The Datafile PD-CD 5/DATAFILE_PDCD5.iso/utilities/c/charges/!Charges/Docs/Manual

Text File | 1994-03-12 | 21.8 KB | 574 lines

Charges                                     (v 1·70)
-=-=-=-

© 1992-4  Richard G. Hallas
____________________________________________________

Charges is a work manager application for monitoring
the time spent working at the computer. The program
is intended for those people who earn a living
working at their machines, charging a fixed hourly
rate. It can cope with numerous jobs simultaneously.

*WARNING*
=========

Charges needs to write data into itself quite
frequently, and so should not be used from a write-
protected disc or from a read-only filing system
(such as the public domain ArcFS). The best place
for it is a hard disc, although it should run from
an unprotected floppy.

Loading
=======

Double-click on the Charges application; after a
short pause it will install itself on the icon bar
as usual. The application needs to have seen System
first of all, so if you experience any problems,
make sure your directory viewer containing System
has been opened on the desktop.

Charges needs two modules from the !System.Modules
directory, namely 'MsgTrans' and 'Interface'. If
your System lacks either of these modules, or you
find that your copies of either of them are out of
date, you should update your System with the copies
provided in the !Charges.Resources directory.

Using Charges - Overview
========================

Charges presents itself as a kind of icon bar timer,
displaying hours and minutes beneath its icon.
Seconds are not displayed explicitly, but the colon
separating hours and minutes winks once every second
when the timer is counting.

Click the icon with Select to start and stop the
timer. A small beep will sound. The timer can be
reset when it is not counting by clicking on the
icon with Adjust. (A different beep will sound.)

You should open the application's menu (by clicking
Menu on the icon), move across to the Earnings
window, and enter your hourly rate in the box
provided. If you want to work in different
currencies, click a mouse button over the symbol you
wish to change, and a menu of options will appear.
If the currency you want to use is not available on
the menu, you can type it in, as the last item on
the menu is writable. When everything is set up as
you want it in the window, click on the 'Set'
button.

If you are working in different currencies, you
should open the Exchange rate menu (off the main
menu) and enter the appropriate value. This will
then be taken into account when calculating your
running total in the Earnings window. You must
remember to press <Return> or <Enter>, or click on
the value with the mouse, otherwise your change will
be ignored. Note that exchange rates are stored in a
database. See below, under "The Exchange rate menu
item", for further details of this feature.

You can start and stop the timer at any point. If
you wish to spread a single job over more than one
session, you may wish to quit Charges and restart it
later with the clock starting at where you left off.
This can easily be done: open the Options window and
click on the 'Get time' button. The time on the
clock will be transferred into the window, and you
can edit it if you wish. The click on the 'Save
settings' button, and wait for the confirming beep.
You can then quit Charges, and when you reload it
the previous time will be already on the clock.

For a more comprehensive system which lets you swap
between several jobs, see below under 'Job manager'.

If you wish to use your final total in an invoice
you are preparing in a word processor (for example),
you don't have to type it in again; simply place the
caret where you want the amount to appear, and drag
the total from the Earnings window to your invoice.
Charges will enter the amount for you.

Charges provides full interactive help when used in
conjunction with Acorn's Help or Spy applications.

Using Charges - In detail
=========================

The Earnings window
-------------------

Your hourly rate should be entered into the top box.
The currency symbols displayed alongside the hourly
rate and job's total figures are used by Charges to
look up an exchange rate in its database. There is
not necessarily an entry in the database for each
combination of currency symbols: Charges will only
record the exchange rates that you use, and if you
select a pair of currencies which you have not used
before, Charges will restore an exchange rate of 1.
The lower box in the Earnings window, labelled
"Job's Total", is bordered in red to indicate that
you can drag its contents out into another package,
so you can, for example, drop your final total into
an invoice you are preparing in a word processor.
Alternatively, you can drag it to a filer window,
and the value will be saved as a text file with the
filename "Total". Both the currency symbol and the
figure itself are included.

(Cosmetic note: RISC OS 3 users get a very nice
effect when dragging the total out, as the whole box
is dragged with the pointer, but in a translucent
form, and the effect is like sliding a piece of
engraved glass or plastic around the desktop.)

The total is calculated by first working out the
amount totted up so far according to the clock, and
then multiplying it by the value entered in the
Exchange rate menu, so if you just want a straight
'job total' without any conversion taking place, you
should ensure that the exchange rate is set to 1.

