17 Bit Software 4: Phase Four

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Pay Advice Analyser 4.00 Original idea... Robert Hart Design... Richard Smedley Andy Eskelson Programming... Richard Smedley Copyright (C) Richard Smedley 1993 All Rights Reserved Freely distributable INTRODUCTION ============ A friend of mine once explained to me about how much he hated having to keep several old cardboard boxes in the bottom of his wardrobe, each of which he was slowly-but-surely filling with the Pay Advice slips that he receives in his wage packet. He asked me if I knew of any way to transfer all his wage details onto his trusty Amiga, thus allowing him to throw out his dusty collection of pay slips and yet retain a permanent record of all his earnings. Much to his disappointment, I explained to him that unless he wanted to try using a spreadsheet then there wasn't really any realistic solution. Sadly this idea just didn't work out. My friend had been thinking more along the lines of a simple, easy-to-use database program on which he could enter all his wage details without any awkward setting up or fiddling about. After spending several sleepless nights sitting in front of the computer, I triumphantly produced a solution... WHY BOTHER USING THIS PROGRAM? ============================== Actually, there are a number of reasons for keeping a record of your wage details on your computer. The most obvious, of course, is that you'll finally be able to throw out all your old pay slips and yet still retain a permanent record of their contents. More importantly than this, though, it is advisable to keep a regular check on your wages and how much tax you're paying, to make sure that the tax man or, worse still, your employer, isn't fiddling you. Of course it is still possible to do this by sifting through boxes upon boxes of paperwork, but it is by far easier, quicker, and more convenient to simply glance at a column of numbers on your computer screen. Additionally, even if you're only slightly curious about just how large a slice of your hard earned cash ends up in the hands of the tax man, then this in itself is a good reason for keeping a computerised record of your wage details. It might surprise you to see just how all those "little" deductions start piling up into something far more serious as you get further into the year... And, as an extra bonus, there is the added advantage that all your wage details will be securely locked away on the computer where prying eyes and inquisitive fingers can't get at them. PAYING THE SHAREWARE FEE ======================== This program is shareware. If you like and/or use it, then please register by sending FIVE (UK) POUNDS STERLING to this address: Richard Smedley 257 Stoneyford Road Sutton-In-Ashfield Notts. NG17 3GJ England Everybody who registers will receive a copy of the complete program with the enabled "Save" functions... HARD DRIVE INSTALLATION ======================= To install this program on a hard drive, simply create a drawer entitled "PayAdvice" (without the quotes!) in your boot partition, and then use the mouse to drag the PayAdvice program icon into that drawer. Next, load your s:Startup-Sequence (or s:User-startup if you're using Kickstart 2.0 or greater) into a text editor and add the line: Assign PayAdvice: SYS:PayAdvice Finally, if you've saved any program and/or printer preferences from within the Pay Advice program, then open the Shell window, insert your Pay Advice disk into drive DF0 (the internal one) and type: copy df0:s/payadvice#? to s: And that's it - No additional files or libraries are required. But don't forget to copy your saved data files into the PayAdvice drawer! LOADING THE PROGRAM =================== To load the program from Workbench, simply double-click on the Pay Advice icon. If you prefer using CLI, simply CD to the required device/directory, and then type "PayAdvice" at the CLI prompt. Note, though, that this program isn't self-detaching. Whichever way you load the program, the Pay Advice screen will appear after a brief pause. A requester should appear in the middle of the screen, asking you whether you want to create or load a file. As with nearly all similar-looking buttons in the program, you can make your choice by either using the mouse to press the appropriate on-screen button, or, if you prefer, you can type the first letter of your selection on the keyboard (which, in this case, would mean pressing "C" to choose "Create" or "L" for "Load") If you're using this program for the first time then you'll be needing to create a new file, so choose "Create"... CREATING A NEW FILE =================== A large window will appear on the screen, containing three empty boxes labelled: Your name Department Your employers name & address Move the mouse pointer over one of the boxes and press the left mouse button. You'll see that the cursor has appeared in the appropriate box: Now type in the required details and press the return key. Don't worry if you make a mistake, because you can always re-click in any of the boxes to edit its contents. After you've entered everything, press the "Accept" button in the bottom-right corner of the window. A requester will now appear asking whether or not you use a clocking-on system. If you do, select "Yes" and type your clock number in the box, otherwise choose "No". After a short pause, the main screen will appear... THE MAIN SCREEN =============== The main screen is split into three distinct sections: Down the left-hand side of the screen, you'll see the current name of each category of your wage file, and towards the right, filling most of the screen, is the area where all your wage details will be displayed. If you've just created a new file, then the chances are that the titles shown on the left side of the screen won't actually correspond to the details required for your wage packet. If this is the case, then you'll be needing to change the titles: To do this, select "Edit titles" in the "Prefs" pull down menu. Finally, in a panel near the bottom of the screen, you will see a row of five buttons, four of which have got arrows on them. These form the main controls of the program, and are fully explained in the next two sections. As you enter your wage details into this program, you'll see that it displays a summary of each wage packet on the screen. The "current" pay slip, that is to say the one on which all operations will be performed, will always be highlighted using bold text. ENTERING A PAY SLIP =================== The "Edit" button, at the bottom of the main screen, is used for entering and editing pay slips. To enter a new pay slip, make sure that none of your current pay slips are highlighted (displayed using bold text) on the main screen, and then press the "Edit" button at the bottom of the screen, or if you prefer, hit the return key on the keyboard. A calendar will now appear, asking you to enter the date for the new pay slip. Simply click on the appropriate on-screen buttons to change the date, and then press the "Accept" button. The edit window will now appear. You'll notice that the title "Gross pay" has appeared, and just below that you'll see the name of your first addition. Towards the right of the screen, you should see something which looks like a simplified calculator. Whenever this appears, it means that the program wants you to enter a number. You can use the calculator with either the keyboard or the mouse, whichever you prefer. Enter the value of your first addition, and then press return/enter. The number will now appear in the edit window. One by one, this will be repeated for every addition and deduction to your wages until everything has been entered, when your net pay will be displayed. After a short pause you'll return to the main screen, where you'll see that a summary of the new pay slip has been highlighted. MOVING AROUND YOUR PAY SLIP FILE ================================ There are three main methods for moving back-and-forth through your pay slip file: 1) The arrow buttons in the window at the bottom of the main screen: Pressing the single-arrow buttons will move you through the file one line at a time, and the double-arrow buttons move an entire screen at a time. 2) If you prefer using the keyboard then the cursor keys will emulate the arrow buttons at the bottom of the main screen: The left/right keys acts the same as the single arrow buttons, moving one line at a time, and the up/down keys do the same thing as pressing the double-arrow buttons. 3) If there's a specific pay slip that you want to move to, and if you can see that particular pay slip on the screen, then you can use the mouse pointer to click directly on it, which will perform the equivalent of highlighting it and pressing the "Edit" button. Additionally, the "Move" pull down menu contains a number of options for moving around your pay slip file... EDITING A PAY SLIP ================== Sooner or later, whether its because you've made a mistake or whatever, you're going to want to edit one of your pay slips. To do this, simply highlight the required pay slip using the arrow buttons, and then press the "Edit" button (or the return key). Alternatively, if the required pay slip is displayed on the screen, then you can click directly on it (as detailed in the "Moving around your pay slip file" section). The edit window will re-appear showing all the details for that particular pay slip. To change the value of one of the categories, all you have to do is move the mouse pointer over whatever category you want to change and press the left mouse button. The required category will be highlighted (in bold text), and the calculator will appear for you to enter a new value. You can change as many numbers as you wish, and then when you've finished press the "OK" button to keep the changes, or "Cancel" to leave everything as it was. Either way, you'll be returned to the main screen. SAVING YOUR PAY SLIP FILE ========================= Please note: THIS PROGRAM HAS HAD THE "SAVE" FUNCTIONS DISABLED. Although it will appear to go through the motions of saving your pay slip file, it won't actually record anything on disk. To obtain a version of this program without this restriction, you'll have to pay the shareware fee, as detailed elsewhere in these instructions... Obviously, one way or another, you're going to need to save your pay slip file onto disk. If you hold down the right mouse button, you'll notice a number of menu's appear on the title bar. Move up to the "Files" menu and select "Save as". A file requester will appear for you to select the device, directory and file name to save your file under. Press the "Save" button when you've selected everything. A window will now appear asking you to enter a password. Because all wage details are highly confidential, this program saves