EnigmA Amiga Run 1995 October

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Text File | 1995-04-11 | 36KB | 947 lines

Spondulix `Mark V' .. © 1995, J. Pritchard .. All Rights Reserved. Introduction. A Breath Of Fresh Air.. Spondulix `Mark V' has been designed as a very powerful personal accounts system. It is also very easy to use. If you're the sort of person who has been put off by other personal accounts systems because they look far too complicated and you can never quite work out what your meant to do, then this programme is for you. On the other hand, if you are a `power' user who really likes to get his or her fingers dirty with setting up this and configuring that, then this programme is also for you! `Power & Capability DOES NOT equal Complicated & Confusing!' Spondulix, unlike some other systems, is the sort of programme where you can load it up quickly, enter a few bits and pieces, save it and quit. There is no reason, in my opinion, why you should be faced with complex looking requesters, full of buttons and gadgets just to update your account for paying the gas bill or whatever! This doesn't mean that Spondulix hasn't got any requesters full of gadgets & buttons of course. Simply that they are well layed out, clearly marked and obvious. Listed now are the main features of Spondulix `Mark V'. °° Direct entry input. Meaning that you just load it up and start typing straight away. °° Multiple decimal styles. You can choose between . ° , ' | / * = eg. 3.45 or 3°45 or 3,45 or 3'45 or 3|45 or 3/45 or 3*45 or 3=45. °° On Line Help System. Just click on the Help button and you will be presented with a detailed explaination of that section or click on Help from the main screen and you will be presented with the main index where you can access the entire doc file. °° Auto List Entry System. With this you can set up a list of automated entries, such as standing orders, direct debits etc. that occur at interval of either days, fortnights, 4 week months, calendar months, quarters or years. You can even specify a `cut off' date so that if, for example, you had a direct debit which ran from 01.01.1995 to 01.10.1995 you could enter it specifying the latter as the cut off date. °° Graphics Window. Any account can be turned into a bar chart. This gives you the chance to see the overall trend of your account. You can elect to display just the debits & credits or debits, credits & the balance. °° 15 Accounts. Simply use F1 - F10 to flip between the first 10 and the Acc#? button to gain access to them all. °° Inter Account Transfers. This is a system where you can instruct Spondulix to transfer either debits, credits or both from one account to another. °° Exchange Rate System. Spondulix gives you the ability to enter in foreign currency directly into you account. It will then look that currency up in its exchange rate table and enter the correct amount into either the debit or credit cells. You can of course edit the exchange rate table, bit useless if you couldn't!! °° Full Block Operations. Just like a text editor you can use such features as block start, block end, cut block, copy block, paste block, print block & forget block. You can also cut, copy & paste between any of the 6 accounts. °° Full Sift Operations. This is something which first appeared with Epoch. It allows you to specify a string that will either make a match or partial match with some of the entries of your account. i.e. Specifying the string `cash' will highlight all transactions in your account that contain this word. You can then go on to cut, copy, paste & print as you can with normal blocks. Once you have defined a sift it will stay put until you remove it. Meaning that, in the above example, as soon as you type the word cash that entry will become highlighted and be considered as part of a `Sift'. Also, Blocks & Sifts can live quite happily together so it's not a choice of one or another. °° Export Summary. Sounds a bit strange but is actually a very useful feature, especially with large accounts. It allows you to create a new account based on weekly, 4 weekly, calendar monthly or quarterly information from the currently active account. As an example, performing a weekly export on the following.. 05.01.1995 Balance Carried Forward 52.28 52.28 06.01.1995 {AUTO} Sky 20.47 31.81 09.01.1995 Sundries 93.00 124.81 11.01.1995 Midland Cash 50.00 11.01.1995 Safeway 55.11 11.01.1995 Sundries 135.00 154.70 12.01.1995 MFI Wardrobe 69.99 84.71 13.01.1995 ASDA `Fondue' 30.24 13.01.1995 Fred Blogs 23.00 13.01.1995 Sundries 124.00 155.47 16.01.1995 Midland Bank Machine 30.00 16.01.1995 Sundries 117.00 242.47 17.01.1995 Safeway 31.26 211.21 Would result in a new account being created containing.. 11.01.1995 Week Ending.. 