Copyright: NoteBook Copyright ® 1994 H D Baecker


Contents

Introduction

Functions

Commands

Menus

Index

Support

To Register


Introduction

The NoteBook Program Copyright © 1994 by H. D. Baecker

NoteBook is a program designed to store, edit, and retrieve
information from notes made in the course of fieldwork under
various conditions by users in a variety of occupations. The
program was conceived as an aid to persons without any
computer expertise or experience, it is as appropriate for
keeping case notes in the course of social work as it for use
on a portable computer to record field notes during an
archeological dig.  Its uses range from recording an
everyday diary to keeping and using records of professional
consultations.

The unit of entry, editing, etc., is a Note, such as this
Introduction. Every Note is dated by the program. The user is
invited to enter a title, of up to 40 characters, for each Note.
The user is then free to enter the text of the Note, which may
be up to some 32,000 characters long. That limit is about 15
pages of a standard paperback novel.

Notes are added to Notebooks, which correspond to DOS
files, and which may be searched to locate those Notes that
contain references specified by the user at the time of the
search and need never be known in advance when the Note is
created. A Notebook may hold 16,380 Notes, but that is a
theoretical limit, think of about 1,000 Notes as being the
practical limit.

Indexing and related topics and user instructions are covered
in other Help topics, see Functions and Commands.


Functions

Indexing

Unwords

Conflation

Queries

Input from File

Spelling


Indexing

Every Note is indexed by the program when the Note is added or
edited. Every word used in the Note is indexed, unless that word
is an "unword". Unwords are those words of the language that it
makes no sense to use as index terms, like "the" and "and".
Please see Unwords for a detailed explanation.

The remaining words are conflated, that is, they are reduced to
their word-stem, wherever this action is applicable. For instance,
regular plurals in "-s" are reduced to their singular forms, the past
tense of verbs in "-ed" is changed to the present tense, and so
on. One copy of each stem, however many times it occurs in the
text of the Note,  is then stored in an index associated with that
Note. For further discussion please see  Conflation.

When a user queries a Notebook the index of each of its Notes is
examined to seek a match for the query term, and the Notes
satisfying the specified criteria are marked. These may be
individually displayed for inspection by using the Notes|Show
command. The procedure is explained in detail under Queries.


Unwords

In any language there are a large number of words that do not qualify as index terms for information
retrieval purposes because they are used so frequently that they can be found in just about any text
of the language. There are the immediately obvious words such as "the" and "and" , but there are
quite a few more, such as "but" and "about" and "this" and "such" itself, etc. There is as yet no
generally accepted name for these words, so we call them Unwords.

The NoteBook program comes with a distribution file of about 200 of these unwords. This file is
loaded every time the program is executed. When the user completes the addition of a Note by
saving it (using the command Notes|Save, or by  selecting another action) then the Note is indexed,
but first the unwords in the Note are eliminated from consideration for indexing (but they remain
present in the stored text as entered). The remaining words are then conflated  and a single copy of
each root or word-stem is stored in the index for that Note. When a Notebook is queried the search
is of each Note's index to locate and mark those Notes that meet the criteria.

Users are free to edit the file of unwords, UNWORDS.DTA, using an ASCII-only text editor such as
MS-Windows Notepad or MS-DOS Edit. Often a user may wish to add words, usually dialect or
slang, that are locally insignificant, equally as often a user may wish to delete a certain word so that
it is not considered by the program to be an unword. For instance, the distribution file contains "so"
as an unword. But a social worker with a client base of a large number of ethnic Chinese may have to
deleted "so" as an unword because "So" may be a widespread family name and thus essential as an
index term.

The distribution file is in alphabetical order, this is only for convenience for editing and is not strictly
necessary, neither is it necessary that entries be only in upper case. But there is a requirement that
entries contain no punctuation, that is, the correct unword rendering of "don't" is "dont" or "DONT" in
the file. There is no restriction on the length of unwords, nor is there a strict limit to their number. The
file of unwords in current use must always have the filename UNWORDS.DTA and must always
be in the same subdirectory as the NOTEBOOK.EXE file.

Increasing the number of unwords increases the time it takes to determine for each word in a Note
whether it is an unword or not, but decreases the number of words to be conflated and indexed
subsequently, and so decreases the time to search an index during retrieval. Increasing the number
of unwords stored in the program also subtracts from the space available for other purposes during
program use. You choose.


Conflation

Conflation is the process, in linguistics, of reducing a word to its stem or root, often referred to as
"stemming". This process can be carried out for agglutinative languages, such as English, much more
so Finnish, that accrete tense or case designations to word roots. Analytic languages, such as those of
South-East Asia, express shades of meaning by using strings of separate words.

Conflation would work perfectly if we used a language that admitted no irregular words or any
exceptions. But in English those who have more than one child have children, not childs, and if we go to
the park today we went there yesterday perhaps, or might have gone. What we did not do is goed there.

Reality is. So conflation is an imperfect tool that works for the regular nouns and verbs of English, the
majority, and does not work for the irregular ones.