its files using a special encryption technique which makes it impossible to load a pay slip file without first entering the correct password. You can enter anything that you want for the password, up to ten characters long, but remember that passwords ARE case sensitive and, if you forget what your password is, then you've lost your pay slip file. If you've already entered a password, say while you were loading your file, or because you've already saved it once and are re-saving it for some reason, then you can simply press return without typing anything to keep the same password as before. Your file will now be saved to disk. CUSTOMIZING THE PROGRAM ======================= If you hold down the right mouse button, you'll notice a menu entitled "Prefs". By selecting one of the options available here, you can change the way that certain parts of the program work and set it up to your own personal liking. The options available are "Program", "Printer" and "Edit titles". The program and printer prefs windows work basically the same, with rolo-style gadgets used for making your selections. You'll see three buttons at the bottom of each of these windows: USE Temporarily keep the current settings. SAVE Save the current settings to disk. CANCEL Leave everything as it was. PROGRAM PREFERENCES ------------------- The preferences window will appear, containing three gadgets: CALCULATOR Lets you turn the calculator on/off. If you turn it off, then the cursor will appear in the edit window for you to type numbers from the keyboard. This can be much faster and more convenient if you never intend to use the mouse for operating the calculator. CALENDAR Turns the calendar on/off. If you turn it off, then you can choose whether you'd rather type dates using the DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YY format. Either way, you must use the slashes! DEFAULT Most users of this program will probably load the same pay FILE slip file every time they use this program. So, if you turn this on, you can press the "Select" button and use the file requester to choose a file to load automatically whenever you use the program. You'll still need to type the password in, but it'll save you from pressing "Load" and then going through the file requester every time. PRINTER PREFERENCES ------------------- Modifications to the program now mean that, unless your printer requires a form feed to be sent after every printed page, then you can completely ignore this section... Otherwise, read on... The preferences window will appear containing the following gadgets, all of which must be correctly set IN ADDITION TO the standard Workbench printer preferences. LINES/PAGE Click in the box and type the maximum number of lines that your printer can fit on a sheet of paper. FORM FEED Some printers, mostly laser printers, need you to send a form feed command after every sheet of paper. If your printer needs a form feed command then turn this on, else leave it off. RE-DIRECT If you want to re-direct printer output to a file for some OUTPUT reason, then turn this on and press the "Select" button to bring a file requester up. All printer output will then be sent to the required file instead. CHANGING THE USER DEFINABLE CATEGORY TITLES ------------------------------------------- All wage packets are made up from various additions and deductions to your earnings, such as basic pay, overtime, and tax. But, despite this, it is highly unlikely that any two people's wage packets will consist of exactly the same combination of additions and deductions. There are a total of ten user-definable categories available in this program, which have been split equally into five additions and five deductions. When you first create a file, this program will assign the following titles to each category: ADDITIONS Basic pay Commission Overtime Special pay (The fifth category is initially undefined) DEDUCTIONS National insurance Pension Tax Union fees Savings deduction The other four categories, namely "Period ending", "Total gross", "Total deductions" and "Net pay" are all automatically created and dealt with by the program, so there's no need to worry about them. If, by some chance, these default titles actually fit the categories on your wage slip, then you can ignore the rest of this section and start using the program straight away. It's more likely, though, that you'll be needing to change these titles... Select "Edit titles" from the "Prefs" pull down menu. You'll see a large window appear in the centre of the screen, containing seperate sections for additions and deductions. Each box in this window represents the title of an individual category of your wages. The order, from top to bottom, in which the titles appear in this window is the same as the order in which they will appear on the main screen. To change a title, move the mouse pointer over the required box and then press the left mouse button. You'll see that the cursor has appeared in that box. Use the delete key to erase the current title, and then type in a new title of your own and press the return key. If you make any mistakes, or if you change your mind, then you can re-click in any of the boxes and edit their contents. When you've finished, press the "Accept" button at the bottom of the window to keep the new titles, or hit the "Cancel" button to leave them as they were. Either way, you'll return to the main screen, where