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***
Using the Help System
THAT'S IT! You're doing it right! :-)
The help system IS the documentation for TV Agent. You should hit every
HELP button you see until you understand all the options. The help screen
topic that will be displayed is related to the screen you were on. But
there are many other basic things (like, CTL-F12 jumps back a day) which
you'll only learn about when you read the other topics (like "Moving thru
listings").
---- Help from "Listings" screen ----
When you are looking at the listings, the bottom 4 lines of the screen
remind you with quick help. The keys to use for common TV Agent functions
are printed in the help lines with a white character on red background.
The help lines change when you hit Left- or Right-Arrow to describe the
basic operations of hiliting and deleting fields.
If you need more help, the "H" key will bring up the basic Help topic:
How to use TV Agent
When you hit ESC (the ESCAPE key) to leave one Help topic you see an index
of other help topics and you can jump to any of them.
---- Help from other screens ----
When you are looking at the "Details" screen, the bottom line reminds you
how to print those listing details, and the "H" key brings up the help
topic
Details Screen
which describes what the areas of the "Details" screen mean.
The other screens have short descriptions beside their buttons and other
controls. More detailed information is available when you click the green
Help button (or type ALT-H). Depending on what screen you are on, you will
jump to these help topics:
Main Menu
System Set Up Menu
Users Menu
Review Hilites/Deletes/Keywords
Options Menu
There are other important help topics which you read by selecting them
from the index:
Moving thru listings
Deleting listings
Hiliting listings
Seeing details of listings
Using Buttons
Using Lists/Options/Check boxes
Getting new TVLISTdd.ARC files
If you want a printout of any help topic or all of them, use the PRINT
or PRINT ALL buttons at the bottom of the help screens.
---- Index Page ----
Whenever you are looking at a help screen (green print on black
background, like this) you can bring up a list of all the other help
topics by typing ALT-I or clicking the INDEX button at the bottom of the
screen. Then the Up- and Down-Arrow keys will move the hilite bar thru the
titles of the help topics, and ENTER will display that topic. (Or,
doubleclick on the topic you want.)
The left side of the Index Page shows important telephone numbers. If you
have a problem that occurs AFTER the TV Agent copyright appears, call
TV Agent Tech Support. If the problem occurs BEFORE the TV Agent
copyright, it is a subscription problem that only Planet Systems can help
with.
***
How to Use TV Agent
TV Agent displays the details of up to date listings, highlighting the
programs you've told it you are interested in, and deleting listings you
don't want to see. It remembers the preferences for 99 users.
Add a user.
Later add more users to try new displays, do special searches, etc.
Get to the "Listings", then use the numeric keypad!
Up, down, PgUp, and PgDn, move you thru the "Listings".
When you have the cursor on a "+", see "Details" by hitting "5".
The + and - keys mark hilites and deletes for one listing only.
The Left-Arrow and Right-Arrow keys start permanent hilites and deletes on
channel, type, or title.
Function keys jump to hours: F9 to 9 pm, ALT-F9 to 9 am, etc.
Shift-F12 takes you to tomorrow.
As you look at "Listings", whenever you can, tell TV Agent whether the
program is:
1) so UNinteresting you don't want listings like this to appear at all
This is "Deleting listings". The more you delete, and the sooner you
do it, the fewer useless listings you'll see. Left-Arrow draws a box
around the channel; hit the DEL key to delete ALL listings on that
channel. You can also delete listings by type or title by hitting
Right-Arrow once or twice to draw a box around those fields.
2) interesting enough to mark it, and make the listing show up hilited
whenever it appears
This is "Hiliting listings". If you hilite a title ( Right-Arrow twice
puts the box around the title, then hit ENTER) it will stand out
whenever it appears on the screen, even if it's at a new time or on a
new channel. You can hilite the fields title, type, and channel, and
you can have the listing hilited if it contains keywords.
Hitting ENTER without drawing the box hilites the whole line, but does not
affect any other listing. Do that to mark anything you're interested in
that doesn't already have a hilited field.
Hitting DEL without the box does not affect any other listing either. Do
it if the listing has a hilited field (channel, type, title, keyword) and
you do NOT want to see it on your printout of hilites this time.
After you have looked thru tomorrow's listings, print the hilited listings
so you have a hard copy showing ONLY what you decided you are interested
in.
Hit "O" to see Only the hilites on screen; hit "A" to go back to seeing
All the listings you haven't deleted.
OR, do something else! There are lots of ways to use TV Agent.
Try different preferences on the "Users Menu".
Add a username on the DOS command line to jump right into the "Listings".
C:\TV> TVAGENT C:\TV> TVAGENT LEE
starts at Main Menu jumps to Lee's Listings
/ at what's about to start
/ /
┌────────────────┐ /
│ Main Menu ├───────────────┐ /
└┬───────┬──────┬┘ │ / Here's a map
│ │ │ │ / showing the
┌─────┴──┐ ┌──┴──┐ ┌─┴─────┐ ┌──┴─────┐ most important
│ Set Up │ │Users│ │Options├──────>│Listings│ screen displays
└────────┘ └───┬─┘ └───────┘ └──┬─────┘ and how you move
│ │ between them
┌───┴──┐ ┌─┴─────┐
│Review│ │Details│
└──────┘ └───────┘
BACKUP YOUR USER FILES!
The work you do recording your preferences is saved in the files U*.* .
It's a good idea to backup those frequently changing U*.* files.
***
Moving thru listings
You choose the first listing to see by which button you hit on the Main
Menu, probably "Current" or "Tomorrow". Or, you can choose a day from the
chart of "Available listings". The "Options" screen gives you more
choices. You leave the "Listings" and get back to the Main Menu by hitting
"Q" or ESC. Hit "X" to save your work and leave the "Listings" directly to
the DOS prompt.
When "Listings" are displayed, hitting the Down-Arrow key will move the
cursor down the screen to a later listing, and Up-Arrow moves up the
screen. Put the cursor on a particular listing when you want to see its
details, or to focus on a field in the listing, or to hilite or delete
the entire line. You could go all the way thru the "Listings" with just
the Up- and Down-Arrow keys, but it is much easier to use the Page Down
and Page Up keys. It does not matter which line the cursor is on when you
hit Page Down; a new page of "Listings" will appear, including at its top
the line that was on the bottom of the previous page. On the new page the
cursor will appear on the first listing that did not show up on the
previous page. Page Up works the same way, moving you to an earlier screen
full of "Listings". If you want to skip some listings, the function keys
are the quickest way to get to a different hour.
There's an "Autoscroll" option on the "Users Menu". That moves thru the
listings even if you don't hit a key, optionally keeping what's about to
start on the screen. It's handy for some kinds of searches.
While TV Agent is looking for the next listing to display, it puts the
word "searching..." in the lower right corner of the screen, and an arrow
spins to show you TV Agent is active. Often that display will disappear
almost immediately, replaced by the current time, because TV Agent will
quickly show you the next listing. But if you have deleted many listings,
or if you are looking only at hilited listings and there are not many
hilited listings, it may take a while for TV Agent to find the next
listing to display. TV Agent will ignore most keys while it is searching;
but if you want to stop the search hit "Q" or ESC.
When you reach the listings that will begin at midnight in the Eastern
Time Zone, there will be a slight delay while TV Agent switches to another
file. You get a warning at that point saying:
"You are about to leave this day's listings"
because before you actually do leave, you may want to look back at an
earlier listing in the current day's file, or you may want to look at
details of one of the listings still on the screen. Once you are thru
looking at one day's listings, go ahead and hit Down or Page Down a second
time to tell TV Agent that you are ready to move to the next day. Of
course you can go backward to a previous day, if you put up with the
slight delay. Note that this point of switching files happens at midnight
EASTERN time; so if you are in the Pacific Time Zone TV Agent will switch
files when you reach the listings displayed for 9 pm local time.
When you try to move forward but you have already reached the end of the
listings you have available, TV Agent will tell you:
"You can't go forward any further. There are no later listings."
You'll see a similar message if you try to move backward but you are
already at the earliest listing. Keep in mind that if you told TV Agent to
show you only hilited listings, there may be more listings available in
the direction you tried to move, but they aren't hilited.
