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******* MicroCook (C) Copyright 1993-1994 Version 1.38 Written & Published by Gus Skiaker NORSKI Software P.O. Box 76 Franksville, WI 53126-0076 U.S.A. Phone: (414) 632-9815 (6-9 PM CDT) America On Line : NORSKI GEnie : NORSKI Internet via GEnie : norski@genie.geis.com CompuServe : 72713,1667 MicroCook can also be registered at: CompuServe Shareware Registration (GO SWREG) (See SWREG.DOC in MicroCook directory) _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Page 1 of 19 Table of Contents: A Description of MicroCook ............................ 3 Mouse with MicroCook .................................. 4 The KEY file .......................................... 4 The Editors ........................................... 4 Editor Keys ........................................... 5 Duplicates Checking ................................... 5 The File Menu ......................................... 6 Loading MicroCook ..................................... 6 OS/2 and MicroCook .................................... 6 File Menu *************** Save Recipe ...................................... 7 Save & New Recipe ................................ 8 Start New Recipe ................................. 8 Load By Number ................................... 8 Search for Recipe ................................ 8 Disk View ........................................ 9 Quit ............................................. 9 Index Menu ************** Select from ...................................... 9 Search ........................................... 10 Index View ....................................... 10 Sort ............................................. 10 Delete This Recipe ............................... 10 Un-Delete & Delete Recipes ....................... 10 Print Menu ************** This Recipe ...................................... 11 Other Recipes .................................... 11 Index In Memory .................................. 11 Form Feed ........................................ 11 Database Menu *********** Change to ........................................ 11 Create New ....................................... 12 Re-Index ......................................... 12 Setup ............................................ 12 Tool Menu *************** Conversions ...................................... 15 Read Manual ...................................... 15 File Reader ...................................... 15 About ............................................ 15 Status ........................................... 16 DOS Shell ........................................ 16 Export/Import Menu ****** Export MC database ............................... 16 Import MC database ............................... 17 Export MC ASCII .................................. 17 Import MC ASCII .................................. 17 Import MM &+ ASCII ............................... 18 Help .................................................. 18 What's Next? .......................................... 19 THANK YOU ............................................. 19 Page 2 of 19 Description of MicroCook. MicroCook is a recipe database program written to allow users to collect, organize, and locate recipes. MicroCook will run on IBM compatible PC's with MS-DOS, two floppy disks, or a floppy disk and a hard disk. A hard disk is recommended as is a minimum of 512 KBytes of RAM. MS-DOS 3 or higher is required. MicroCook also works well in Windows 3.x and in OS/2. So what's a database? A database is like a book. The whole book is the database, while each individual record is a page in the book. And as in the book, the database has "page numbers" called record numbers. A page in a book has room for only so much text and a database record also has a fixed length. This fixed length of each record means that it is very fast and easy to locate and load any record in the database. This is done with help of an Index file, just as you would locate a page with help of the Index Table in the back of the book. The Index file in MicroCook consist of the Record Number, Recipe Name and Category. So when you select a recipe from the Index in MicroCook, the program loads the corresponding recipe in the database with help of the record number. The Index file remains loaded in memory at all times, so you can have easy and quick access to it. You can also create your own index, built up from a search word you provide. Index and Disk View provide further information on this aspect of the program later on in the manual. The database is a random access file system with two main files. One database file where all the information is saved, and one index file where only the recipe name and its categories are saved. This index file is loaded into memory in its entirety when MicroCook loads. This will make recipe selection and search very fast. Because the index remains in memory, there is a limit on how many recipes you can have per database. This will depend on how much free RAM you have, but with about 590 KBytes free RAM before MCOOK.EXE is loaded, there will be room for about 2000 recipes. MicroCook will keep track of how much free RAM remains and will give you a warning message when the memory comes down to a preset limit. But a 2000 recipe database will create a main database file of over 8 Mbytes! But try to keep your databases less than 1500 recipes. Large databases will slow down MicroCook some since the whole index is loaded in memory. The amount of free space on your hard drive determines the number of different database files that you may create. And for transportation, the main data file compresses very well with a file compression program like PKZIP, PKXARC or LHA, sometimes up to 80-90%. If no index file is found when the main data file is loaded, one will automatically be created. So if you want to mail an entire database on a floppy disk to a friend, or upload it to a BBS (compress it first!), you only need to send the file with the MCD extension. If you have any recipe databases created with version 1.2 of MicroCook, a new index file will be created automatically the first time it's loaded into MicroCook. This must be done because the Index format has changed