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┌────────────────────────────────┐ │ InfoLink │ │ Version 1.00 │ │ The Information Manager │ │ (C)Copyright Greg Gaughan 1994 │ └────────────────────────────────┘ Introduction ──────────── Welcome to InfoLink, the best way to organise your life. InfoLink is a powerful Information Manager that will allow you not only to store and retrieve any kind of information but to organise it and link connected pieces of information. InfoLink can reference word processing documents, spreadsheet files and other programs and group related objects together. Use InfoLink and centralise names, addresses, numbers, business letters, appointments etc. InfoLink allows you to create an information network that is simple to use and suits the way you work. InfoLink constantly displays a monthly calendar and can keep track of appointments. It will even dial telephone numbers. Everything you need to control and make use of all types of information. Free software? ────────────── InfoLink is ShareWare. Please distribute it freely. It can be used FREE for a trial-period of no more than 30 DAYS, after which, if you continue to use InfoLink, you MUST purchase a license. The license is inexpensive and in return you will receive a registered version of InfoLink, a printed manual, and news of low-cost updates. Please see the end of this document for registration details, and allow the author to continue to produce low-cost, quality ShareWare. Trademarks ────────── MS-DOS and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft. WordPerfect is a registered trademark of WordPerfect Corporation. PZKIP is a registered trademark of PKWARE Inc. Contents ──────── 1. Getting Started Requirements Installation Starting InfoLink 2. Using InfoLink Navigating Pages Editing Pages Using the Calendar Inserting Links and Creating Pages Removing Links Creating your first PageBase Suggested uses 3. System Pages 'Main' Page Template Pages 'System' Page InfoLink System Commands Using Variable Parameters 4. Multiple PageBases 5. PageBase Maintenance 6. Future Enhancements 7. How To Register 8. Appendix A 1. Getting Started ────────────────── Requirements ──────────── To use InfoLink you will need the following: ■ IBM PC compatible computer ■ MS-DOS Version 3.0 or above ■ At least 100k disk space Installation ──────────── Copy the InfoLink files into a directory that is in your DOS PATH. (see your DOS manual for details on how to add a directory to your PATH - to summarise: A) MKDIR \INFOLINK creates the directory B) PATH=C:\INFOLINK;%PATH% placed in \AUTOEXEC.BAT after the last PATH command, would add the directory to the DOS PATH. ). The InfoLink files are as follows: I.EXE The InfoLink program I.INF The standard InfoLink pagebase I.LNK The standard pagebase link index INFOLINK.DOC This document READ.ME An initial guide to InfoLink WELCOME.INF A brief guide to InfoLink WELCOME.LNK The brief guide link index Starting InfoLink ───────────────── At the DOS prompt, type I and the Main page of InfoLink will appear, together with the calendar for the current month. Running the brief guide will give a summary of the keys and functions available in InfoLink. To exit the program, press ESCape from the Main page. Technical note: InfoLink first looks in the current directory for a pagebase file (default=I.INF). If no file matches, the DOS PATH is searched until a matching filename is found. If no pagebase is found, the user is prompted to create one in the current directory. 2. Using InfoLink ───────────────── InfoLink is based on the traditional notepad. It is a collection of pages upon which the user enters information. Each page has a title and a type. Different page types are used to group related pages. The following page types are used by InfoLink: ■ Person: This page type would be used to record details of a person or a group of people. ■ Place: This would be used to record details of a location such as a room, building, city, country or company. ■ Item: This would be used to record details of other types of object. ■ Event: This would be used to record details of an appointment, anniversary or events on a particular date. Navigating Pages ──────────────── The power of InfoLink is in its ability to link text on a page to other pages. These pieces of text are called 'links', and the following keys are used to navigate the links on a page: TAB Moves the highlight bar to the next link on the current page. shift+TAB Moves the highlight bar to the previous link on the current page. ENTER Selects the page pointed to by the currently highlighted link. If the highlighted link is a system command, the command is executed. ESCape Returns to the page previously displayed, or exits the program if the current page is the start page. F1 Jumps directly to a person page via the Link Selection Window - see 'Inserting Links' for details of this window. F2 Jumps directly to a place page via the Link Selection Window - see 'Inserting Links' for details of this window. F3 Jumps directly to an item page via the Link Selection Window - see 'Inserting Links' for details of this window. F4 Jumps directly to an event page via the Link Selection Window - see 'Inserting Links' for details of this window. When following the links, the successive page titles are shown in the 'route' window. This tracks the path through the pagebase to the current page, and pressing ESCape backtracks through the same route, page by page. Other keys available in navigation mode are: arrows keys Move the highlight bar forward/up and backward/down through the links on the page. F7 Jumps directly to the start-up page. F8 Jumps directly to the System page. alt+P Prints the current page. Editing Pages ───────────── To edit the current page, press the F10 key. Press this key again to return to navigation mode. The F10 key toggles