The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-386-Vol-2of3.iso/b/bk51cd5.zip/CHANGES.DOC

Text File | 1992-09-22 | 26KB | 413 lines

This document tells about the changes in Brother's Keeper version 5.0.  Users
of version 4.5 will know how to use the features in 5.0 after reading this.
If you have never used Brother's Keeper before, then you should read the
complete documentation in BK5DOC or BROTHER.DOC.  To see changes after the
manual was printed and after 5.0, read the file README.DOC.

The CONVERT5 program will convert your version 4 or 4.5 data to 5.  You may
create the version 5 data files in the same directory as the version 4 data
and it will not mess up the version 4 data.  Also, the new programs have new
names, so they can be in the same directory as the 4.5 programs if you wish.
(However, I would recommend that you put version 5 in a new directory.)
The CONVERT5 program does not copy or move the $$TEXTFILES and it does not
change the path for the $$TEXTFILES, so keep that in mind if you put the
programs and data into a new directory.  For example: if you have the line
$$C:\BK\SMITH.TXT in a message line, the program will still expect to find
the file in the \BK directory.

To start the conversion program, type CONVERT5 and that will load Btrieve and
then start the conversion program.  If you have over 2,000 names in your
files, it will take a while to convert.  The conversion is one of the slowest
parts of the program, however, once the data is converted the new program
will run as fast or faster than version 4.5.

To start version 5 of BK, type BK5 and that will start Btrieve and then BK.

NOTICE:  If you do not have a hard disk to hold the data files, then I would
recommend that you do not use version 5 (use 4.5C instead).

Here is a summary of the changes in version 5.0 since 4.5C.

1.  A person may be given two sets of parents.  Just add the person as a child
    using the normal Add routine.  When you add the person to the second set
    parents, the program will ask you if you really want to do that.
2.  Designate type of parents (default is birth - others are adopted, step,
    foster, other).  You may do this for one set of parents or both.
3.  Source lines (3 full lines for each date/location) may be entered to show
    where you found information about an event (date/location).  The experts
    say "document your sources".
4.  The Ref: field may be used to find people.  (Instead of code number)
5.  Mailing address information and phone number may be entered. (press F4)
6.  The size of the files is limited only by your disk size.  If you have
    enough disk space, you may enter 999,999 individuals. The previous limit
    was 15,000 (or 18,000 if you stretched it.)
7.  Unique locations are saved on disk only once (to save disk space).
8.  The built in editor can edit 120 lines instead of only 24.  Also, it now
    includes word wrap when typing.
9.  The file structure is all new.  If you have over 1,000 names in the file,
    the program will start faster than version 4.5.
10. New fields: "Marr. ceremony Y/N"  "Divorced/Annulled/Separated"  "End year"
11. The "check" field data is moved to the "page" field of sources.
12. A quality of data field is shown after the page field in sources.  This
    information is used by programs such as Roots III to track the reliability