the ammended titles will be displayed in place of the previous ones. You should realise, though, that whilst you can edit the titles and change them around after you've created your file, actually changing the titles won't have any affect on the contents of the categories themselves. So, for example, if you changed your titles to move your second addition into fourth place, and your fourth addition into second place, then only the titles themselves would change: The actual information entered in your file as the second addition would remain in that position even though the title itself had moved. To actually move the information itself you need to use the "Exchange" function in the "Lines" pull down menu. Select this, and then click on the two categories that you want to exchange places and press the "Accept" button. All the information entered in those two categories will then swap places with one another. You should remember, however, that selecting this function won't have any affect on the titles themselves, that is to say that it will only move the actual information within the file, and the titles will remain as they were before the function was selected. MENU FUNCTIONS ============== Because this program has been specifically designed to be easy to use, most of its functions don't really need a detailed description like those given elsewhere in these instructions. The remaining functions of this program have been broadly categorised into six pull down menus: PROGRAM ------- ABOUT Displays information about the program and its authors. ICONIFY Iconify's the program, shutting down the Pay Advice screen to free up 80-90K graphics memory. If you select this, you will be asked if you want to enter a password - The idea here is as follows: Suppose you are using the program and you have to leave the computer for some reason, but you don't want anybody wondering in while you're gone and going through your wage details. If you enter a password then the program won't let you re-activate (or quit) it from its iconified state without first re-entering that password. Passwords can be up to ten characters long and ARE case sensitive. Incidentally, if you don't want to use a password then you can just press the return key without typing anything. QUIT Quit the program. Requesters will inform you if you have any unsaved information in your file. FILES ----- LOAD Load a new file. Use the file requester to select the appropriate file, and then enter the required password. SAVE Save the current file with the program automatically using the last file name and password used, thus saving you from having to go through the file requester. SAVE AS Saves your file, as already detailed. SAVE ASCII Let's you save your pay slip file as a standard ASCII text file, so that you can load it into a word processor and re-arrange its layout before printing it. Remember, though, that ASCII files aren't password protected, and they CAN'T be loaded back into this program. DELETE Use the file requester to erase a file from disk. Remember that you can't undelete a file! PRINTOUT Choose which categories you want to print, and then use the calendar to enter the start and finishing dates for the printout. Make sure that your printer is on line before selecting this. INFO Displays information about the current file. Note, though, that the "Save" and "Save as" functions won't actually record any information on disk. To obtain a copy of this program without this restriction, you'll have to pay the shareware fee, as detailed elsewhere in these instructions... MOVE ---- TOP/FILE Moves up to the first line of the current file. BOTTOM/FILE Move down to the last line of the current file. GOTO % Type a number into the box, and then you'll be moved to that percentage of the way down the file. LINES ----- INSERT Inserts a blank line at the current position, moving the current line and everything below it down by one line, and then brings up the edit window for you to enter a new pay slip. DELETE Erases the current line, moving everything below it up by one line to fill the gap. EXCHANGE This function is mainly intended for use with the "Edit titles" function in the "Prefs" menu. If you've used the "Edit titles" function to re-arrange your wage categories into a different order within the program, then you'll find that only the titles themselves have changed, and that the actual information entered in those categories has stayed in the same position as it was before. By selecting this function, you can move the actual wage details in your file from one place to another within the program to make them correspond to the modified titles: Simply click on the two categories that you want to change places and then press the "Accept" button. Note, though, that you can't exchange additions with deductions, or vice versa. OTHER ----- SEARCH Press the appropriate button to choose which category you want to search, and then enter the required value. The program will then search from the current line onwards and, if it finds an entry for your value, will give you the option of either stopping there or continuing the search. TOTALS Enter the start and finishing dates, and then the program will calculate and display the totals from between those dates. If you click on the "Print" button, then a copy of the totals window will be sent to the printer. DATE ORDER Re-arrange the current file into date order. Be