Collection of Tools & Utilities/Collection of Tools and Utilities.iso/tex/instadex.zip/INSTADEX.DOC

Text File | 1994-04-03 | 10KB | 200 lines

INSTADEX Version 1.0

USER GUIDE

(c) Copyright 1994 by Pat Williams, All Rights Reserved.

INSTADEX programs and this document are provided with NO WARRANTY. Pat
Williams will accept NO responsibility for damages arising from their use. In
other words, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are
invited; send to Pat Williams, HortIdeas Publishing, 460 Black Lick Rd.,
Gravel Switch, KY 40328, U.S.A., phone [phone], e-mail
<[e-mail]>.

INSTADEX.EXE, INSTAPAK.EXE, and INSTABAS.EXE may be distributed freely,
provided that unmodified copies of this User Guide file (INSTADEX.DOC),
INSTABAS.DOC, READTHIS.1ST, SKIPWORD.LST, INSTADOC.* (5 files with extensions
.HDR, I1, L1, S1, and T1, respectively) are included with them. This package
is being distributed as "Shareware." You may examine it on a trial basis at no
charge, but if you find it useful AND PARTICULARLY IF YOU DISTRIBUTE
Instabases, please send $10 to Pat Williams, HortIdeas, 460 Black Lick Rd.,
Gravel Switch, KY 40328. Thank you!

INSTABAS.EXE may be distributed freely with Instabase files created by using
INSTADEX.EXE and INSTAPAK.EXE, provided that an unmodified copy of
INSTABAS.DOC is included with them AND you have paid the registration fee. NO
RESTRICTIONS ARE PLACED ON CHARGING OTHER PARTIES FOR COPIES OF INSTABASES.

WHAT IS AN INSTABASE?

Instadex programs generate pre-indexed electronic documents (Instabases) from
(even very large) individual or concatenated text files, allowing words to be
located "instantly" where they appear in the documents. User-specified
sections of Instabase documents can be gathered to separate text files.
Automatic compression allows the resulting Instabase files to be smaller than
the original text files (typically by one-quarter to one-third). A user-
editable skip-word file prevents indexing of insignificant words, such as
conjunctions.

Candidates for Instabase generation and distribution include books,
newsletters, mailing list logs, product manuals, letters, and help files --
most any on-disk text!

The Instadex package includes three executables, INSTADEX.EXE, INSTAPAK.EXE,
and INSTABAS.EXE, and the skip-word file, SKIPWORD.LST.

Creation of an Instabase requires running the first two programs, with
SKIPWORD.LST in the current directory.

Using an Instabase requires running INSTABAS.EXE with the Instabase files
created by INSTADEX.EXE and INSTAPAK.EXE (access to SKIPWORD.LST is not
necessary).

HOW TO CREATE AN INSTABASE

1. Run INSTADEX.EXE. The command-line syntax is as shown below:

   INSTADEX file-to-index file-to-index ... file-to-index instabase-filename

You can index as many files as you can fit on the command line (renaming them
with short names will help to fit more on the command line, or you can
concatenate several files into one or a few large files using a word
processor). They will be indexed in the order in which they appear on the
command line. DO NOT include an extension on instabase-filename (the name that
you want the Instabase to have). The file-to-index and instabase-filename
specifications can include path designations. Note: all files to be indexed
should be in text format (called "non-document format" by some word
processors); non-ASCII characters are treated as word delimiters ("break
characters", just like a space or comma) by INSTADEX.

Example: To index A.TXT, B.TXT, and C.TXT (in that order), and name the
resulting Instabase ABC, you would type

  INSTADEX A.TXT B.TXT C.TXT ABC

and then press Enter.

Free disk space needs to be at least about equal to the total size of the
files you are indexing (about twice as much if your disk has on-the-fly file
compression/decompression). Given that requirement, you should be able to
index files with total size of several megabytes.

SKIPWORD.LST contains words which will not be indexed. This is a text file
which can be edited by using a word processor; to add words, key in each one
on a separate line. After editing, save the file in pure-ASCII text mode
(called non-document mode by some word processors).

If the total size of the files you are indexing is large and/or your computer
is slow, expect INSTABAS to take several minutes to run.

2. Run INSTAPAK.EXE. The command-line syntax is as shown below:

   INSTAPAK instabase-filename

Again, DO NOT include an extension on instabase-filename. The instabase-
filename specification can include a path designation.

Example: Continuing from the above example, you would type

   INSTAPAK ABC

and then press Enter.

INSTAPAK.EXE packs together some of the files created by INSTADEX.EXE. If you
don't run INSTAPAK.EXE after running INSTADEX.EXE, then INSTABAS.EXE won't
work.

The results of running INSTADEX.EXE and then INSTAPAK.EXE are several files
having the instabase-filename you specified and various extensions. Together
with INSTABAS.EXE, these constitute an Instabase. All of these files together
should be considerably smaller than the original text files. All of the text
in the original files from which an Instadex has been generated is accessible
in the Instadex. The original text files are NOT needed to use the Instabase!

INSTAPAK should take less time to run than INSTADEX for a given set of files
to be indexed.

HOW TO USE AN INSTABASE

Run INSTABAS.EXE. The command-line syntax is as shown below:

   INSTABAS instabase-filename gather-file

DO NOT include an extension on instabase-filename. The gather-file is
optional; if it is missing, gathered document sections will be written to
instabase-filename.GTH, instead of being written to gather-file. The
specifications for instabase-filename and gather-file can have path
designations.

Example: To use the Instabase named ABC, and to allow gathering of document
sections to the text file ABC.TXT, you would type

   INSTABAS ABC ABC.TXT

and then press Enter.

There are two types of Instabase screens, the Index Screen (showing words in
the index and words chosen to be located in the document) and the Document
Screen (showing a portion of the document and allowing sections to be gathered
to another file).

The Index Screen appears first. You can press Esc at any time when you see the
Index Screen to get out of the Instabase and go back to DOS. To switch to the
Document Screen, press Enter. To switch back to the Index Screen from the
Document Screen, press Esc.

The Index Screen has three parts. You can move the cursor from one part to
another by pressing Tab or Shift+Tab. These are the parts:

1. Edit Line: the single line running across the screen, just below the
program name line. Here, you can key in individual words which you want to
find in the document.

2. Index Window: the box on the left side. This contains a scrollable list of
all words in the Instabase's index, in ASCII order. Here, you can select words
to be found in the document.

3. Chosen Words Window: the box on the right side. This shows the words you
have chosen to be located in the document. Here, you can delete words if you
no longer want them to be found in the document.

When the cursor is on the Edit Line, you can key in a word (for correcting
mistakes, use Backspace, Del, and left and right arrows on keypad) and press
Enter. If the word is in the index, it will disappear from the Edit Line and
appear in the Chosen Words Window. If the word is not in the index, you'll
just hear a beep. Edit the word and try again, or press Tab to move the cursor
to the Index Window. If you put a * at the end of a word or partial word, all
words in the index which begin with the letters prior to the * will be chosen.
If you want to switch to the Document Screen, when there are no characters
showing on the Edit Line, press Enter.

When the cursor (as a reverse-color block) is in the Index Window, you can
move it up and down with the up and down arrows on the keypad, PgDn, and
PgUp. To select a word to be located in the document, press the s