    of the data shown.  If the date referenced is a guess, make it quality 0.
13. There is limited mouse support.  For menu and data entry and editor.
14. Individual add.  Add a single person (not as child or spouse of someone).
    Use the individual add routine if you don't want to link to anyone.
15. Every word in the program can be changed by using the BK5WORDS program.
    When the Brother's Keeper program starts, it reads a file containing the
    desired words.  The same Brother's Keeper program will run in a foreign
    language (already translated into French, German, Polish, Danish, and
    Norwegian.) The BK5MAIN program reads LANGUAGE.BK5, the Ancestor routine
    reads LANGUAGE.BKA, the Group routine reads LANGUAGE.BKG, and the Tree
    routine reads LANGUAGE.BKT.  BK5WORDS creates all LANGUAGE files.  You
    do not need to use BK5WORDS unless you want to change some words in the
    program or on the printouts.
16. On the modify screen, if a person has message lines, there will be an M
    on the top line and if a person has an address, there will be an A.  Also
    if the person has source data, a dash will be before the date field name.
17. If the program is not able to determine the person's last name correctly,
    you may put [ before the last name and ] after the last name.
18. I STRONGLY recommend that you keep the DATA files on a HARD disk.
    Otherwise this program will run VERY slowly.  I repeat, do NOT put the
    DATA files on a floppy diskette.
19. When adding a location, if you think the location was used before, then
    type a few letters and press F8 to display matching locations to pick.
20. If the BKOPTION file is found on the disk, the program will find the
    Path for the data files, and proceed to the main menu.  If you want the
    program to say "press enter to start" then start the program with the
    line BK5 /H and that will cause it to hold on the first screen.
21. In modify, while on the bottom line type / to delete a person.  This will
    physically erase the person, and terminate all links to parents, spouses,
    and children.  That person's code number will then not be used again,
    although the disk space will be used by another number.
22. A new options screen 3 is available.  You may specify the characters to
   use to surround an unusual last name.  The [] characters are normally
   used, but you may want to use something else such as {} or <>.  You may
   enter the number of lines used by mailing labels, and which address lines
   you want to print on each label.  You may set up use of the BKAUDIT file.
   You may set up to show the date of last update for each person on the
   Modify screen.  You may enter the character to use at the beginning of
   message lines that you NEVER want to print.  You may enter the ASCII value
   for the character for the vertical bar on ancestor charts and when
   printing the compressed group sheets.  The character is normally ASCII 124
   which is |, but some countries don't have that character available.  And
   you may enter the codes for superscript for your printer.  Those codes
   are used when printing source footnotes on group sheets.  The superscript
   codes may also be set up by using the BKUTIL5 to "pick a printer".  You
   may set an option for how you want name searches to take place.  If you
   put 0 (for no) on the "search for exact name with enter" line, then when
   you type a name and press enter, it will show you all names with the same
   first five letters in the first name and the same first five letters in
   the last name. (This is basically the way version 4.5 operated.) If you set
   that option to 1 (for yes), then if you type a name and there is at least

   one exact match, then only exact matches will be shown.  If you want to
   see non-exact matches you may still do so by typing the name and pressing
   the F8 key instead of the enter key.
23. BKAUDIT is a file which contains information about changes that you have
    made with Modify.  It will contain the date of change, the person's code
    number, and the old and new value of changes to the name, any of the five
    dates for a person, the ref field and the occupation field.  It will not
    currently record the location changes or marriage information changes.
24. If you elect to show the date of last change for a person, please note
    that the way it is currently set, if you move the cursor to any field of
    a person in Modify, that will change the update date, even if you leave
    the information the same.  However, if you view data with Modify, without
    moving the cursor off the bottom line, the date will not be changed.
25. If you start a message line with the # character, the message line will
    not print on any reports.  This is useful when you don't want to publish
    very personal information, but still want to record it in the computer.
    Even when you say to print All message lines, the # lines still will not
    print.
26. In custom reports, if you ask to print the name of the spouse or the
    marriage information, the first spouse and first marriage information will
    normally print.  However, if you also pick field 98, then the last (most
    recent) spouse and marriage will print.  If you pick field 99, then all
    of a person's spouses and marriages will print.  If a person had multiple
    marriages, each will print on a separate line in the appropriate column.
27. In BKUTIL5 you can print all locations, delete unused locations, and
    change locations globally.  If you print all locations, you will most
    likely find that you have entered several locations in different ways.
    For example, you may find "Grand Rapids, Mich." and "Grand Rapids, Kent
    County, Michigan" and "Grand Rapids, Kent Co., Mich." all listed.  This
    is wasting disk space, so you may change all of them to be the same.
    To do so, pick change location names, and then enter the ones to be
    changed in the top box, and the one to change them all to in the second
    box and everyone who uses any of those locations will be changed.
28. In the utility program, you may print all sources, delete unused sources,
    and change sources.  This is similar to locations described above.  For
    example, if you have entered a source for several different people, and
    then you discover that you misspelled a word, you should use this routine
    to change the source and it will correct it for everyone.  If you instead
    use the Modify routine in BK, it will only change it for one person and
    it will not change the description of the source for other people.
29. For Group sheets, you may print footnotes for the source notes that you
    entered.  If you say yes for footnotes, you may then say yes or no for
    the children's footnotes.  The children may have footnotes only if you
    specify All data for children or if you specify Compressed data for
    children.  On the line that says "Print source/reference footnotes?" you
    may also enter the number 4 if you want the check field data to print as
    it did in version 4.0 to 4.5.  If you pick "4", then it will not print
    footnotes, it will just show the first part of the page field.  This
    feature is to accommodate the users of 4.0 to 4.5 who may want to continue
    printing the group sheets in the same way as version 4.
30. Also for Group sheets you may pick type C for compressed children data

