EnigmA Amiga Run 1996 June

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Diary User Documentation 05/03/1995 1. Introduction Welcome to Diary, a computerised form of the hand written diary. Diary is intended for use for either private individuals or for a small business, where it can be used to store daily events and/or appointments. The program has the following features; * Multi-user access * Individual user preferences * Dates in the range 1990-6990 * Quick access files * File encryption * User defined limits to file access * Import/Export ASCII * Each entry individually marked * Block operations on marked entries * Printer support 2. Installation onto hard disk To install Diary onto a hard disk, first of all make sure that you have reset the computer and have allow it to start from the hard disk. Put the original disk into the internal disk drive. Open a CLI (Command Line Interface or Shell, usually found in the system drawer) and type: Copy df0:Diary#? to <destination directory> Where <destination directory> is the file path where you want diary to be stored. e.g. To install Diary onto the Work partition of a hard drive you would type: Copy df0:Diary#? to Work: 3. Using the Diary program from floppy disk The program will work perfectly well off of floppy disk, but in any case you should be working with a backup of the original disk. To backup the disk: 1) Load the workbench from the original disk. 2) Put in the original diary disk. 3) Select the disk's icon. 4) Select the menu option "Copy" 5) Follow the on screen prompts. For further information read the users manual for your computer on copying disks. 4. Loading Diary can either be loaded from the CLI (Command Line Interface - giving direct access to Amiga DOS) or the Workbench. When loading for the first time you will be able to get into the Diary program without any login or password. If the program has been used before then you may be presented with a window asking you for a user login, depending whether the option has been enabled or not by the system operator. The login is a short unique identification name for the user. On successfully entering a login, then you asked for a password, which should be kept secret. Diary has a access level system, which is intended to limit access to specialised functions from new or inexperienced users. The login box is shown in appendice B - 1. Once you are into the main program you will presented with a screen resembling the one in appendice B - 2, but without the some of the text. 5. Setting up Diary Once Diary has loaded, if you require to use logins, then first you need to set up the system operator. This is the person who has access to every command, but is not responsible for the day-to-day running of the system. If on the other hand, you don't want to login every time you use the program, then the option is disabled by default. If you do not wish to login each time Diary is loaded, then you do not need to create a login, but can still change and save the user preferences. 5.1 Setting up a System Operator Holding down the right mouse button, go over the menu title "Security", and drag the mouse down over the sub-menu "Create Login", once this is highlighted, release the right mouse button. A short hand that will be used is for the menu title, in this case Security to be on the left, then a separator "->" and then the menu item, so for the above option it would read: "Security->Create Login". You will be asked for a new login. A login is a short combination of characters which uniquely identify a user, for example you could use the first five letters of a persons surname and then the first two letters of their first name, e.g. "John Smith" would become "SmithJo" Once you have typed in the login, then you will be asked for the password. The password is to be kept secret, known only to the user concerned. So type in the password, and then press return. you will asked to re-type it to check that you are sure what it is. Note: to exit from this procedure, just click on the close window gadget on the top left. Once the password has been accepted, you will be asked for the users full name, so type in your name. This is so that the log file records who has logged in, identified by their name. You will then be asked for the file path of the preference file for this user, in the form of a file requester. It will usually be sufficient to store the preferences in the current directory, so just press return, or click on use. The next window that will pop up is the edit user access. This is the level of access that this user will have. 5.2 Access Levels A description of the access levels available. Level 0 This is the lowest. At this level, the user can't write anything to disk except user preferences, which means they can't create a file, save data, enter data, or delete data. Level 1 Users can write to disk, but still can't create / delete logins, or edit login lists. Level 2 User can create/delete logins, but can't edit other users logins. Level 3 The system operator; can do all the above, and can change other users logins, and access files unique to one user, (if it is encrypted then it will still be meaningless). Because you are the first person to create a login, it has to be level 3, so click on the 3 button. And then use. Now the login has been saved to disk. If you were to load Diary now though, you will still not be asked to login, because the option of logging in is optional. To enable this option select from the System Prefs menu, the Login item, so that it has a tick in it. Now you will be asked for a login when So to use the login, Select from the Project menu, Quit. Reload Diary as described above and when asked for the login, type in your login. When asked for a password type in your password, and you will be presented with the main screen. 