This page is for notes about this help document. It is never
displayed. The following are the system help context definitions:
Pages 2 - 10 are in sure1.hlp
Pages 11 - 20 are in sure2.hlp
Pages 21 - 28 are in sure3.hlp
2 - Main Help
10 - @-function zoom list
Menus:
3 - File Menu
4 - Page Menu
5 - Operate Menu
6 - Edit Menu
7 - Field Menu
8 - Data Menu
9 - Graphic Menu
Windows off File Menu:
11 - Get
12 - Save
13 - Print
14 - Delete, Rename
15 - Setup
Windows off Page Menu:
16 - Format
17 - Go To
18 - Find
19 - Replace, Ask & Replace pane
Windows off Operate Menu:
20 - Calculator
Windows off Edit Menu:
(none)
Windows off Field Menu:
21 - Create
22 - Modify
23 - Commands
Windows off Data Menu:
24 - Search Options
25 - Build Query
26 - Edit Query
27 - Format Report
Windows off Graphic Menu:
28 - Special Characters
any point you can press F1 to get contextual information.
At the top of the screen is the status line. The left half contains
the Menu Bar with 7 pull down menus. The right half contains status
information including the current document name and cursor location.
The menus are used to access the major features of Surefire.
Press F10 to access the Surefire Menu Bar. Once here, use the arrow
keys ____ to select and open one of the seven menus. Press Esc to
return to your document page. When a menu is displayed, press F1 to
see specific information about that menu.
Press Page Down for more Help.
Choose a menu item by pressing Enter when that item is highlighted.
Sometimes this causes an action to occur. An item followed by 3 dots
(...), indicates that a System window will be displayed. System
windows request additional information needed by Surefire to perform
an operation. Fields let you type in or choose values pertinent to the
operation. You may move between fields by using the Home and End keys.
When a System window is open, press F1 to see specific help about the
window. Press Esc to close a System window and return to the document.
One letter of a menu item may be brighter or a different color than
the rest. That item is a valid choice. Pressing this letter will be
the same as moving to that menu item and pressing Enter. There may be
a Short Cut key shown to the right of the menu item. This keystroke
may be used to achieve the same effect of the menu item even when the
menu is not displayed.
Press Page Down for more Help. Page Up to see the previous screen.
Word Processing Keys
_ _ _ _ - move cursor one character in direction of arrow.
Ctrl + _, Ctrl + _ - move cursor one word to the right or left.
Home, End - move cursor to beginning or end of line.
Page Up, Page Down - move one screen up or down.
Ctrl + Home, Ctrl + End - move to beginning or end of document.
Delete - delete character at the cursor.
Backspace - delete character to left of the cursor.
Ctrl + D - delete current line of text.
Ctrl + E - delete text to the end of the current line.
Shift + Backspace - delete word at the cursor.
ALT + W - turn word wrap on or off.
Insert - switch from insert mode to Typeover or back.
Press Page Down for more Help. Page Up to see the previous screen.
In Surefire Help, the plus sign (+) is used to show that 2 keys are
pressed at the same time. For example, Shift + F10 means to hold down
the Shift key and the F10 key together. You press Shift + F10 to see
the Surefire keystroke Hint Line at the bottom of the screen. This
shows other keys that are useful to the current operation or window
and will remain visible until you press Shift + F10 again.
To Exit from Surefire to DOS, press ALT + X; first use ESC to close
any open windows.
End of Help. Press Esc to exit Help. get the document again so you can re-run the report.
Exit - Exit from Surefire to Dos.
Further Help
Except for Info..., the System windows accessed from File will be
fully explained in help screens for those windows. Press F1 when a
System window is open to see more specific help. Press Esc to close a
window and return to your document.
Messages
You will be warned if an operation may cause the loss of changes you
have made to a document that has not been saved. When this happens a
message response window will be displayed. After reading the message,
press the End to move the cursor to the YES or NO buttons in response
to the question. Press Enter to let Surefire know your decision. If
you decide not to continue with the operation, the cursor will return
to the document.
Read Chapter 24 of the Surefire User's Guide for information on Documents.
Read Chapter 23 for more information on Printing.
Read Chapter 9 of the Surefire User's Guide for complete information on Page Layout.
Read Chapter 6 for more information on Locating Text.