You can jump to the beginning of any hour in the current day by hitting a
function key. The F1 key will take you to 1 pm; F2 takes you to 2 pm; F11
takes you to 11 pm. F12 takes you to noon, 12 pm. Holding the ALT key with
a function key jumps to the morning hours; ALT-F1 takes you to 1 am,
ALT-F11 takes you to 11 am. ALT-F12 takes you to 12 am midnight THIS
morning. Note that these function keys never change days; if you are at
11:30 pm and you want to see what is on 30 minutes later at midnight, the
function key ALT-F12 will NOT take you where you want to go. Use SHIFT-F12
to jump to midnight tonight (tomorrow AM). CTL-F12 will jump to midnight
yesterday morning. SHIFT and CTL used with any function key besides F12
don't do anything. Here's a chart showing where the function keys would
take you if you were at any hour on 2/15:
CTL-F12 12 am 2/14 (midnight yesterday)
ALT-F12 12 am 2/15 (midnight today) F12 12 pm 2/15 (noon today)
ALT-F1 1 am 2/15 F1 1 pm 2/15
ALT-F2 2 am 2/15 F2 2 pm 2/15
ALT-F3 3 am 2/15 F3 3 pm 2/15
ALT-F4 4 am 2/15 F4 4 pm 2/15
ALT-F5 5 am 2/15 F5 5 pm 2/15
ALT-F6 6 am 2/15 F6 6 pm 2/15
ALT-F7 7 am 2/15 F7 7 pm 2/15
ALT-F8 8 am 2/15 F8 8 pm 2/15
ALT-F9 9 am 2/15 F9 9 pm 2/15
ALT-F10 10 am 2/15 F10 10 pm 2/15
ALT-F11 11 am 2/15 F11 11 pm 2/15
(midnight tomorrow) SHIFT-F12 12 am 2/16
If you requested the display of only hilited listings, and then jump to an
hour that has no hilites, the first hilite after that hour will be
displayed.
If you started from the "Options" button on the Main Menu, you had to set
a stopping point, and you'll be informed if you jump past it while looking
at the "Listings" on screen. The stopping point actually stops you only if
you're printing.
***
Deleting listings
You can view ALL the listings, if you want. But the more deleting you do,
the less time you will waste passing over listings for channels you don't
receive or for programs you are not interested in. You only have to tell
TV Agent once that you don't get ESPN G5-9, and all the listings on that
channel will never be displayed. If you know that you don't want to see
ANY episodes of "Laverne and Shirley", tell TV Agent that the first time
one appears. Or any time you see a listing for a program type (eg DAYTIME
SOAP or GAME SHOW) that you know you will never be interested in, tell
TV Agent to stop listing any programs with that type with the two
keystrokes Right-Arrow DEL .
If you delete a field or a whole line the deleted part will show up with
yellow print on a red background while that listing is still on the
screen. (Normal listings have yellow print on a blue background.) When a
deleted listing scrolls off the screen it will not scroll back on.
If a listing has both a hilite and a delete (like, the title field is
hilited because you like the series, but the channel field is deleted
because you don't get that channel) then the delete takes precedence, and
the listing does not show up on screen.
There are six ways to delete listings, and each will be discussed in
detail below:
This one affects ALL users:
1. Deleting channels on the "Set Up Menu" (maybe you don't receive them)
These affect only the current user, and are done on the "Listings"
screen or on the "Review Hilites/Deletes/Keywords" screen:
2. Deleting channels (eg, CNBC G5-13 )
3. Deleting types (eg, DAYTIME SOAPS)
4. Deleting titles (eg, Sesame Street)
5. Deleting particular listings
6. Deleting listings that contain a keyword (eg, ADULT SITUATIONS)
---- 1. Deleting channels on the "Set Up Menu" ----
Suppose there are several people who use this TV Agent, and none of you
want to see listings for some channels because you don't subscribe to
them. There are two ways to delete those channels once, instead of having
to delete them every time you set up a new user.
One way is to set up one user, delete the channels, and then set up all
other users by "cloning" the first user. That's explained in more detail
in the help for the "Users Menu". That's probably the best way because it
allows you to set up another user with NO channels deleted to occasionally
see what you're missing.
The other way is to use the Set Up button on the Main Menu, and there is
an explanation about how to do that in the help topic "System Set Up
Menu". This way you don't have to clone an existing user; the channels are
automatically deleted for EVERY user as soon as the username is entered.
---- 2. Deleting channels you aren't interested in ----
If you see a listing that is a waste of your time because you have no
interest in that channel, move the cursor up/down and put it on that
listing. Then hit the Left-Arrow key. A box will appear around the
channel, and the bottom of the screen will prompt you on what key to hit
next. If you want to delete all listings for that channel, hit the "-"
key or the DEL key. The channel will change to yellow print on red,
indicating that channel will not appear on your screen again. If there are
other listings on the screen with the same channel, the print will change
to yellow on red in those listings as well.
Here's how to UNDELETE a channel -- that is, to correct a mistake you made
when you deleted a channel you shouldn't have. If the channel is still
showing on your screen, it will be in yellow print on red. Move the
cursor to that row, hit Left-Arrow to put the box around the channel, and
then (as the instructions at the bottom of the screen will show) hit the
"+" key or ENTER . That will restore the channel to normal yellow print on
blue.
There is only one way to undelete a channel if it has scrolled off the
screen. Quit the "Listings" and return to the Main Menu; then hit these
buttons: "Users" then "Review&Keywords" . The form that will be displayed
("Review Hilites/Deletes/Keywords") has help that tells you how to recover
a deleted field.
You can also delete channels on that "Review Hilites/Deletes/Keyword"
screen. Ask to see the list of "normal" channels and then hit the "Set to
Del" button while you have the list bar on a channel you want to delete.
This is a convenient way to delete all the uninteresting channels at once
instead of waiting to see them one at a time in the "Listings", and you
see the full channel name spelled out in case you are not familiar with
the channel abbreviations.
At least one subscriber set up a username for each satellite (deleting
channels not on that satellite) for a quick guide to whatever satellite he
is aimed at.
---- 3. Deleting program types you aren't interested in ----
Like deleting channels, you can delete program types from a list on the
"Review Hilites/Delete/Keywords" screen and there is more help available
on that topic.
Here are all the program types that appear in the "Listings":
1ST RUN SYNDIC KID'S SPECIAL RELIGIOUS
ARTS MINI-SERIES SEASONAL SPEC.
CARTOONS MISCELLANEOUS SIGN-OFF
CINEMA FRENCH MOVIE SPECIAL
DAYTIME SOAPS MUSIC SPORT EVENT
FILLER MUSIC SPECIAL SPORTS ANTHOL.
FINANCE NETWORK SERIES SPORTS RELATED
GAME SHOWS NEWS SYNDICATED
HEALTH PELICULA SPAN TALK SHOW
HOBBIES/CRAFTS PLAYOFF SPORT TEAM VS. TEAM
INSTRUCTIONAL PSEUDO-SPORT TO BE ANNOUNCD
KID'S SHOW PUBLIC AFFAIRS TV MOVIE
If you are sure that one of those types is used ONLY for listings you have
no interest in, you can delete all listings with that type by focussing
on the type and hitting the "-" key or the DEL key. To focus on the type
when you see it on the screen, you move the cursor vertically to that
line, and then hit Right-Arrow. That will put a box around the type, and
instructions at the bottom of the screen tell you how to delete all future
display of listings with that type. You may not want to delete types
because you aren't sure what the type applies to -- for instance, the
series "Newton's Apple" has the type "KID'S SHOW". If you deleted a type
and you want to undo that elimination, put the box around the deleted type
and hit "+" or ENTER. This only works before all the listings with the
deleted type scroll off the screen; after they scroll away they will not
scroll back. After they scroll away the only way to recover them is thru
the "Review" button on the "Users Menu".
---- 4. Deleting program titles ----
The most efficient way to reduce the number of listings you look at is to
delete channels, since that way with one deletion you get rid of hundreds
of listings. Deleting a program type may get rid of TOO many listings. So
when listings appear and you know you have no interest in any episode with
that title (perhaps you never watch "Sesame Street") you can delete
listings by title. Move the cursor to the line, and then hit Right-Arrow
twice. The box will move past the type, to the title. With the box around
the title you want to delete, hit the "-" key or the DEL key. To undo the
elimination of a title while it still appears on the screen, put the
cursor on the line, hit Right-Arrow twice, and then hit "+" or ENTER or
INS. Occasionally use the "Review" button on the "Users Menu" to make sure
you have not accidentally deleted a title or other field that you would
like to have displayed in the "Listings".