Most queries will be based on nouns or noun and adjective combinations. It may seem that the way
verbs are handled does not matter much. This is true to some extent, but, particularly in English, it is
not possible by simple mechanical text analysis to establish whether a word is or is not a verb. The
program might as well attempt to handle verbs efficiently too to conserve space and time, mixed in with
the rest.

But in framing queries the user is advised to take account of irregular verbs and nouns, and of the
misleading trail they might leave in the index.


Queries

Searches of the current Notebook are activated using the
Queries|Query menu command, which brings up the queries
dialog.

Query terms entered across a line of the dialog are used in
conjunction for the search, that is, if you enter "bright
objects"  on the same line of the dialog in consecutive entry
fields (no gaps allowed) then for a Note to be retrieved it must
contain both words, but these words do not need to occur
together in the Note text or title. Thus "bright objects" will find
the occurrence of both or either of the sequences "bright
objects" and "objects that are pink and bright" in a Note, or
any Note that contains both words at least once each
anywhere in the Note. Or, of course, allowing for conflation,
the words "object" or "objected" and "bright".

Query terms or groups of terms on separate lines of the query
dialog form independent queries. Up to 5 query lines at a time
may be entered, each of up to 4 terms. Each term must be a
single word, no embedded spaces allowed, so that if you are
looking for "John Hancock" you must enter "John" and
"Hancock" separately on the same line. If you need to find
references to both "John Hancock" and"Edwin Smith",
together in the same Note, enter all 4 words on a line.
However, if you want to find references to either of them, enter
"John" and "Hancock" on one line and "Edwin" and "Smith"
on another.

To find Notes referring to both "John Hancock" and "John
Jones" you need only enter the three terms "John",
"Hancock" and "Jones" on a line.

Always enter terms from the left margin on a line, and from
the top down, leaving no gaps, so that unused entry fields are
at bottom right of the dialog.

The start and end dates for the search must be entered as
numbers only (e.g. March is "3") in the order year (all 4 digits,
life is confusing otherwise around the turn of the millenium),
month, day.

Before the search each query terms is conflated, but the
program does not check for unwords in queries.

After a Query the list of "hits" is displayed and any Note on it
can be selected for display. Later use Notes|Show to display
other Notes found by the search. Found Notes are so
displayed until cancelled by using Query|Cancel. Subsequent
Note lists will again be of Active Notes.


Input from File

The menu commands File|Compact (if deleted Notes are archived) and Notes|SaveAs output Notes in a form that may be re-entered using Notes|Input. Such Notes may also be generated offline using a text editor such as MS-DOS Edit or MS_Windows Notepad, that is, one that inserts no formatting characters other than the ones the user types at the keyboard.

The format for a Note to be input from a file is as follows:

Zero, one, or more lines of text that are ignored by the input routine. Then a line the first 8 characters of which are "Title:- ", that is, upper case T, the lower case characters "itle", and then ":-" followed by a space. The remaining text on that line is taken to be the title of the Note, up to 40 characters long. The lines following are considered as the text body of the Note.

If the input file holds only a single Note the simple sequence Notes|Input, Notes|Save, will Add the Note to the current Notebook, with the current date.

If an input file holds more than one Note then Notes|Input will read the whole file into the window. The user must then edit the text with the Edit menu commands using the Clipboard as temporary storage to bring each Note into the window separately for Notes|Save to store it.

No Note may exceed 32767 characters in length. No input file of Notes may exceed that length either. If a longer file is to be read then it must first be split up using a text editor program


Spelling

There is English spelling. There is American spelling. There is no doubt other spelling. And then there is spelling. In some way or other any information retrieval facility using text depends on spelling.

The NoteBook program only depends on "correct" spelling to eliminate unwords from indexing, and on the spelling of word endings to implement conflation.

Insofar as possible the conflation process caters to both English and American conventions, but if the English conventions fail then please revert to American usage.

However, the program is utterly dependent  on CONSISTENT spelling by the user in order to make effective retrieval possible.

The program will "work" after a fashion  for any language that standard Windows can handle as input. The ability to eliminate unwords is not essential to the operation of the program and can be enhanced by generating a foreign UNWORDS.DTA file. The English conflation rules (not amenable to user editing) are not essential either but may generate some strange results in some languages. In particular, languages that have accented characters or rely upon punctuation marks to augment spelling may store some bizarre text and might generate some even more bizarre index entries


Commands

File Menu

Notes Menu

Queries Menu

Edit Menu


File Menu

New

Sets up a new Notebook. As Notebooks are embodied as
MS-DOS files Notebook names follow the limitations of DOS
filenames, but are entered without extensions.Immediately
after creating a new Notebook the first use of it must be to
add at least one Note to it.

Open

Opens an existing Notebook for use. Call File|Open and then
click Cancel in the Files Dialog box if you wish to see the
display of the Current Directory name, or if you wish just to
browse the available Notebooks in the Current or other
directories.

Directory|Change

Changes to the nominated subdirectory. Must be used before
File|New to create a new Notebook in an existing subdirectory
other than the Current Directory.

Directory|Make

Makes a new subdirectory and then changes to it as the
Current Directory.