Read the section "The Modes of Editing and Using Documents" in Chapter 24 of the Surefire User's Guide.
Read Chapter 10 for complete information on the Calculator.
to select an area of your document in a specified way. The next five items operate on the selected region. You may also underline or embolden a selected area.
To start a selection, move the cursor to the upper left corner of the
area you are going to select. Now, use the arrow keys (____) to define
the boundaries of the selected region. When the desired region is
highlighted, you may choose one of the remaining items to operate on
the selected region.
The operations Cut, Copy, Paste, and Paste & Keep move information to
and from clipboard objects. There may be one or more of these objects.
You hide or unhide a clipboard object by pressing F6 as needed. When a
clipboard object is visible, press Shift + F10 to see other keystrokes
used to manipulate these objects. Use the arrow keys (____) to place
the object on the document prior to a Paste or Paste & Keep.
Here are descriptions of what each menu item will do:
Line Select - Initiate a line selection. This allows you to select
consecutive lines of text that may span pages of a
document. A selection may start anywhere on a line of
text.
Block Select - Initiate a block selection. This allows you to select a
rectangular region on a page.
Field Select - Initiate a field selection. This allows you to select
one or more fields in a rectangular region for one of
the operations on this menu or for Project on the Data
menu.
Cut - Remove the currently selected region or the current
field from the document and place it in a clipboard
object. If the region was a Line Selection, and Insert
or Wrap is on, close up gap created by removed text.
Copy - Copy the currently selected region or the current field
from the document and place it in a clipboard object.
If a field was copied, Paste will create a new field
with the same attributes.
Paste - Paste the contents of the current clipboard object into
the document This clipboard object is removed.
Paste & Keep - Paste the contents of the current clipboard object into
the document. Do not remove the clipboard object.
Delete - Remove the currently selected region or the current
field from the document. If a clipboard object is
visible, remove it instead.
Read Chapter 7 of the Surefire User's Guide for complete information on using the features of the Edit menu.
creating, modifying and manipulating fields.
Read Chapters 14 through 16 for more information on creating and calculating field commands. Chapter 16 describes Surefire Spreadsheets.
The Data Menu contains menu items that invoke operations on a Surefire
database. Database operations are available when there are fields in a
document and when these fields either define stored data or project
data from a database defined by another document. Each time you use a
document to add or view information in a database, you are looking at
one data record. Here is an overview of what each menu item does:
Search - Choose this item or press ALT+S to initiate a database
search. If a query is defined in the query window (see
Build Query and Edit Queries below) the search will be
based on those criteria. If not, the search will be based
on the value of the current field.
Search Options... - Open the Search Options window. Set whether or
not to look for deleted records or use report attributes.
Build Query... - Open the Query window. If there is no currently
defined query, create the first query line based on the
current field, otherwise, display the existing query.
Clear Query - Clear knowledge of the current query.
Edit Queries... - Specify operations on named queries.
Add Record - Add a record to the current database consisting of the
values in the fields of the current document. If there is
no database and the fields are Stored, create the database.
Update Record(s) - If the Query window is not visible, update the
current record with the values in the document fields.
Otherwise, update all records that satisfy the current
query with the value of the current document field.
Delete Record(s) - If the Query window is not visible, delete the
current record. Otherwise, delete all records that
satisfy the current query. Deleted records may be
recalled until a restructure operation is performed.
Recall Record(s) - If the Query window is not visible, recall the
current record. Otherwise, recall all records that
satisfy the current query. You must have set the search
option to All or Deleted so that deleted records are
visible.
Project - Copy the currently selected field or fields with data
storage information. When the field(s) are pasted into
another document, their data values will actually be
projected from the original document's database. This is
how Surefire shares data among documents.
Format Report... - Open the Format Report window to specify report
formatting for this document. Report formatting is used
to present the data from more than one record at a time
in the same document. A document must be formatted as a
report for the database @D functions to work.
Restructure - Perform a restructure operation on the current
database. Restructure is needed if stored fields are
added, deleted or resized. Use restructure also to
permanently remove deleted records.
Press F1 when a System window is open to see more specific help. Press
Esc to close a window and return to your document.
Read Chapters 17 through 21 for complete information about databases. Adding Emphasis in Surefire documents.