between navigation mode and edit mode. Text can be entered at any position on a page and text linked by spaces is treated as a block when inserting characters. In edit mode the following keys are used: cursor keys Move the cursor around the page. Insert Toggles between insert and overwrite mode. Backspace Deletes the character to the left of the cursor. Del Deletes the character under the cursor. F1 Inserts a link to a Person page, see 'Inserting Links' for more details. F2 Inserts a link to a Place page, see 'Inserting Links' for more details. F3 Inserts a link to an Item page, see 'Inserting Links' for more details. F4 Inserts a link to an Event page, see 'Inserting Links' for more details. F5 Inserts an InfoLink system command at the current cursor position. See 'System Commands' for the commands available. alt+A Alters the paper and ink colours of the current page. alt+B Inserts a bullet character at the current cursor position. alt+D Deletes the current page - prompts for confirmation first. NOTE: Any references to the page will not be deleted and this may result in invalid page links. alt+G Inserts an ASCII extended graphic character at the current cursor position. alt+= Inserts the last ASCII extended graphic character at the current cursor position. alt+I Inserts a blank line before the current line. This may move down a block of text by 1 line and remove the first blank line below the block. alt+R Removes the current line. This may move up a block of text by 1 line and insert a blank line below the block. alt+T Changes the current page's title. This therefore changes the link name of the page but does not change any references to the link. This may result in invalid page links. alt+Z Blanks the current line. TAB Inserts a number of spaces at the cursor position. Home Moves the cursor to the start of the current line. End Moves the cursor to the end of the current line. Page Up Moves the cursor to the top of the page. Page Down Moves the cursor to the bottom of the page. Using the Calendar ────────────────── When in navigation mode, you can use the following keys to move the date selection highlight around the calendar: Page Up Moves to the previous month. Page Down Moves to the next month. ctrl+Left Moves to the previous day. ctrl+Right Moves to the next day. ctrl+F4 Selects the page pointed to by the currently highlighted date - if one is available. Inserting Links and Creating Pages ────────────────────────────────── When editing a page, the function keys F1..F4 are used to insert a link to another page. All links in InfoLink pages are surrounded by special brackets, depending on the type of link. For example, 'Person' links are surrounded by the brackets » and «. When the appropriate function key is pressed, a 'Link Selection Window' appears displaying a list of all the current links available for the page type required. The UP and DOWN cursor keys are used to highlight an existing link name. To speed the search for the link name required, you can type the first few characters of the link name. The link selection highlight will move to the nearest matching name. If too many characters have been typed, BACKSPACE can be used to shorten the search name. Matching characters are highlighted and the number of search characters typed is shown by a special block cursor. (If the link is to an event page type, the search characters must be typed in sorted order, i.e. century, year, month, day. For example 26/05/94 would be searched for using: 1994 526. Note that spaces are used to pad the date.) Pressing ENTER selects the highlighted link name and inserts it at the current position in the page being edited. The new link name is automatically surrounded by the appropriate special brackets. If the link is not in the selection window because it is a link to a new page, pressing TAB will prompt for a name for the new page/link. When the new link name is entered, it is automatically inserted at the current position in the page being edited and surrounded by special brackets. The link name will now be available in the link selection window for any future reference. Also, THE NEW PAGE WILL BE CREATED. (If the link is to an event page type, the new name may be preceded by a specific date for the event. This defaults to the currently highlighted date in the calendar. If a date is given, the name may be left blank - this is useful if more than one event is happening on a date.) Removing Links ────────────── When editing pages containing links, the cursor will skip over any link references to prevent them being accidentally changed. If an attempt is made to delete one of the special brackets surrounding a link, InfoLink asks the user to confirm the link's deletion from the page. The link to the page is still available in the Link Selection Window and may still be used by other pages - only this use of the link will be deleted. Creating your first PageBase ──────────────────────────── Use the default pagebase by overwriting the main page. Press F10 to edit the page, and remove the references to the introductory guide using alt+Z to blank the lines. The pagebase is ready for your data. Begin from the 'Main' page by creating broad categories of information that can be further refined in lower pages, e.g. 'Business' and 'Personal' items. Remember to enter telephone/fax numbers using the F5 function and typing Tel before the number in the command window. This method will enable you to automatically dial the numbers (using a modem) by selecting the 'Tel' command. Suggested uses ────────────── ■ Create to-do lists and pages for each project with the detail hidden in lower pages. ■ Place frequently used commands and page references in the 'System' page (see below). This provides immediate access using the F8 key. ■ Group date references into months, with each month as an event page e.g. 