    and that will print a group sheet with lots of information packed onto
    one page.  Several people have asked for a group sheet that shows all
    information for up to 10 children on one sheet of paper.  The Compressed
    choice will do this.
31. Also in Group sheets you may print an index of names and pages.  If you
    ask for page numbers, then at the end of the report it will ask if you
    also want to print an index.
32. Also in Group sheets, you may choose to omit blank date/location lines.
    If you answer yes for this option, then any fields with blank information
    will be skipped for the husband and wife (and the children if you have
    selected all information for children.)  The birth and death lines will
    still print even if the data fields are blank.
33. When the total number of people is shown at the bottom of the menu screen,
    it is the actual number, which may be less than the highest code number
    in use.  When you delete people, the deleted code number is not reused.
    Perhaps there will be a way to reuse deleted code numbers in the future.
    Even though the code number is not reused, the disk space is reused by
    the next person you add.
34. The ancestor chart (when displayed on screen) allows easy movement to the
    person's Father, Mother, Spouse, Older sibling, Younger sibling, children.
35. In addition to ALT-A thru ALT-Z, you can use ALT-1 thru ALT-0 and ALT-- and
    ALT-= (basically the top row of white keys).  Alt fields are 78 characters.
36. The Tree charts can be twice as wide as they were in version 4.5, and if
    the tree chart includes birth and death dates, ABT and CIR dates will also
    show.


The CONVERT5 program will convert all version 4.5 data files to version 5.
Run CONVERT5 one time to convert your data.  If you have more than one set
of version 4.5 data files, you can run CONVERT5 twice and choose to ADD the
second set to the first.  The CONVERT5 program creates new files for use
with version 5, and will not change your version 4.5 data files, but just
to be on the safe side, make BACKUP copies of all your 4.5 data files before
you convert the data.

Although I thought that the same number of names would take up less disk space
in version 5 than it did in 4.5, it may take up about 10-15 percent more
space for the same data.  Each name in 5 can store more information than in
version 4.5, therefore the record length is larger.  The data files are
partially compressed, but the indexes (which are part of the file) are not
compressed.  Each name record is indexed four ways: 1. by code number 2. by
exact name 3. by partial first and last name  4. by Ref field.

The data files are quite complicated and are managed by Btrieve.  Whereas I
was able to edit the data files in version 4.5 to fix errors, I will not be
able to edit the data files in 5.  Therefore it is very important to have
backups of your data files.  If anything goes wrong with the data files, you
could loose everything in them, and you will have to go back to your backup
set.  Btrieve does contain some nice features which should save you from
disaster if the power goes off when writing to the file.  However, if the
files are damaged because of a disk going bad or developing bad sectors, you

will probably have to use your backup set of data files.  If your files are
too large to backup with the backup routine available from the menu, be sure
to BACKUP the data files with another program.  The files that are important
to backup are all the files that end with the .DT5 extension.  You could use
the DOS BACKUP program, or another program such as PC-TOOLS or FASTBACK, or if
you have the ARC or PKZIP program, you could compress the files and then copy
them.  You will find that PKZIP or ARC will compress the files to about 1/4th
the original size and that should help you fit them onto diskettes.

If your data files are damaged, save all your current backup diskettes, and
use new blank floppy diskettes to make new backups.  There are a couple
programs available that are designed to fix damaged Btrieve files, but nothing
is better than having a couple sets of current backup disks.  One program that
is used to fix damaged Btrieve data files is call BTRHELP and it is available
on CompuServe and is available on my BBS.