slightly. Page 3 of 19 If a MicroSoft compatible mouse is detected during initializing, it can be used for navigating the program. Then the only times you would need to use the keyboard are for typing in file names, search words or recipes. Anytime you see a message where a key has to be pressed, you can place the mouse cursor on the name of the key, and press the LEFT mouse button. These names usually are printed in RED text. Scrolling of menus or in editors can also be done by placing the mouse cursor on the red arrows by scroll bars and clicking the LEFT mouse button. The RIGHT mouse button acts like an ESC key where ESC is an option. Where a "Press any key" message is displayed, either mouse buttons can also be used as the "any key". MicroCook also has on-line quick help, available by pressing F1, an ASCII file reader where you can access and read any ASCII files. You can also read this manual while working in MicroCook without having a hard copy. Registered users will receive a small "key" file that will disable the "Please register" messages and the short time delays during loading and unloading of MicroCook. This will also display a serial number and the registered users name in the "About.." window in the Tools menu and the users name on line 25 in the main screen. This key file is called xxxxx.KEY, where xxxxx is a 5 digit number that is your personal serial number. The KEY file MUST reside in the same directory as MCOOK.EXE. With your registration you will also receive an ASCII Text editor that can be used to edit recipe files in formats other than MicroCook's so they can be imported with the MC ASCII Import function. This editor has built-in macros for the necessary keywords, and also a help screen where the MC ASCII format is described in details. NOTE: This editor is ONLY for Registered users. The menus consist of a pull-down windows system with hot- keys. Hot-keys are keyboard combinations that make it easy to perform a function. Also pop-up "exploding" windows are used throughout MicroCook for warnings and/or information messages. There are actually three different text editors that you will use to enter recipes with. First, there is a three item Header Editor that is used to enter the recipe name, category and the number of servings. Next, there is the Ingredients Editor. On the screen you only see 7 lines, but this is a scrolling editor with a total of 34 lines. This editor is 38 characters wide. And last, there is the Description Editor. This editor is also a scrolling editor, 34 lines long and 76 characters wide. You can switch between the editors by using the F5, F6, F7 key, or by moving the cursor with the mouse or keyboard. If you are on the last line in an editor, and you press enter or the arrow-down key, the next editor down will be set as the active one. If you are at the bottom in the Description Editor, the cursor will scroll around to the Header Editor. The Ingredients and Description Editors have a Wrap-Down feature, so when you are at the end of a line, and the word you are typing is too long for that line, the whole word will appear on the next line. Page 4 of 19 If you place the mouse cursor on the red up or down scroll arrows on the left side of the Ingredients or Description editor, you can scroll up or down by clicking with the left mouse button. If you keep the cursor there and keep the button down, the scroll will go up or down slowly for about 1 second before the "Turbo" kicks in. Then you will be at the top or bottom of the editor in no time. Or you can place the mouse cursor above or below the scroll indicator, and press the left button. Then the indicator will move towards the mouse cursor. These editing keys are the available for use in all editors: Back Space ----------------- Delete character left of cursor Delete --------------------- Delete character at cursor End ------------------------ Go to end of line Home ----------------------- Go to beginning of line Insert --------------------- Toggle Insert/over write mode (Insert mode adds a letter without deleting the existing letters) (overwrite substitutes a new letter for an existing letter) TAB ------------------------ Move left 4 characters These additional keys are for use in the Ingredients and Category editors: CTRL-End ------------------- Go to last line in current window CTRL-Home ------------------ Go to first line in current window CTRL-Y --------------------- Delete line at cursor CTRL-N --------------------- Insert line at cursor Shift-TAB ------------------ Move right 4 characters Page Up -------------------- Move up one screen full Page Down ------------------ Move down one screen full ALT-Page Up ---------------- Go to first text line in editor ALT-Page Down -------------- Go to last text line in editor If a recipe is selected from a compiled index, there will be a line displayed on the bottom of the screen that allow you to use CTRL-Page Up and CTRL-Page Down to page through all the recipes in the current index. If the "Check for Duplicates" has been set to "Y" (Yes) in Setup, MicroCook will check the current index to see if a recipe exists with same name as the one entered in the editor, or against the recipes imported with one of the import functions. If a duplicate recipe name is detected, a pop-up window will warn you. If you are importing recipes without verifying on, the same window will pop-up, and you will have the option to save or not save that recipe. The duplication checking is not case sensitive, so upper and lower case words mean the same. But the spelling or the recipe name must be exactly the same. Therefore if you have two or more recipes with duplicate names, you will need to save each one individually or make a slight name change before importing the recipe: Coffee Cake1; Coffee Cake2; etc. If you loaded a recipe from the Index, you can mark the recipe as Deleted while it is displayed in the Editors with the "Delete This Recipe" function under the Index menu. The Hot-key is ALT-Z. You can disable the Window that pop up after an ALT-Z, but from then on, you will NOT get any warning that a recipe is deleted when ALT-Z is used. This will reset next time you load MicroCook. Page 5 of 19 MicroCook has an easy-to-use File Menu