125.58 280.28 154.70 18.01.1995 `' `' 184.49 241.00 211.21 N.B. If you're reading this using the on line help system then the proportional font the Spondulix uses will make this example look a little odd!! °° Scientific Calculator. With the ability to enter values from its main display directly into the debit or credit cells. °° Total Columns. Being able to total up the debit or credit columns in total or from the top to the cursor position or from the cursor position to the end. °° Full Printing Facilities. Including Print block, sift, past, future & mini statement (last 12 items). °° List/Invoice System. Using this system you are able to create such things as shopping lists, parts lists, business invoices, things to do lists etc. The whole thing works in a similar fashion to the account system except that this time you are working with quantities, costs, values & running totals. The List/Invoice System also has full block, sift & printer facilities. Select `The List/Invoice System' from the index or select `Help' from its window to find out more. °° Account Notes. Each account may have a `notepad' attached to it. Use this to write down any information which you feel is specific to that account. Such as appointments with the Bank Manager (Aaarggh!!), address's etc. °° Reminder System. Each account may have up to 30 reminders attached to it. These are linked to the system date so that every time you load an account file into Spondulix you can, if you wish, be reminded of any important events. You can even specify a range of anything up to 9999 days either side of the reminders date. °° Balance Alert. With this system on, Spondulix will alert you as soon as your balance falls below a certain value. A different value can be set for all of Spondulix's 15 accounts. °° The ability to choose wether or not to load your default account files in when Spondulix first loads. °° Portfolio. Using this option will give you report as to the state of all of your accounts. i.e. How much you are worth!!. You can also include the List/Invoice system in this report. Once the portfolio has been displayed you may then optionally disregard certain accounts that you do not wish to be used in the report. °° Macros. To save you continually typing in the same thing over & over again, both the accounts sections and the list/invoice system have 10 user definable macros for you to use. °° Encryption System. Obviously your personal accounts are a very sensitive topic. Using the encryption system will `scramble' the data whenever it is saved. It will then be impossible to read the account file without Spondulix. °° Password Protection. But what if someone gets hold of Spondulix? No need to worry, because you can also protect your valuable files furthur by protecting them with a password. All of the account files & the list/invoice system can be protected in this way and all can have a unique password of your own choice. An encrypted file with password protection will be IMPOSSIBLE to read by anyone but yourself. °° P.I.N. Entry System. When you order your copy of Spondulix you can specify a 4 digit number to be used as a P.I.N. I will then encode this number into your personalised copy of Spondulix. With the P.I.N. Entry System on only you and authorised people will be able to gain access to Spondulix. TOTAL SECURITY!! °° Powerful Preferences. You can configure Spondulix to meet your own specific requirements. Such things as default filenames for the accounts, default decimal style, switching things like the encryption systems on and off are all available from the preferences menu. °° For those of you without battery backed up clocks, Spondulix will allow you to set the system date from within the programme itself. °° And Much, Much more as you'll discover as you start to use the programme. Shareware Notice. So, what do you think? Might be able to make use of some of the extra features that Spondulix `Mark V' can offer? If so, then please, please consider upgrading to the fully registered version. The registered version will allow up to 1000 entries/transactions per account rather that the measley 23 that this shareware version can offer. Spondulix `Mark V' isn't expensive and needn't break the bank! In fact, compared to some commercial offerings I'm practically giving it away. °° Spondulix `Mark V' (With P.I.N. Entry System) ...... £17 °° Spondulix `Mark V' (Without P.I.N. Entry System) ... £16 If you would like one of the above then please send your order to me at the following address.. Jack Pritchard PO Box 65 Gosport Hampshire PO12 4YB England And please make cheques/postal or international money orders etc. payable to.. `J. PRITCHARD' Also, if you are ordering `Mark V' with the P.I.N. please state clearly what P.I.N. number you would like. Say something like "I have ordered `Mark V' with P.I.N. and would like my number to be 6791" (or something)! Extras... Don't you just hate it when you receive PD/Shareware disks through the post only to discover that they are only about 25% to 30% full? Yes? Well me too! So, to this end I have crambed as much as I can onto the registered disk so that when you open it up on the workbench it will proudly say "100% full, 0K free". Right then, in that case may I present the `Spondulix Extras Disk'! The Extras disk contains.. °° Epoch Master V3.0. This is the fully registered version