Black Box 4

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Black Box 4 / BlackBox.cdr / genapps / hp22dc.arj / USRGUIDE / ADMANINF.TXT next >

Wrap

Text File | 1991-05-16 | 36KB | 901 lines

________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 147 ________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 9: ADDING AND MANIPULATING INFORMATION This chapter describes the database-management capabilities of HyperPAD and how to work with existing database pads. After introducing some of the basic concepts--such as how to browse in pads and how to cut, copy, and delete information stored in text fields--this chapter will explain how to share information with other programs, such as dBASE IV and Word Perfect. Finally, we'll take a quick look at the process of building hypertext applications with HyperPAD. As you'll see, a hypertext application can contain huge volumes of information, but in a structure unlike that used to store more traditional types of computerized data. We'll assume that you're familiar with the basic skills required to use HyperPAD. If you're unable to choose commands from menus, work with dialog boxes, move the highlight around the screen with the TAB and SHIFT+TAB keys, and open pads from the File menu, please take a few minutes to review the material presented in Chapter 2, "Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD," before continuing. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 148 ________________________________________________________________________ MANAGING INFORMATION WITH HYPERPAD One of the best uses for your personal computer is managing the information you need every day at work and at home. The information explosion has easily outpaced our ability to keep track of the specific information that matters. With their unsurpassed capacity for storing and retrieving all kinds of information, today's personal computers have become indispensable to anyone who works with information. HyperPAD is not meant to be a high-powered database-management system, capable of managing the strategic information of a huge business enterprise. But it is in fact well suited for the user who needs a better handle on personal information, such as names, addresses, to-do lists, time-management records, reminders, and details of all kinds. HOW HYPERPAD HELPS YOU MANAGE INFORMATION HyperPAD is an environment from which you can launch any of your MS-DOS or Microsoft Windows programs. Thanks to HyperPAD, you may have stopped using the DOS prompt altogether by now, choosing to manage your programs, documents, spreadsheets, and other files with HyperPAD's DOS Shell. In the past, you may have come across a piece of information that you wanted to enter into your computer without exiting HyperPAD to launch another program. Perhaps you jotted it down on a legal pad or scribbled it on a Post-It note and stuck it to your computer screen. Later, when you needed the information, maybe it was right at hand. Or maybe not. Maybe your reluctance to take the time to run another program forced you to lose a vital piece of information or to waste valuable time tracking it down. The best thing about HyperPAD's database-management capabilities is their convenience. They're always there . . . just waiting for you to press a button . . . ready to spring into action. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 149 ________________________________________________________________________ HYPERPAD TOOLS FOR MANAGING INFORMATION HyperPAD contains several different tools for managing information. Before you jump right in and begin adding new information to your pads, please take a few moments to review the concepts discussed in this subsection. PADS As you know, pads are the basic type of file that HyperPAD uses to store your work. The simplest data-management tasks can be accomplished within the structure of a single pad. For example, you can use the Phone pad by itself--adding names, addresses, and phone numbers--and then look up this information later. The Daily Planner system, on the other hand, shows off the benefits of pads that work together. PAGES, BACKGROUNDS, AND FIELDS Any information in a pad is placed there by the user. The basic container of information in HyperPAD is the field, which, as you saw earlier in the HyperPAD User's Guide, is a rectangular area of the screen in which you can type and edit. The Phone pad is a good example of an application designed by the pad author to allow you to add and manage information. If you'd like to try out some of the concepts presented in this chapter, open the Phone pad (or a copy of the Phone pad, if you're eager to experiment without any risk to existing information) and work with HyperPAD as we go along. (If you plan to build your own database pads or modify the ones that came in your package, there are many important concepts you can learn by examining the pads that came with HyperPAD. In Chapter 14, you will find a detailed discussion of page and background fields.) ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 150 ________________________________________________________________________ ORGANIZING AND LOCATING INFORMATION This section tells you how to manage information in an existing database pad. In the course of this section, you will learn how to: 0 Browse though a pad and its stored information 0 Add information to a field 0 Erase information from a field 0 Copy information from one field to another 0 Search for information stored in a pad 0 Sort records of data by one or more background fields 0 Query a database so that only selected pages are displayed BROWSING INFORMATION IN PADS Everyone looks up information. When you need a phone number, you can just pick up a phone book and page through it until you find the name and phone number you need. HyperPAD is very similar. First, use the Open command from the File menu (ALT+F, O) to find a database pad that stores the information you want to browse. Once you arrive, just press PGUP to move backward or PGDN to move forward through the pages in your pad. To move to the first page in the pad, press CTRL+PGUP. To move to the end of the pad, press CTRL+PGDN. If you're using a mouse, look around on the screen for buttons to take you places. In pads like Phone and Index, there are buttons centered at the bottom of your screen that you can point to and click on to take you to the previous and next pages in the pad. Next, you'll learn how to add and change information in pads. ADDING AND EDITING INFORMATION Keeping your important records up to date is easy when you use a personal computer to manage information. If you're a saleswoman and you receive a phone referral, press a few keystrokes and the name is on your PC. If one of your best customers moves out of your territory, press a different key and his or her name is removed from your records. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 151 ________________________________________________________________________ HyperPAD makes it easy to add information to pads. Just keep one important principle in mind: You should store each individual record of data on a separate page. For example, a customer named Abbott should be on one page, a customer named Beckinridge on the next page, and an attorney named Zachary on a page somewhere near the end of the pad. To add a new, blank page to a pad: Press F3. That's all there is to it! (Since you'll add new pages so often, HyperPAD offers this shortcut to allow you to add a page with little effort. A slightly longer method would be to choose the New Page command [ALT+E, N] from the Edit menu.) ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Now that you have a new page to work with, you're ready to begin entering information. (Don't worry if you make mistakes--you'll learn how to correct them in this section.) ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 152 ________________________________________________________________________ To move to a field and then enter information: 1. TAB to the field. 2. Press F2 to remove the highlight from the field so you can begin typing. 3. Begin typing into the field. If you make a mistake, just press BACKSPACE to erase it. 4. To add information to another field, repeat steps 1-3 above. After entering information into a field, you may decide to delete it or change it in some way. A friend's phone number may have changed, or perhaps you made a typing mistake when you first entered the record into your database. To delete information from a field: 1. TAB to the field. 2. Press F2 to unhighlight the field. 3. Use the arrow keys to move to the first character you want to change. 4. Hold down the SHIFT key while you press one of the arrow keys. You'll know that the text is selected because text that's selected becomes highlighted. 5. When you've selected the text you want to delete, press DEL. HyperPAD erases the selected text from the field. Use a similar procedure to copy text from one field to another. Instead of pressing DEL, you'll use the Copy Text and Paste Text commands, both found on the Edit menu, to copy and then paste the selection. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 153 ________________________________________________________________________ To copy text from one field to another: 1. TAB to the field. 2. Press F2 to unhighlight the field. 3. Select the text you want to copy, using the technique described in the previous procedure. 4. When you've selected the text you want to copy, select Copy Text from the Edit menu. (The shortcut for Copy Text is CTRL+C.) 5. TAB to a different field. 6. Select Paste Text from the Edit menu. (Or use a shortcut--CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT.) HyperPAD pastes the selection into the field. You'll often copy information from one field to another. Keep in mind that you can copy information from a field to: 0 A field on the same page in the same pad 0 A field on a different page in the same pad 0 A field in an entirely different pad In the two previous procedures, you learned one way to select text. A block of selected text can be as small as one character or as large as the whole field. Since selecting text is something you'll do so often, here's a table with shortcuts you can take when working with selected text. Action: Result: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SHIFT+left/right arrow keys Selects one character at a time. CTRL+SHIFT+left arrow key Selects the word to the left of the cursor CTRL+SHIFT+right arrow key Selects the word to the right of the cursor Point to a word and Selects a word with the mouse double-click Point to a line, press Selects a line with the mouse SHIFT, then double-click ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 154 ________________________________________________________________________ Before learning how to search for information in a pad, you may want to review the following table of navigation keys that help you quickly move around pages and fields. Press this key: To: ---------------------------------------------------- TAB Go to the next field SHIFT+TAB Go to the previous field F2 Start editing a field Arrow keys Move the cursor within a field ENTER Insert a new line HOME Go to the start of a line in the field END Go to the end of a line in the field CTRL+HOME Go to the first character in the field CTRL+MINUS Go to the first character in the next word CTRL+PLUS Go to the first character in the previous word PLUS (keypad) Go to the next portion of text in a field MINUS (keypad) Go to the previous portion of text in a field The following keystrokes delete text without requiring you to select it: Press this key: To: ------------------------------------------------------- DEL, BACKSPACE