that is used throughout the program to select files, change directory or disk drive. When this file menu is displayed, a small window at the top of the screen will display the current directory. You can scroll through a file list with the Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Page Up and Page Down keys. If you have a mouse connected, you can place the cursor on the red arrows on the right side of the window and press the left mouse button. Or place the cursor on the scroll marker between the arrows, and while holding the left mouse button down, drag it up or down. In the larger file menu window the top line has two dots (.. <Parent Directory>) if you are in a directory other than the root directory. This is the symbol for the Parent directory, the directory above the current directory. If you place the cursor bar on that line and press Enter or double click with the mouse, the parent directory will be displayed. Any floppy disk drives or additional hard disk drives are displayed as: [-A-] <Disk drive> (in this case the A drive). If you select a floppy disk drive and it's not ready or the floppy disk is write protected, an error message will be displayed. Any name in all upper case letters and with <DIR> after it is a directory. You can select any directory and display its files by placing the cursor bar on the line with the name of the directory. Now press Enter or double click with the mouse. File names are displayed in lower case with their size in bytes and creation date. Select a file to load by pressing enter when the cursor bar is on the file name, or by double clicking with the left mouse button. If only change of directories are called for, no files will be displayed in the file menu. Press ESC or the Right mouse button to cancel any work in the file menu. You load MicroCook by typing MCOOK in the directory where the program and its files are saved. The first time you load MicroCook, the Setup editor will first come up since there are no configuration files. Please edit and change any of the defaults so it reflects your system and recipe directory name. As the default name for recipe file is the RECIPES.MCD file that's included with MicroCook. See Setup described below for all the defaults. If you have a monochrome monitor, start MicroCook as MCOOK/MONO to force the program into a Black & White mode. This will make some of the color combinations more visible. To see other available startup switches for MCOOK, type: MCOOK/? There have been reports that MicroCook locks up when running in OS/2. But with help from a friend who uses OS/2 (I don't have OS/2 - yet), I think we figured it out. In the meantime OS/2 users should start MicroCook as: MCOOK OS2. This will bypass some routines that can cause the lock up. This bypass will NOT make MicroCook lose any of its functions. Page 6 of 19 On the top of the screen, the current database name is displayed along with the number of recipes in it as well as the status of the recipe currently displayed on the screen. If the three sections where the name, ingredients, and directions are normally given are empty, or have text in them without the recipe having been saved, the word NEW will be displayed. If a recipe is loaded from the database or is a new recipe that has been saved, its record number will be displayed. To avoid the possibility of losing data caused by an electrical outage or other unforeseen occurrences, it is recommended that you save as soon as you have completed entering or editing the necessary information. This is easily done by pressing down the Alt key and the letter F key at the same time; once the file menu choices appear in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, press the key S to complete the saving function. With a mouse simply put the cursor on the letter F in the word File (located in the upper left hand portion of your screen) and click the mouse. Click the the left-hand button on your mouse on the letter S from the selections presented. Or use the Hot-key: ALT-S to save. If you have an EGA or VGA monitor, a "graphical screen saver" will be activated after a preset time (see setup) if there has been no activity in the editors. Press any key or a mouse button to return to the editors when the screen savers is displayed. ----------- Description of Menus Press and hold one of the ALT keys, and then the first character in the menu group name to access any of these menus. Or use the Hot-key to access the function directly. If a function isn't available at the time, for example if you attempt to "Print This Recipe" when the editors are empty, the color for the text for that function in the menu is turned to black. File Group (ALT-F) Save Recipe - Hot-Key: ALT-S Select this option from the file menu while you are editing your recipe to avoid losing your work. When this function is selected, either from the pull-down menu or by the hot-key, the current recipe on the screen will be saved to the main data file. At the same time the index will be updated, both in memory and in the disk file. When the recipe is saved, you will hear a tone in the PC speaker. You will not be able to save unedited recipes or a recipe without a name. If you have edited a recipe, and select a menu function that could clear the data on the screen, you will be prompted so you can save the recipe. If AutoSave in Setup is set to "Y", the recipe will automatically be saved without any message. See Setup for details. After the recipe is saved, the data is still on the screen, so you can continue entering more text if necessary. Page 7 of 19 Save & New Recipe - Hot-key: ALT-A When you have made your final editing corrections, choose this option from the file menu. This option will both save your recipe and clear the screen. Start New Recipe - Hot-key: ALT-N This menu function will only clear the screen without saving the recipes first. But if the editors detect that the recipes have been edited, you will be asked if you want to save it first, as described above. Load by Numbers - Hot-key: ALT-L This function is only available if the "Enable Display and Load by Recipe #" in Setup is set to Y (Yes). When enabled, the recipe numbers will be displayed in the right column in the Index listing. You