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Text File | 1989-08-14 | 18KB | 380 lines

BassTips Version 1.00 Copyright (c), 1989 Richard A. Olsen ShareWare BassTips is released as ShareWare. With this novel marketing concept, you have the opportunity to "try before you buy". If you find BassTips to be enjoyable and informative, then you are expected to register your copy with the author. Registered users will receive the latest version of BassTips, if the version they have is not current. In addition, they will be kept informed of new programs, updates etc., and receive full support of the software by the author. By registering your copy of any ShareWare program, you are supporting the efforts of the author, which in turn encourages the creation of new software at affordable prices. You are free to copy this software, upload it to BBS systems etc. All rights to the program remain the property of the author. This software may not be sold separately or bundled with another product without express written permission of the author. This software is protected under the United States Copyright laws. To register your copy of BassTips, fill in the registration form at the end of this document and send it together with $10.00 (cash, check, or money order) to the author: Richard Olsen 68 Hartwell Ave. Littleton, MA 01460 Introduction BassTips is a collection of valuable bass fishing tips gathered from many sources. Currently, there are over 100 tips in the collection, and it is growing almost daily. If you are "into" bass fishing, then BassTips is for you. BassTips can be configured to "pop" a tip onto your screen each time you turn on your computer, or you can run the program at your command. You can elect to have the tips appear in a random order, or to display them sequentially. You can scan the whole tip file if you want, or just look at one tip then exit the program. You can add your own tips, select the colors you like, and print the tips if you want. BassTips makes a great gift for any bass fisherman, and is sure to contain a tip or two that anyone can benefit from. Since these tips come from many sources (including the experiences of the author) there are probably some you have heard before, and many you haven't. In either case, BassTips is bound to teach you something new, or reinforce some aspect of your fishing habits. It might even make you a better fisherman! There are several files on your BassTips diskette. Here's a description of what they are, and what they do: 1. BassTips.EXE......This is the main program that reads the tips from the disk and displays them for you. 2. TIPCONFG.EXE......The configuration program. This program is used to set the display colors to your liking. 3. TIPPARAM..........This file contains the parameters used by BassTips to configure it the way you want it. It stores the colors you select and what is the next tip to be displayed if you have selected sequential display of the tips. 4. TIPS.RAN..........This is a random access file that contains the text for the tips. This file is accessed each time a tip is displayed. 5. TIPEDIT.EXE.......This is a simple program that will allow you to add your own tips to the TIPS.RAN file so they can be displayed by BassTips. 6. RTOT.EXE..........This is a utility program that will create a standard text file from the TIPS.RAN file. The file it creates is called TIPS.TXT, which can be sent to your printer. 7. TTOR.EXE..........This is another utility program. It is used for changing the file TIPS.TXT created by RTOT.EXE back into a random file so that BassTips can use it. 8. BassTips.DOC......The document you are reading now. 9. STUFF.DOC.........A "catalog" of other software available from the author and other sources. Some are fishing related. 10. BTIPS.BAT.........A batch file to make running BassTips in RANDOM mode easier. 11. BTIPSS.BAT.. .....A batch file to make running BassTips in SEQUENTIAL mode easier. What You Need BassTips will run on any IBM compatible personal computer with at least 256k of memory. It does not require a color display or a hard disk, but is faster and looks nicer if you have them. Installing BassTips on your hard disk To install BassTips on your hard disk, insert the distribution diskette into your floppy disk drive (either A: or B: will do). Then type the following lines, pressing ENTER after each line is typed. If you have inserted the diskette into drive B:, substitute B: for A: where necessary. CD\ (press enter) COPY A: BTIPS.BAT C: (press enter) COPY A: BTIPSS.BAT C: (press enter) MKDIR BassTips (press enter) CD BassTips (press enter) COPY A: *.* C: (press enter) Typing these lines will create a directory on your hard disk called BassTips, and copy all of the files to it for you. Configuring Colors for BassTips When you receive your BassTips diskette, it is configured for use on either a monochrome or a color display. On a color display, the background of the tip window will be gray, and the text will be displayed in black. The distribution diskette contains a program called TIPCONFG.EXE which will allow you to change the colors that BassTips uses. To change the default colors, first make sure you are attached to the BassTips directory, if you are using a hard disk. To do this, type CD\BassTips. Next, type TIPCONFG, which will run the color configuration program. Operation of the color configuration program is as follows: A box will appear on the screen that contains a border and some text. The background of the box, the title, and the text will be displayed in the currently selected colors. Beneath the box are three lines listing the choices. Use the UP and DOWN arrows to move the cursor to the choice you want to make, and use the LEFT and RIGHT arrows to change the selection for that choice. As you change colors, the corresponding colors you see on the screen will change. When you are satisfied with your color selections, press ESC to save the colors you have chosen, and make them the new default colors that will be used each time a tip is displayed. Running BassTips After you have completed the installation as described above, there are several ways to run BassTips. BassTips can either display the tips in a random order, or in sequence. The default mode is random. The easiest way to run BassTips is to type BTIPS. This will run the program in random mode. If you want to run in sequential mode, type BTIPSS. In sequential mode, BassTips remembers the last tip that you viewed, and automatically shows you the next tip in sequence. Both of these methods of running BassTips use the batch files supplied on the diskette. You can also run BassTips by typing BassTips -R for random mode or, to run sequentially, BassTips -S. To run in this way, you must be attached to the BassTips directory. If you select sequential mode, when the last tip in your file has been displayed, BassTips will reset to the beginning of the file. If you are in random mode, it's possible that the same tip could be displayed twice in a row. Adding New Tips If you come across a good bass fishing tip, and you want to add it to BassTips, there is a utility program on your distribution diskette that will help you do this. The program is called TIPEDIT.EXE. To run the tip editor, simply type TIPEDIT. Be sure you are attached to the BassTips directory. The tips consist of up to seven lines of text, each line containing up to 80 characters. When you first start TIPEDIT, the cursor will appear on the blank line beneath the words LINE 1. Type in your tip the way you want it. Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys to move to a new line. The DEL key will delete the character at the cursor position. When you type, new characters will appear at the cursor and all characters to the right of the cursor will be pushed further to the right. The LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys will move the cursor to the left or right in the line. MAKE SURE YOUR NUM LOCK IS OFF! Backspace works as you would expect. TIPEDIT will also let you edit a tip that already exists. First, you need to know the number of the tip you want to edit. One way to do this is to run BassTips in sequential mode, and jot down the number of the tip shown at the top of the tip window. Once you know what tip numbers you want to edit, quit out of BassTips by pressing ESC, then type TIPEDIT to start the tip editor. Be sure you are attached to the BassTips directory. When TIPEDIT is running, press ALT-L (hold down the ALT key while you press the L key). TIPEDIT will ask you for the number of the tip you want. Enter the number of the tip, and press ENTER. TIPEDIT will then search your disk for that tip and display it on the screen when it's found. Now you can use the UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT arrow key to position the cursor where the change is to be made. When all your changes have been made, press ESC to save the tip in its edited form, just as it appears on the screen. TIPEDIT will then ask if you want to enter or edit another tip. To exit the program, just answer N or NO. To edit another existing tip, answer Y or YES followed by ALT-L. If you want to ADD a new tip, answer Y or YES and TIPEDIT will clear the screen and position the cursor ready for the first line of the tip. Converting TIPS.RAN to a Text file BassTips uses a random file format to store the tips in a file called TIPS.RAN. This format allows BassTips to find the correct tip very quickly on your disk. Although random files have this speed advantage, the drawback is that they're not very readable by humans. Since at some time you may want to be able to read your tips file, a program is included on your BassTips distribution diskette that will create a readable text file based upon the tips in your TIPS.RAN file. The file created is called TIPS.TXT, which can be printed, or edited/examined with almost any word processing program. The conversion program used for creating a text file of your tips is called RTOT.EXE, and is contained on the BassTips distribution diskette. To create a text file that reflects the contents of your tips file, first make sure you are attached to the BassTips directory. Then simply type RTOT <enter>, and your text file will be created. The newly created file will be called TIPS.TXT. Creating a new TIPS.RAN file The BassTips distribution diskette contains a utility program called TTOR.EXE. The purpose of this little program is to create a random file, based on a text file, that is readable by BassTips. The only time this program is needed is if you have previously used the RTOT program to create a text file, then done some editing of that text file that you want BassTips to recognize. Use this program ONLY if you know what you're doing! It will overwrite the existing TIPS.RAN file with the new one. If you have flubbed up while editing the text file TIPS.TXT, those mistakes will appear in the resultant file created by TTOR and be reflected in the tips displayed by BassTips. Editing a BassTips text file If you have created a text file of your tips using RTOT, it will be called TIPS.TXT. This text file can be edited with almost any wordprocessing program. The format of the text for each tip is critical. The tips can be no more than 7 lines of text, with each line containing no more than 80 characters. The tips must be separated by a single asterisk (*) in the first character position of a line containing no other characters. If you decide to edit this text file with a wordprocessor program, be sure to follow a few simple precautions, in case you make a mistake. First, make a copy of the text file before you do any editing. Next, study the format of the text to make sure you understand the placement of the asterisk (*). After you finish your editing, run the TTOR utility program to convert your edited TIPS.TXT file back into a random file (TIPS.RAN) so it can be used by BassTips. If you experience any errors while running TTOR, then there is probably something wrong with the way you did your editing. Also, if the tips do not work properly with BassTips, you've most likely made a mistake in your editing of the text file. Editing of the text file, and subsequent regeneration of the TIPS.RAN file is not recommended because you can destroy your tips file, and render BassTips useless. BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. The distribution diskette contains a simple editor program that will do an adequate job of adding new tips to your file, or making changes to existing tips. It is highly recommended that you use it because it takes care of proper formatting for you. Printing Your Tips The tip file on the distribution disk, TIPS.RAN, cannot be sent to a printer directly. If you try it, garbled printing will result. The best way to obtain printed copy of your tips is to use the utility program supplied on the distribution diskette called RTOT. This program creates a text file that can be sent to your printer. To do this, first make sure you are attached to the BassTips directory, then type RTOT <enter>. In a few minutes, the message "Done" will appear, indicating that a text file has been created. To send the file to your printer, type COPY TIPS.TXT PRN:. Obviously, make sure your printer has paper loaded, is turned on, and is set to ON LINE before typing the copy command. Calling All Tips If you have some good bass fishing tips that you'd like to share, send them to me. I'll look them over, and possibly add them to the next release of BassTips. If I use one or more of your tips, I'll give you full credit for them in either the documentation or on the screen, and you'll receive an updated version with your tip or tips included, free. Registration Form To register your copy of BassTips, fill out the information below, and send this form along with $10.00 (U.S. funds, cash, check or money order) to the author at the address shown. You will promptly receive the newest version of BassTips upon receipt of your registration. NAME____________________________________________________________ STREET ADDRESS__________________________________________________ CITY____________________________________________________________ STATE___________________________________________________________ ZIP CODE________________________________________________________ COUNTRY_________________________________________________________ BassTips Version You Have_______________________________________ Where Did You Get BassTips?_____________________________________ COMMENTS: ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Mail to: Richard Olsen 68 Hartwell Ave. Littleton, MA 01460