5.3 Setting the User Preferences Once you have logged in the program now knows who you are, so you can change some of the preferences of the program so that the program appears how you want it each time you login. The preferences that you can alter are the User Prefs, not the System Prefs which are for everybody who logs in not just you. The first preferences are the font, to change this from the system default topaz font, select User Preferences and then Font. After a short delay you will be presented with a system standard font requester (to find out how to use this read the computers user manual). The next preference is the requester path, which is the drawer/directory which the system standard file requester will open at. To set this use the file requester to go to the path you want (no files will e shown, only directories). The next option is Wordwrap. This is basically whether on or not you want the text to "wrap" itself onto the next line if it won't fit on the previous line. Once you have completed the preference setting, select the User Preferences->Save option. You will see that the file requester has the preference file selected that you specified when creating the login. Note that if you did not create a new login, then the file will be just "Diary.prefs". To save the preferences just press return and whenever you login, the DIary will look the same as you have specified. 6. Creating a new file To create a new file, which you will need to do if you are a first time user, can be using the menus. Select from the "Project" menu, "New". The file requester you get can be used to go through the file structure of any connected device, e.g. disk drive, ram disk, or a hard disk. Once you have found suitable place to put the file, give it a name, and press return. If the file already exists then you will be asked if you want to overwrite it, that is delete it and then create a new file of the same name. If Diary is unable to create the file then you will be told by a requester, e.g. if the disk was write protected. Once a file has been selected, you will be shown an "Edit access window". This is where you can say which users can access this file. The options are; No restriction Anyone can open and read the file. Level 1 Only users with level 1+ access can open the file. Level 2 Only users of level 2+ can open the file. Level 3 Only users of level 3+ can open the file. Unique to user This is where only the person who created the file can open it. (Although a system operator can still open it, otherwise the could be lost). Once you have selected who can access the file, you can then select whether or not you want the file encrypted, by clicking in the box, if there is a tick there the file will be encrypted, otherwise it won't be. What encryption does is to replace every character in the alphabet with another one, and then use that to scramble the text so that it can't be read unless the person knows how to unscramble it. All of this is taken care of by the computer, so you can't notice any of it. If for example there is utility that can read files and display characters from it, then unless it is encrypted all of the text would be able to be read. Encryption makes this impossible. If encryption is chosen then you will be asked for a code key. The code will identify the way that the characters have been scrambled so that you can only read them if you know the code key. Note: The longer the code key the more difficult it is to "crack", up to 30 characters may be used. Once the code key has been entered, and you have confirmed it the window will close and you are ready to enter some information. 7. Entering Data You will know if data can be entered from the keyboard, by the cursor - or lack of it. When the cursor is in the box text can be entered, if it is not there then you can't enter any text. 7.1 Selecting the Date Once you have decide what date you want to put some text into, you need to make it selected. A selected date is one which is highlighted in blue. To select the date, first of all make sure the year is correct, if it is not then click in the year box delete the old year and type in the new one. Once you have done this, you then need to select the correct month, there are a number of ways of doing this: 1) Click on the month gadget which cycles forward through the months, until the one you want is selected. 2) Select the menu item Calendar->Next Month, this does the same as the above gadget. 3) Select the menu item Calendar->Last Month, which cycles backwards through the months. 4) Select the menu item Calendar->Select Month and then select the month you require from the submenu. When the correct month and year are selected you will see that the calendar has been arranged a it would on a wall calendar, each date in a little box and the day name at the top each column, Sunday highlighted white. The select the day you require, move the mouse pointer over the correct date and press the left button, the date will then turn blue. The date in full is printed just below the calendar. 7.2 Entering Text To enter text you need simply to press the button on the keyboard that corresponds with the letter you want to write. The other options though, are not quit as obvious. The editor has the following functions; 1) Insert text can be insert in between text already present, i.e. either side of the cursor. 2) Delete text will delete the character directly beneath the cursor, and move the text to the right. 3) Back-space will delete the character the the left of the cursor and move the cursor left one character. 4) Return will move the cursor and any text to the right of the cursor onto the line below. The cursor keys can be used to move around the editor so that text can be altered e.g. up cursor moves the cursor up one line and so on. Pressing shift and a cursor key moves it to the maximum position in that direction e.g. shift and right moves it to the end of the line, shift and up to the top of the text. Once you have entered the text, it is now stored in memory, but not on disk. It will be automatically saved to disk when you do something like select another date, but if you want to save it now select the gadget "Save". A requester will tell you that the operation either was ok or if there were any errors. 