@PMT(prin,int,term)
@PV(pmt,int,term)
@RATE(fv,pv,term)
@AVG(references)
@COUNT(references)
@MAX(references)
@MIN(references)
@SUM(references)
@STD(range)
@VAR(range)
@ADDDAYS(date,days)
@AFTER(date1,date2)
@BEFORE(date1,date2)
@DATE(month,day,year)
@DAY(date)
@DIFDATE(date1,date2)
@MONTH(date)
@SAME(date1,date2)
@SUBDAYS(date,days)
@TODAY
@YEAR(date)
@DATESTR(date)
@MONTHSTR(m)
@DAYSTR(date)
@FIND(str,text,start)
@SUBSTR(text,start,len)
@REPLACE(text,start,len,str)
@LENGTH(text)
@TRIM(text)
@EXACT(text1,text2)
@UPPER(text)
@LOWER(text)
@NUMSTR(n)
@PUTSTR(page,text,col,line)
@COPY(page,col1,line1,col2,line2,buffer)
@PASTE(page,col,line,buffer,copyattr)
@FCOPY(field,buffer)
@FPASTE(field,buffer,copyattr)
@TIME
@NOW
@GOPAGE(page)
@GOFIELD(field)
@GODOC("name")
@RETURN(levels)
@RUN("command")
@HELP(context)
@PRESENT(msecs)
@DAVG(field)
@DMAX(field)
@DMIN(field)
@DSUM(field)
@DCOUNT
@DSUBCOUNT Read the section "Getting Documents" in Chapter 24 of the Surefire User's Guide for more information on using the Get window.
User's Guide for more information on using the Save window.
on Printing.
Read the sections "Renaming Documents" and "Deleting Documents" in Chapter 24 of the Surefire User's Guide for complete details on these windows.
configuring your system using the Setup window.
Guide for more information on the Go To window.
Guide for more information on using the Find window.
good idea to first position to the beginning of the document.
Youcan tell Surefire whether to replace some or alloccurrences of the
text that it finds.
Replacing All Matching Text
1) Type the text you are looking for after Search For.
2) Press End to move the cursor and type the replacement text
to the right of Replace With.
3) Press End to move to the REPLACE ALL button.
4) Press Enter to begin the search and replacement.
5) Surefire will continue making replacements until it reaches
the end of the document. A message window will display the
number of replacements that were made. If no matching text is
found, a different message window will be displayed.
If, during the search, Surefire finds a place where there is no room
to make the replacement, a response window will appear to ask you
whether to skip the problem and continue, or to stop the replacement
operation. If you choose to stop, any replacements made to that point
will remain.
Asking & Replacing Text
You may desire that each time Surefire locates matching text you want
the option of replacing or skipping that specific occurrence and
continuing on to the next occurrence. The Ask & Replace Window allows
you to control replacements in this way. As Surefire locates text in
the document, that text will be highlighted. You may choose whether to
make the replacement, skip the replacement, continue from this point
making all replacements or stop the replacement operation.
1) Type the text you are looking for after Search For.
2) Press End to move the cursor and type the replacement text
to the right of Replace With.
3) Press End to move to the ASK & REPLACE button.
4) Press Enter, the Ask & Replace Window will be displayed.
- Choose SKIP to skip this occurrence and go to the next one.
- Choose REPLACE to make the replacement and go to the next one.
- Choose REPLACE ALL to make all replacements from this location
forward to the end of the document.
- Press Esc to stop making replacements.
A message window will display the number of replacements that were
made. If no matching text is found, a different message window will be
displayed.
If, during the search, Surefire finds a place where there is no room
to make the replacement, a response window will appear to ask you
whether to skip the problem and continue, or to stop the replacement
operation. If you choose to stop, any replacements made to that point
will remain.
Full Word/Part Word and Any Case/Exact Case
These multiple choice buttons tell Surefire the following:
1) whether to look for complete words when deciding on a text
2) whether to be concerned about case when locating text.
Get help for the Find Window (on Page Menu) for more information.
Also, read section "Using Replace" in Chapter 16 of the User's Guide. Use the Calculator to calculate values as with a hand-held calculator.
When the calculator is displayed, the cursor is positioned in a field
where you may type in a number or a formula. Each time you press
Enter, the number or formula result will be added to the value in the
the upper left corner of the calculator. This is the running total. A
formula may be something like "10 + 20 + 30" or "100 / @SQRT(8)",
or "321 - (10 * 2)", etc. You can use many of Surefire's @ functions
within a formula.