Delete one character at a time CTRL+D Delete an entire line CTRL+DEL Deletes from the cursor to the end of the line CTRL+BACKSPACE Deletes the word to the left of the cursor ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 155 ________________________________________________________________________ SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION After you've entered and edited information in one of your pads, you still haven't done much more than would be possible with an electric typewriter. Your information is neatly arranged so anyone can read it. However, when you use HyperPAD's tools to search for information in pads, you move beyond mere typing and begin to tap the PC's potential for information management. This section explains how to use two of the commands on the Database menu--Find and Query--to hunt down the information you need. If you had to press PGUP and PGDN repeatedly to look for a specific piece of data in a pad, you'd soon become frustrated and annoyed with your PC. Fortunately, HyperPAD provides basic database functions that let you quickly find names and phrases in your pads. Use the Find command whenever you want HyperPAD to locate a word or phrase and take you immediately to the page it's on. HyperPAD even highlights the word or phrase on the screen. If you want, you can then press a single keystroke and HyperPAD jumps to the next occurrence of the word or phrase. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 156 ________________________________________________________________________ To find information in a pad: 1. Select Find from the Database menu (ALT+D, F). HyperPAD opens the message box and prompts you for the information necessary to carry out your search. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 2. Type the word or phrase you want HyperPAD to find. 3. Press ENTER. HyperPAD takes you to the first occurrence of the word or phrase, changing pages if necessary. 4. To tell HyperPAD to take you to the next occurrence, press ENTER. Press ENTER repeatedly to view every occurrence of the word or phrase in the pad. 5. To close the message box, press F4. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 157 ________________________________________________________________________ HOW HYPERPAD FINDS INFORMATION HyperPAD begins its search with the fields on the current page, starting with background fields and then looking in page fields. If it doesn't find what it's looking for, it moves on to the next page, searching background fields first and then page fields. The search continues in this way until each field in the pad has been searched. If HyperPAD arrives back at the original page without finding the word or phrase, it will beep--a signal that the word or phrase is not in any field in the pad. Notes: When HyperPAD finds the text it's looking for, it highlights the text for you. If you begin typing immediately after a successful Find command, you will replace the found text with whatever you type. After you use the Find command, the message box remains on-screen. To move the cursor back into the message box, press ALT+F4. If you want, type a different find statement into the message box and press ENTER to execute the statement. For a complete discussion of the many things you can do with the message box, see Chapter 15 in this User's Guide. SPECIAL TYPES OF SEARCHES As you know, when you choose the Find command, HyperPAD places the cursor in the message box and waits for you to enter the text you want to find. If you prefer, you can edit the find command before pressing ENTER. By changing the syntax of the Find command before pressing ENTER, you can change the results of the command. First, you can restrict the search to a single background field, as in the following example: find "New York" in field "City" You can also tell HyperPAD to search for an entire word and to bypass any occurrences of the text within another word. For example, the statement find whole "Law" will find "Law" in the title "L. A. Law," but the same statement will not find "law" in the sentence "My wife is a lawyer." ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 158 ________________________________________________________________________ Finally, you can instruct HyperPAD to search for one of many items. For example, the statement find "New York", "Los Angeles", "Seattle" will cause HyperPAD to search for "New York" or "Los Angeles" or "Seattle" as it moves through the fields in your pad. For a complete discussion of the Find command, see Chapter 11 in the PADtalk Reference Guide. USING THE QUERY COMMAND When using a pad that contains a large number of pages, it sometimes helps to restrict your work to a limited set of pages. For example, if you're using HyperPAD to keep records pertaining to contract management, you might want to work with only those pages describing contracts worth $250,000 or more. The Query command allows you to specify criteria that pages must match, excluding from your view those pages that don't match. Using the Query command, you could display only those customers in the Phone pad whose offices are in Minnesota or select only those individuals who own a certain type of life insurance policy. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 159 ________________________________________________________________________ To query a pad: 1. Select Query from the Database menu (ALT+D, Q). The Query Criteria dialog box, shown here, is displayed. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 2. TAB into the Operator column and move to a row containing a field that will be part of your query. 