of the very popular diary/calendar/address book/database system which has received some very good reviews in various Amiga magazines and has even been included on a couple of coverdisks in its shareware form. °° Stax. A game by Marc Bradshaw. A bit like tetris but with a big difference. Has to be played to be believed.. °° Bob's Garden. A brilliant conversion of the classic game Mr. Do. °° Orb-It. A breakout style game that I wrote some time ago. So there you are, it's over to you now... Legal Stuff. Disclaimer. Spondulix `Mark V' and related files are provided `AS IS' without warranty of any kind either expressed or implied. The entire risk as to the use of these files is assumed by the user. In no event will J. Pritchard be liable for any damages, direct, indirect, incidental or consequential, resulting from any defect in the aformentioned files. Spondulix `Mark V' is copyright © 1995 by Jack Pritchard. All Rights Are Reserved Worldwide. Spondulix `Mark V' (SHAREWARE) may be freely distributed as long as the contents of the Spondulix drawer remain together. Entering Data. Entering data (or transactions) into Spondulix is a easy peasy. All you have to do is use it as you would a text editor. The first thing you should do is to enter a date. In fact Spondulix won't let you enter anything else unless you do. Dates should be entered directly as either dd.mm.yyyy or dd.mm.yy or d.m.yy or d.m.yyyy or ddmmyy or ddmmyyyy. Bit confusing? Well all of the following examples if typed in would be expanded to.. 23.03.1995 23031995, 23.3.95, 23.3.1995, 230395 The basic idea is that Spondulix will do a pretty good job at working out what date you meant to type in. If you get it wrong it will put the system date (i.e. todays date) there instead. Also, while the cursor is sitting over a date cell you can press `s' from the keyboard to enter the system date or `p' to enter the last date used. To move off of the date cell either use the tab key, the return key, the right arrow key or the mouse. For the code and details cells you can type anything you like but for the date, debit & credit cells you must give it a value. Once you have entered a transaction simply move off of the line by either using the return or down arrow keys or the mouse and the new transaction will then be recalculated in with the rest of your account. To delete the current cursor line use the shortcut Ctrl Y. To bring it back again use Ctrl U. And to erase the current cell use Right Amiga X. Macros. To save you from continually retyping the same old thing into either the code or details cells you can define up to 10 macros for each account. To record a macro use the keyboard shortcut Left Amiga 0-9. This will bring up a small string requester where you can type in your choice. To enter this macro into your account use Right Amiga 0-9 instead. Switching Between Accounts. As mentioned before this version of Spondulix has 3 accounts. There are two ways that you can switch between them. 1) Simply press F1 - F10 for accounts 1 - 10. 2) Select the Acc #? button from the title bar and select the account you require by name. The Auto List. Select the Auto List button from the main control bar, Auto List from the Sundry menu or Left Amiga A. The Auto List has been designed so that you may take care of such things as standing orders, direct debits or any transaction that may occur on a regular basis. Simply enter the first date that your transaction is due to occur and then the interval that you want it to be repeated for. You may choose anything from daily, weekly, fortnightly, 4 weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly and can even specify a cut off date in which case your transaction will be repeated up to but no later than this date. The following functions of the Auto List are.. °° OK. Select this when you are happy with your list. Your account will then be recalculated taking into account any changes to the list. °° ««. Simply goes back 1 item in the list. °° |««. Returns you to the first item of the list. °° »»|. Takes you to the last item of the list. °° »». Moves you on 1 item. °° Delete. Will delete this item from the list. All items after this will be moved back one. You will be asked to confirm. °° Delete All. Careful!! This option will ERASE the entire Auto List for this account. Handle with care. °° Quit. Exits the Auto List without making any changes. You will be asked to confirm if you have made changes to it. °° Help. The online help system. The chapter that you are reading now. Block Operations. Standard Block. Just as with a normal text editor such as the awesome EdWord Pro 5.0 (a little plug for Martin there..) you can create blocks with Spondulix. To create a block use the shortcut Ctrl B to start it and Ctrl E to end. The block will then be highlighted in yellow and you will be able to perform the following. Ctrl X. Cut the block. It will be completely removed from your account and your account recalculated. The block will also be copied to memory. Ctrl C. Copy block. Simply copies the block to