warned, though, if you are working with a large file then this might take a couple of minutes. PREFS ----- PROGRAM Edit program preferences, as already detailed. PRINTER Edit printer preferences, as already detailed. EDIT TITLES Edit the category titles, as already detailed. INSTALLING YOUR PRINTER DRIVERS =============================== If you're lucky enough to own a hard drive, or if you don't own a printer, then you won't have to worry about this. Otherwise, read on... Due to legal reasons, it is impossible for me to supply this disk with any printer drivers or preference programs installed on it. Luckily, the missing files will already be installed on the Workbench disks that came with your Amiga, so only a small amount of setting up is required: Please boot your computer using your standard Workbench disk, and then double-click on the Shell icon. Now type the following, pressing the return key after each line: resident c:copy makedir ram:printers copy devs:printers/#? to ram:printers Remove your Workbench disk, and put the Pay Advice disk into drive DF0 (the internal one). Now type: copy ram:printers/#? to df0:devs/printers After the drive light goes out, remove the Pay Advice disk and put your Workbench disk back into drive DF0. Type: delete ram:printers all makedir ram:prefs copy SYS:pref#? all to ram:prefs Again, wait for the drive light to go out, and then remove your Workbench disk and put the Pay Advice disk back into drive DF0. Now type: copy ram:prefs/#? all to df0: After that's finished, re-boot your Amiga using your Pay Advice disk. When you open the disk icon, you should see that the "Prefs" drawer has appeared somewhere in the window that appears (you might need to use the scroll gadgets to find it!) Open the Prefs drawer, double-click on the "Printer" icon, and then set the preferences up just as you did on your Workbench disk. And that's it! I know that it sounds complicated here, but it really is very simple, and you only have to do it once! Don't forget to read the section about this programs internal preferences system (as already detailed)... ADDITIONAL NOTES ================ This program makes the assumption that time started on 1st January 1950, and that it runs out on 31st December 2049. Somehow I can't see this causing any problems because hardly anybody will want to catalogue any pay slips that they might have lying around from before 1950, and, frankly, by the year 2049 we'll all have upgraded to something a little more powerful than the Amiga... This program is unable to handle numbers any larger than nine characters in length. To be honest, I don't think that anybody who has numbers longer than nine characters on their pay slip will be actively involved in using PD & shareware programs anyway, so I can't imagine this being a problem! If you accidentally tell the program that you want to enter a new pay slip, when in actual fact you didn't want to, then there is a way of cancelling the input sequence. If you've got the calculator turned on (which it will be by default) then all you have to do is hit the "C" button twice. If you've turned the calculator off, then when prompted to enter a number you should type "C" (without the quotes!) and press the return key. Either way, the operation will be cancelled. A word about memory: This program requires a huge chunk of unfragmented memory in order to work correctly. It'll work OK on machines with 1 meg or more, so if you have less than this then I'd recommend booting your computer and running this program without loading anything else in between. This should cure most problems. File names... It is officially recommended that you start a new pay slip file for each financial year, and that you save your files with names such as "FredBloggs1994" for your 1994 records while working for Fred Bloggs (or whatever). If you do insist on keeping inordinately long files, then this program will handle files up to 250 pay slips long (if you get paid weekly, then that's about FIVE YEARS worth!) File compatibility: Sadly, it is no longer possible to keep this program compatible with files created or saved using V1.27 of this program, but it still works fine with files from V2.00 onwards. If you still need to use files created on V1.27 of this program, then you'll need to convert them into V2.00/V3.00 format. To do this, you'll need to have either the PD or registered version of Pay Advice Analyser V3.00: Load your V1.27 file into this and it'll automatically convert it into V2.00/V3.00 format, and then all you have to do is save it again. You'll then be able to load it into this program without any problems. Please remember that there's no actual requirement for you to try and fill every single category available in this program, so if you only need three additions and four deductions then leave the other boxes blank! There are two reasons for this: 1) Suppose, half way through the financial year, you decided to join a union, or something else happened which meant having an extra addition or deduction to your wages. If you left some of the categories blank, then you could simply re-edit your titles to create a new category for that extra addition or deduction. 