Sometimes unrelated programs use the same title -- for instance, if you
delete the CBS series "48 Hours" you'll also delete the movie "48 Hours".
And both CBC and VISN have series called "Man Alive"; whatever you do to
one title will happen to the other too.
The full length of the title counts when you focus on a title, altho the
instructions at the bottom of the screen may not show the full title. Even
if the title is so long that it does not all appear in the listing, the
full title will be compared to titles in future listings. You'll be able
to see the full title, no matter how long it is, if you look on the
"Details" screen.
---- 5. Deleting particular listings ----
If you hit the "-" key or the DEL key without moving the cursor to either
the left or the right, the entire line will be printed yellow on red, and
once it scrolls off the screen it will not scroll on again. Deleting a
line like this does not affect any other listing. If the same program
appears later (or earlier) in the "Listings", it will show up again when
that other listing scrolls onto the screen.
If you want to preview the listings for a child, deleting certain
programs, this is a way to do it very specifically. Otherwise you will
probably not bother to delete many listings this way, because there is a
better way (hiliting) to distinguish what you want to watch from what you
don't. See the help topic "Hiliting listings"; hiliting is like marking in
a printed guide what you're particularly interested in. Usually with
TV Agent you see on screen all the listings you haven't deleted, and then
you print ONLY the hilites.
There is a reason NOT to do whole line deletes on listings several days in
advance. (This does not apply to field deletes; you can do those as far
ahead as you want.) If you do a whole line delete on a listing 5 days
ahead, that deletion will be forgotten if 4 days from now you get an
updated TVLISTdd file. There's a similar problem with whole line hilites
on advance listings; they disappear when you get fresh listings for the
same day. You probably usually have fresh listings thru midnight EST
tomorrow night. The "Getting new TVLISTdd.ARC files" help topic explains
more about the schedule for getting advance and fresh listings. If you
have done whole line hilites and deletes in a day of advance listings and
you don't want to lose them, print them before you get fresh listings for
that day.
Here is the most common situation where deleting a line is appropriate.
Suppose there is a series that you usually want to see, so the title is
hilited when a listing appears on the screen. But you recognize from the
details that this particular episode is one you do NOT want to watch. The
listing was hilited because the title is hilited -- but you do not want
the listing to print. To keep it from printing, delete the whole line by
hitting "-" or DEL without moving the cursor left or right; the whole line
will print yellow on red and the listing will NOT show up when you print
only hilited listings. (It won't show up on screen, either, once it has
scrolled off.) This will not affect future listings for the same episode
-- they will scroll on to the screen with their title hilited.
If you delete a line and then change your mind before it scrolls off the
screen you can undelete it by putting the cursor on it and hitting ENTER
or + or INS. That will set it back to normal, yellow print on blue. The
"Review" button on the "Users Menu" will NOT let you recover deleted
lines, only deleted fields. So to undelete a line you MUST fix it before
it scrolls off screen.
---- 6. Deleting keywords ----
If you never want to see another listing for a movie starring Rodney
Dangerfield, this is the way to do it. Be careful because if you delete a
keyword then if that word (or phrase) appears anywhere in the listing --
among the stars, or the description, or the episode title, etc -- that
listing will not be shown.
You do this by selecting Keywords (ALT-4) and Delete (ALT-7) on the
"Review" screen (which you get to by hitting the "Review&Keywords" button
on the "Users Menu".) Then hit the "Show" button to see a list of the
keywords you have already deleted, and the "Add" button to add another
keyword or phrase to the list.
There is a special option on the "Users Menu" regarding keyword deletes,
the check box "[X] Deleted keywords still show". The default for this
option causes keyword deletes to be treated differently than field deletes
and whole line deletes. If you have an X in this checkbox, listings
containing deleted keywords DO still show on the "Listings" screen. (Field
deletes or a whole line delete always cause a listing NOT to show.)
You will be alerted that there is a deleted keyword in the listing by a
"K" with a red background appearing in place of the "+" that indicates
further details. If there are no details the keyword must be in the title
of the program, and a lower case "k" on a red background will appear. If
you look at the "Details" screen you will see the deleted keywords hilited
with a red background, in ALL CAPITALS.
The default is to SHOW the listings with deleted keywords instead of
deleting them, because deleting keywords can have such a broad and maybe
unintended effect that it is helpful to be able to see what listings are
affected by a keyword delete. So, try out a keyword delete by operating
with the "[X] Deleted keywords still show", and then maybe turn off that
option when you are satisfied that the keyword delete is only excluding
the listings you wanted to exclude.
If you REMOVE that X , listings containing deleted keywords will NOT be
shown, and the keyword delete will work like the field deletes and whole
line delete. That is, any delete will prevent the listing from being
displayed, even if it has a hilite.
You may decide you like showing listings with deleted keywords because the
"K" shows up in a different color than the hilited keywords, giving you a
little more information on the "Listings" screen.
Notice how easy it is to REALLY MESS UP by deleting a poorly chosen
keyword. If you delete the keyword "THE" a LOT of listings are going to
be deleted. Worse, think about what happens if you add a keyword "E". So
be careful! It is safer to use LONG KEYWORDS to delete. You can only see
the first 45 characters on the Review screen, but keywords can be very
long. Note the phrase "MPAA Rating" is not part of the data so using it as
part of a keyword does not cause the "K" to appear.
***
Hiliting listings
The more hiliting you do the closer TV Agent can come to finding your
preferences automatically. When you have hilited many of your favorites
TV Agent can print a guide listing only those hilites without you even
looking at the listings.
Hiliting works very much like deleting, and some of the common information
is described in the help topic "Deleting listings".
A hilited listing stands out on screen because it has a yellow background.
If you want ONLY the hilited listings to be displayed, type "O" while you
are looking at the "Listings". If only hilited listings are being
displayed and you want ALL listings to be displayed, type "A".
As you look at all the "Listings" (that haven't been deleted) you can
hilite whole lines or fields. On the "Review" screen you can also hilite
keywords or phrases.
---- Whole line hilites ----
If you hit the ENTER or + key or INS key the entire line is hilited. This
sort of hiliting does not affect any other listings; if the same program
comes on again, the later listing will not be hilited. This is the best
way to hilite particular episodes of a series when you don't want the
other episodes to be hilited. If the listing is for a special or
miniseries that is not likely to appear again for years (if ever) you can
conserve TV Agent's time and memory by hiliting it this way with a whole
line hilite rather than hiliting the title field.
If you hilite a whole line and then decide you do not want that line
hilited, putting the cursor on the line and hitting DEL or "-" will set
the line back to normal.
There is a reason NOT to do whole line hilites on listings several days in
advance. (This does not apply to field hilites; you can do those as far
ahead as you want.) If you do a whole line hilite on a listing 5 days
ahead, that hilite will be forgotten if 4 days from now you get an
updated TVLISTdd file. There's a similar problem with whole line deletes
on advance listings; they disappear when you get fresh listings for the
same day. You probably usually have fresh listings thru midnight EST
tomorrow night. The "Getting new TVLISTdd.ARC files" help topic explains
more about the schedule for getting advance and fresh listings. If you
have done whole line hilites and deletes in a day of advance listings and
you don't want to lose them, print them before you get fresh listings for
that day.
---- Field hilites ----
You can hilite one field in the listing instead of the entire line. If you
hilite this way, TV Agent will remember that field's value (the channel,
type, or title) and hilite that value whenever it appears in future
listings.
To hilite the channel you hit the Left-Arrow, and then ENTER or + .
If you wanted a quick summary of what is going to be on The Learning
Channel you could set up a user that has only one hilite set, a channel
hilite on TLC. If you selected that user's name and looked at only
hilited listings you would be getting a program schedule for TLC.
To hilite the type, you hit the Right-Arrow once. This would be a way to
get a sequential list of all the MOVIES that are scheduled. A sports fan
might set up a user with hilites on the types SPORT EVENT, SPORTS ANTHOL.,
SPORTS RELATED, PLAYOFF SPORT, TEAM VS. TEAM, and maybe PSEUDO-SPORT.