7.3 Dates with an entry Once the entry has been saved, the date in the calendar will change colour from black to white. This is so that you can see what dates in each month have an entry without manually clicking on each one. 7.4 Marked Dates Select the date which is white and you will see the text. Now click on the marked box just below the calendar, so that a tick appears in it. You will see that an asterisk "*" has appeared, and the date has been put into that box on the bottom right hand corner, and is selected blue. There is also another feature that can appear on the calendar, and that is the "*". It appears on the left of the number. It is there to show that that particular date has been marked, either through searching or by the user. A marked date can be manipulated by either printing or by exporting, such that all dates which has been marked can be printed/exported. The date can also be marked by the menu option Search->Toggle Mark, which will toggle whether the current entry is marked or not. If you click on a date in the box on the bottom right, that date will become the selected date. This may be useful when a number of dates have been marked, and you need to read them, this system being a lot quicker than changing the year, and month. 8. The clipboard Text can be stored in a temporary area of memory called the clipboard, there are several functions that the clipboard can perform. They are; 8.1 Copy This will copy all of the text from the current entry into the clipboard. The menu option for this is "Edit->Copy". 8.2 Paste This function will paste the clipboards entry into the text. The menu item for this is "Edit->Paste". 8.3 Cut This, like copy will copy the entries text into the clipboard, but will also erase the text. The menu item fot this is "Edit->Cut". 8.4 Export Clip as ASCII This will export the text from the clipboard as ASCII (standard format) to any given file. 8.5 Import ASCII to clip This will import an amount of text from a file which is selected via a file requester by the user, into the clipboard (through an ASCII filter). 9. Date movement Date movement is where you move around dates which have an entry, and which are marked, as opposed to manually clicking on a date you want. These are all found in the Search menu under the given names. 9.1 Next Selecting this will select the next date which has an entry. This can also be achieved by selecting the gadget under the box where the text is entered labeled "Next". 9.2 Previous Selecting this will select the previous date which has an entry from the currently selected date. This can also be achieved by selecting the gadget under the box where the text is entered labeled "Prev" 9.3 First This will select the first date which has an entry of text in. If the first date is already selected or there are no entries, an error message will be displayed. 9.4 Last This will select the last date which has an entry of text in. If the last date is already selected or there are no entries, an error message will be displayed. 9.5 Next Marked Selecting this will select the next date which has an entry and is marked. 9.6 Previous Marked Selecting this will select the previous date which has an entry and is marked from the currently selected date. 9.7 First Marked This will select the first date which has an entry of text in, and is marked. If the first marked date is already selected or there are no entries, an error message will be displayed. 9.8 Last Marked This will select the last date which has an entry of text in and is marked. If the last marked date is already selected or there are no entries, an error message will be displayed. 10. Searching You can search either for one date or for many and marked them, by using wildcards. Any marked entries before a search will not be cleared automatically. 10.1 Searching for one date only To search for just one date all you need to do is to click inside the search date gadget, and type in the date in the format day/month/year. Only numbers are valid inputs e.g 12th June 1995 would be "12/6/1995" If one of the fields had been typed in wrong, then when initiating a search you would have been told that either the day/month/year search pattern was invalid. To initiate the search, click in the search button which is above the box of marked entries. The date entered will by selected and marked, or a error message will result because there is no text entry for that date. 10.2 Searching for multiple dates To search for say every date which has an entry in 1994, you would use a wildcard search. This is where instead of stating a specific digit to search for, you just tell the program to ignore that character. So in the same format as above, you type in the search pattern and use the question mark character "?" to specify a wildcard e.g. to search for all entries in 1994 would be; ??/??/1994 You can see that the only item that Diary searches for is the year 1994. This can also be expanded to search for different combinations of digits e.g. to search for every date that starts with a 1, and month that ends in a 2, of any year would be; 1?/?2/???? To start the search you click on the search gadget, and a small window will appear in the centre allowing you to stop/pause the searching. Once the dates have been searched all the ones that fit the search pattern you gave will be marked and appear in the marked entries box, in the bottom right of the screen. 10.3 Searching for text You can also search each entry for text. This works so that any entry which has the search string in it is marked. Up to 80 characters can be entered, including spaces, so more than one word can be searched for. The text search can also be made case-sensitive, that is whether or not text is considered as matched if it is in a different case e.g. upper or lower. If case-sensitive is on then if the search string and the dates text are of different case, they won't be marked. The option to toggle this is in the "Search->Case Sensitive", the tick beside it meaning that the option is enabled. To search, click inside the search string gadget and type in the text that you want to search for, and press return. Set whether or not you want the search to be case sensitive and then click on the Search gadget with the mouse. All entries that match the search string will be marked. Text searching will be slower because the text has to be loaded from disk before it can be searched. 