can then browse through the index, and write down the recipe numbers you want to retrieve later with this function. This might be faster when the database grows to 1500 or more recipes. Or you can note the recipe numbers during imports and later quickly retrieve one or more of them. Search for Recipe - Hot-key: None If you need to look up some information that is stored in the main data file on the disk, but you can't remember under which recipe name it is saved, you can use this (or the next) function. When this function is selected, a pop-up window will prompt you for a search word. You can also you use ? as a wild card character in the word. The search will also find words where you only supply a part of it. So, if your search word is APPLE, both APPLESAUCE and APPLECIDER are found (if they are there), along with ANY word where APPLE is used. Or should you want to find all recipes where chicken is used, this is the function to use. After the search word is entered, you will get a new window with choices of where you want to search. You can search either in the recipe name, category, ingredients, description or all of the recipe. When a recipe is found with the matching search word, it will be displayed on the screen, and a message will ask if this is the correct recipe or not. If you answer N (No), the search will continue to the next occurrence of the word, and you will be prompted again. If you answer Y (Yes), MicroCook will keep the recipe on the screen, and enter the editors so you can edit, view or print the recipe. If no recipes are found, a "Not Found" pop-up message will be displayed. If the search has been used previously, the last search word will still be displayed. You can clear the editor with ALT-C, and if you need to, restore the cleared word with ALT-R. Page 8 of 19 Disk View - Hot-Key: ALT-V This search is similar to Search for Recipe. The main difference is that instead of asking you to decide whether the recipe that was found is what you are looking for, a new Index is created which contains any recipe that meets your search requirements. This is a helpful function when you have some ingredient that you want to use, an overabundance of tomatoes or apples or whatever, since you will be presented with all the recipes that contain the ingredient and can select the one most appropriate for the situation at hand. You can now select from any of the displayed recipes. (see "Select from..." below). This is also the function to use if you want to export only a certain category in either ASCII or MC database format. First compile an Index on the search word you want. After the search is done, press ESC for the editors, then ALT-E to get to the Exports. Select which export you want, and then after filling in a file name, select one of the last two export options. Quit - Hot-key: ALT-Q This will close all files, clear the screen and exit MicroCook. If an edited recipe is still on the screen, the "Not saved" message described above will be displayed. Index Group (ALT-I) Select from... - Hot-key: ALT-X This is the function you will use to select and browse through already entered recipes. When you choose this function the first time, the Index will be compiled, sorted alphabetically on the sort key you selected in Setup. In the index array, only the recipe name and category is displayed. Once displayed, you can scroll through the index with the cursor keys, Page Up or Page Down, or by clicking with the left mouse button on the up/down arrows on the right scroll bar, or on the red key names on the bottom of the screen. If there are less than a screen full of recipes displayed, only the up and down arrow cursor keys are active. Select a recipe by pressing Enter when the highlighted cursor bar is on-line with the recipe name you want to retrieve, or by placing the mouse cursor on the line with the recipe name and double click with the left mouse button. Once the recipe is loaded from the main data file, it will be displayed in the editors. You can move quickly to recipes or categories by typing the first letter of the recipe or category names. If the Index is sorted on Recipe name, the first letter in the recipe name is used. And if sorted on Category, the first letter in the category is used. If no sort is used, the first letter in the recipe name is used. When typing a letter, the cursor bar will move to the first recipe or category name starting with that letter. If the same letter is typed again, the cursor bar will move down to the next and so on. When it's past the bottom of the Index listing, it will start from the top again. In the lower right corner the number of recipes that are marked as deleted is displayed. Press ESC in index to cancel any selection. While in the Index you can re-sort it by pressing F8 or clicking on F8 (in lower left corner). Page 9 of 19 Search - Hot-key: None This is basically the same as the "Search for Recipe" function described above, except this search is only for the index in memory. Only words in the Recipe Name and/or Category are searched. If a search word is found, MicroCook will retrieve the whole recipe from the main disk file and display it. Then display the "Correct Recipe? (Y/N)" message. Since the Index searches are searching in memory only, it's VERY fast compared to the Disk searches. However, the Index searches are limited to searching for a recipe name and category only. Index View - Hot-key: ALT-Y This function is the same as "Disk View" described above, except the search is only in the index in memory. You will use this primarily when you know the name of a recipe and want to avoid scrolling up or down to locate the recipe in order to bring it up on the screen. Sort - Hot-key: ALT-O The Sort is a 2-key sort for the Index array only. The sort can be performed either ascending or descending, and with either recipe name or category as the primary sort key. When selected, a window will pop-up with choices of sort keys. Select one by number, or by placing the mouse cursor on the corresponding line and clicking with the left mouse button. Since this a 2-key sort, both the Recipe Names and Category are sorted. So if Category is the primary sort key, all recipes within the same category are sorted