To hilite the title you hit Right-Arrow twice. This is the best way to
mark your favorite programs. It is much more specific than hiliting the
channel or type. It is better than hiliting the entire line because you
will see the title hilited by TV Agent every time it appears after you
have hilited it once. Suppose a favorite series goes off the air, and then
starts in syndication on some channel and time you don't expect. TV Agent
will remember the field hilite you did on the series title. When the first
episode shows up somewhere else you won't miss it because TV Agent will
display the hilited title.
It does not make sense to hilite a title that is likely never to occur
again (like a special.) Doing a field hilite on a movie title is a good
way to make sure you don't miss it if you can't see the first showing; but
after you've seen it you probably want to remove the hilite.
After you've seen every episode of a hilited series, you may not want some
of the listings to print, altho they still have the title hilite on.
That's when you do a whole line delete -- that will preserve the title
hilite, but this particular listing won't show up on your printout. If you
start doing whole line deletes on a hilited title more often than not,
it's time to remove the title field hilite. (Just hit the key Right-Arrow
twice to put the box around the title, then DEL to set it back to normal.)
Finally, if you have taped every episode and don't even care when the
series is broadcast again, that's when you might do a field delete on the
title of a favorite series.
You can review an alphabetized list of all your hilited fields (and
optionally remove the hilites) if you hit the "Review&Keywords" button on
the "Users Menu". When you are showing the list of hilited titles on that
"Review" screen, you can use the "Add" button to type in a title you want
hilited. That way you don't have to wait for it to appear in the
"Listings", hoping you don't miss it; it will show up hilited the first
time it appears. You do have to spell it exactly, including punctuation
and capitalization. If you are not sure of the exact spelling you might
enter all the variations, and then when you see a listing with the correct
spelling, you can delete the other variations. But there's a simpler way,
when you're not sure -- use a keyword.
---- Keyword hilites ----
On the "Review" screen you can add or remove keywords that should show up
hilited. A listing that includes a hilited keyword anywhere in its details
will show a "K" on a yellow background instead of the "+" on the
"Listings" screen. When you look at the "Details" you will see the hilited
keywords or phrases in all capitals with a yellow background (like hilited
fields.) If there are no details the "Listings" screen will show a hilited
lower case "k" if a keyword appears in the title of the program.
You can do multiple searches on many different topics by setting up
multiple users with different sets of hilited keywords. If you do a search
once every week a good technique would be to have a user (say, "WEEK
SEARCHER") who routinely starts from the "Options" screen. To do that
remove the X in the "Users Menu" checkbox "[ ] Start at Current listing".
Do have "[X] Always print details", and on the "Options" screen, select
the beginning of the listings and the end of the listings as the starting
and stopping points, so the whole week will be searched. Display only the
hilited listings, and direct output to the printer. With those options set
on the "Options" and "Users" menus, if you start TV Agent with the command
line
C:\TV> TVAGENT WEEK SEARCHER
you will immediately get a printout of all the details of programs that
mentioned the keywords set up for the "WEEK SEARCHER" user.
If you don't need to do separate searches it is much easier to just add
keywords to your usual user name, so the keyword hilites will show up
along with your field and whole line hilites.
You don't have to worry about capitalization with keywords since all
comparisons are done in UPPER CASE. Suppose you would like to add a field
hilite on a title by typing in the title name but you are not exactly sure
of the spelling or punctuation in the title. You would have to try every
variation and get one variation exactly right for the title field hilite
to work. In a case like that it is better to start by entering a keyword
that you are sure will show up in the title. For instance if you're not
sure whether the series title is spelled "Star Trek" or "STARTREK" you can
be sure you'll get it by entering the hilited keyword "TREK". When you see
a "Star Trek" listing show up you can hilite the title on the "Listings"
screen -- that gets the field title hilite spelled exactly right, and
then you can delete the keyword hilite.
If a keyword phrase is split over two lines on the "Details" screen, the
hilited "K" will show up on the "Listings" just as if the keyword phrase
appears all on one line.
***
Seeing details of listings
As you move the cursor up and down thru the "Listings" it is in a column
that is sometimes blank, and sometimes contains a "+" (or "K".) The "+"
indicates that there is more information available for this listing,
probably an episode title or description. When the cursor is on a "+" you
can see the additional information by hitting "?". You don't have to shift
the "?/" key; hitting "/" does the same thing. You can also use the "5"
key since it is easier to reach when your hand is resting on the numeric
keypad. All the information known about the listing will be shown. There
is always a little more information available, whether there is a "+" in
the listing or not -- for example, the name of the programming service is
spelled out (CONSUMER NEWS & BUSINESS instead of CNBC). If the program is
usually transmitted on more than one transponder, the other satellite
locations may also be shown.
If a "K" appears instead of a "+" that means that there are details and at
least one of the keywords you have hilited (or deleted) appears in the
details. A lower case "k" means there are no details but a keyword appears
in the title.
The "Details" will stay on the screen until you hit a key. If you hit the
"H" key you will see a Help screen that tells you what the "Details"
fields mean (shown in the help topic "Details screen").
You can choose the "Always show Details" option on the "Users Menu". That
mode of viewing listings always shows you details whenever they are
available. This option behaves as if you always hit "5" whenever a listing
with a "+" scrolls onto the screen from the bottom. The PageDown key
doesn't do anything while the "Always show Details" option is active. You
hit a key to signal that you are thru reading the "Details", and then the
regular "Listings" format is displayed with the cursor on the listing for
which you saw the details. Then you can hilite or delete on that line.
Autoscrolling can be used with "Always show Details" but the scrolling is
interrupted every time a "Details" screen is displayed, until you hit a
key.
***
Details Screen
This shows all the information available on a listing.
Other channels that sometimes carry the same program
Subtitle For movies,
actors are
listed here.
Description
Quality rating - for example **+ means two and a half stars (best = ****)
| Category, Director of movie or host of talk show
| | Year of production, country of origin
Other qualifiers: R = rerun; CC = closed captioned; lesson number, Stereo,
Full name of channel etc.
Full title
If you hit P, the details you see on this screen will print immediately.
If you hit L, the details will print the next time the listing is printed,
in line with the printout of the rest of the listings. <- recommended
If you want the details to print for EVERY listing you display, mark the
check box on the Users screen.
***
Main Menu
Read the "How to Use TV Agent" help topic!
Hit the "INDEX" button to select from a list of all the Help topics.
Here is a summary of what you can do from the Main Menu:
Available listings
┌───────────────┐ This is a list of the days you have available. You
│ F Mon Mar 20 │ can jump to any day shown by moving the hilite bar to
│ F Tue Mar 21 │ it and hitting ENTER, or double clicking on it. If
│ A Wed Mar 22 │ the line begins with "F" that means the listings are
│ etc │ "fresh", including schedule changes made as recently
└───────────────┘ as a few days before air time. "A" indicates
ALT-A will put "advance" listings which will be replaced by fresh
the cursor into listings the day before air.
this list
The "Set up" button on the Main Menu takes you to a menu where you can set
three options that will affect EVERY user.
┌──────────┐ Setting the clock in your computer
│ Set up │ Setting your time zone
└──────────┘ Eliminating channels that NO user wants displayed
(or ALT-S) More help is available in the topic "System Set Up Menu".
You must select your user name from the list on the Users Menu before
TV Agent shows you listings or records your preferences.
┌──────────┐ Select from a list of users
│ Users │ Add, clone, and delete users
└──────────┘ Set user's preferences about how to display listings
(or ALT-U) Review, add, change keywords and field hilites and deletes
More help is available in the topic "Users Menu".
The next four buttons (which take you to the "Listings") are disabled
before a user is selected. They are also disabled if you don't have
listings for the day they jump to.
┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ These three buttons perform the
│ Current │ │ Tomorrow │ │ Print │ most common operations. If you
└──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ want to do something else, hit
(or ALT-C) (or ALT-T) (or ALT-P) the "Options" button. When you
start TV Agent with a user name
on the command line it automatically pushes the "Current" button for you
so you quickly see "Listings" for what is about to begin. The "Current"
and "Tomorrow" buttons start in the mode that shows you all listings, but
you can then switch to showing only hilited listings. The "Print" button
shows only hilited listings, so it will show you NOTHING until you have
hilited something that is on tomorrow.