memory. Forget Block. Simply switches off the block so that it is no longer highlighted or active. Paste Block. Takes a block previously cut or copied and pastes it into the current account. The account will then be recalculated to reflect the new information. Print Block. Sends the currently highlighted block to the printer. Sifted Blocks. This is something that first appeared with Epoch. It allows you to specify a search string that will either partially or completely match with any of the text in your transactions. Any matches found will be highlighted in red and be considered as part of a sift. Use the shortcut Ctrl S to create a sift. The following actions may then be performed on `Sifts' as they can with blocks. Ctrl D. Cut Sift. Ctrl F. Copy Sift. Ctrl K. Forget Sift. Ctrl O. Paste Sift. Ctrl Q. Print Sift. All of the above example using shortcuts may also be found in the Blocks menu. Account Notes. The Account Notes section is basically a window that pops up in which you can enter any information you like. Each account can have its own notes attached to it. The account notes are saved along with the account file. Simply select the Acc Notes button from the hidden control bar and start typing. Select OK when done or the close gadget to quit. Short cuts.. Ctrl I .. Inserts a line at the current cursor position. Ctrl Y .. Deletes the line at the current cursor position. Ctrl U .. Undeletes a line deleted with Ctrl Y. Ctrl P .. Sends your notes to the printer. The Transfer System. The Transfer System simply gives you the ability to transfer either credits or debits from one named account to another. This is best explained with an example.. Imagine that you had two accounts, one called `My Cheque Account' and the other called `My Savings Account'. To transfer £50 from one to another you would first enter a date into the currently active account (`My Cheque Account') and then either select Right Alt T or Create Transfer from the Sundry menu. You will then be presented with a requester promting you for the name of the account that this transaction is to be transfered to. In this case `My Savings Account'. You should then have a transaction that looks something like this.. 23.03.1995 {TRANS} My Savings Account Now enter either a debit or a credit (or both if you like!) and move off of the transaction line. i.e. 23.03.1995 {TRANS} My Savings Account 50.00 As normal this transaction will be recalculated with the rest of your account. All that you need do now is select Update Transfers from the main control bar. If you now switch to account `My Savings Account' you should find the following.. 23.03.1995 {FROM} My Cheque Account 50.00 N.B. Both accounts must be named. To name an account use the shortcut Right Amiga R. If you wish to enter transfers manually i.e. for use with the Auto List. Then the syntax is.. {TRANS} accountname Foreign Currency. Entering foreign currency directly into your account is easy with Spondulix. First it would be a good idea to check the Exchange Rate Table and make sure that you have the most up to date exchange rate for the currency you intend to enter into your account. To bring up the Exchange Rate Table either click on the Exchange button from the main control bar, select Set Exchange from the sundry menu or use the shortcut Right Alt S. You will then be presented with a large window in which you can create/edit the entire table. Simply click on the currency box and edit the currency symbol you wish to use. Next click on the box to the right of the = sign and enter the actual exchange rate for that currency. To save your exchange rates click on the Exchange Menu button and then Save Prefs. Last Saved speaks for itself.. Here is an example of how to `pay in' DM 50 (50 German Marks) into your account. As always, enter a date first. Now select either Left Amiga E or Create Exchange from the Sundry menu. You will then be presented with a string requester in which you should enter... DM 50 Press return. A requester will appear asking if this is a debit or a credit, select credit. Your account will then be recalculated and your new foreign transaction should look something like this.. 23.03.1995 Exch.. DM 50 20.24 The syntax for the exchange rate is.. Currency Value [notes] i.e. DM 50 Pressie from Uncle Heinz. The Reminder System. The Reminder System may be used to give you advance warnings and/or reminders of specific events on or around a specific date everytime an account file is loaded. To create a reminder for the current account select Reminders from the hidden control bar. (The hidden control bar can be accessed by clicking on »» from the main control bar.) Or by selecting Reminders from the Extras menu or using the shortcut Right Alt Y. You will then be presented with a window in which you can enter the date of your reminder, the `Range' in days either side of this date that you wish to be reminded, an importance level and up to four lines of text. Example: If you wish to be reminded of a specific event that is to occur on 14.04.1995 with a range of 10 days