'January' (with no date specified). This centralises the date references into monthly pages to ease appointment making and page deletion. 3. System Pages ─────────────── An InfoLink pagebase contains a number of system pages that cannot be deleted or re-titled. 'Main' Page ─────────── The Main page is the initial start-up page used by InfoLink. Although the user can specify an alternative start-up page, this is the initial default. Template Pages ────────────── For each of the 4 page types, there is a template page. These pages are named as follows: Person Place Item / / Event Whenever a new page is created, it is copied from the appropriate template page (including the template paper and ink colours). This is useful, for example, to standardise the 'person' pages in InfoLink. The 'person' template page could be modified to contain fields such as, Name, Address, Tel etc. and this would become the initial page for any new 'person' page. 'System' Page ───────────── The System page is a page containing system commands such as 'ReIndex'. The system page can be modified by the user and should contain frequently used commands, as the page is easily accessible from any page using the F8 key. The default system page contains the following commands: Configure ReIndex Register Status InfoLink System Commands ──────────────────────── InfoLink system commands are similar to page links. Instead of referencing another page, however, they perform various tasks. They are inserted into pages using the F5 key in edit mode. The commands can be in upper or lower case, and the following commands can be used: CONFIGURE This prompts the user for a series of parameters that govern the way InfoLink looks and operates. A full list of the parameters is given in Appendix A of this manual. The configuration parameters apply only to the active pagebase. Pressing ESCape before the end of the parameters will offer the user the option to save any changes made so far. REINDEX This re-creates the link references for the active pagebase. If InfoLink does not terminate properly for any reason, the pagebase may need re-indexing using this command. REGISTER Prompts the user for a registration code. This removes the 'un-licensed' displays and registers the InfoLink pagebase. See the end of this document for details of how to register your copy of InfoLink. STATUS Displays the current number of pages in the pagebase. EDIT file Invokes the editor and opens the specified file. VIEW file Invokes the file viewer with the specified file. TEL number Dials the specified telephone number using the modem. FAX number file (any other parameters) Invokes fax software to fax a file to a fax number. The parameters following FAX depend on the fax software being used. It may be useful to create a batch file to call the fax software. The parameters passed by InfoLink can then be read as DOS parameters (e.g. %1 %2 %3 etc.). *dos command Runs the specified dos command or batch file and then returns to InfoLink. This has limitless possibilities, and should be used to link pages to access word processing documents, spreadsheet files, Windows programs etc. For example, a business letter written in WordPerfect for Windows can be linked to an InfoLink page using a command similar to: *win \wpwin60\wpwin\wpwin60\wpdocs\letter.doc InfoLink will run WordPerfect for Windows and automatically open the file "letter.doc" for editing/printing etc. Using Variable Parameters ───────────────────────── Instead of using the same parameters with system commands such as 'Tel', InfoLink can use variable parameters. The user is then prompted for the parameter values when the command is selected. To use variable parameters, use % followed immediately by a name to be used as the parameter prompt (with no spaces). For example, to view a file and have the user type the filename each time the command is selected, use: View %Filename The %Filename is a variable parameter. A variable parameter can be used in place of any fixed parameter, for example: Tel %x would dial the number entered by the user when prompted for 'x'. 4. Multiple PageBases ───────────────────── The default pagebase used by InfoLink is I.INF. It is expected that all the information required by one person will be contained in this one file, allowing links between any section of the pagebase. It may sometimes be desired, however, to use more than one pagebase: when more than one person uses the same computer, for example. If another pagebase is required, start InfoLink with the usual 'I' command, followed by the title of the new pagebase (without a file extension). For example, to create a new pagebase called 'another', you would type: I another InfoLink would prompt the user to confirm the creation of a new pagebase file and corresponding link index, and then the new pagebase would be available for use. Future access to the new pagebase would require the user to type: I another 5. PageBase Maintenance ─────────────────────── Deleted pages in InfoLink are re-used by the system, and old, unused pages should be deleted regularly to keep the size of the pagebase down to a minimum. In particular, event pages with specific dates that are no longer relevant should be deleted. The pagebase should be backed-up regularly to prevent accidental data loss. The index link file for a pagebase can always be re-built using the 'ReIndex' system command, so only the .INF file need be backed up. The file may be compressed using data compression software, such as PKZIP. This will greatly reduce backup time and space. Alternatively, copy the .INF file for each pagebase to be backed up. It is recommended that the .INF file backup command be inserted into the System page for easy access, for example (using PKZIP): *PKZIP -u A:I.ZIP C:\INFOLINK\I.INF This command would backup the pagebase data file in C:\INFOLINK to drive A:, and would update any existing backup (-u). 