This version 5 of Brother's Keeper uses a program called Btrieve to manage
the data files.  Btrieve handles all the indexes of names and numbers in the
database.  Version 5 of BK does not have to "read the alpha file" each time
it starts since the indexes are part of the data files.  Btrieve is a memory
resident program which loads just before the BK program starts, and which is
removed from memory when the BK program stops.  When you type BK5 to start
Brother's Keeper, it first loads Btrieve, and then starts BK5MAIN which is
the main part of BK.  The routines on the menu which are labeled "external
reports" are separate programs which are run when selected.  When the external
report is finished, you may choose to run the same report again, or to return
to the BK5MAIN program, or to stop.  If you ran BK 4.5 with over 1,000 names,
you should find that starting BK will be faster in version 5 since the
program does not have to read the ALPHA file each time.

In Occupation field, press CTRL-A to set the parent type.  Each time it is
pressed, it changes through 9 possibilities.  (Adopted, Step, Foster, etc)
If you do this on the modify screen, it will show the type of parent after
both the father and the mother.  (In Add it just shows on the bottom line).

Each person may have two sets of parents.  For example, birth parents and
adopted parents.  (Or step parents or foster parents.)  When adding a child,
just type the name and F8 to search, and it will let you add the child to the
second family.  Then it will jump to the occupation field and you may set the
parent type by pressing CTRL-A.  Each press of CTRL-A will display the next
type of parent for father/mother.  (On the modify screen, it will show the
type of parent after each parent's name.  You may press CTRL-A in the
occupation field on modify also.)

Each date/location line can have Source information entered.  Press F6 to
enter Source information (up to 3 lines.)  When duplicating a previously
entered source, type a couple words and press F8.  After the three lines of
source information, there is a Page field.  If the source is a book, enter the
page numbers in that field.  Enter the word Page also.  If the source is
microfilm, then enter the reel number in the page field.  Enter the word reel
and then the number.  (If you used the check fields in version 4 of BK, then


the data from those fields may be in this Page field.  Depending on what you
used the check fields for, you may need to move that data.)  Each unique set
of 3 source lines is saved only once on the disk in order to save disk space.
Therefore, use the F8 key to recall the previously saved source so that it
will exactly match.  Use the page field to enter information that is unique
for this date.

Press F4 when in a date or location field to bring up a screen for entering a
person's mailing address and phone number.  Press Ctrl-L to print a label.
You can control which label lines will print, and the size of the label by
adjusting the numbers on option screen 3.  For example, you may want to have
a line in the address field that does not print on the label, such as the
phone number.  To print a group of address labels, pick N from the main menu
and then print a custom report with only a field number of 95.

When in a name field, (while in Add or Modify) press F6 to enter an alternate
name for a person.  I suggest you enter the birth name in the normal name
field and the current name in the alternate name field.  This is for people
who have changed their name or have been adopted and use a new last name.

When entering a name, the program will normally be able to automatically
figure out what the last name is for the person.  It will catch common two
part last names, and will ignore Jr or Sr after a name.  Occasionally, the
program will not be able to determine the correct last name.  In that case,
put [] around the last name.  Example: "John [Steed] of Kent" will be indexed
under the last name of Steed instead of Kent.  The [] will not print on
reports, but will show on the Add and Modify screens.  Routines which need the
last name (such as the alphabetical report and the birthday report) will look
for the [] brackets and use that name for the last name.  For most names, you
will not need to use the brackets.  If you don't want to use the characters [
and ] then change the characters on option screen 3.

If you enter a reference number or code in the Ref: field, you will be able to
find people by entering that number or code.  This is useful if you want to
use your own numbering system and what to be able to find people using that
number.  To find someone by ref number, when you are asked for a name to find,
type either a / or a \ followed by whatever is in the ref field (exact match
only).  Example:  If you have JS1234 in the reference field, then type /JS1234
to find that person.  Note: do not type the / in the ref field - only type it
when searching for a person.  So there are three ways to find someone  1. Type
their name  2. Type their code number.  3. Type a / and then their reference
field.  If two or more people have the same Ref: info, each will be shown by
pressing TAB.