10.4 Searching for dates and text The two search criteria can be combined so that an entry is only marked if it matches both, or either of them. The search type gadget does this. It can set to either "And" or "Or", which corresponds to the whether the search should be "And" or "Or". If it is an "And" search then the only entries that will be marked that match both the search string and the search date. If it is an "Or" search then entries will be marked if they match either or both of the search criteria. If one of the fields are not entered then they are ignored as are the search type. 11. Outputting data 11.1 Printer Either single or multiply entries can be sent to the printer. To print a single entry; selected it and then select the menu item "Project->Print" or the gadget "Print". To print multiple entries, Diary prints all of the entries that are marked, e.g. after a search. To print all marked entries select the menu item "Search->Print Block". A requester will come up after you have confirmed the action giving you the chance to pause or quit printing. 11.2 Exporting Either single or multiply entries can be exported. To export a single entry; selected it and then select the menu item "Edit->Save entry as ASCII" To export multiple entries, Diary exports all of the entries that are marked, e.g. after a search. To export all marked entries select the menu item "Search->Save block as ASCII". A requester will come up after you have confirmed the action and given a filename, giving you the chance to pause or quit export. Diary Files A diary file consists of two main parts; The data file and the index file. The data file is where all of the data is stored, and the index file is where all a reference number for each piece of data is held so that the program knows where in the data file to look for it. If the index file, is lost or accidentally deleted then it is possible to get Diary to regenerate a new one, by selecting the "Project->Rebuild index" menu item, described later on. Index filenames are appended with ".index". Another file which is used is "Diary.users" which is stored in the same directory as the diary program. This file stores the information for the logins and passwords for each user. The data is encrypted so access is limited to the Diary program. If this file is not present, then Diary assumes that you are a new user. It is then up to the user to create a new login for themselves, or to disable the option for a casual user. The system preference file is "Diary.config" which is contains information about the diary program. It is only accessable to someone with Level 3 access. This is also stored in the current directory. The user preference files are individual for each user, and are loaded from the default file name when logining in. The filename can be changed on the "Security->Change prefs file" menu item. Preference files are in the format: "<filename>.prefs" and can be stored anywhere. The log file is stored in the Diary directory directory as "Diary.log" and contains the names, times and levels of everyone who has logged in, if the feature is active. The audit file can be changed by the menu item "System Prefs->Log File" The Graphical User Interface The gadgets When a password has been successfully entered then the main screen is created. On the left hand side is, in a calendar style layout, the dates for the month selected. Each date is under a column for the corresponding day, clicking on a date which has not been 'ghosted' out will highlight in blue and make that the selected date for entering text, and other operations. Dates are white if they have some text associated with them. If they are marked then they are proceeded by an asterisk. Above the calendar to the left is the month cycle gadget, which displays the current month, clicking on it will take you forward to the next, month. When you reach December clicking on it again will takes it back to January. The dates will automatically change for the new month. Above the calendar and to the right is the year gadget, which displays the current year in use. Clicking on this will allow you to enter a new year. The dates will change for the new year selected. The 'base year' default which is changeable in the preferences is 1990. And the maximum range is 5000 which means the date can go up to the year 6990. Below the calendar is the currently selected date in the format: <day name/day number/month name/year> And to the right of this is the mark gadget. Clicking on this will allow you to mark/unmark individual records for block operations such as printing. You can only select this if the record has some text in it, otherwise it is ghosted. Below this is the text window, where you can view and edit text for the currently selected entry. At the bottom are the control gadgets which are: Open Opens a new file. Save Save the currently unsaved information to disk. Delete Deletes the current entry from disk. Next Selects the next entry with some text in it. Prev Selects the previous entry with some text in it. Print Prints the current entry's text. On the right hand side is the search section. At the top of the right hand side is the search date pattern. This is where the search pattern for a date is entered. It is in the format <day/month/year>. It also be used for "wildcard" searching, which means that it can find any dates matching a pattern such as: "02/??/1994". This would mark all of the dates with an entry for the 2nd day of any month in 1994. Similarly "1?