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MyIdea 1.0 Problem Solving
c 1994 by Peter Neuendorffer
----------------------------------------
This is a shareware product.
To register:
Send $15.00 to
Peter Neuendorffer
1399 Commonwealth Ave #11
Allston MA 02134
Telephone 617-254-2213
No further media will be sent.
-----------------------------------------
This manual has three parts:
Introduction How You Organize your Idea How to use MyIdea
-----------------------------------------------------------------
=========================Introduction===============================
Are you the kind of a person who likes to jot notes on restaurant
napkins? You carry a little notepad everywhere? You are always
trying to figure out how to do things, make things, or fix things?
Well even if you are not that kind of person, you may find MyIdea
fun and useful in solving problems, big or small.
MyIdea takes you from the idea or problem, which might be "build a car"
or "improve my looks" or "my great American novel" to describing
what is involved, how to do it, and where to go for help with
the idea. It requires you to go through some hoops, but when
you are done writing, you may be surprised at how much you already
knew about your problem. "The problem is half the solution" is
surely a hackneyed statement. Rather "Knowing what the problem
is, is half of the solution."
This software has no installation. Just copy the files to a
subdirectory on your hard disk, although it could be run on
a floppy. If you are using a color system with a gray scale monitor,
you may prefer to do MODE MONO from DOS before running MyIdea.
When you work on an idea, you save it with a file name of your
choosing. When you work on it again, you run MyIdea filename,
where filename is the name of your data file.
The software picks up where you leave off each session. You
may press Alt-X at any time to exit the program. When editing
paragraphs in MyIdea, you can use the Alt-N combination to insert
a blank line, the Alt-Y combination to delete a line, and the Alt-C
combination to clear the text from the cursor to the end of the line.
This problem solving tool has six Areas:
TASKS, RESOURCES, DATA/MATERIALS, RESEARCH, PEOPLE, and IMPLEMENTATION.
You divide each area into Topic names of your choice.
For every Topic you will write a paragraph, ask questions, answer the
questions, and make notes on the topic.
Future versions will be compatible with datafiles from this version.
=====================How you Organize your Idea===========================
Starting-> To start a new idea file, run MyIdea from DOS with no parameters
(no other words after the name MyIdea.) Later, when you continue
work on your idea, run <MyIdea filename> from DOS. Use the
filename you entered when you first entered the new idea.
So, you have run MyIdea. Now enter your idea or problem name,
such as "How get into college". Then enter the file name you
wish to save the idea as (example COLLEGE.DAT).
Paragraph-> First, enter a paragraph about your problem-idea. You can edit
this again later. You now get a menu of AREAS for your idea-problem.
The areas are TASKS, RESOURCES, DATA/MATERIALS, RESEARCH, PEOPLE,
and IMPLEMENTATION.
Get
Topics-> You start out completing the TASKS area, Then move on to the other
areas. You view the previous areas only as they are complete.
Remember, press Alt-X to end your session. The program keeps track
of your place. Each area is set up the same way, so here is a
description: Choose TASKS. First you enter a paragraph about TASKS
(all paragraphs can be edited later.) Then you give some topics.
They could be names of tasks relating to your idea, such as
"write letters", "interview","get references","take SAT".
Completing
Topics-> When you are done with that, you can work on each topic anytime.
Choose a topic. You are asked to write another paragraph, this
time about the topic. Next, you are asked to enter Questions
about that topic. "What should the letter style be?" for example.
Then after each question, you enter a short Phrase that describes
this question. (example "letter style.") You'll be using these
phrases later, so make them to the point.
Next you Answer the questions--you'll be only see the short phrase
for each question here. Next you will enter Notes about the topic.
You will be able to re-edit the Answers and Notes later.
What you
get-> When you complete all four sections for each topic, paragarphs,
questions, answers, and notes, then you can continue on to the next
area, "RESOURCES" and so on. Once you complete a topic, when
selecting that topic later, you see a menu for VIEW QUESTIONS,
VIEW ANSWERS. When you choose View Answers, you may change the
Answers by selecting F2 from this View Answers screen.
You may view and edit your Notes for an Area by selecting View
Notes from the Area menu.
============================How to use MyIdea============================
Enter-> Don't panic. This is a writing project, not the Space Shuttle!
When entering in data, you must press ENTER to make the data stick.
Therefore, if you just typed a phrase, or word, you have to press
Enter before escaping or before stopping with Alt-X. All Paragraphs
act differently- you get what you type, when pressing an exit key.
Exit-> Escape takes you out of any section. F5 is reserved for closing out
an entire section and moving on. Do not use it for just exiting.
F5 is reserved for saying "I'm all done with this section."
Re-edit-> To re-edit a paragraph, find it. The screen should say "F2 to Edit
Paragraph" or "F2 to Edit Notes". Press F2 then to edit the paragraph,
then Escape to get out. When editing paragraphs, use the Alt-N
combination to insert a blank line, the Alt-Y combination to delete
a line, and the Alt-C combination to clear text to the end of line.
Have fun! And if you discover in the process that the idea's
no good, at least you found it out before you ordered 1000
pounds of lumber or mortgaged the house for the idea.