the program, you
may select this option from the main menu or just press escape until you
are asked if this is your real intention. If you press escape again, the
quit will be cancelled and you will not exit the program. If you answer y
for yes and press enter (as for all yes/no responses) you will leave Cd
Scan and return to DOS.

Browsing your cd collection:

Once the index contains 1 cd you will be able to browse.

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Select Browse from the main menu and two boxes will be displayed, the
number of cds in the index will be written in place of the bar menu and the
bottom line (status line) will display several options.

The two boxes (or windows) contain a list of artist names and cd titles. A
highlight bar will appear marking an artist and title. You may browse
through the cds using the following keys:

up/down: move the highlight bars up or down one cd, page up/down: move the
bars forward or backward a page at a time, home/end: move the bars to the
first or last cd in the index. escape: return to the main menu.

Note: the cd highlighted will be referred to as the current cd.

If you press enter on the current cd, the familiar box first encountered in
the Enter option along with several other items will be displayed. A red
colon will also be placed on the first time of the first track. This colon
indicates the current track. You may move this colon up and down with the
following keys:


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up/down: move colon up or down a track, page up/down: move the colon to the
top of the next screen of tracks if appropriate, home/end: move the colon
to the first or last track on the cd.

The options on the status line include the following: ALt+a add the time of
the current track to what is already in the total time box. ALT+s subtract
the time of the current track from what is already in the total time box.
ALT+c clear the time box. ALT+t add the total of all the tracks on this cd
to what is already in the total time box.

Note: times will not be accumulated above 99:59. If an attempt is made to
add times that total more than this, or to subtract times until total is
less than 0 then an error message will alert you. The Time box must then be
cleared using Alt+c

Play with these time functions and practise adding times of different
tracks. You may even return to the browse screen by pressing enter (or
escape) and selecting another cd. Notice that the time box is not cleared.
Make sure you clear the time box if you just want the total of one cd.


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You would have noticed two other functions on the displaying cd screen,
namely ALT+e to edit a field and ALT+p for pasting a track. Editing a field
allows you to make a correction to a miss-typed field. This is where you
can correct a mistake typed in during the entry of data.

Pressing ALT+e will display options corresponding to the field you want to
correct.

You may select a to correct the artist name, t for the title, n for the
current track name, c for the comment or l for the length of the current
track.

Once a selection is made, you are permitted to edit the selected field.

Note: The cursor will be placed on the last character of the field.

In the comment box, you can't move up a line so if you make a further
mistake, just press escape and edit it again. Pressing enter will just
place the cursor on the last character of the next line (or in the case of
a blank line the cursor will be placed at the beginning).

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When you return to the browse screen by pressing enter or escape from the
display screen, the changes will be written to disk and if need be, the
index is resorted.

If you wish to delete a cd altogether, you can do this from the browse
screen. Just press CTRL+d on the cd. You will be asked if you really want
to go ahead with the deletion and then according to your response, the
appropriate action will be taken. (Don't worry if you delete a cd
accidentally, you will be able to undelete it later before tidying up).

Pasting Tracks:

This facility allows the text of the track number, time and name to be
added to a text file for later printing or editing. It is useful in
creating cassette labels or just to keep track of songs with a particular
theme.

From the Display screen, pressing ALT+p will write the artist and title of
the cd once for each paste session and then the track number, time and name
to a text file called TRACKS.TXT. A star will be placed in the right margin

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to show the track has been pasted.

For example, pressing ALT+p the first time you display a cd will write the
artist name and title followed by the current track information, then, for
each track pasted during that display session, just the track information
will be written. An example of what the paste file would look like follows:

AD
COMPACT FAVORITES
01 04:22 ALL CREATION SINGS
04 03:43 WE DRAW THE LINE
07 04:18 GAMES OF CHANCE AND CIRCUMSTANCE
09 04:15 EXILES

AD
RECONSTRUCTIONS
04 04:15 EXILES
08 03:45 HIGHWAY TO THE HEART
09 04:20 ONE GOLDEN THREAD

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To edit this file you must use a text editor of some sort although you can
print it as it is from the Print option from the main menu. If this file is
not deleted, it will be added to each time you Paste a track to it. You are
given the option to delete this file from the print paste file option
discussed later (in the print section).


Practise browsing your cds, displaying a cd, adding times etc, until you
become familiar and comfortable with these operations.


Searching:


Cd Scan allows you to search for any part of any field in the catalog.



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Select Search from the Main Menu and you will be asked to enter the search
text, i.e. the pattern to look for. You may enter part of a title, a word
within a song name or a time. You also may enter a time range to locate cds
containing tracks which fit this range.

Once the search text has been entered, the options of searching the artist
field, title field, song name, length or comment are offered. Searching for
by artist or title will be almost instantaneous because of the index. Other
searches will take a bit of time. Once the search has taken place, the
familiar browse screen will be displayed and almost all of the options
available before are offered to you again. The only options you will not be
permitted to do are deleting or editing a cd. You will also note that the
index only contains the cds with the specified search criteria in the field
you specified.