┌──────────┐ Pick a place to start looking at the "Listings", and a place
│ Options │ to stop; choose whether to display all the listings or only
└──────────┘ the ones you've hilited; direct output to the printer. You
(or ALT-O) can have TV Agent automatically start with this button and
use the options you've set instead of starting with the
Current button (see "Users Menu" topic.)
More help is available in the topic "Options Menu".
┌──────────┐ Brings you into the Help system you're using now.
│ Help │ Use the "INDEX" button at the bottom of this Help screen to
└──────────┘ see other help topics. The "PRINT" button on this Help
(or ALT-H) screen will copy the help topic you have displayed to your
printer, or use the "PRINT ALL" button to get ALL the help
topics printed at once.
┌──────────┐ Stop TV Agent and return to DOS. You can also quickly get
│ EXIT │ back to DOS when you're looking at the "Listings" by hitting
└──────────┘ "X". Hitting Q or ESC while you are looking at the
(or ALT-X "Listings" brings you back to the Main Menu.
or ESC)
***
System Set Up Menu
---- Setting the clock in your computer ----
(ALT-D) change the computer date
(ALT-T) change the computer time
The date and time must be correct if TV Agent is going to know which
listings are current. You can set the clock here, or with another method
(like the DOS commands DATE and TIME) before you start TV Agent. But be
careful! The subscription security systems (the dongle, or the Everlock
installation diskette) that Planet Systems wraps around TV Agent do not
like it when you set the clock back. You will get an authorization error
when you try to start TV Agent at a time EARLIER than the last time you
quit TV Agent.
Sometimes you HAVE to anyway; for instance if you are making the Fall
change in daylight savings time. (Setting the clock FORWARD in the spring
does not cause any problems.) Setting the clock BACK an hour will prevent
TV Agent from running for an hour. For instance, if it is 3:37 PM when you
stop using TV Agent, and then you set the computer clock back to 2:37 PM,
you better wait until the clock has advanced past 3:37 PM before you
attempt to start TV Agent again. Call Planet Systems if you don't want to
wait, for instance if you had to set your clock back several days; they
can fix your authorization over the phone if you are at your keyboard.
---- Setting your time zone ----
(ALT-E)
You can also tell TV Agent what time zone you are in so that the listings
will show your local time instead of Eastern Standard Time. Once you set
this you do not need to adjust it when daylight savings time begins and
ends. DO NOT FORGET the "-" sign! For Pacific Time, you enter "-3", not
"3".
---- Eliminating channels that NO user wants displayed ----
(ALT-N) choose which to list: deleted channels or displayed channels
(ALT-I) move a channel from one list to the other
(ALT-S) put cursor into the list of channels
If there are channels in the listings that no user cares about they can be
eliminated for all users. This can be convenient if everytime you set up a
new user you want to eliminate all the same channels, but it is not a good
idea to do this if you ever want to set up a user who CAN see ALL
channels. There is another way (while you are looking at the "Listings")
to eliminate channels without affecting other users. Also, you can avoid
having to eliminate all the same channels for a new user by "cloning" the
preferences of an existing user -- that's explained in the help for the
"Users Menu".
The lower half of the System Set Up Menu is a list of channels. If the
list is displayed with yellow print on a blue background (the same colors
you see while looking at "Listings") the list is telling you which
channels will be displayed in your listings. If the list is displayed with
yellow print on a red background (the colors of deleted listings) it is a
list of channels that are available to TV Agent but which you have chosen
NOT to display to any user in your listings. A button (with the hot key
ALT-N) will switch the display from one list to the other. Another button
(activated with ALT-I) lets you move channels from one list to the other.
When new channels are available, they will always show up on the list of
channels that will be displayed, and they'll stay there unless you delete
them.
If any user wants to see listings for a channel then don't let it be in
the list of eliminated channels; move it to the list of channels to be
displayed. That way it will be available to every user, and anyone who
does not want it can delete it from their listings with a channel field
delete.
---- Customizing channel identification ----
Every TVLIST*.* (the compressed listings file) contains a file
CHANNELS.TVC, which identifies the channels by program provider and
satellite location. You can customize this identification. You might want
to do this if your satellite receiver doesn't allow you to use the same
two character satellite ID that TV Agent uses. Or, if you usually watch a
channel at a different location than TV Agent shows (for instance, maybe
you watch CBS programming on a local broadcast station, or you have a
cable system or Primestar dish instead of a C-band dish) you might want to
replace the satellite ID with your local channel number.
You do this by creating a file called MYCHAN.TV2 . It is similar to
CHANNELS.TVC, so start by copying CHANNELS.TVC to MYCHAN.TV2.
Your sysop may have already prepared a MYCHAN.TV2 customized for your
local cable system, or special versions might be sent occasionally in the
datastream. For instance, if you are a Primestar customer, the C-band
satellite IDs and channels are not useful; but if you receive a
PRIMESTR.TV2 file and rename it:
C:\TV> ren primestr.tv2 mychan.tv2
then the listings will be displayed using the Primestar channel numbers
instead of the C-band IDs. You don't need to wait for a PRIMESTR.TV2 file
(or other customized channel identification file) to be sent to you, if
you want to create your own.
Do NOT change CHANNELS.TVC ! Do all your editing in MYCHAN.TV2 .
Do NOT alter columns 1-5 in MYCHAN.TV2, except you can put a ";" in the
first column, in which case TV Agent will ignore the line.
For instance, here is a line from CHANNELS.TVC, with columns numbered:
108 NEBRASKA EDUCATIONAL TV NETV S3/2 S3/4
| || || || |
| |6------------------------32| |44---------------------------75
1---5 33-------43
Columns 33-43 contain the abbreviation of the programmer's name, the
satellite, and the channel number. This is all you see on the LISTINGS
screen, so this may be all that you want to change.
But you can change columns 6-32, which contain the full name of the
programmer; and you can put whatever you want in columns 44-75, which
usually contain other satellite locations frequently carrying the same
programming. You only see these fields when you are looking at the DETAILS
screen.
You do not have to have as many lines in MYCHAN.TV2 as in CHANNELS.TVC; if
the line only exists in CHANNELS.TVC, that file will control what
identification shows up when TV Agent runs. If a new channel is added to
CHANNELS.TVC it will be displayed with the identification shown in
CHANNELS.TVC until you add a line to MYCHAN.TV2 with the same columns 1-5.
***
Users Menu
TV Agent keeps track of your preferences and the listings you have seen by
saving them with your user name. You can't look at the listings before you
choose a user. You can put a user name on the command line when you start
TV Agent from DOS (like C:\TV> TVAGENT JOE). Then that user will be
selected without you having to go thru this "Users Menu".
The list of users (ALT-U)
Hitting ALT-U will put the cursor into the list of users. Then when you
press the Down-Arrow key a black bar will appear behind the first user
name. You can move the black hilite bar up and down with Up- and
Down-Arrow to select a different user. A faster way to jump to a user
name is to type the first letter of the name. Some of the buttons on this
screen are only visible when the bar is on a user name.
┌────────┐
│ OK │ (ALT-O)
└────────┘
Whichever user is hilited when you hit the OK button becomes the current
user, and TV Agent applies that user's preferences to the listings.
Pushing this button saves any changes you have made in the current user's
preferences about the format of the "Listings" display. It's also the ONLY
way to get back to the Main Menu.
┌────────┐
│ Add │ (ALT-A)
└────────┘
The first time you use TV Agent you must Add a user. Later you may want to
add more users for different people who use this TV Agent and have
different preferences. You may also want to set up special user names that
help you find particular programs -- for instance, if you want a quick
view of all the movies that are contained in the current listings you
could set up a user name "MOVIE FAN" and have that user hilite a listing
with Type = MOVIE and another listing with Type = TV MOVIE . Then if you
select that user name and look at only the hilited listings, you will get
a list of all the movies. You could have another user called "SPORTS" and
another called "SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN". User names can be up to 24
characters long. It all becomes upper case. There can be up to 99 users in
the list, and at that point you must delete an existing user before adding
a new one.
┌────────┐
│ Delete │ (ALT-D)
└────────┘
If you want to delete a user select the name first and then use the Delete
button. Deleting a user causes TV Agent to forget all the preferences and
bookmarks associated with that user, and the name will be removed from the
list.