either side your would.. Enter 14.04.1995 into the date cell. Enter 10 into both the Range - & + cells. Enter, say, 99 into the importance cell. And enter your message into the 4 available lines below. You would then select `Done' and save your account file. Now everytime you loaded this account file when the date was between 15.04.1995 & 23.04.1995 you would be reminded of this event. Reminder Controls.. Done. As above. ««. Moves you 1 back through the reminder list. |««. Moves you the first reminder of the list. »». Moves 1 on through the list. »»|. Moves you to the last item in the list. Delete This Note. Removes the current reminder from the list. You will be asked to confirm this action first. Delete All Notes. Erases the entire list. Again, you will first have to confirm. Quit. Quits without making any changes to the list. The Export Menu. Left Amiga &.. B Block. Exports the currently highlighted block to another account. If the account is already in use you will be asked if you wish to overwite it or merge with it. The `target' account will then be recalculated. S Sift. As with Block but this time exports the currently highlighted sift to another account. Summary.. W Weekly. Will attempt to create a weekly summary (breakdown) of the currently active account by exporting it in weekly sections to another account. Read chapter `Introduction' for more info. T Two weekly. As above but fornightly. L Monthly [lun]. As above but 4 weekly. C Monthly [cal]. As above but calendar monthly. Q Quarterly. As above but 3 monthly. The Password System. Each account may have its own password assigned to it. To create a password for the currently active account select Create Password from the Project menu or use the shortcut Right Amiga C. If there is already an active password for this account you will first have to confirm it. Once you have created a password it will then be used for all subsiquent saves for this account. If you load in an accounts file that has a password then this password will become active and overwrite the old. To erase a password select Erase Password from the Project menu or Right Amiga E. You will then be asked to confirm both the `old' password and your action. The Calculator. Select Calculator from the hidden control bar, Right Amiga C or Calculator from the Tools menu. What we have here is basically a standard calculator with such functions as Cos/Sin/Tan/Log/Sq Rt/Percent etc. The main difference is that by using the »» button you can directly enter the calculators display into either the debit or credit cells of the current cursor line of your account. Not much more I can say about it really. Portfolio. Select Portfolio from the hidden control bar or select Right Alt R. The Portfolio report will give you a run down as to the state of all the loaded accounts as well as the list/invoice system. i.e. It will tell you what you are worth. To deselect or take items out of the report simply click on the button to their left so that the checkmark is no longer showing. This will then exclude that items value from the calculation and will be reflected in the final total. Select the Print button to send this report to the printer.... The Graphics Window. This option is here so that you may obtain a graphical representation of your account. When selected you have the option of including and overall balance with the display or not. This is basically a bar graph with which you are able to see the overall trend that you account is taking. The controls are.. |««. Show the start of your account. »»|. Goto the end of the account. ««. Page back. [22 entries]. »». Page forward. «. Scroll back. ». Scroll forward. [If you would like to be able to print this graph let me know!] The List/Invoice System. The List/Invoice system has been designed to allow you to create such things as Shopping Lists, Parts Lists, Business Invoices in fact anything you can think of. The basic idea is that you enter a quantity, a description of the item and its unit cost. The system will then work out the value of the entry and also keep a running total of all of the list entries so far. At any time you can `select' items in the list by simply clicking on their item number. The item number will then turn red and the label {OFF} will appear next to the description. This item will then no longer be taken into account when the list is recalculated. It will also not be printed and so, taking the shopping list as an example, you could run down the entire list selecting only the items that you wish to purchase. You would then be presented with an accurate list that you could take to the supermarket with you. The following are the main features of the List/Invoice system.. The Project, Block, Print & Macro facilities are the same as the main accounts section. The Tools Menu.. Sort List `A - Z' will sort your entire list into alphabetical order based on the description cells. Sort List `Z - A' will do the same but in reverse order. Select All will `Switch Off' the entire list. Deselect All will Switch it back on again. Swap