Any alterations you make in the Earnings window
(either to the currency symbols or the hourly rate)
will only be taken into account if you click on
'Set'
- if you click 'Cancel' or close the window by any
other means, the changes will be ignored. The
appropriate exchange rate is not retrieved from the
database until you click on 'Set'.

If you alter your hourly rate (by clicking on the
figure) when the calculated total is not zero, the
total will clear to 0.00 until you accept your new
rate by clicking on 'Set'. At this point, the total
will be recalculated. Note that the total is always
displayed to two decimal places, rounded down to the
nearest penny (or smallest denomination).

Note also that whatever currencies you enter in the
Earnings window will also be used in the Conversions
window (see below).

The Conversions window
----------------------

This is simply a convenience window: you can quickly
enter a figure in the top slot and press <Return>,
<Enter> or click on the arrow, and it will be
multiplied by the current exchange rate in force and
displayed in the lower slot to two decimal places.
The currency symbols entered in the Earnings window
are used in the corresponding currency slots in the
Conversions window. As with the Earnings window, the
converted amount (in the lower slot) can be dragged
out to another application or to a filer directory,
where it will be saved as a text file with the name
"Conversion".

As well as providing a quick way to convert between
two currencies, the Conversions window can be handy
for working out VAT rates: if you enter a value of
1.175 in the Exchange rate slot (corresponding to
17½% VAT), the converted amount will be the price
of the amount you entered with VAT added. Remember,
though, to set the exchange rate back again, or your
running total will be wrong! A sample 'job' is
provided for this specific purpose: see later, under
'Job manager'. Alternatively, you can set up an
appropriate exchange rate for the main currency to
the '+ VAT' currency.

Unlike the Earnings window, the Conversions window
has no 'Set' and 'Cancel' buttons; any changes you
make will be accepted immediately.

The Exchange rate menu item
---------------------------

This simply gives the multiplier used by the
Earnings and Conversions windows. If you enter a new
amount in the slot, you must remember to click on it
with the mouse, or press <Return> or <Enter>;
otherwise your change will be ignored.

For any given pair of currencies displayed in the
Earnings or Conversions window, there can be one
possible exchange rate. If you have not specified
an exchange rate, the computer will assume a value
of 1 is wanted, and "1" will be entered into the
Exchange rate menu. You can of course edit this, and
when you press <Return> or <Enter>, or click on the
value with the mouse, Charges will ask you whether
you want to store the exchange rate for future use.
Simply click on 'Yes' or 'No' at this point: if you
click 'Yes', then the exchange rate will be added to
the database if it isn't there already, or updated
to the new value. You are not obliged to always
store the exchange rate, or even use the database at
all: simply click on 'No', and nothing will change.
Note that Charges never stores the exchange rate if
both currencies are the same.

When you change currencies in the Earnings window,
and click on the 'Set' button, the exchange rate
will be automatically restored if it has been used
previously; otherwise a value of 1 is used.

Since exchange rates fluctuate constantly it is not
possible to store them accurately, so if you want
anything other than an approximate result, you
should remember to check the exchange rate each time
you change currencies, and update the database as
appropriate.

The Job manager
---------------

This is one of Charges' most advanced features, and
you can quite happily get away with not using it if
you only ever work at one job at a time. However,
it is an easy-to-use and flexible system, which is
worth getting to know.

Basically, if you do not use the job manager, or you
do not specify a current job, Charges keeps its
records in a file called '☓'. (If something ever
goes wrong, you may see an error message which
refers to this job file.) The time shown on the
clock, the exchange rate, the 'charge whole hours'
setting, your hourly rate and the two currency
settings are all stored in this file.

These are the things which will change from job to
job. The other settings, such as the 'Charge from'
time (which the clock resets to), the 'show
time/earnings' setting and the configured language
(see below, under 'The Options window') are much
more general, and do not need to change very often.
These can be saved from the Options window (see
below).

However, the job-dependant settings mentioned above
can be saved as individual 'jobs', to each of which
you assign a name. You can then switch between jobs
quite freely.

Open the Job manager window, and you will see a box
with a name in it and three buttons, which are often
shaded out so you can't press them. They only become
available when they are needed. There is a Jobs menu
attached to this window, which can be called up by
clicking over the name or the menu arrow. The menu
always contains at least two items: a blank initial
item and a second bracketed command which tells
Charges to revert to 'no job' (the default state).
In fact, selecting the top writable item when it is
empty is the same as choosing 'no job'. In addition
to these two items there will be a list of however
many jobs Charges currently knows about (which can
be from 0 to 76 items).