┌───────────────────┐
│ Review & Keywords │ (ALT-R)
└───────────────────┘
This button takes you to a screen where you can review the field hilites
and deletes the current user has set up. You can also undo hilites and
deletes, or add more of them on that screen. That is also where you set up
the keywords that you want hilited or deleted.
┌─────────────────┐
│ CLONE this user │ (ALT-C)
└─────────────────┘
Sometimes you want to add a new user who will have many preferences
similar to an existing user. Instead of going thru all the set up of
preferences again for the new user, you can "clone" the user hilited in
the user list. The new user begins with everything set like the existing
user has already set up. This is a good way to test changes you're
not sure you want to make to your usual username.
One good use for this button is if there are many channels you don't
subscribe to. Everytime you set up a new user you'll want to delete the
listings for those channels by doing field deletes on the channels. To
save effort, do those deletes ONCE for a username (say, username="OUR
CHANNELS"). Then when you want to add a new user who should also have all
those channels deleted, select user "OUR CHANNELS" and hit the CLONE
button. The new user will then have all the same channel deletes.
Using the CLONE button is a better way to accomplish this than using the
"Set up" button on the Main Menu because this way you can also have some
users that see ALL the channels.
┌──────────────────────────┐
│ Edit user's preferences │ (ALT-E)
└──────────────────────────┘
This button displays a frame of controls on the right side of the screen.
Those controls let you choose how to display the "Listings". The frame
disappears when you move the hilite bar to a different user in the list of
users.
---- Edit User's Preferences ----
(the frame of controls on the right side)
[X] Skip between listings (ALT-1) The default display for a new user is
not to skip a line between listings.
If you want the "Listings" screen not to be so crowded, you can
put an "X" in the "Skip between listings" checkbox.
[X] Use tiny letters (ALT-2) The default display uses the standard
print size that puts 25 lines on the
screen. If you add the "X" to the "Use tiny letters" checkbox,
an EGA display will switch to 43 line mode, and a VGA display
switches to 50 line mode, so you can see more listings at once.
[X] Always show details (ALT-3) If you usually read the details of
every listing that appears with a
"+", you might prefer to check this box and save the keystroke.
The PageDn key doesn't work in this mode since the "Listings"
display has to stop on every listing with "Details".
[X] Print details (ALT-4) If you have checked this box and then
you print a listing that has details,
the details will print as well. You can print some details, but
not all, by leaving this box unchecked, and using the P or L
keys while you're looking at the "Details" screen.
[X] Deleted keywords still show (ALT-5) If you leave the default
check in this box, and you
add keywords to be deleted on the "Review" screen, any listing
containing those keywords will have the "+" replaced with a "K" on
a red background. If you remove the check, those listings will not
be displayed at all.
[X] Start at Current listing (ALT-6) The quickest way to get from the
DOS prompt to the TV "Listings"
is to put a username on the DOS command line and have this box
checked. TV Agent will know which user's preferences to apply, and will
jump into the "Listings" as if you had hit the "Current" button on the
Main Menu. If you DON'T have this box checked, but you do have a username
on the command line, TV Agent will jump into the "Listings" as if you had
hit the "Options" button on the Main Menu, instead of the "Current"
button. The "Options" screen remembers choices like where to start looking
at the "Listings", and whether to show all the listings or only the
hilites, and output to the printer. So if you sometimes want TV Agent to
start by printing the hilites for the whole week, set up a user who
removes the check mark from this box and makes those choices on the
"Options" screen. Then put that user's name on the command line when you
start TV Agent.
---- Autoscroll Delay ----
(ALT-7)
"Listings" can scroll by automatically without you having to hit a key, if
you set this delay to a number greater than 0. The larger the number, the
longer the delay between the automatic Down-Arrow keystrokes TV Agent
will generate. Holding the Down-Arrow key will temporarily speed up the
scrolling.
When autoscrolling is on you can back up to something that scrolled off
the top by hitting Up or Page Up, but as soon as you release that key the
cursor will start moving down again. So if you want a closer look at a
listing it is much easier to stop the scrolling first, by hitting the
SPACE BAR. When you are thru looking at "Details" or hiliting and
deleting, hit the SPACE BAR again to restart the autoscrolling.
If you are using the "Always show Details" function at the same time as
autoscrolling, the full "Details" screen will appear whenever a listing
with a "+" scrolls onto the bottom of the screen. That "Details" screen
will remain until you hit a key.
[X] Stop at Current time (ALT-8) Checking this box and using
Autoscroll will cause TV Agent to
keep running in real time, advancing the display of
"Listings" as the time changes. If this box is not checked,
autoscrolling will continue to the end of the listings (or to the stopping
point you set on the "Options" screen)
***
Review Hilites/Deletes/Keywords
This screen lets you see alphabetized lists of the fields and keywords you
have marked as either hilites or deletes. You can also see a list of the
channels and types that have NOT been hilited or deleted, and you can
change their status. You can type in titles to be hilited or deleted
before you've seen them in the listings, and you can add keywords to
hilite or delete.
In the top frame each category (Channels, Types, Titles, Keywords) has two
numbers in the columns "Hi" and "Del". Those are the counts of how many
hilited or deleted items you already have in that category.
You choose what should be listed on the left side of the screen by picking
a field from the first frame -- Channels (ALT-1), Types (ALT-2),
Titles (ALT-3), or Keywords (ALT-4) -- and picking either Hilites (ALT-5),
Normal (ALT-6), or Deletes (ALT-7) from the second frame. When the screen
is first displayed it shows you your hilited keywords.
For titles and keywords there is no list of "normal" values, so some
combinations of options don't appear. For instance if you are looking at
() Types () Normal, as long as the Normal option is marked the Titles
option won't appear at all. If you want to look at deleted titles in this
situation, select () Deletes first, and then ( ) Titles will reappear so
you can mark it.
When you have selected the two options you want to see, push the "Show"
button (ALT-S), and the list will appear. ALT-P will put the cursor into
the list, and you can move thru the list with Up-Arrow, Down-Arrow, Page
Up, and Page Down, Home, and End; you can also jump to an item by typing
its first letter.
If you are looking at a list of hilited or deleted items, a "Set to Norm"
button appears (ALT-9). If you are looking at a list of normal channels or
types, two buttons appear: "Set to Hi" (ALT-8) and "Set to Del" (ALT-0).
Pushing one of these "Set to" buttons will remove the selected item from
the list that is being displayed.
For titles and keywords there is an "Add" button (ALT-A) that lets you
enter values you would like to set up as hilites or deletes. When you add
a title to the list of hilites or deletes you must get the spelling and
punctuation and capitalization correct.
The "Save Change" button (ALT-V) is enabled after you have used one of
the "Set to" buttons to change something. If you change one list, then
switch to displaying another list WITHOUT first pushing the "Save Change"
button, you will be asked whether you want to save the changes you made to
the first list.
Push "OK" to leave this form after you are thru looking at and changing
lists. If you made changes to the list that is displayed when you push
"OK" and you have not saved them, you will be asked if you want to save
the changes.
---- Changing your hilites and deletes ----
If you want to set up a user who has all the sports types hilited, it
is easy to do it from this screen where all the types appear. Otherwise
that user would have to scan thru "Listings" until he had seen examples of
all six sports-related types to hilite them one at a time.
You can also display a list of all the channels here, and set them to
hilites or deletes. You may prefer to delete channels you don't want
displayed here, rather than by doing them one at a time when they appear
in the "Listings". Remember that if you already have another user set up
who has deleted the same channels you can "clone" that existing user
rather than going thru the channel deletion again. You can also hilite
channels, by showing the Normal Channels (ALT-1, ALT-6, ALT-S) and then
putting the bar on a channel you want to hilite and pushing the "Set to
Hilite" button (ALT-8 ).
If you don't see listings for a program you expected, maybe you have
accidentally deleted a field or keyword that causes the listings not to be
displayed. Use this "Review" menu to check for accidental deletions.
This is how you UNDO a deleted field. Show the list of the deleted fields,
(for instance ALT-3, ALT-7, ALT-S to list the deleted titles), put the bar
on the line that is not supposed to be deleted, and then hit the "Set to
Normal" button, ALT-9 .