/?2/199?" would mark, or "hit" all dates which had entries for a day number started with a "1" and the month number ended with a "2" (02 - February and 12 - December) and where the year number started with "199" so in the range 1990 to 1999. If the date is left empty when searching it will be assumed to be "??/??/????". Below this is the search string. This is used to search for text in all of the entries. More than one word can be used, up to 80 characters. If this is left blank it will be ignored whilst searching, which will speed searching of a large diary up considerably. The cycle gadget below this is the search type. Either "AND" or "OR" can be selected. This is used when searching to decide which entries to mark. "OR" will mark and entries which matches either of the search patterns (text or date). "AND" will only match entries which match both of the search patterns. Below this are two buttons which are "Search" and "Print block". "Search" will initiate the search using the patterns entered above. "Print block" will print all of the marked entries. Either process can be stopped or pause by clicking on the appropriate gadget. The large box below this is where all of the marked dates appear in the format: <day name/day number/month name/year number> The marked dates can be scrolled through by holding the left mouse button down on the bar on the right and moving it up or down. Alternatively clicking on the arrows will have the same effect. Clicking on a date will select that date. The menus The menus are accessed by holding down right mouse button, then going over a menu item until it is highlighted and then releasing the mouse button. Help is also available by doing the above procedure on the item you want help on, but instead of letting go of the right mouse button, press the help key, and a requester will appear with some text. Some items such as "System Prefs->Login" have is "tickable" which means that when the user selects that item, it becomes active/deactive. If the function is active then a tick/mark will be put beside it. Project menu New Creates a new file to use. You be presented with a file requester. Goto the directory that the file should be stored in and type in the filename in the appropriate field. Filenames should not include "/" or ":" characters or exceed 30 characters. The file requester will be black which means that it is a write operation and if the file already exists then it will be lost. (If the file exists you will be asked if you want to overwrite it). Requires level 1+. Open Opens a file to use. The file requester will open and list the current directory. Goto the directory where the diary file is located and select it. If it does not exist then it is created (only if the user has level 1+). Save Saves the currently unsaved data to disk, including index. Requires level 1+. Save As Duplicates the currently opened file to another, useful for backing up data. A file selector will open allowing you to select the filename for the duplicated file. The file will have the levels of access and encryption status of the current file. Requires level 1+ Close Closes the file, (saving currently unsaved data). No data can be enter until another file is either opened or created. Edit access Edits the access limitations for this file. The options are: Levels 0 - 3; which are the lowest level a user can have for them to be able to access this file. Or 'Unique to user' this means that only the user can access the file. Note: Someone with level 3 access can also access the file. Encryption means that the data in the file will be coded, so that only the person with the right pass key can read it. If the encryption status is changed, the Diary will (en/de)crypt the file accordingly. Requires Level 2+. File Info This shows information about the currently open file. The information it shows is: Filename - The path and filename of the current file. Version - The Version of diary that created the file. Either: Access limitation - The level to which access has been limited. or User limitation - The user which access has been limited to. Encryption Status. The number of entries The number of marked entries. Tidy This will tidy a selected file. Which means that all of the empty space will be erased, thus shortening the length of the file if it has been edited a lot. When selected a file requester will open asking you to select the file to be tidied. Requires Level 2+. Rebuild Index If the index has been lost or accidentally erased, the this function will rebuild it, for a selected datafile. It will create a file in the same directory as the data file, and will name it the same as the data file, but also appending '.index' to it. When selected a file requester will open asking you to select the file to be tidied. Requires level 2+. Print Selecting this will print out the current entries text and date to the printer. When selected you will be asked to confirm the operation. Help This will enable help mode, which means that for any gadget or menu item you click on/select you will receive help text on it. To deactivate it press help again. Note: help can also be activated by pressing the help key. About This will tell you about the author, compile date, program version. The current time and date, how much memory is free and who loged in, if anybody. Quit You will be asked if you have any saved data, whether or not you want to save it. If not you will be returned to either the CLI or the workbench. Edit menu Copy This will copy the entire text for the current entry into the clipboard for paste operation. Paste This function will paste the clipboards entry into the text Cut This, like copy will copy the entries text into the clipboard, but will also erase the text. Delete This will delete the entries text, like cut, but will not put it into the clipboard. Note Deleting entries leaves "holes" in the file which need to be removed occasionally by using the option Tidy. Undo Selecting this will reload the last entry on disk for the currently selected date, replacing what was there before, effectively undoing it.