Examples of searching for times: 02:33 search for all cds containing tracks
exactly 02:33 in length. <02:33 search for all cds containing tracks of
length < 02:33 >02:33 search for all cds containing tracks with length >
02:33. 02:33-03:02 search for all cds containing tracks whose lengths are
in the range 02:33 to 03:02 inclusive.

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To exit from the search index, press escape as usual.

Printing:

Printing is very useful because it gets the words out of the computers
grubby hands and onto paper like we are all used to.

The print facility offers you the options of printing an artist list
containing a list of artist names and titles, a full compact disk list
containing all the information you entered except the comments and the
ability to print the paste file you created during your inspection of a
cd's contents.

If you don't have access to a printer directly or just want to edit the
text created by this system to suit special needs, the output of the print
can be directed to a file. After pressing c for catalog or a for artist
list you will be prompted to print to file or printer. If f for file is
selected, the text will be written to a text file called LIST.TXT. The
print facility will automatically print page numbering, a header and work
out how many cds to put on a page so that a cd is not split over a page

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boundary.

If you select p for printer, you will be instructed to align the paper to
the top of form position and then press a key when ready.

Note: The print facility assumes you are using A4 paper and prints 60 lines
to a page.

A printer error will result if you attempt to print without paper or if the
printer is off line. Press a key when you have fixed the problem or press
escape to cancel printing. Printing the Paste file doesn't give you the
option to print to a file as it already is in a suitable format to edit.
After printing this file, you will be asked if you wish to delete the file.
If you respond affirmatively, the file will be deleted and any subsequent
pastes will be written to a new file. If you respond negatively or just
press escape, the file will be left intact and any subsequent pastes will
be appended (or added) to the end of the file.

Pack (house keeping):


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Before we discuss what Pack does, we need to understand a bit about the way
Cd Scan stores its information. We mentioned earlier about an index file, a
file containing a list of artist names and reference pointers to the main
text. The index file is generally the file which undergoes the most
modification when adding or modifying data. In fact, when a cd is deleted,
its reference pointer is just removed from the index and placed in a
special deletion tracking file allowing undeletion which will be discussed
soon. The information stored in the main data file is not modified in any
way, this eliminates the possibility of disk error and minimizes disk
operations. When a cd is modified, a new copy of the cd is added to the end
of the data file and the old pointer in the index is updated to point to
the new copy. After many modifications have been made, the speed of the
program may be affected. This is where Packing comes in. What packing does
is reads each cd from the index and writes a new copy of the data file,
writing the cds in their correct alphabetic order and eliminating obsolete
data. Packing need only be performed when many modifications have been
made. When Pack is selected, a backup of the catalog is automatically made
and an attempt to locate a deletion tracking file is made. If found, you
will be asked if you wish to undelete any cds contained in this file. If
you undelete the cds at this point they will be added to the index again

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and will be accessible. If you choose not to undelete the cds at this point
and go ahead with the packing operation, they will be lost forever as the
data file will be re-written and all references lost. You may just undelete
the cds and not pack the catalog, just press escape after the undeletion
has been performed. If you choose to pack the catalog, you must not disturb
the disk activity in any way until the packing has finished or data may be
lost and unrecoverable.

Note: with a large catalog, an xt type computer or a floppy disk system may
take a while to perform the packing. Please be patient and don't disrupt
the operation.

After packing has finished, searching and browsing will be more efficient
and the main data file will probably be smaller. If something does go wrong
during packing, the old files which were renamed with the BAK extension may
be renamed WITH THE dat EXTENSION and the old catalog restored. See your
DOS manual with regard to renaming files.

Errors and Trouble Shooting:


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If Cd Scan does not run correctly, check the following: Your CONFIG.SYS
file contains at least 15 files and buffers. (See your DOS manual for more
information) Your INDEX.DAT and CDS.DAT files are both present in the same
directory as the CDS.EXE file. If one of these files are missing and you
don't have a backup, contact me for possible suggestions. If Cd Scan runs
too slow, try packing it. If your system locks up on start up, check how
much memory your system has free. You may have to get rid of a TSR or
something.

When the index is either empty or full, you will be notified. If full, no
more cds may be added and if empty, there will be no data to search, browse
or print.

A printer error can usually be rectified just by ensuring that the printer
is on line and that the paper is correctly aligned. If you still have
trouble printing, consult your printer manual.

Note on Deletion: The deletion tracking file, created when a cd is deleted,
is called DELETED.DAT. Do not delete or modify this file or you will not be
able to undelete any cds when you pack the catalog. Do not try to undelete

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a cd from an obsolete deletion tracking file as its reference will not
match the old cd.

Suffice to say, don't try to do the programs work for it or you may find
yourself in trouble!

Final Word:

This completes the discussion of the Cd Scan cataloging system. I sincerely
hope it meets your cataloging requirements. All suggestions will be
gratefully considered.

For more information about the program or author, all correspondence should
be sent to the address below.

Joseph Dunn: 30 Narvik Crescent, Hackham West S.A. 5163 Australia

Phone: [phone]



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