However if a channel has been deleted for ALL users by using the Main Menu
"Set up" button, that channel will not show up on this "Review" screen
(which is for just one user) when you list deleted channels. You can't set
it back to normal from here. You'll have to do that by using the Main Menu
"Set up" button and displaying the list of channels that have been deleted
for ALL users.
---- More about keywords ----
When you add a keyword or phrase it must be spelled and punctuated
correctly but capitalization does not matter. That means sometimes it is
better to use a keyword search rather than a title search if you are
uncertain about capitalization. Using a keyword also helps if you're not
sure about spelling -- is it STARTREK or STAR TREK? A keyword "TREK" will
hilite ALL the series. A keyword "TREK: V" will hilite only the series
"Star Trek: Voyager". Once you see the title in the "Listings" you can do
a title hilite at that point, and remove the keyword from the hilite list.
Use spaces before and after keywords if you get too many hits that aren't
what you're looking for -- for instance, if you want the word "PUBLIC"
hilited but not "REPUBLICAN" you could use the keyword " PUBLIC", where
you included the leading space. The keyword " PUBLIC " would also exclude
"publicity", but it would miss listings where the word "public" is
immediately followed by a "." or "," etc. You may want to enter multiple
keywords in difficult cases -- enter " PUBLIC " and " PUBLIC," and
" PUBLIC." etc.
Also remember that you can delete keywords -- entering "PUBLICITY" as a
deleted keyword would prevent a listing containing that word from being
displayed when you had a hilite on "PUBLIC". Or, you might want to hilite
"JOHN WAYNE" and then delete "JOHN WAYNE BOBBITT". While you're testing
which keywords you want to delete, take advantage of the option on the
Users Menu -- the checkbox "Deleted keywords still show". Remove the
default "X" from that checkbox when you have decided exactly which
keywords to use and you really want the deleted keywords to prevent the
display of listings.
Leaving the "X" in the Users Menu checkbox "Deleted keywords still show"
can even be a way for you to see a second sort of hilite, if you want to
quickly see from the "Listings" there's something special about the
listing. For example, negative keywords "NUDITY" or "EXTREME VIOLENCE" in
the MPAA rating reason or "MILTON BERLE" in the stars would show up as a
"K" with a red background on the "Listings" screen before you looked at
the "Details".
Keywords will be hilited on the "Details" screen wherever they appear
(unless the keyword phrase is split across two lines.) While you are
looking at the "Listings" you can tell that there is a hilited keyword on
the "Details" screen, without looking at the "Details" screen. That's
because the "+" that normally appears between the channel and the type
will be replaced by a hilited "K". That "K" will appear EVEN IF the
keyword phrase is split across two lines. When you are displaying only
hilited listings, the hilited "K" causes a listing to be included just
like a field hilite or whole line hilite.
You can do a search on a single keyword by having a user with only that
keyword hilited. You might want to use the autoscroll feature (on the User
Menu) and start at the beginning of the listings and search to the end,
showing only hilites and printing them. You set those options on the
"Options" Menu. But if you want to avoid doing many separate searches, you
might prefer to just add the keywords to your usual username, so those
keywords come up hilited along with all your other hilites.
***
Options Menu
This screen gives you choices about which listings to look at if you want
to do something other than what the "Current", "Tomorrow", and "Print"
buttons on the Main Menu do.
You pick four options on this screen -- a starting point, an ending point,
whether to display all listings or only hilites, and whether to copy the
listings that appear on screen to the printer.
It's easy to switch between displaying all listings and displaying only
the hilites while you are looking at the listings, so you don't really
need this "Options" Menu to do that. And the starting point and ending
point are not very important unless you're printing because it is so easy
to jump to another time and quit whenever you feel like it. But if you are
printing you probably don't want it to run thru the whole week, so the
stopping point is useful.
You can use this screen to set up a special operation you like to do
often. Whatever options you have set on this screen when you hit the "OK"
button are saved so they will already be set the next time you enter the
screen by hitting the "Options" button on the Main Menu.
You can speed things up even further by making TV Agent automatically push
the "Options" button when you start it from DOS with a username on the
command line -- see the checkbox "[ ] Start at Current listing" in the
Users Menu. If that box is NOT checked, TV Agent will start at the listing
you have specified on the "Options" menu.
Suppose that once a week you want a printed schedule of The Learning
Channel for the next week. Add a user (call her "TLC") with just one
hilite, on the channel TLC F3/2. On the "Users Menu" set the "Print
details" checkbox if you want, and REMOVE the check in the "Start at
current listing" checkbox. On the "Options" Menu, select the beginning and
end of the listings as the starting and stopping point, and select the
"Only Hilites" and "Printer" output. Then if you start TV Agent with the
command line C:\TV> TVAGENT TLC it will immediately start printing the
schedule you want without you having to look at any listings or resetting
any options.
---- Starting Points ----
There are several likely starting points for you to choose from, to pick
the first listing that will be displayed. The Up- and Down-Arrow keys
will move the dot, or you can hold down the ALT key and type the hilited
number. When you hit the OK button whichever option has the dot describes
the first listing you will see.
( ) At the Beginning of the listings - the meaning of this is obvious, but
(ALT-0) the listing is probably for a program that is already over.
( ) At the Latest listing you have seen
(ALT-1)
( ) At the listing where you last Quit
(ALT-2)
A bookmark is saved whenever you quit looking at listings so you can
easily start again at the same place; and in case you move backwards
before quitting, another bookmark is set at the latest listing you saw
(the bottom listing on the latest page you saw.)
( ) What is about to start - this is the same starting point as if you
(ALT-3) have "Start at Current listing" checked on the "Users Menu".
( ) You Pick some other date & time - If you don't like any of the other
(ALT-4) options, select this. After you hit OK you will be prompted for a
starting date and time. If there are no listings at that time the
first listing you see will be just after that time.
( ) Same place you started last time - use this if you want to print
(ALT-5) listings in the range you just looked thru.
---- Ending Points ----
Setting a stopping point is most important when you are printing, so you
don't get a longer printout than you want. If you are looking at the
"Listings" on the screen, you can always stop at any time using the ESC or
Q keys, but it is handy to have picked a stopping point where the display
will stop automatically.
( ) 24 Hours later - if you routinely look at new listings every day it is
(ALT-6) useful to be reminded when you have reached a listing 24
hours later than the point where you started looking.
( ) Where you last quit - this is the same listing shown as one of the
(ALT-7) starting point options. It is likely to be a good choice as
a stopping point if you are about to print hilited listings
for the period you just looked at.
( ) End of fresh listings On the Main Menu there is a chart of
(ALT-8) "Available Listings" and the earliest
couple of them might be marked with "F" for
"fresh". The later listings are marked with "A" for "advance". Selecting
this stopping point is like stopping at the first of the advance listings.
( ) Pick a date and time - after you hit the OK button you will be
(ALT-9) prompted for a stopping point.
( ) End - the last listing available
(ALT-E)
---- Show which listings ----
When you are a new user, there are no hilited listings. So the first time
you look at "Listings" the default is to "See All listings". Actually
"all" listings probably does not mean EVERY channel and title available;
if you have deleted a channel, type, or title (or a whole line delete, or
by keyword) then those deleted listings will not be shown when you select
"See All listings". You will see the listings you have hilited, and the
ones you have not hilited or deleted. If you select "Only Hilited
listings" then you see only the listings that have a field or whole line
or keyword hilite.
( ) See All listings
(ALT-A)
Probably in your later routine use of TV Agent you will look at all the
listings first, adjusting the hilites, and then look thru them again
seeing only the hilited listings and printing them on paper.
( ) Only hilited listings
(ALT-I)
If you are in a hurry, and you have hilited some fields, you might even
choose this option first, skipping the step of looking thru a new day's
listings with the "See All listings" option. If you are ONLY interested in
the same titles every week (or have set up a user name specifically for
this purpose), and have gone thru one week's listings hiliting all the
titles you want to see, then TV Agent will show you those specific titles
and nothing else. But if you don't look thru each day's listings at least
once using the "See All listings" option, you will not have the
opportunity to add whole line hilites to particular listings, or to spot
new series or movies since they will not yet have a hilite on the title
field. While you are looking at "Listings" you don't need to come back to
this menu to switch between "All" and "Only" -- do it with the "A" and
"O" keys.