2) Imagine if, now and again, you were to get an extra addition/deduction to your wages, something which doesn't normally appear on your pay slip. If you enter all your normal details and then re-edit the pay slip, you'll find that you can click on those unused categories and put numbers in them. So, by doing this, you could still include that extra addition or deduction in your file. THE TRADITIONAL JOKES ===================== Well, the festive season is almost upon us once again, and I haven't mentioned any of my favourite Christmas jokes yet... 1) What do you get if you cross a shark with a block of ice? Frostbite! 2) What kind of parties do snowmen go to? Snowballs! 3) What do you get if you cross an octopus with a turkey? I don't know, but there's a leg for all the family! 4) What did Mrs Christmas say to Father Christmas? "It looks like rain deer!" 5) Why didn't the skeleton go to the party? Because he had no-body to go with! Ha ha ha ha ha... Ahem... Er, perhaps that's enough jokes for now... VERSION HISTORY =============== V1.27 Released 14th January 1993 The first public release of this program. After much consultation with Andy Eskelson, the program has a half-decent user interface, and, more importantly, it actually works... V2.00 Released 19th July 1993 * A complete re-write of the user interface. * Re-organised the pull down menu's into a sensible order. * Added keyboard short-cuts for commonly used menu items. * Completely re-wrote the LOAD and SAVE routines to incorporate complete file encryption, instead of just partial encryption as used in previous versions. * Added a calendar, pre-set from the system clock, for entering dates into the program. * Incorporated a simple calculator for entering numbers. * Improved number handling - Decimal places are automatically checked, and all numbers are now right-justified. * Wrote a "SAVE AS ASCII" function, enabling you to load your Pay Advice files into a word processor or text editor to re-arrange the layout before printing them. * Modified the screen display, so now the program uses the entire screen to display your file instead of just the bottom few lines. * Added a "DELETE FILE" function to the pull down menu's. * Modified the colour palette: You can actually read the file requesters now! * The program will now warn you if you try to quit when there's unsaved information in the current file. * Added some new printer preferences routines and completely re-wrote the printout function. * Wrote a way, through the calculator, to cancel the input sequence for entering a new pay slip (press "C" twice) * Improved the screen update and button-handling routines. * Plus numerous bug removals (too many to list!) and more... V2.10 Released 5th August 1993 (EXCLUSIVE TO REGISTERED USERS) * It turned out that my new printout routines had a slight bug in them which affected the last page of a printout. Corrected. * Added an ICONIFY routine. * Plus a few minor enhancements and modifications here and there... V3.00 Released 11th October 1993 * Er, don't know how to say this, but the "DELETE FILE" function never actually worked! Corrected this, plus a number of other bugs. * Looks like there was a problem with the "SAVE AS ASCII" routines used in V2.10 - the columns of numbers didn't line up properly! Corrected this as well. * Incorporated some program preferences routines... * User now has the option of whether or not to use the calculator. * The calendar can now be disabled, and if so, the user can choose whether to type dates using the DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YY format. * Added an option to automatically load a Pay Advice file by default. * Drastically improved the screen update speed. * Completely re-wrote the "ARRANGE INTO DATE ORDER" function, so now it'll re-arrange any size file in a couple of minutes or so, instead of taking up to ten times longer than this! Also, this routine will now automatically remove any blank lines from the current file. * Added some error handling routines - Now, if something goes wrong, the program will tell you what happened instead of just quitting with a meaningless error code. * Wrote some nice single-button requesters, so you don't get any more daft requesters appearing with two "Cancel" buttons beside one another. * When saving files, when asked to enter a password you can now press return without typing anything to keep the last password that you entered. * If you've customized the file layout, the program will no longer ask you to enter a number for any category which doesn't have a name (you can still put numbers in these categories by editing the pay slip in the usual manner) * File loading and saving is now directed towards the AmigaDos path PayAdvice: instead of the program guessing (often wrongly!) what the current device and directory are likely to be. * A minor cosmetic change: Designed a nice, 2.0-style icon to replace the old Pay Advice program icon. * Plus more... V4.00 Released 24th December 1993 * A complete re-design of the GUI... The program now conforms far more closely to the WB2-standard for user interfaces... * The program now supports ten user-definable categories instead of just six. * Converted the Pay Advice doc file into AmigaGuide format. * Incorporated a standard WB2 AmigaDos version string into the program. * Changed the main Pay Advice screen into a backdrop window, so now you can't accidentally lose requesters and such behind the main screen... * Modified the error handling routines - Now, if something goes wrong, the program will give you the option of attempting to save the current file before quitting. * To keep