Using Functions
To choose a function while entering a formula, follow these steps:
1) Press ALT + Z to see a list of available functions.
2) Use up and down arrow keys __ to select the desired formula.
3) Press Enter to choose a formula or Esc to close the list.
4) Use the left arrow _ to move the cursor between the
parentheses ( ) and type numbers for the appropriate arguments
Clearing the Total
1) Press End to move to the CLEAR button.
2) Press Enter and the total will be set to 0.
Setting Initial Value from a Field
If your document has numeric fields, you may use a field's value as a
starting point for a calculation. To do this, follow these steps.
1) Move to the desired numeric field in your document. It will be
highlighted as the current field (or current cell).
2) Choose Calculator from the Operate Menu to open the Calculator
3) Press CTRL + Enter at some point in your formula.
The value of the current field will be entered at that place
in the formula.
Setting a Field Value to the Total
If your document has numeric fields, you may want to set the value of
a field or cell using some formula. To do this, follow these steps.
1) Move to the desired numeric field (or cell) in your document.
It will be highlighted as the current field (or current cell).
2) Choose Calculator from the Operate Menu to open the Calculator
3) Enter a list of numbers or formulas, pressing Enter after each
one to accumulate a total.
4) Press End twice to move to the PASTE button.
5) Press Enter to paste the calculator total into the field.
Read Chapter 10 of the Surefire User's Guide for complete information on using the Calculator.
Read Chapters 11 and 12 of the User's Guide for complete details.
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The Modify Field Window is used to change the attributes of the
current field. The five types of fields are: Text, Numeric, Date,
Logical and Button. Each of these field types have attributes that
determine how they will be displayed and how data entry will be
accepted. This window is not used to change the size of a text or
numeric field.
Data entry fields or multiple choice buttons, for setting field
attributes, will appear in the window depending on the type of the
current field. Press ALT + Z to list possible values for each button.
Modifying a Field's Attributes
1) Position the cursor to the desired field.
2) Choose Modify from the Field Menu to open Modify Fields Window
3) To change attributes, press End to move to each attribute
field and set the values as desired (see below).
4) Press End to move to the OK button.
5) Press Enter. The attributes will be changed appropriately.
Common Attributes
Fixed Size/Auto Sized - This attribute applies to text, numeric and
long format date fields and is usually used to compress white space
out of wide fields prior to printing.
Not Stored/Stored/Projected - This attribute applies to all fields
except button.
Not Stored means that field is not associated with a database
Stored means that this field defines a database where field
values are stored in a database of the same name as the current
document;
Projected means that values for this field are stored in some
other database.
Specific Attributes
Text fields may be left justified, right justified, center, wrapped
(if multi-lined), or not justified at all.
A Numeric field may appear and accept data in a number of ways. It may
have decimal places, be justified or be in currency format, etc.
A Date field may have one of three formats and may be defaulted to
show the current (i.e. today's) date.
A Logical field can have 2 values (yes or no) in one of four formats.
A Button field must have a label which is text defining the button.
Read Chapters 12 and 13 of the Surefire User's Guide for more details.
Read Chapters 14 through 16 of the User's Guide for full information. "Turning off Report Formatting" in Chapter 22 of the Surefire User's Guide for details on the user of this window.
Read Chapter 18 of the Surefire User's Guide for complete details. Guide for complete details on using named queries.
use the data field, department name, to sort your records. Then place a numeric field below your repeated fields to hold the command @DAVG(salary). Give the field an on change attribute. When the report is generated, the average salary of each department will be displayed just before listing records for the next department.
Use ALT + Z in this field to list all fields of the current database.
Running a Report
You run a report by initiating a database search on a document with
report formatting. As records are retrieved from the database, each
repeated data field will show the value of that field for that record.
The field will then be copied forward in the document to accept the
data value for the next record. This will happen until all records
have been displayed; Surefire will automatically create pages as
needed for your report. Fields set for page top or page bottom will be displayed as each page is generated. In addition, on change fields
will be calculated and displayed as needed.
If there is not sufficient memory to generate the full report, you will receive a message to use Search & Print.
Read Chapter 22 of the User's Guide for complete details on Reports.
Read the section "Special Characters" in Chapter 8 of the Surefire User's Guide for more information on using this window.
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