6. Future Enhancements ────────────────────── Future enhancements to the InfoLink system are being designed. These include: ■ Pagebase tools for merging and compacting pagebases ■ Improved editing facilities including cut/paste commands ■ Improved calendar access/link creation ■ Automatic page command selection to facilitate batch command processing of system commands ■ Calculator utility Suggestions for further enhancements are very welcome from registered users. 7. How To Register ────────────────── Please register your copy of InfoLink. In return you will receive a registration license that will license your pagebases and remove references to 'un-licensed' versions, a printed manual, and news of low-cost updates. The licensing fee of £20 will enable the author to continue upgrading InfoLink and suggestions for improvement from registered users are very welcome. Please send the order form below together with: A) a cheque drawn on a UK bank payable in Sterling, made payable to: Greg Gaughan, or B) an International money order. to: Greg Gaughan 95 Church Lane Normanton West Yorkshire WF6 1HB email: 100111.1260@compuserve.com ENGLAND. CompuServe: 100111,1260 Please add £2 for each copy to cover UK postage & packing or £6 for each copy for overseas postage & packing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- InfoLink Version 1.00 --==* ORDER FORM *==-- Please send me: Quantity Value ======== ====== InfoLink Version 1.00 registration license with printed manual and low-cost upgrades @ £20 each ________ £___.__ Postage & Packing (each copy) United Kingdom £2 Overseas £6 £___.__ TOTAL £___.__ (UK cheque or international money order) NAME: _______________________________________________ COMPANY: _______________________________________________ (if applicable) ADDRESS: _______________________________________________ : _______________________________________________ : _______________________________________________ TELEPHONE: ______________________ FAX: __________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Appendix A ───────────── InfoLink Configuration Parameters ───────────────────────────────── These parameters can be changed by using the InfoLink system command, 'Configure'. Password This can be used to force the user to enter a password when starting InfoLink. The password is encrypted in the pagebase. If left blank, no password is necessary. Start Page This specifies the number of the page that InfoLink uses as the start page. Page numbers are displayed at the top right of the page window. Printer Port Name This is used by InfoLink when printing pages. The default is LPT1 which is the printer port on most PCs. Changing this parameter to a filename allows pages to be exported to an ASCII file. Modem Port Name This is used by InfoLink when dialling telephone numbers using the 'Tel' system command. It should specify the port that the modem is attached to, the default is COM1. Modem Dial Command This is used by InfoLink to make the modem dial a telephone number. The default is ATDT which is the Hayes compatible command to tone dial a number. If a prefix is required before all telephone numbers, this can be added to the end of this parameter. See your modem guide for more details. Editor Filename This gives the name of the editor to be used by the InfoLink 'Edit' command. The default is EDIT.COM, which is the default editor for MS-DOS version 5.0 onwards. The editor should either include the full pathname or be in the current MS-DOS path. Viewer Filename This gives the name of the file viewer to be used by the InfoLink 'View' command. The default is LIST.COM, which is a popular file viewer. Alternatively, the following batch file could be used: @CLS @TYPE %1|MORE which clears the screen and then displays the file one screen at a time. The viewer should either include the full pathname or be in the current MS-DOS path. Faxer Filename This defines the program or batch file used to fax a file. See your fax software manual for more information. Monochrome? Y/N This specifies whether colours are to used by InfoLink when using the current pagebase. If the monochrome option is selected (most useful for LCD screens) links on a page are surrounded by special 'dot' characters rather than being displayed in a different ink. Tab Size The number of spaces to be inserted when TAB is pressed in edit mode. The default is 4. Deleted Page Ink If a deleted page is displayed (after user warnings) the text is shown in this one ink colour. The default is dark grey. Person Ink Place Ink Item Ink Event Ink Command Ink These are used to highlight link references on a page, and in the 'route' window. Edit Page Legend Ink Show Page Legend Ink These specify the ink to be used for the function key legends at the bottom of the edit/navigation pages. Link Highlight Paper The background used to highlight a link in navigation mode. Page Title Ink The ink used to display the current page title and number at the top of the page window. Route Border Paper Route Border Ink Route Paper Specifies the colour of the route display window. Link Selection Window Ink Link Selection Window Highlight Ink Link Selection Window Paper Specifies the colour of the 'Link Selection' window used to create/jump to pages. The highlight ink is used to show how many characters in a search string match the current entry. Link Creation Window Ink Link Creation Window Paper Specifies the colour of the link creation prompt window. Calendar Border Paper Calendar Border Ink Specifies the colour of the calendar outline boxes. Calendar Ink Calendar Paper Specifies the colour of the calendar text. Calendar Today Ink Calendar Today Paper Specifies the colour of the current date text. Calendar Busy Ink Calendar Busy Paper Specifies the colour of busy dates in the calendar.