If you enter a name into the top item of the menu
and press <Return> or <Enter>, the name will be
entered into the box in the window and the 'Create
job' button will become available. Click on this
button, and from now on Charges will be working on
the job you have specified. Any changes you make in
the Earnings window, or to the exchange rate or
'charge whole hours' setting, will be recorded in
that specified job. If you enter a duplicate job
name, you will be informed when you try to create
the second version. The original will be preserved.
You can load and examine the job files in Edit (or
similar) if you wish. They contain notes showing
what each line is for.

You don't have to worry about keeping the job files
up to date: Charges does all that for you. Whenever
you stop the clock, quit the application or change
jobs, the current job file will be updated for you
automatically. In addition, when you quit Charges
it will remember the job you were working on, and
restore it next time you load the application.

Assuming you have one or more job files created,
you can swap between them by choosing them from the
Jobs menu and clicking the 'Restore job' button
which will have become available. (Note: don't try
to restore a job by typing its name into the top
menu item, as this is exclusively for creating new
jobs. Choose the job from the menu instead.) If you
forget to click on the 'Restore job' button nothing
will happen, and you will continue working on the
old job, so be careful.

Note: when you choose a job to restore from the Jobs
menu, you must remember to press the 'Restore job'
button. However, if you choose '(No job)' from the
menu, the effect is immediate, and you don't have to
press the button. To indicate there is no current
job, '(None)' will be entered in the box in grey.

Whenever a job is shown in the box, the 'Delete job'
button will be available. If you delete the job you
are currently working on, then Charges will revert
to its default 'no job' state. However, you can
choose a job from the menu and delete it (without
having to restore it first), in which case the
job you are currently working on will be returned
to the box.

The job-box always shows the name of the current job
when you open the Job manager window. Clicking on
any of the three buttons in this window with Select
will perform the operation and close the window,
whilst clicking with Adjust will keep the window
open. This is useful if you want to delete several
jobs at once, or if you simply want to check that
the operation has worked.

One thing to note about the job files is that they
contain the Exchange rate as it appears in the menu.
Therefore, they are not necessarily the same as the
exchange rates stored in the database: you may, for
example, have entered a particular exchange rate in
the slot, and replied 'No' when asked if you wanted
to update the database. If you want to ensure that
an exchange rate is the same as its database entry
when you restore a job, go into the Earnings window
and click on 'Set'. This will look the exchange rate
up again.

A sample job file is provided, called 'VAT Calc'.
This contains no hourly rate, but has an exchange
rate of 1.175, so if you enter a figure in the
Conversions window, the result will be what you get
if you add 17½% VAT.

A final remark: the names you use in the job manager
are used by Charges as file names. Since there are
restrictions on the contents of file names, the same
restrictions must be observed by Charges. You will
therefore find that there are some characters which
you cannot enter in job names. One such character
is the space, although you can get around this by
using a Hard Space instead (which is obtained by
pressing the space bar in conjunction with the Alt
key).

The Options window
------------------

As with the Earnings window, any change you make in
this window will be ignored unless you click on the
'Set' button.

The 'Charge whole hours only' switch affects the
running total displayed in the Earnings window. If
selected, it will calculate the total in terms of
whole numbers of hours worked only, and ignore
minutes. Note that the hours are rounded up at the
thirty minute mark, e.g. 2 hours 30 minutes would
count as 3 hours.

The 'Charge from' area lets you set the 'base value'
of the clock. So if you have a fixed minimum charge
of one hour, say, you can enter the time in this
area, and whenever you reset the clock on the icon
bar, it will go to the time you specify rather than
to zero.

The 'Get time' button will transfer the time being
displayed on the clock into the 'Charge from' area.
This can be quite useful if you want to quit Charges
and reload it later, and you want it to continue
from where you left off. If, say you have done
2 hours and 25 minutes' worth of work according to
the clock, you can click on 'Get time' and 'Save
settings', and then quit the application. Next time
you load it, the clock will be displaying '2:25',
and you can continue your work. However, assigning
the work to a job file in the job manager is the
preferred method for achieving this.

The 'Save settings' button will save the current
state of the application, and that state will be
restored when you next run it. Note that clicking
'Save settings' will in fact also click on 'Set' on
your behalf, just in case you had forgotten to do it
yourself. This is more convenient, and avoids
confusion.

The settings saved are as follows:

 The two currency symbols in use;
 The custom (writable) item in the Currency menu;
 The hours and minutes entered in the 'Charge from'
   area.
 The state of the Charges icon (showing time or
   earnings).

