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MANUAL.DOC
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1991-09-20
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The Cardfile Program
(c) Copyright 1991 Thomas Kellar
Cardfile
Cardfile is a program written to allow the simulation of a 3 by 5 card deck
or a simple data entry system that can be used for adding records, altering
records, deleting records, and looking up records. Cardfile requires three
files to run:
- The prompt file that contains screen addresses of prompts and
the prompts and the field type and the field width. This file
is created by the user of the Cardfile program although several
samples are provided.
- The data file. This file is either an already existing file used
previously by Cardfile or a file created by Cardfile. Unless set
by the user of the program the name will be the same as the prompt
file with a ".cda" suffix (extension) attached to it.
- The configuration file. This file is created and maintained by
Cardfile to store Setup information in.
Cardfile was written in C on and for any MDDOS 2.10 or greater release of
software running on a PC or XT or AT or anything related. It works in as
little as 128K bytes of free memory.
The Cardfile program is a copyrighted program that cannot be copied except
for the purposes of backup or to look at to see if it meets your needs.
If you wish to use this program (i.e. if you find it useful) please send
20 US dollars to Thomas Kellar at 807 St. Nicholas Ave. Dayton, Ohio 45410
to help defray the costs of developing it. (I.e. to help buy some food.)
Also please feel free to send positive constructive criticism as well.
Main Menu
The Main menu selection appears after typing the Esc key from the prompt
screen or after initialization if the Cardfile program could not find the
the command line named prompt file (or if none was given).
The "Compress Data File" option removes all the blank (deleted) cards
from within the Cardfile data base and places them at the end. It is not
ever absolutely necessary to run this option but it is there if the user
deletes a lot of cards and does not want to re-use them.
The "Setup" entry is for the alteration of Cardfile program parameters.
The "Load" entry is to alter the current (if any) prompt file to a new one.
If you change the prompt file while the program is running, the program will
also prompt you for a new data file as it is assumed that the new prompt file
will not use the same data as the previous one.
The "Load/Create" entry is to change to a new Cardfile data base file.
"Help" is to display information about various screens in this program and
to display information about the Cardfile program.
"Exit" is to leave the Cardfile program. The selection confirms your
choice to exit before it actually does.
Setup Menu
The "Change the Screen Size" entry is a useful if you have a VGA or SVGA
The VGA can display up to 43 lines of 132 characters. This function changes
the screen size by setting the video controller to mode 84 which is the
large screen video mode. SVGA controllers might have a 60 line by 132
character mode display and this entry changes the screen to it by setting
the video controller to mode 90. The selection is a rotary: it starts at
25 by 80 then selecting it once changes the screen size to 43 by 132 and
selecting it again sets the size to 60 by 132 (if supported) then finally
selecting it a third time returns the screen to normal 25 by 80.
The "Change the Screen Colors" selection can alter the background and
foreground (characters) colors to whatever you want. This is, of course,
useful only with a color display
The "Clock Feature" alternately enables or disables the display of the
clock in the upper right hand corner the screen. The space the time display
takes up might be needed by prompts and note that the clock display uses
direct video memory writes and should be eliminated if this program is run
from inside a multi-tasking program.
The "Legend Display" selection toggles the display of the keys on the top
two lines of the data entry screen on or off. This might be needed to make
the screen area more useful.
The Data File
The data file used by Cardfile is used for storage and retrieval of the
cards that are entered by the user of this program. The file is either
a named input to this program (second entry on the start up command line)
or the name of the input prompt file with a ".cda" suffix attached or
the name "cardfile.cda" or any file selected from the Main Menu entry
designed to do so.
The data file uses fixed record sizes and the records are not generally
terminated by carriage return/line feed sequences although through the
use of the type 6 field/prompt the user can generate them if he or she
wishes.
Generally, it is better to keep record sizes short as this consumes less
filespace and searches (F3 find) are faster.
If you want to use the data file with other programs such as word processors
then you want to use the type 6 field at the end of the prompt file (ie,
the last entry before the -2 line).
Data Entry Prompt Screen Keys
There are twelve special function keys in the Data Entry mode of Cardfile:
Key Function
F1 The card that is being displayed on the screen is written as
an addition to the end of cardfile database (Insert).