Selections will reverse the order of selected and deselected items. Short Cuts.. Ctrl Y will delete the current cursor line. This will cause the entire list to be recalculated. Ctrl U will reinsert a line previously deleted with Ctrl Y at the current cursor position. Ctrl I will insert an empty line ready for editing at the current cursor position. If you do not use this line it will be deleted again as soon as you move off of it. If you want to insert an empty line and keep it there, simply enter a space in the description cell. Printing. The Print menu.. Right Alt &.. O Options. Left Offset. Number of spaces to the left before the line is printed. Top Offset. Number of empty lines at the top of the page. Page Size. How many lines are to be printed before you are prompted to enter a new page. 0 for continious. Initial String. Initial string to be printed. A Full Account. Sends the entire account to the printer. M Mini Statement. Print the last 12/13 entries. P Past. Prints all transaction earlier than the system date. F Future. Prints all transactions later than and including today. The Preferences Menu. File Operations... Default Filename For ????? ?????. By default Spondulix attempts to load the files AccountOne.spondulix to AccountTen.spondulix, List.Spondulix & Spondulix `Mark V'.doc from the current directory when it is first run. By using these options you can change these defaults to anything that you like. So, if you had a Spondulix account file called MyCurrent that was in your DH1:Accounts directory you would hunt it down using the filerequester, select OK and Save Config. The next time Spondulix ran it would then load this file rather than one of its defaults. All clear? The same is also true for the List/Invoice system and the location and name of this doc file. Encrypt Data. When selected [ticked] all subsiquent saves made by Spondulix will be encrypted. They will then no longer be able to be read by text editors or file viewers etc.. Make Backups. If selected any files that Spondulix is about to update/overwrite will first be backed up and given a .bak extention. Load Defaults. Whether or not to load up the default files when first run. Reminders. Keep this switched on if you want a reminder of the account name and how many lines still available everytime you switch accounts. Maximum Transactions Per Account. This will allow you to set the maximum number of entries (i.e. transactions) the each individual account can cope with. This is about the only aspect of Spondulix that I have disabled for this Shareware release. If you would like to be able to perform the following then you will need the registered version. Sorry... `Simply enter a number between 30 and 1000, but remember, the more entries you have the more memory Spondulix will use, even if you don't use them all.' Default Buffer. This is the memory that is used to hold the information that you type in and has no connection with the maximum number of entries above. Set a value between 64000 (default) and 512000. Presentation... Colour Palette. Don't like the colour scheme that I have chosen for Spondulix? (And why not?) Then why not change it to something more suitable? The Presets menu will offer you a range of alternatives or if you like you can choose your own. Last Saved will reset the palette back to it's prefs settings and Reset will reset it back to the default settings. Broken Balance. If selected your account will only show the balance for each individual date rather than for every single transaction line. This is the way that most bank statements do it. Colour Balance. Simply sets the colour of the balance column. Black if you're in the black, red if your in the red and blue for 0.00. Account Reminder. If selected then you will be reminded if there are any reminders everytime you load an accounts file. If switched off you will have to select Remind from the hidden control bar or Right Alt U to view your reminders. Decimal Style. Choose between . , ' ; ° | = / *. Keep clicking this button until you have the style you want. Save Config... Last but by no means least. If you want any all of your changes to be made permanant then you must save them to disk. The next time Spondulix runs it will use your preferences rather than its own defaults. Miscellaneous. What we have here are all the other bits and pieces that don't really fit into any of the other chapters. You may think that you cannot move any of the windows that Spondulix displays on its main screen. Wrong! All you need do is to press the left Shift button and keeping it pressed click on the screen with the mouse. The window (such as the menu, requesters etc) will the be re positioned. #?. This is `Find Date'. Simply type in a date and Spondulix will attempt to track it down. »». This button will give you access to the hidden control bar. This bar contains the following. Account Name. Click on this box to edit the account name for the currently active account. Account Notes. Portfolio. Reminder. Remind. Calculator. The current system date & time.