in the same order as the category. See Default Sort-key under Setup. Delete This Recipe - Hot-key: ALT-Z By selecting this function, or with the hot-key, while a previously saved recipe is displayed in the editors, the recipe will be marked as deleted. Before it is marked, MicroCook will ask if you really want to delete the recipe. As with the "Delete Recipes" function described below, you can later un-delete the recipe if the database has not yet been Packed. If you Disable the window that pop-up after ALT-Z is used, you will NOT be warned that a recipe will be deleted when ALT-Z is used. After a recipes is deleted, the next on in the Index order will be displayed. Un-Delete Recipes & Delete Recipes - Hot-key: None When marking recipes for deletion, you are actually not deleting them, only marking each recipe so it won't show up in the index listing. When this function is selected, an Index array with ALL recipes are compiled and displayed. You can then move through the index and mark the recipes you want to mark for deletion by pressing the Enter key, pressing the Space bar or placing the mouse cursor on the line with the recipe name and clicking the left mouse button. The recipes that are marked for "deletion" will have a check mark in the left column by the recipe name. When done marking, press F10 to write all the makers to the disk files, and re-initialize MicroCook. You can un-delete any recipes by selecting this function again. All recipes that are marked for deletion will have the check mark by its name. Now just un-mark the recipe, press F10 and the recipe is back again. See the Pack function for permanent deletion of recipes. Page 10 of 19 Print Group (ALT-P) This Recipe - Hot-key: ALT-R If there is a recipe on the screen, this function will send it to the printer port assigned to MicroCook in Setup. You will be asked if you want to re-direct the output to an ASCII disk file. This can be an handy feature if you later want to import the recipe(s) into a word processor when you are ready to write your own cook book. The file output is formatted exactly in the same way as the printed hard copy. One recipe will need one sheet of paper, or about 60 lines of text. If a Laser printer is used, a page eject is performed at the end of the print job, and if a continuous sheet dot-matrix printer is used, the printer will advance to the next page break. If the printer is not on-line and ready when this or any other print function is selected, an error message will be displayed. You can then ready the printer and try again without aborting the printing. Other Recipes - Hot-key: None With this function you can print selected recipes from the Index. You can tag one recipe, or as many you want for multiple sheets of recipes. Move through the index and mark the recipes you want to Print by pressing the Enter key, Space bar or placing the mouse cursor on the line with the recipe name and clicking with the left mouse button. The check mark will indicate which recipes will be printed. Press F10 when done selecting to start the printing. You will also be given the chance to print an ASCII file to a disk instead of to a printer. If you are printing to a printer, you will also be asked if you want to remove the blank lines between recipes. This will place more than one recipe on a sheet of paper, but a recipe could also be split between two pages. When printing to a file, there are no space between recipes. Index in Memory - Hot-Key: None The will print the CURRENT compiled index in memory. If you select this function without performing any of the View searches, the whole index (minus the recipes marked as deleted) will be printed. If you perform either an Index View search or a Disk View search, only those recipes found in the search will be printed. Form Feed - Hot-Key: None If you need to advance the paper in the printer one page, this function will do so for you by sending a form feed command to the printer (ASCII 12). Database Group (ALT-D) Change to - Hot-key: ALT-C Since you can have several different databases for use with MicroCook, you will need an easy and fast way to change between them. And this is it! When selected, an alphabetically sorted scrolling menu will be displayed with only the *.MCD database files that are in the current default directory (see Setup). By placing the cursor bar on the file you want to load, and pressing Enter, the file's Index will be loaded into memory. See description earlier in this manual about the File menu. Page 11 of 19 Create New - Hot-key: None Before any database file can be used to save recipes in, it has to be created. This function will pop up a window where you can type in an 8 letter filename. Do NOT use extension, as this will be supplied by MicroCook. Both an empty main data file and the index file will be created. This will not set the created database to the one currently in use, so if you want to use it now, you must change to it as described in the function above. Or you can change the name of the default database to it in Setup, so it will be loaded the next time you load MicroCook . The default directory where the database files will be created is also displayed in the window. If you want to create the database in a different directory, press F8. The same file menu as described above will then be displayed. But this time only the available directories and disk drives are displayed. After the file name has been entered, you will be asked if you want to make the new database active. If you answer Yes, the new database will be loaded. If No (or ESC), the current database will stay loaded. Re-Index - Hot-key: None If the index file for some reason should get corrupted with garbled data, you can re-create a new index file with this function. It will delete the old index and read the necessary information from the main data file and save it in a new index file. Setup - Hot-key: ALT-U Here you let MicroCook know about some of your PC's configurations and how you want the program to operate. Default Recipe File............................... This is the main data file MicroCook looks for when it's loaded from the DOS prompt. If this file cannot be found, an error message will be displayed. While working in MicroCook you can change between databases as often as you want. Default: RECIPES.MCD Default Path for Recipe and data files............ Enter the disk drive and the directory where the recipe database files, index files and any ASCII export or Import files are. This does not have to be same directory as where the MCOOK.EXE program and its support files are saved. Default: Where MCOOK.EXE is located Auto Save after Edit? (Y/N)....................... If you set this option to Y (Yes), MicroCook will not prompt you if a recipe has been edited, and you are about to select a function that possibly could clear the recipes currently on the screen, but automatically save it for you, no questions asked. By setting this to N (No), a message will prompt you to save before you can change function. Now you will have the option of either saving the recipe or not. Press F, or click on the letter, to bypass the save. Depending on the function you selected, the recipe could possibly still be on the screen when you return. For example, if you only wanted to look at the index, but not select a new recipe, the recipe on the screen will still be there. But if don't want to take any chances, save the recipe first. Default: N Page 12 of 19 Printer Port used (LPT1-LPT4)..................... Enter the parallel port number where your printer is connected. Default: 1 Printer Type, Dot-Matrix or Laser? (D/L) ......... There are no printer codes used in MicroCook that are printer type dependant, so most any printer will work fine. This function is only to let MicroCook know how to handle page eject after a print job. If D (Dot-Matrix) printer is selected, the printer will advance to next page perforation after a print job is done. With L (Laser) selected, a standard page eject is performed. Default: D Printer Page Length (Lines) ...................... Enter number of lines of effective printing one sheet of paper can handle. This is usually 66 lines for a Dot-Matrix continuous feed printer, and 60 lines for single sheet Laser (or any other single sheet) printer. Default: 66 Default Index Sort, Name or Category. (N/C)....... When the index is first loaded, it's sorted alphabetically on two keys, one primary and one secondary key. This function lets you select the primary key. This can be either on recipe name (N) or category (C). If you prefer to have recipes grouped by category instead of by index name, select C. Default: N Sort Ascending/Descending (A/D)................... Here the sort order for the primary key is set. The secondary key is also sorted in the same order. If ascending (A) is selected, the sort will be from A to Z. Apples will be one the top of the index, and Zucchini on the bottom. Descending sort will put the Zucchini on the top. The sort is case sensitive, so Zucchini (upper case Z) will come before apples (lower case a). Default: A Index Sort when Recipe Save/Database Load (Y/N) ... When the database is getting large, over 1500 recipes, the Index sort will take a few seconds because it's a 2-key sort. But you can disable the automatic Index sort during Index load and also after a new or edited recipe has been saved by marking this item with N (No). You can then sort the index as needed either while in the Index (F8) or from the Index menu. If the Sort is set to on, (Y), the Index will only be sorted if either the recipe name or category is sorted. If only editing has been done in either the Ingredients or Description, no sort will be performed when the recipe is saved again. Default: N Page 13 of 19 Enable Display and Load by Recipe#? (Y/N)........ If this function is enabled, the recipe (record) numbers will be displayed in the Index listing. The recipes can then be loaded directly by the Load by Number function in the File menu, or ALT-L hot-key. Default: N Auto check for duplicate recipe names? (Y/N)..... When this function is enabled, MicroCook will check the current index to determine if a recipe already exists with the same name as one that is being entered and saved from the editors or being imported with one of the imports. The name check is not case sensitive, but the spelling and punctuation of the whole recipe name must be the same. If a recipe is about to be saved and has the same name as one already in the Index, and window will pop up and warn you about it. Default: N 12 or 24 hour clock format? (12/24) ................ Here you can chose if you want the clock on the screen to display the time in the 12 hour format (A.M. & P.M.) or in the military 24 hour format, also used in Europe and other parts of the world. 11:37:12 PM vs 23:37:12. Default: 12 Minutes till Screen Saver Activates (0-60) (0=Not Used) If you have loaded MicroCook on your PC, and it just sits there and is doing nothing, this function will make it do "something". If the keyboard or mouse hasn't been used within the time limit set here, a graphical screen saver will be activated. This screen saver has many different screens, and they will change in a random manner. Just tap a key on the keyboard or click one of the mouse buttons to get back to the editors again. If you don't want the screen saver activated at all, enter a 0 (Zero) here, and you'll never see it again. This screen saver ONLY works on EGA or better monitors. If a CGA Monitor is detected, it will not be activated. Default: 5 Silent Mode (NO Chimes).......................... With an Y (Yes) here, all the chimes and beeps will be disabled. Default: N When done editing the setup, press F4 to save, or ESC to cancel. If F4 was pressed, MicroCook will re-initialize so any changes can be put into effect. Page 14 of 19 Tools Group (ALT-T) Conversions - Hot-key: None Selecting this function will bring up an ASCII file viewer with a file called MCOOK.MCC. This file MUST reside in the same directory as MCOOK.EXE. This file contains some conversions between metric and English weights and volume, abbreviations for measures used in recipes, some substitutes that can be used during cooking, and conversions between degrees Centigrade and degrees Fahrenheit. This file is a ASCII text file, so you can edit and/or add your own data that you might need to look at while entering recipes. You can scroll up, down or sideways through the