Compact

Eliminates the gaps caused by editing Notes and physically
removes previously hidden Notes from the current Notebook,
returning a compacted Notebook file. If the user does not
name an archive file then no Notes are deleted and hidden
Notes are instead returned to view., and only gaps resulting
from editing are recovered.

Exit

Exits from the program, first storing the current Note if in the
course of being Added or Edited, and closing the open
Notebook if there is one. Note that every Add or Edit causes
the Index on disk to be updated immediately.


Notes Menu

Add

Displays an input dialog for the user to enter a title of up to 40
characters. The program will continue to cycle until a title has
been entered, because in the absence of a title Notes would be indistinguishable from each other.  Then it enables entry of the body of the Note.
A Note may comprise up to 32,766 characters, including
spaces and all other punctuation. The Enter key causes two
characters to be entered, but users are advised to use it only
at the end of paragraphs and to rely on the wordwrap feature,
always enabled, otherwise the text will not accommodate to
different window sizes. Entry of the Note is terminated by
choosing Notes|Save or by choosing another activity (this new activity may be another Add).

Show

Displays a list of the Notes in the current Notebook. Select a
Note to view by clicking on it and OK, or double-clicking on
the Note. After viewing the displayed Note click on Edit|Clear
or start another action to clear the screen of it. The Note list
displayed is normally of all the active Notes. But after a query,
until Query|Cancel has been selected, the display is of those
Notes that satisfied the most recent query. When
Notes|Restore is selected then the display is the list of
Hidden Notes.

Edit

Choose the Note to edit from the list. After editing use
Notes|Save, or start another activity, to store the edited Note,
or choose Edit|Clear to retain the original unedited version of
the Note. Whatever the changes you appear to make to the date or title on the
screen you cannot change the original stored date or title.

Save

Indexes and saves the current Note to the open Notebook and
clears the screen. It has no effect on that Notebook unless used immediately
after an Add, Edit, or Input action.

Hide

Hides the selected Note. A hidden Note is not listed except to
Restore it, does not get searched during a query, and
becomes a candidate for archiving and deletion when the
Notebook is Compacted.

Restore

Select and Restore a Hidden Note to view. The Restored Note
again becomes a candidate for queries.

Input

Reads a Note from an external file specified by the user.
Notes read are assumed to have the input format explained
under Input from File.

Print

Prints the currently displayed Note on the default printer.
There is an attempt at pagination but no other layout
niceness. To format the text for prettyprint either SaveAs the
Note to a file, or CopyAll to the Clipboard, and then massage
it with a text editor or word processor of choice.

SaveAs

Outputs the Note as ASCII text to the chosen file. If the file
already exists the Note is appended, otherwise a new file is
created.


Queries Menu

Query

Initiates a search of the current Notebook as explained under
Queries.

Cancel

Cancels the results of the most recent search so that "hits" are
"forgotten". It is not necessary to Cancel before initiating another
search with Queries|Query but until a search result is cancelled
ordinary display and editing of Notes is prevented as all Active Notes
are not shown in the Notes list, and edited Notes will not be stored again.


Edit Menu

Cut

Copies the selected text to the Clipboard and cuts, clears, that text
from the screen and from the text stored.

Copy

Copies the selected text from the screen to the Clipboard.

Paste

Copies the contents of the Clipboard to the screen at the cursor.

Clear

Clears the screen and terminates processing of the current Note.

CopyAll

Copies all of the current Note to the Clipboard.


Menus

Individual menu options and effects are described in detail under Commands.


Index

C

Commands

Conflation

Contents

E

Edit Menu

F

File Menu

Functions

I

Index

Indexing

Input from File

Introduction

M

Menus

N

Notes Menu

Q

Queries Menu

Queries

S

Spelling

Support

T

To Register

U

Unwords


Support

Via BBS

Call the BMT Micro BBS at 910.350.8061
At the Main Menu choose Shareware, then Notebook and leave your message and/or read the replies.

By Mail

Write To:

H. D. Baecker
Box 474
Lake Cowichan   BC   V0R 2G0
Canada


To Register

General

The Registration fee is US$35 per copy, or US$25 each for
site licences for 5 or more users. (Please register all site
licences by phone at 800-414-4BMT (800-414-4268) in the
US & Canada only, or at 910-791-7052 elsewhere. (Hours:
9a.m. to 9 p.m. EST daily))

By Credit Card

Visa and MasterCard only
Call 800-414-4BMT (800-414-4268) or,
910-791-7052
if outside the United States or Canada
(9a.m. to 9p.m. EST daily)
or use the file REGISTER.FAX.
When completed Fax to BMT Micro at
910-350-2937 or mail to
BMT Micro
452 Horn Road
Wilmington NC 28412-2411   USA

A disk of the registered version of
NoteBook will be mailed to you.

Or:
Log on at 910-350-8061 to the
BMT Micro BBS .
From the Main Menu select Shareware
Registration, then Notebook, and follow
instructions to receive a registered copy.

By Money Order

Complete the form REGISTER.DOC and
mail with a Money Order in the amount of
US$35 to:

H D Baecker
Box 474
Lake Cowichan   BC   V0R 2G0
Canada

to receive a disk with your
registered copy of the program.