When typing a location, if it is the same as a location already entered
previously, type the first part of the location name and then press F8 to
search for matching entries.  They will be displayed and you may use the up
and down arrows to point to the location you want and then press enter.  This
will guarantee that the locations are typed exactly the same and that will
save disk space.  (Each unique location is only saved once on the disk even if
several hundred people use that location.)  If you have mostly unique location

names, the location file will be large, but if you have lots of duplicates,
the location file should be smaller than it was in version 4.5

In version 4.5, if you typed *UNKNOWN for a husband or wife name, it would not
print that name on reports, but it did take up 1 record.  In version 5, you
may type *UNKNOWN for a husband or wife name, and it will not create a record
at all for that person.  The "marriage" will contain only one partner.  If you
later discover the name for the unknown partner, you can change the unknown
person into a real person in this way:  Go to Modify and call up the known
person.  Then press F6 to jump to the add routine.  Then after selecting the
correct person, use the up arrow key to change the name from *UNKNOWN to the
actual name.  The existing marriage will then connect those two people and any
children linked to previously known partner will still be correctly linked.

There is a menu item for adding an individual.  Sometimes, the normal Add
routine (which adds a family all at one time) may not be what you want.  In
that case, pick I to add an individual.  This individual will not be linked to
anyone else.  If you later want to link that person to a spouse, parent, or
child, then use the normal Add routine and call up that person in the desired
location by either searching by name or by typing in the person's code number.

To see the most recent changes to BK 5 read the file README.DOC

I have just started a BBS, so if you have a modem, you can call for all
programs, and for any fixes to the programs.  From experience I believe there
will be several changes to the programs in the next few weeks as I get
feedback about this new version.  The BBS (computer bulletin board service)
number is [phone] and it uses an HST dual standard modem, so it can
handle 1200, 2400, 9600, and 14400 baud modems.  The programs are large, so
find a fast modem and call when the phone rates are cheap.  The board is
available for downloads to first time callers.

If by chance you are not a registered user of Brother's Keeper, here is
registration form.



 To: John Steed                              Date ________________
     6907 Childsdale Rd
     Rockford, MI  49341   U.S.A.

      I have version 5.1 of Brother's Keeper.  (9/2/92)
   __
  |__|  I would like to become a Registered user.  Enclosed is a check for
        $45 (U.S. check or Canadian check in U.S. funds) or MasterCard or VISA
        number and expiration date.  Please send me the printed manual and
        the current version of the programs. ($45 includes all programs.)
   __
  |__|  I have data in Brother's Keeper version 4.  Please send the
        CONVERT5 program also.
   __
  |__|  I have data in  ___Genealogy on Display   ___FHS   ___Linkages and
        would like a program to transfer the data to Brother's Keeper.
   __
  |__|  Send the program in __French    __German    __Danish      __Polish
                            __Swedish   __Finnish   __Norwegian   __Dutch

        __send the translation program so that I may translate to ____________
        (It lets you change the words built into BK such as Husband, Wife)

        Where did you first get a copy of Brother's Keeper?

        __Friend   __Shareware Company   __Computer User Group
        __Store    __Genealogy Society   __BBS

        I am using the program on the following type of equipment.

        Computer brand _________________________ Do you have a modem? _____

        Amount of RAM memory      512K      640K     _________

        Hard disk?          Yes        No

        Diskette size preference      3 1/2  720k         5 1/4  360K
                                      3 1/2  1.44meg      5 1/4  1.2meg

        Monitor        mono       color -  CGA     EGA     VGA

        Printer      __________________________


        Name     ______________________________________________

        Address  ______________________________________________

                 ______________________________________________

                 Country ______________________________________

 Comments and suggestions:  _________________________________________________

 ____________________________________________________________________________
 use back side also

 (Thank you very much for responding.  John)