manual with Page Up, Page Down, the up, down, left or right arrow keys, or by placing the mouse cursor on the up or down arrows by the scroll bars and clicking the left button. The End key will place the cursor on the last line in the document, and Home will place it on the first line. F3 will bring up a small window where you can type in text that you want to search for. When found, the text will be highlighted, otherwise a Not Found message will be displayed. Press ESC to return to the editors. Read Manual - Hot-key: ALT-M If you don't have a printed manual (this document) nearby while working in MicroCook, you can select this function and read it without first exiting MicroCook. See "Conversions" about navigating in the file viewer. The manual is called MCOOK.MAN, and it MUST reside in the same directory as MCOOK.EXE. File Reader - Hot-key: None This function will bring up the same powerful ASCII file viewer used with Conversions and Read manual. But now you can select from ANY of the files in the current directory. Of course, only ASCII text files will make any sense, EXE or COM files will only display some characters that won't make for good reading. The limit on files in the file viewer is about 16,000 lines. You can change directory by pressing F8 and access the same file manager as described above in "Change to..." and "Create New". See "Conversions" about navigating in the file viewer. About..... - Hot-Key: None About provides information relating to MicroCook. The program name and version will be displayed in a pop-up window as well as an indication as to whether or not the program has been registered. If it's registered, the serial number and the name of the person it was registered to are also displayed. Page 15 of 19 Status - Hot-key: None As your recipe database grows, you can take a look in this Status window to see how many more recipes there are room for in the database currently in use. This is an estimate only, calculated from the free memory you currently have in your PC. Also displayed is how much free disk space is left on the disk currently in use. And how many more recipes it could hold, if you were to fill up the rest of the disk with recipes only. Even though the Status window says you can have for example, 2085 recipes in a database, you should try to keep the maximum at least 20-30 less than that number. BEST: Keep the databases below 1500 recipes. Smaller databases are faster in loading, sorting and selecting from. This will protect you in case you add a new RAM resident program (TSR) and still allow you to access the database and the index. Also, if you have many recipes in a database, Imports and editing will slow down if Duplicate Checking is on. DOS Shell - Hot-key: None Need a short trip to the DOS prompt? Here's the door. Since MicroCook and the index is still loaded in memory, there probably will be little memory left to run any other programs, but standard DOS commands can still be performed. If you change directory while in DOS, MicroCook will change it back to the working directory when entering the program again. Type EXIT to re-enter MicroCook again. Export/Import Group ***** Export MC database - Hot-key: None With this function you can export the whole (basically copy the one in use), or selected recipes from the one currently in use. Since MicroCook uses a fixed length record random access database system, these files can ONLY be used by MicroCook. When selected you will be asked for a filename to use when you export. Type in a name, maximum 8 characters and no extension. If a file with that name already exists, a message will ask you if you want to enter a different name, append to the existing one, or overwrite the existing one. If you enter a new file name, a new database will be created, but without the index file. If you select "overwrite" the existing database will be deleted, and a new empty one with the same name will be created. Next you will have the choice of if you want to export all or selected recipes. If you have compiled an Index on a Search Word and want those recipes in a separate database, select 3. You can be even more detailed with #4, Export Selected Recipes from Current Index, where you can tag from the compiled Index. If Selected is chosen, the index will be displayed. And now you can tag only the recipes you want to export to the new database. When done tagging, press F10 to start the export. This export feature can be a handy feature if you later want to divide up the recipes into different groups, like different ethnic foods, or want to mail some of your recipes on a floppy disk to a friend who also uses MicroCook. Press F8 to bring up the File menu described earlier if you want the new database file to be saved in a different directory. Page 16 of 19 Import MC database - Hot-key: None This allows you to import the database files that were exported with the function described above. When selected, you will see the scrolling File menu with the available databases in the current directory. After you have selected one, the next question is if you want to verify the recipe before it's saved to the one currently in use. If you answered N (No) all recipes will be imported. If you are not sure if you want all the recipes in the imported one, answer Y (Yes). That way you can select those you want to save or want to edit a little. As the recipes are retrieved from the database, they are displayed in the editors. If you don't want to save it, just answer N (No) to save it, and MicroCook will continue on to the next one. Press Y (Yes) to save it, or E (Edit) if you want to edit it. If you select Edit, the editors will be activated. When you are done editing, press ALT-S to Save, or ALT-N if you don't want to save it. The import will continue on to the next recipe. This editing function is only available if you answer Y (Yes) to verify the recipes as they are imported. You can abort the import at any time by pressing ESC, or clicking the right mouse button. When done importing, you will be asked if you want to import more files. Export MC ASCII - Hot-Key: None If you are using bulletin board systems (BBS) such as GEnie (tm), Prodigy (tm), CompuServe (tm), America On Line (tm) or any other