The settings are saved in a file called 'Settings'
within the application directory, along with some
notes. You can edit this file if you wish, but it is
probably easier just to save the settings from the
Charges application itself.

The 'Icon bar' area allows you to switch between two
options: 'Show time' and 'Show earnings'. These
dictate what the text below the icon bar icon will
be: either the time elapsed, or the amount earned.
There are a few points to note here:

• If the earnings are displayed, then the elapsed
time will be shown in a portion of the Earnings
window which is otherwise left blank.

• In order to save space, the currency symbol is not
shown under the icon.

• The icon can only display up to 7 characters, so
if the earned amount is longer than this it will be
truncated, and a '⇨' character printed at the right-
hand end of the figure.

• In order to distinguish between the time and
earnings displays, there are a couple of obvious
differences between them:
  (a) The Time display starts with leading zeros
      whereas the Earnings display does not.
  (b) The Earnings display contains a proper decimal
      point character (·) whereas the Time display
      contains either a full stop (.) or colon (:).

The 'Country' area shows which country Charges is
set up for. Clicking on the country name will bring
up a menu of available options, and choosing a
different one and clicking 'Set' will rebuild the
entire Charges application in the chosen language.
See the documentation file 'Messages' for more
details.

The Currencies menu
-------------------

This simply provides a list of some commonly used
currencies which can be entered as labels. You can
type into the bottom menu item for custom labels,
and the contents of this item are saved when you
save the general settings of the application.

The contents of the Currencies menu are defined
in a file called 'Currencies' within the application
directory. You may edit this if you wish. The
entries are in alphabetical order, with symbols at
the top; please adhere to this order if you just
want to add one or two extras. If you believe the
default list should be changed for any reason,
please contact me. Note that the Currencies menu
entries may only be five characters long; any extra
characters will be ignored.

The bottom item in the list (apart from the writable
one) is called '+ VAT', and is useful for converting
between a currency and a 'currency + VAT'.

IMPORTANT
=========

In the Earnings and Options windows, YOU MUST NOT
FORGET to click on the 'Set' button, or else the
changes you have made to the windows' contents will
not be retained. Similarly, you must remember to
press <Return> or <Enter>, or click on the value
with the mouse, when you modify the Exchange rate
menu's contents.

Colours
=======

It is possible to define the colours (foreground and
background) used by the text below the Charges icon
on the icon bar. The default is black on light grey,
but any colours in the desktop palette may be used.
You can change the colours by editing Charges' !Run
file, which contains instructions at the appropriate
point.

Technical notes
===============

Charges uses Simon Huntingdon's excellent Interface
Manager module version 2·00 to provide its
attractive 3D icons and extra pointer shapes. The
Interface module and its documentation is provided
in the !Charges.Resources directory. MessageTrans
is also used to handle all the program's text, so
that other language versions can easily be provided.

The pointer shapes for 'menu available' and
'writable icon' exist in standard and high
resolution versions, and these are correctly
displayed according to the screen mode currently in
use. All graphics have been designed to look as good
as possible in whatever mode is being used.

Charges makes quite a novel use of the standard menu
system. Because of this, certain features operate
slightly differently from usual, but this could not
be avoided. When you choose items from the menu (for
example, if you click on 'Earnings' rather than
moving over the '⇨' arrow) the window will open but
the menu itself will not close. This is because
the windows, off the main menu, can themselves have
submenus which appear over them (the Countries menu,
the Currencies menu and the Jobs menu). For rather
technical reasons, it is necessary to keep the menu
structure open to provide these. The three submenus
will also behave slightly differently in that they
will not stay open if you click on them with Adjust.
However, I think the slickness of this system
outweighs its slight peculiarity.

Clicking on the 'Set' and 'Cancel' buttons with
Adjust keeps the menu structure open; clicking on
them with Select or Menu closes it as expected.
Clicking on any other icons with any mouse button
will keep the structure open.

When dragging either of the two calculated values
out into another application, RAM Transmission is
used in the first instance to avoid disc usage, but
if this is not acceptable to the other application,
the normal saving method is used. In this way, it
is also possible to save the values as files to the
filer. They have default names which indicate which
window they came from.

Final note
==========

Please note that Charges is SHAREWARE, with a small
registration fee of £5. Please read the file
'Shareware' for full details.

If you have any comments I would be very happy to
hear from you, and if you like this program, please
consider registering with me. Contact:

  Richard Hallas,
  31 Skelton Crescent,
  Crosland Moor,
  Huddersfield,
  West Yorkshire,
  HD4 5PN, UK