---- Output Destination ----
Printer
(ALT-P)
If you select this option the listings will be printed. They will also be
displayed on the screen but they will scroll right by until they reach the
stopping point you set (or until you hit ESC or Q to interrupt the
display.) The details will also be printed if you have chosen that option
on the "Users Menu".
You can also get a printout one line at a time by hitting "P" whenever the
cursor is on a line you want to print. If you display the "Details" (by
hitting "?/" or"5") and then hit "P" while the details are showing, you
will get a printout of the details. If you hit "L" while the details
are showing the details will not print immediately, but they will print
the next time the listing is printed.
***
Using Buttons
┌───────────┐
About these │ Buttons │
└───────────┘
The commands inside rectangles are like push buttons.
If you're using a mouse, just click on a button to activate it.
If you're using the keyboard, hold down the ALT key and type the letter
that is hilited in the button. Either upper or lower case will work, but
you MUST hold down the ALT key. If the hilited character is a number,
you need to use the number keys across the top of the keyboard, since
TV Agent temporarily turns off your numeric keypad.
╔════════╗
If you see a double line around a ║ button ║ that is TV Agent's guess
╚════════╝
about what button you are most likely to use next. If the button with the
double line is the one you want, you can push it by hitting ENTER or
SPACE.
╔════════╗
║ OK ║ - push this button to signal you're thru selecting from the
╚════════╝ choices presented to you.
┌────────┐
│ Cancel │ - push this button to return to the previous screen without
└────────┘ changing anything. You can also push it by hitting ESCape.
The double line will move from one button to another when you hit one of
the arrow keys, TAB, or SHIFT-TAB; but it isn't always obvious which
button it is going to move to next, so it is easier to use the ALT+hilited
letter method. In the Help files you'll see the "hot key" for a button
listed like (ALT-C).
Some buttons are invisible because they can't be used in the current
context. They'll become visible when you have done whatever is required to
make them useable.
***
Using Lists/Options/Check boxes
Besides buttons there are lists, options, and check boxes. Clicking on
these comes naturally if you have a mouse, so the rest of these
instructions are mainly useful to people using the keyboard.
You select a control by holding down the ALT key and hitting the letter or
number that is hilited in the control's description. These "hot keys" are
listed in Help files like (ALT-H) when there is a hilited "H" in the
control description. If you want to work with a list of items and the
cursor is not already in the list, use the ALT key and the hilited letter
in the label above the list.
The arrow keys or the TAB key will also move the blinking cursor from one
control to another.
When you are working with a list, a bar will hilite one of the items in
the list. Sometimes the list will appear WITHOUT the bar, and you can't do
anything with it or take the next step until you make the bar appear. The
Up- and Down-Arrow keys will make the bar appear, and then move the bar.
When the cursor is in the list you can also quickly move to a particular
item in the list by typing the first letter of that item.
When the list item you want is hilited, hitting ENTER will take the action
of selecting that item -- but it may also assume you are finished with the
rest of the form, like hitting an "OK" button. So if you want to change
another control before leaving the form, just leave the hilite bar where
you've put it and hit the appropriate ALT-key to get to the other control.
Options look like a column of parentheses ( ) with one of them
selected () . If the cursor is in this column the Up- and Down-Arrow
keys will move the dot from one option to another; but it is simpler to
select the option you want by typing ALT with the hilited letter or number
in the label beside the option.
A check box looks like [ ] if you are not using the feature it controls.
It looks like [X] if you are using that feature. Change it by typing the
hilited letter in the description along with the ALT key.
***
Getting new TVLISTdd.* files
The files containing the compressed listings are sometimes called
"TVLISTdd" files in these help topics. The "dd" stands for the date
digits, like "TVLIST09.ARC" is the file name for the listings for the 9th
of the month. You may see the extension ".ZIP" instead of ".ARC"; TV Agent
does not care what the extension is and will use any TVLIST*.* file. In
any case you need the shareware program PKUNZIP 2.04g to decompress the
listings, and TV Agent expects it to be on your PATH or in the directory
with TVAGENT.EXE . Everytime TV Agent starts, all the TVLIST*.* files in
its directory are automatically decompressed and deleted. A file called
"UNZIP.LOG" is a record of what happened during the last decompression.
Planet Connect and Skylink transmit the TVLIST*.ARC files several times a
day in satellite datastreams to hundreds of BBS sites in North America.
Some of those sites pass them on to other BBSs, and at least one makes
them available for ftp via Internet, and you can also ftp the listings
from Planet Connect. In the directory where you installed TV Agent you'll
find the file WHERE.LST; this contains a list of sites that have said they
carry the listings. There may be other sites which haven't supplied the
information required to get an entry in the WHERE.LST. If you become a
subscriber to Skylink or Planet Connect, the listings COME TO YOU thru
your satellite dish. Otherwise you must connect to one of these sites to
get the listings. If no site is local, don't hesitate to ask your favorite
local BBS to start carrying the listings and show the SysOp the WHERE.LST
file.
The details of how you collect the listings will depend on the site you
choose. BBSs that use "TVDOOR" will keep track of which files are new
since you last downloaded listings, and send you only those. With other
sites you must select the files you want by looking at the file name or
file date.
Yesterday you should have picked up fresh listings for today, but they are
still available. Once you have received FRESH listings for tomorrow you
probably do not need to get any more TVLIST*.* files today. "Fresh"
listings include updates the programmers made two days before air date.
The other "Advance" listings contain schedules updated by the programmers
one week earlier than air date.
It's better to look at fresh listings whenever you can because they are
more accurate. But also if you mark a whole line hilite or delete while
you are looking at advance listings, and then you receive fresh listings
for the same day, TV Agent FORGETS the whole line hilites and deletes for
that day. (Field hilites and deletes are remembered.)
If today is the 9th of the month, TVLIST09.ARC contains listings for
today, and TVLIST10.ARC contains listings for tomorrow. You might also
want to use TVLIST11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and TVLIST16.ARC . There are never
more than 8 days of current listings available. If you see TVLIST17.ARC on
the 9th, it contains listings for the 17th of LAST month. Listings that
are for yesterday or earlier are automatically deleted by TV Agent so
don't waste time downloading them.
Here is a typical directory listing you might choose from, assuming the
SysOp has deleted all the obsolete files:
Two files are new on the 9th:
TVLIST09.ARC 274808 12-08-95 6:18a
TVLIST10.ARC 274566 12-09-95 6:32a <- FRESH listings for tomorrow
TVLIST11.ARC 267013 12-04-95 6:32a
TVLIST12.ARC 266983 12-05-95 6:16a
TVLIST13.ARC 271717 12-06-95 6:16a
TVLIST14.ARC 274165 12-07-95 9:29a
TVLIST15.ARC 270341 12-08-95 6:16a
TVLIST16.ARC 275462 12-09-95 6:33a <- ADVANCE listings for the day
one week from now
The listings in one TVLISTdd.ARC file run from midnight to 11:59 PM
EASTERN time. If you are in the Pacific time zone, the first listing in
the TVLIST16.ARC file will be for 9 PM Pacific time on the night of the
15th. If you are in the Atlantic time zone, the first listing in
TVLIST16.ARC will be for 1 AM the morning of the 16th.
If the file date is today or yesterday those are FRESH listings. If it is
within the last week they are ADVANCE listings and a FRESH update will
come over the satellite the day before air date. If the file date is more
than a week old the listings are for days in the past and they are
useless.
You choose how often you want to connect and how many files you get. You
could call just once a week, and download fresh listings for the next day
and advance listings for the following 6 days. Or you could call more
often and pick up fewer listings. TVDOOR will send you whatever is new; if
you call every day that means you will get two files each day: fresh
listings for tomorrow and advance listings for the day one week from
today. That way if some day you don't call, you will still have advance
listings for the next day, and you will always be able to look thru
listings for the whole next week.
You can ignore the small file TVLISTTK.ARC if you see it. If you unzip it
you will find two "TIC" files referring to the two new listings files that
are created each day. The daily TVLISTTK.ARC helps BBS operators move the
TVLIST*.* efficiently to other BBSs. You can share the listings with
friends who subscribe to TV Agent. If you operate a BBS you can post the
listings there to be downloaded; tell TV Agent Tech Support if you would
like your BBS to be advertised in the WHERE.LST file.
***