Manual Page

    Currency Converter 2 - Manual
      Currency Converter 2. You've started it, but now what!?

      If you are familiar with the old currency converter, you'll probably find your way as most of the old functions are still there, al be it slightly brushed up.

      The new users might want to have a short read here. I'll only explain some of the basics, the rest you'll have to find for yourself. This is because most people don't bother with manuals anyways, by nature people like to explore, and because it saves me some - non refundable - time. :)

      Do I hear you think: "Enough with that, how can I do some conversions now?" Let's have a look at the toolbar.

      Toolbar

    Preferred Currencies
      Press the "Preferred"-button (first from the left) and a new window should open.

      Preferred dialog

      Enter the amount on the left, and read the result on the right. Or enter on the right, read on the left. Converting is that easy. So, how do I change the settings of this preferred-currency window? First we have the combobox in the left-top. You can select one of the predefinied settings there, or you can personalize them.

    Preferred Currency-Settings
      Press the "..."-button and a new window pops up. Somewhat looking similar to the image shown beneath.

      Preferred-settings

      If you play around a bit with the functions, it should all show itself. Do I hear: "Now what! You say it supports 200+ currencies, but I only see about 5 of them!!" Yes, for ease of use I've limited the number of currencies you can use. Again, you can edit these settings.

      Toolbar
    Rates Dialog
      Pressing the button saying "Rates" opens up yet another dialog.

      Rates screen

      With this screen, you can select currencies from the left-panel for use into the right-panel. All supported currencies are listed on the left. User selected currencies are listed to the right. You can double-click on a currency in the left panel and it'll move to the right panel. You can also select more then one currency by ctrl+mouse-clicking on more then one currency. Or you can select more currencies by selected one, then a few down, shift-mouse-click to select all currencies in between. After selecting the currencies on the left, click on the button saying "->" to move them to the right.

      You can also add and edit your own user-definied currencies. Do remember however, that you, of course, will also have to keep the currency rates up to date yourself. Press the Add button and a dialog pops up where you can enter the name, ISO and value. You can also remove currencies from the list. This however is mostly done for removing user-defined currencies. Removing a Source-currency, will only result in it returning on the next update. You can also edit currencies, but you can't edit all the currencies. The Euro-Linked currencies from the IMF-source, are linked to the Euro. You can edit the euro. Also with IMF you can't edit the U.S. Dollar, and with Pacific you can't edit the Euro. These are used as base-currency and shouldn't be changed. Changed values of Source-currencies will be undone after an Update.

    Rates Update
      Now we come to the exciting part. This program can also update its currencies using the Internet. For this to happen, one only has to press 1 (one) button. You guessed it, the "Update" button. A new dialog pops up.

      Rates update The program now goes out over the internet and when it is finished, it closes itself again and voila! If something went wrong during the updating over the internet, the window will not close on its own and will show a cryptic error-message. Try to figure out what it means and correct it. If you really have no clue, try e-mailing me about it. On updating, ALL currencies of the source will be updated. (Not just the ones you selected for use.)

      Fun part is, you can actually continue working while it is being updated. Once the update is done, rates will automatically update across the whole program.

      Of course I also included support for proxy and basic user authentication. You can change these settings in the Settings-window, by pressing the Settings-button. If for some reason, you can't get the Currency Converter to update over the Internet, you can also update the currency-information from file. With your browser, load either the Pacific or IMF page and save it to disk.

      With Internet Explorer however, things aren't as easy as File -> Save as. Microsoft, in all its wisdom, decided to rewrite the whole thing when you press save. So, you'll have to view-source first (this is an option when you right-click on a page somewhere, or somewhere in the menu-system) which will open notepad showing the HTML. Then save the file to disk.

      Update-menu

      Then, press the small triangle next to the update-button and select file. A familiar file-open dialog should pop-up and you can load your file from disk. This way, you don't have to use the program's Internet-routines.

      I've also added a function for the always-on users. On the settings-screen, you can switch on a feature where it checks for an Internet-connection on starting the program. If it finds a connection, it'll automatically fetch the updated rates. This means at starting the program, you are always up2date!

    Saving...
      The program automatically saves all settings and currency-information on closing the program. So, if you close the program, it will quickly save your settings for when you return. This means, you don't have to worry about saving settings or anything. It's all done automatically for you.

    Exporting
    export window
      This program can export its currency information. I've built exporting features to Excel and CSV-files. (comma separated) These should see you going a long way.

      When you press the Export button (from either the File-menu or the Rates-window) a new window pops up, asking you for some extra info. Select one of the options there and press Export.

      If you select Excel, it'll open Excel for you, and insert the values in a new spreadsheat. That'll all go automatically. That is, if it goes at all. If it doesn't, you could try to open Excel yourself and see if you have succes with that. Let me know if you can't get it to work.

      The CSV-file exporting is fairly straight forward. It shows you a save-file dialog. You point it to somewhere and that's that. You can then do with that file as you please, as most software will support some kind of CSV-file loading routine.

      Since 2.1 there is also a way to export to user-defined formats. As default example I implemented a way to export to a JavaScript file.

      Adding user-defined exports should be done with a normal text-editor in the exportFilters.xml in the data-directory. Look at the example, and add another set of tags. (at your own risk) ;)

    Mini World Converter
      mini world converter Another feature that appeared in the v2.1, is the Mini World Converter. This is, as it says, a mini converter. Easy to use, not much functionality other then actual converting.

      The Mini World Converter now has a new manual-page!

    MiniFAQ
      It gives me an error messages saying I need a wininet.dll?
      This is a problem found with Win95 without an up2date IE-browser. If this is the case indeed, then download this zip-file which contains just what you need. Extract it in the windows/system folder but make sure you make backups of every single thing you change. So before extracting the files to your system dir, make sure you have backed up wininet.dll AND shlwapi.dll.

      It gives me an error "Error at address 77" during updates
      A few older versions didn't run correctly on Windows NT. I fixed the problem in version 2.02 debug.

      It gives me a socket readline or socket capture aborted
      In some situations on some PCs, it gave this error. Should be fixed with 2.03, if not, then with 2.1.

      It keeps saying the fetched page isn't correct
      Either you use a proxy and don't run the latest version, or the currency source has changed. If you are sure you run a version 2.02 debug or later, and still get this error, send me an e-mail.

      All currency-rates say 0.000 or I get bizarre update errors
      Chances are you run v1.x. Download a v2.

      I have a question not answered here
      Make sure you run the latest version, if you still have a question then, then I'd love to hear from you.

      I really like your program, and want to send you loads of money. ;)
      Better send some e-mail first.

    Feedback please!
      There you have it. The first steps made with the program. Fun, eh? And all that for 0.00 Dutch Guilders, which - you won't need the converter for this - is also 0 units of your local currency. I did however invest an unbelievable amount of time in creating, testing and e-mailing about this program.

      So if you use the program, then please let me know by sending me an e-mail at: currconv2@belgraver.demon.nl All feedback is welcome, specially information about what you use it for, what you like about it and what you dislike about it. Also, I'd really love to hear where you heard about this program. Since magazines and software-sites rarely tell me they wrote about me, I'd love to hear that from you.

      Remember that, since I don't sell this program or require registration for it, your feedback is probably all I'll ever get for it.

      Bug reports and/or new ideas are very welcome as well.

      Thanks for downloading and reading. Enjoy the program.

      Alexander Belgraver