F2 starts a search of the cardfile database from the current
position in it until the end of the file. The search is
based on the field the cursor is currently in. Note that
the maximum characters that will be searched for is 119 and
blanks are stripped off the field before the search starts.
F3 Deletes the card currently being displayed. It asks for
a confirmation before actually deleting it (Delete).
F4 Overwrites the currently being displayed card with whatever
is on the screen. You can call up one record and change the
data then re-write it using this key.
F5 Display the next sequential card in the database (Page Down).
F6 Display the previous sequential card in the database (Page Up).
F7 Clear the current display (not the current card) and move the
cursor to the upper first prompt on the screen (defined as the
first prompt in the prompt file) so that the operator can type
in a new card.
Home Display the first record in the cardfile database.
End Display the last record in the cardfile database.
Esc Go to the main menu of the cardfile program. This menu is
not used for normal data entry functions.
F8 Save the current field to a holding buffer.
F9 Restore the saved field to the screen card. This key is the
reverse of the F8 key.
Tab and arrow and backspace keys move the cursor around the fields.
Tab and Return/Enter shift between fields.
The left and right arrows move in the field unless at the bounds of
a field where the right arrow causes a skip to the next field and the
left arrow just sits there. The backspace key and the left arrow key
act the same.
The Prompt File
The prompt file is an ASCII file that contains information that describes
the screen layout and field type and field size. There are seven entries
on each line (except the last one) with one screen prompt and field to each.
(This is not strict.) The entries are, listed in order, as follows:
-1 is the first which is an indicator to the software that says here is
the start of a prompt.
Next are two entries comprising the screen position of the prompt that will
appear on the screen in units of row, column with the nominal range of 0 to
132 for the column and 0 to 59 for the row. It must be noted that a VGA and
a SVGA are required to go to 43 rows and 60 rows with 132 columns
respectively.
Next is the field length of the data to be entered. It can zero or one
characters or it can be any other number such as 10, 20 or 400 or greater
characters with two built in limitations, first the limit of the screen size
and second the limit of about 8000 bytes (based on memory). If the field length
is zero then the prompt becomes a display only field with no input or output
data field associated.
The displaying prompt is next, it is proceeded by a quote (") and should
not extend beyond the end of a physical screen line or cause the data entry
field to do so either. It must use underscores instead of spaces. (This_is
_an_example_of_that.) Note that the maximum prompt length is 130 and that if
your prompt consists of a set if double quotes, no prompt will display.
The next field is the type of data field, there are four types defined, a:
1 designates an alphanumeric field (punctuation characters too).
2 designates a numeric only field (digits 0..9).
3 designates an alphanumeric comment field (same as the 1 but the
3 field politely extends across multiple screen lines.
4 designates an automatically generated date field (the field must
be 10 bytes long).
5 designates an alpha only field (spaces are allowed).
6 designates a field that generates a carriage return line feed
sequence (the field must be 2 bytes wide).
The last entry is for future considerations and is not defined yet.
Finally, a -2 is used on a line by itself to denote the end of the prompt
file. (The end-of-file of the prompt file works too.)
An example of a prompt file is the phone.cfg prompt file below:
-1 3 30 0 "Telephone_Directory 1 1
-1 5 4 3 "Home_Phone_Area_code: 2 1
-1 5 32 7 "Telephone: 2 1
-1 7 4 3 "Work_number_Area_code: 2 1
-1 7 32 7 "Telephone: 2 1
-1 9 4 20 "First_Name: 1 1
-1 9 40 20 "Last_Name: 1 1
-1 11 4 20 "Company: 1 1
-1 13 9 100 "Address: 3 1
-1 18 2 10 "Date: 4 1
-1 18 30 2 "" 6 1
-2
The first line starts with a -1, as required, then has a 3 30 sequence of
integers which is the row and column where the prompt will be placed, next
is a 0 which is the field length, 0 indicates that this is a display only
prompt that does not generate any data and is not entered by the operator.
Next is the prompt as it appears on the screen with out the preceeding quote,
and following that is an integer 1 that (irrelevantly as this is a display
only field) indicates the field type. Finally there is a 1 on the line that
is the last field in each line. It is not used. Following all this is
a -2 which indicates to Cardfile that this is the end of the prompt file.