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PsL Monthly 1995 May
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PSL Monthly Shareware CD-ROM Volume 3 Number 5 (PSL).ISO
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Text File
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1995-04-05
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6KB
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142 lines
AFTER READING THIS FILE, CLICK THE "FILE" MENU (IN THE WINDOWS
PROGRAM) AND CLICK "PSL-NEWS". IN THE DOS PROGRAM, PRESS ENTER.
Welcome to the PsL May 1995 CD. This month's CD contains
over 1300 new programs received by PsL in the last 30 days.
In addition, this month's CD includes the programs from
the Words & Graphics sections of our DOS and Windows libraries.
=====New Search Feature in Windows Access Program
OVERVIEW:
The DOS-based CD-ROM access program is limited to browsing through the
descriptions of programs on the current CD-ROM. It cannot do much more
because of the limitations of DOS and the large size of the full
library database.
The Windows access program allows you to search by program name, file
name, author/publisher name, program type, and key word(s).
Starting with this (May) CD, you can also search in the Windows access
program for text anywhere in the database.
Because this search works by loading one program entry after another
to search, it can be especially slow when run from the CD. The
trade-off to this being slow is that it is the most thorough way to
search the database.
If you have sufficient hard disk space, you can make a PSL_NEWS
directory on your hard disk and copy the contents of the PSL_NEWS
directory on the CD to it, then run PSL_SHRW.EXE from your hard disk.
HOW TO SEARCH:
The type and order of entries to be searched is based on the most
recent search you have done, so follow these steps:
1. Click on the Browse-By method you want to use. Searches cover
the entire PsL library, not just the programs on the
current/specified CD, except for the "Current CD & Type" option.
- CD Date & Type [of program]
- Program Type
- Program Name
- File Name
- Author/Company Name
- Key Word
2. Hold down the Ctrl key and press K to clear the screen.
3. Enter the criteria which will bring up the entry from which you
you want the search to start. For example,
- to search by type of program, select the Operating
System and Section using the drop-down list boxes.
- to search by program name, enter the first letter(s)
for the search to start with, etc.
Enter as little text as possible which will still narrow
the search. For example, if you enter "hobby", you could
miss entries with "hobbies", so you should enter "hobb".
4. Click on the "Get Program" button to get the first entry.
5. You are now ready to start the search, so click on the
Edit Menu and Search option in that menu or press Ctrl-S.
6. When prompted, enter the text to search for. The search
is NOT case-sensitive, so capitalization doesn't matter.
Text can be any keyboard characters, not just alpha.
You will see program entries flashing by on the screen. They will
stop either when an entry with the specified text has been found
or when there are no more entries in the "selected search area".
For searches by program type, the selected search area is the
specifed Operating System + Section (e.g.: Windows-Games,
DOS-Graphics).
For searches by name, the selected search area is all entries
starting with the same first letter.
You can continue the search using the ending point as the next
starting point by pressing F3 or clicking on the Edit menu and
"Get Next Match".
You can cancel a search at any time by pressing Ctrl-S again.
=====Words & Graphics Files Left Behind
Every month we are faced with the problem of the Section of the Month
not fitting on the CD-ROM any more. For example, this month's section
used to be "Words, Graphics, and Sounds".
Last November when this section overflowed the CD, we moved Sounds off
to the Games CD. Yet we were again faced with too many programs to fit
on the CD.
Moving whole sections from the CD causes grief to people who were
looking forward to that section, so we hate to split "Words &
Graphics" into two different CDs.
What we did instead (both this month and with Utilities last month)
was to cull out some of the older (which may be less than a year -
it's all relative), larger programs whose functions are duplicated in
newer programs. We have also culled out large demos (crippled programs),
even those from more recent CDs.
This is not to say that these programs being culled out are not useful
and of high quality, but given that no solution is going to please
everyone, we felt like this one would be the most acceptable to the
most people.
Words & Graphics programs which were culled out are still written up
in the database, but their entries will show a CD date of "11/94".
We tried never to cull out a program for which there were not numerous
equivalent programs on the current CD, so if a particular program has
caught your eye but was culled out, either look in the same category
for a similar program or, if you have the past CD, simply get it from
that CD. (Don't throw out those "old" CDs!)
If you do not have the past CD, you can order it for just $6 plus $4
shipping. (NOTE: This offer only applies to CDs dated 11/94 or
earlier. You must specify which program you are looking for.)
Because the library continues to grow at the rate of about 300MB new
programs a month, there is a good chance that when it is time to
feature Words & Graphics again (in about 8-9 months, given the
current cycle), we will have no choice but to split these into
two different CDs.
One problem with the Graphics sections is that things like clip art
and fonts never really get outdated or duplicated, so that section
will just keep getting bigger and bigger.