PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Text/Tab Tools/Evolutions/Evolutions/Evolutions.rsrc/STR#_258.txt

Text File | 1988-04-24 | 5.7 KB | 241 lines

                                        • • General Overview • •



Evolutions is a simple utility program to convert certain types of

files into more usable formats.  It will add or remove linefeeds, or

eliminate extraneous control characters.  It will also allow you to

adjust line lengths and change spaces into tabs.  This last little func-

tion comes in quite handy when you need to convert a spreadsheet

that you may have captured on the screen during a communications

session, and you would like to tabulate the columns for use in your

favorite spreadsheet program.



This program was developed to solve specific in-house problems at

Emerald, if you have other uses that require added functions just

drop us a line and let us know about them. More than likely, I’ll just

add them to the program!





                                                   • • Set Up • •



The first window that you see when the program starts is the set

up dialog.  This is where you decide all the good things that will hap-

pen during the evolution.



First of all, you should notice that there are three major sections to

the set up dialog box.  The first has to do with converting spaces to

tabs.  The second will get rid of unwanted control characters (those

things that look like little empty boxes on the Mac’s screen), or add

linefeeds to the end of lines (useful if you are going to give an IBM a

text file).  And lastly, you can remove characters from the begin-

ning or end of a line (we use this to eliminate extra spaces or gar-

bage at the ends of each line in spreadsheets that we download from

a mini-computer).





                                        • • Tabular Additions • •



Use the first radio button marked “Replace 1 or more spaces with a

tab” to change most files to column format.  The next button is use-

ful if you want to discern between row labels and an actual column

separation.  The third button will stop the program from changing

any spacing.



The “Ignore spaces” line is useful if you cannot use the rule that

“words are separated by one space, columns by two or more.”  A

combination of button number one and an entry in the “Ignore

spaces” box is often the answer.



Note:  The “Line Sizing” function take priority over the other two,

           so consider the line as being resized before you start

           counting characters to ignore.





                                         • • Control Clean-up • •



Obviously the first button will not change your file much, but the

others may.  If you need to remove linefeeds (you have probably

seen them before, they appear as little boxes at the start of the line

in files you get from non-Macs), you should choose the second but-

ton “Remove all linefeeds.” The third button is nice to use if you

must transfer your file to a non-Mac computer and it requires line-

feeds (or the document tends to print out all on one line).  And fin-

ally, if you want to strip a file of all extra control characters (with

the exception of tabs and carriage returns), use the fourth button.





                                              • • Line Sizing • •



To cut a line length down to size, enter a number in either of the two

available boxes.  If the second box contains a number that is less

than or equal to zero, no characters will be removed from the end of

the line.  Please notice that the second box is asking for the actual

line length, NOT the number of characters to remove.





                                            • • The Evolution • •



When you have everything the way you want it, click the Start

button.  You will be asked to select a file for conversion and then a

filename to hold the converted information.  You may click on

either dialog boxes’ Cancel buttons to stop the evolution and return

you to the Configuration dialog.



After selecting the files, a status window will appear.  You may

pause the evolution by clicking on the title bar of the status window

or cancel it by clicking on the Cancel button. A dialog box will

appear to confirm that you want to stop.



The gray indicator will show how much of the original file has been

read into memory (each jump is about 5K).  The black indicator will

show the actual percentage of completed evolution.  Watch closely,

most evolutions go quite quickly (especially on a hard disk) and you

may barely get to see the indicator if the file is less than 5K in size.





                                    • • Change Configuration • •



Pull down the file menu and choose the first command if you want to

change the owner of the text file that is created during an evolu-

tion. A small dialog box will appear, just click on the name of the

program that you want and then click the OK button. This is helpful

if you want to double-click on the resulting file from the Finder to

examine it.





                                          • • Price & Support • •



The price is quite minimal…ten bucks if you find this program to be

of any use to you.  If you do not feel like spending the dough be-

cause the program is not useful enough, give me a call!  Maybe I can

make some change to give it some more marketability (that is a word

isn’t it?).  Either way, please let me know what you think of it!





                                                Kevin M. Hoctor

                                Emerald Computing Services, Inc.

                                      2707 N. Loop West, Suite 490

                                            Houston, Texas 77008

                                                  [phone]