3. Press SPACE repeatedly to select one of the operators from the following table: Operator: Page included if the value is: ------------------------------------------------------- is Found in the specified field is not Found in the specified field < Less than the value of the specified field > Greater than the value of the specified field <= Less than or equal to the value of the specified field >= Greater than or equal to the value of the specified field is in Contained somewhere within the text of the field is not in Not contained somewhere within the text of the field ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 160 ________________________________________________________________________ 4. After selecting an operator for a field, TAB into the Value column and enter a value against which the content of the background field will be compared. 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each background field you want to include in your query. 6. Once you have finished selecting operators and entering values into the Query Criteria dialog box, select <<Ok>> to begin the query. Notes: HyperPAD displays only the names of the background fields in the Query Criteria dialog box. You cannot use the values of page fields in your queries. If you make a mistake when filling out the Query Criteria dialog box, select <Clear>. HyperPAD will remove all specified values. By leaving <not included> as the value of a field, you are in effect telling HyperPAD to ignore a given field when the query is carried out. SORTING INFORMATION After you build a database pad with more than a few pages, you'll probably find yourself wishing you could group certain pages together. Let's say you're using the Project pad to keep track of 20 or 30 commitments made by three or four different people in several different departments. Since HyperPAD does not automatically sort your pages, instead leaving them in the order in which they were originally entered, you need a way to group your pages by date, by name, or by department. To sort pages in a pad, simply choose Sort from the Database menu and fill out the Sort dialog box that appears. The following procedure shows you how. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 161 ________________________________________________________________________ To sort all pages having a single background: 1. Select the Sort command from the Database menu (ALT+D, S). The Sort dialog box, shown here, appears. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 2. TAB into the Background field list box, highlight the background field you want to sort by, then press ENTER. 3. Select the Ascending or Descending option to indicate whether the pages should be sorted first to last or last to first. 4. Select one of the Type options. Select Text if the field you want to sort by contains text, Numeric if the field contains numbers, or Date if the field stores date information. 5. Select <<Ok>> to start the sort. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 162 ________________________________________________________________________ EXCHANGING INFORMATION WITH OTHER PROGRAMS Personal computers operating in isolation from other computers are increasingly rare. Chances are good that your PC is connected to a network, to a mainframe or minicomputer, or to information services or bulletin boards by means of a modem in your system. If all computers were manufactured by the same vendor and ran the same operating systems and applications, interaction between different computers would be a breeze. But in reality, hundreds of vendors manufacture thousands of different types of computers, which run tens of thousands of different applications. As a computer user, you may own and use several software packages. Because of the vast number of software packages available, the ability to share data between them is increasingly important. HyperPAD offers several ways to exchange information between pads and other applications. This section will explain how to share your HyperPAD data. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING .DBF FILES Although there is no single standard for storing information with database software, the .DBF standard established by Ashton-Tate's dBASE products is close to a universal standard on personal computers. If you have information stored in the .DBF format, you can easily import it into a pad and begin working with it. You can also export information stored in a pad to a .DBF file for use by dBASE III or another program that can work with .DBF files. To import a .DBF file into a pad: 1. Make sure that the user level is set to Painting or higher. Please refer to Chapter 3 for the procedure for raising your user level. 2. Select Import from the File menu (ALT+F, I). 3. Select the DBASE III (.DBF) option in the Import dialog box. HyperPAD displays the Import dBASE III dialog box: 4. Select a .DBF file in the Import dBASE III dialog box, then select <<Ok>> to import the database file. Note: When HyperPAD imports a .DBF file, it creates a new background, with background fields that match the fields in the database file. Once ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 163 ________________________________________________________________________ the file has been imported, HyperPAD displays the last page that was imported. EXPORTING FROM PADS TO A .DBF DATABASE FILE You can easily export the data stored in background fields to a .DBF database file. In general, the procedure is nearly the reverse of that used to import a .DBF file into HyperPAD. To export pad data to a .DBF file: 1. Make sure that the user level is set to Painting or higher. Please refer to Chapter 3 for the procedure for raising your user level. 2. Select Export from the File menu (ALT+F, E). 3. Select the DBASE III (.DBF) option in the Export dialog box. The Export to DBASE III dialog box, shown here, is displayed. Each background field belonging to the open background is displayed in the Background field column. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 4. TAB into the DBF field column, where you can modify the names that will be assigned to the fields when the data is exported to .DBF format. 5. TAB into the Type column, where you can press SPACE to select .DBF field types. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 164 ________________________________________________________________________ Select Character to create a text field, Numeric to create a field to store numbers, Date to store dates, and Memo to create a dBASE III memo field. 6. Select options in the Width and Dec columns to specify the width of the fields to be created and the number of decimals for a numeric field. 7. TAB to the Export column to choose which fields to export. Press the up and down arrow keys to highlight the Yes/No option for each field and then press Y to include the field in the .DBF file or N to exclude it from the file. 8. Select <<Ok>>. A dialog box is displayed, asking you to give a filename to the new file that will be created. 9. Enter a valid DOS filename and press ENTER. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING DELIMITED ASCII FILES If you need to exchange data between HyperPAD and another program that is unable to work with .DBF files, your next best choice may be to use the delimited ASCII file format. In a delimited ASCII file, database records are stored in a format resembling the following: "Richard","Thomas","123 Lake Road","Westport","CT" "Alycia","Blair","One Brook Lane","San Jose","CA" Each line in a delimited ASCII file contains items of information enclosed by quotes and separated from one another by a comma. To import a delimited ASCII file into a pad: 1. Make sure that the user level is set to Painting or higher. Please refer to Chapter 3 for the procedure for raising your user level. 2. Select Import from the File menu (ALT+F, I). 3. Select Delimited ASCII from the Import dialog box. 4. Select the filename of the ASCII file to be imported. 5. Select <<Ok>>. HyperPAD imports the information in the ASCII file, creating a new page for each row in the file. Since ASCII files do not have field names, ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 165 ________________________________________________________________________ HyperPAD assigns names to the background fields it creates in this manner: Field 0, Field 1, Field 2, and so on for as many fields as are created. To export pages to a delimited ASCII file: 1. Make sure that the user level is set to Painting or higher. Please refer to Chapter 3 for the procedure for raising your user level. 2. Select Export from the File menu (ALT+F, E). 3. Select delimited ASCII from the Export dialog box. 4. Enter the name you want to use for the new file. By default, HyperPAD assigns the delimited ASCII files created with the Export command an extension of .TXT. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING TEXT FILES Finally, you can use HyperPAD to import text files. This capability lets you import documents from a word processor like Word Perfect or Microsoft Word into HyperPAD. (This feature is particularly useful, for example, if you are developing hypertext applications such as help or computer-based training systems.) If you want to take free-form information stored in fields and export it to a text file in order to perform additional tasks upon it with your word processor, choose the Text file option in the Export dialog box. Note: You can import and export text only from single fields in HyperPAD. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING OTHER FILE TYPES Since the procedures for importing and exporting information to the other file formats supported by HyperPAD are very similar to those described immediately above, we will not repeat them in this section. We will limit our discussion to a brief description of the other Import and Export options and make some suggestions about how you might use these options. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING .GX2 IMAGES Brightbill-Roberts also publishes a family of desktop presentation products for creating multimedia screen shows running under DOS. The ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 9: Adding and Manipulating Information 166 ________________________________________________________________________ members of this family--which include Show Partner, Show Partner F/X, and PC Partner--create images that use the .GX2 file format. If you've used one of these products to capture or create text screens, you can import them into your pads for use. You can also import .GX2 images created by the CAP utility that came in your HyperPAD package. (This utility is described in Appendix 3, "Using the CAP Utility.") If you've developed screens in HyperPAD and want to use them in your Show Partner or Show Partner F/X screen shows, use the Export command to export these screens to .GX2. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING .BSV IMAGES Microsoft QuickBASIC and other versions of the popular BASIC programming language use an image file format known as BSAVE, or .BSV. HyperPAD imports and exports .BSV files. CONCLUSION By this point, we've introduced you to a variety of ways in which HyperPAD can be used to manage the information on your PC. Since these features are part of an environment in which you launch programs, manage files, and develop your own personal applications, they're available to you anytime that HyperPAD is running. You've learned how to add and edit information in fields, how to find text in a pad, how to sort the pages in a pad, and how to perform queries that enable you to work with a limited set of pages. Finally, you learned how to exchange information between HyperPAD and other software applications. In the next chapter, you'll be introduced to HyperPAD's printing features, which offer you another way to use the information stored in HyperPAD files.