BBS, and want to upload one or more of your recipes to share with friends that also use MicroCook, this is the function to use. If you need to share ASCII recipe files with someone that doesn't have MicroCook (yet), use the print to file function from the Print menu. When MicroCook export recipes as MC ASCII, they are formatted in a certain way, so they can easily be imported again. And if no major change has happened in the ASCII recipe between the header marker and the end of recipe marker, MicroCook can pick out the recipe and format it for use without any problems from within a large file with other downloaded E-mail. If you are sending a file as private E-mail on Prodigy, their editor is only 40 characters wide, you can set the width of the output to 40 characters. MicroCook will insert a ^ character at the end of each full line. This character will be used when Importing again to reformat the imported recipe so it looks exactly as the exported one. The ^ characters are removed during import. The MC ASCII can be formatted between 39 and 78 characters wide. The procedure to Export MC ASCII files are the same as MC Database Export, except here you will also be asked for the width in characters of the ASCII file. Import MC ASCII - Hot-key: None This is the function you need to use when importing the specially formatted ASCII files exported with the function described above. When selected, the file menu described earlier will pop up with a listing of ALL files in the current directory. So be sure you select only the ones that are valid MC ASCII files. If any other files are selected, nothing will happen because MicroCook can't find the MC ASCII recipe header, and after it has gone through the whole file, a "No Recipes found" message will be displayed putting you back in the editors. Page 17 of 19 Here you also will have the option of verifying and/or editing the recipes before they are saved to the database currently in use, or importing all of them. If the ASCII recipe has been exported in a narrower format than the default 78 characters, it will be expanded again, and all the ^ characters are removed. MicroCook will still import ASCII recipes created with version 1.2. These ASCII recipes did not have the ^ characters and had a default of 78 characters wide. When done importing, you will be asked if you want to import more files. See MCFORMAT.DOC regarding how a MC ASCII file must look before it can be imported. Import MM 7+ ASCII - Hot-Key: None I know that there are many ASCII recipe files formatted for Meal-Master(tm) around on various BBS's. And if you want to download any of them and import them, you can use this function. I have tried to make this function as flexible as possible without letting anything but Meal-Master recipes through. This function will work for both the special Prodigy format and the "generic" Meal-Master ASCII format. But since these Meal-Master recipes are not created by MicroCook, some editing might be necessary during Import to get them the way you want them. But I think about 99% of them do just fine as they are. When this function is selected, the same file manager as described above will be displayed with a listing of ALL the files in the current directory. After a file is selected, MicroCook will look for the Meal-Master header: ---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v7.0 After the header is found, the rest of the text is deciphered, and the recipe name, categories, servings, ingredients and description are put into the correct places in the MicroCook recipe. Also the narrow Prodigy (*P) format and recipes from most version of Meal-Master and MMCONV are recognized. When done importing, you will be asked if you want to import more files. Help - Hot-Key: F1 Just that - HELP! This function will bring up an ASCII file in the ASCII file viewer called MCOOK.HLP. This file MUST reside in the same directory as MCOOK.EXE. In this file only keys and key combinations that are not printed on the screens are listed, like the hot-keys, and editing keys in the editors. If you need detailed help about MicroCook, use the Read Manual function in the Tools menu. If you want to add your own Help and/or tips in this file, use an ASCII editor like MS-DOS's EDIT, or MCEDIT that you receive after you have registered MicroCook. You can also use a word processor, but be sure to save what you write as a pure ASCII text (WordPerfect = CTRL-F5, T, S). Page 18 of 19 What's next? I have received several suggestions from users of previous versions that I will try to implement in the next version. Some of them are in this version too. But the more feedback I get from YOU, the user, the better MicroCook will get. So, please let me know the GOOD and BAD about MicroCook, and what you would like to see in the next version. Either by mail, on the registration card, by phone or on one of the on-line services where I'm a member. WHATSNEW.DOC There might be a few new/changed items that has not made it to this manual yet. See WHATSNEW.DOC for anything "un-documented". A Special THANK YOU to: Annie, Beverly, Bill, Berni, Bobbie, Chet, Cindy, Darla, Fred, Gail, Gloria, Hank, Herman, Irene, Jackson, Judi, Kay, Linda, Neil, Patsy, Shari, Shirley and Wendy on GEnie On-line Services. They helped me in getting the "bugs" out of MicroCook. Without them and their suggestions and keen eye for "something that doesn't work right", MicroCook wouldn't be what it is today. Couldn't ask for better Beta Testers! And thank you for good ideas for improvements from Mike, Charlie, Bobbie, David and many more. Keep 'em coming! And also a BIG THANK YOU to Caryl in Texas for help with the manual. -:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:- IBM is a registered trademark of IBM Corp. GEnie is a registered trademark of GE Information Systems. Prodigy is a registered trademark of Prodigy Service Company. Meal-Master is a registered trademark of Episoft Systems. MS-DOS is a registered trademark of MicroSoft Corporation. MicroSoft is a registered trademark of MicroSoft Corporation. Visual Basic is a registered trademark of MicroSoft Corporation. Epson is a registered trademark of Epson Corporation. PKZIP is a registered trademark of PKWARE, Inc. Page 19 or 19