memory requirements down to a minimum, the maximum number of pay slips allowed in each file has been lowered from five hundred to two hundred and fifty (the extra categories mean that you need more memory to store each individual pay slip than in earlier versions) * Modified the keyboard controls for moving through a pay slip file: The left/right cursor keys now move you one line at a time, and the up/down keys move you a screen at a time. * Due to technical reasons, this program is no longer compatible with files created/saved using V1.27 of this program - but it still works fine with files saved from V2.00 onwards. * Completely re-wrote the "SAVE AS ASCII" function, and removed the "With grid" and "Without grid" options. You can now choose which categories you want to save, and can also select the start and finishing dates for the save... * Unless your printer requires a form feed after every printed page, then you can now completely ignore the section about setting up the programs internal printer preferences. * The program now displays the current file name on the title bar. * Added a "Printout" option to the "DISPLAY TOTALS" function. * Renamed the "SAVE" function to "SAVE AS", and added a new "SAVE" menu function which lets you save the current file automatically using the last file name and password used. * When editing a pay slip with the calculator turned on, the program will no longer remove the value from any category that you select in the edit window - Instead the number will now stay where it is and the calculator will appear with a blank display. * Removed the "Do you wish to modify the file format" requester from the "Create a new file" routine, and replaced it with an "EDIT TITLES" function in the "Prefs" menu. You can now change the titles any time you want, and not just exclusively when you're creating a new file... * Added an "EXCHANGE" function to the "Lines" menu, which lets you swap information between categories, mainly for use with the "Edit titles" function. * When creating a file, or modifying the user-definable category titles, the program will no longer automatically erase the current contents of a box when you click in it to edit its contents. * Added a "Cancel" button to the "SEARCH FILE" function. * You can now cancel the input sequence for entering a new pay slip even if you're not using the calculator: Type "C" (without the quotes!) and press return when prompted to enter a number. * It appears that the program would let you enter daft numbers like "12.34.56" and actually accept them! Corrected this. * Centred all the "Details for period ending..." titles in the edit and totals windows. * Modified the "INSERT LINE" function so that it'll automatically bring up the edit window for you to enter a new pay slip. * Drastically reduced the delay by which the edit window remains on screen after entering a new pay slip. * The "SEARCH FILE" function no longer stops at the first entry that it finds - A requester will now appear telling you which pay slip contains the required value and asking whether or not you want to continue the search. * Modified the "ICONIFY" routine to include a password option. * The "PRINTOUT" routines will now let you specify exactly which categories you want to print, and now includes an option to print the totals for the selected categories... * When you click on an entry to modify it when editing a pay slip, simply pressing enter without typing a new number will no longer clear the current value of that category. * All main buttons in the program will now respond to keyboard short-cuts, instead of just those on requesters... * The Pay Advice preference files are now loaded and saved to AmigaDos path "s:" instead of "SYS:s" * Plus other minor enhancements... DISCLAIMER ========== This software is supplied "AS IS" without any warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of mechantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the results and performance of this software is assumed by the user. Should the software prove defective, the user (and not the author or anybody associated therewith) assume the entire cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction. Further, the author does not warrant, guarantee or make any representations regarding the use of, or the results of the use of, this software in terms of correctness, accuracy, reliability, currentness, or otherwise; and you rely on this software and the results entirely at your own risk. In no event will the author be liable for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from the use of this software even if advised of the possibility of such damages. The author reserves the right to make changes to this software at any time without obligation to notify any person or entity of such revisions or changes. This program, and all associated software, files, programs and text, is the exclusive copyright of Richard Smedley 1992, 1993, All Rights Reserved. This "save disabled" version of this program may be freely distributed, in its entire form only, providing all files remain intact and unmodified. This disclaimer shall supersede any verbal or written statement to the contrary. Your use of this software indicates your acceptance of this disclaimer. FINAL WORDS =========== Well, I think that just about covers everything... Always remember: Du musst Ambose oder Hammer sein. Auf Wiedersehen, Richard Smedley