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The Microfiche Filer DEMO Software Visions, Inc. 26 Forest Road Framingham, MA 01701 800-527-7014 (in MA (617) 877-1266) The Microfiche Filer (C) Copyright 1987, by Software Visions, Inc. All rights reserved. The MFF manual (C) Copyright 1987, by Software Visions, Inc. All rights reserved. The Demo The following tutorial called "The Quick Tour" is an excerpt from The Microfiche Filer manual which comes with the purchase of The Microfiche Filer. The intent is to bring you quickly up to speed using The Microfiche Filer to peruse the database of Fish disks. Several other databases are provided for your enjoyment and experimentation including a database of Amicus disks, an address book, and a simple picture database. This tutorial is provided to you in a format suitable for printing directly. So, if you have a printer, simply align your paper and copy this document directly to the printer. (That will make it easier to follow the tutorial while using The Microfiche Filer. This demonstration version of The Microfiche Filer is actually a complete version, missing only the file manipulation functions of the File View (which are not necessary to the functioning of the database) and the SAVE function. This means that you may fully manipulate databases that have been created using version 1.0 of The Microfiche Filer; but, you may not save them back on disk. To purchase a release copy of The Microfiche Filer either check with your dealer or contact Software Visions at 800-527-7014 (in MA 617-877-1266). With the purchase of The Microfiche Filer for $99 you receive the NON COPY PROTECTED Microfiche Filer, the 120 page illustrated and indexed manual, some additional databases, free technical support, and a liberal update policy. Quick Tour You are about to embark on a Quick Tour of The Microfiche Filer. You will open a database, and view, edit, and print it. You will tour the program, learning the basic features while actually working with a useful database. After taking this tour, which should take about 15 minutes, you will be able to view and manipulate the Fred Fish database and be prepared to experiment with others. Starting The Microfiche Filer 1. Put your working copy of The Microfiche Filer diskette in your disk drive. 2. Double-click on its disk icon. This opens a window with several drawers in it. 3. Double-click on the drawer that says MFF_Files. This opens another window which contains a drawer called Microfiche. 4. Double-click on the drawer that says Microfiche. This opens another window which contains several other drawers. 5. Double-click on the icon that says Fred_Fish.mff. This starts the Microfiche Filer and automatically opens the Fred_Fish database. If the screen just flashes when you try to open the database or if a requester comes up stating that there is not enough memory to start the MFF, you must make some memory available. Note that you must have at least 512K, and must be using the Amiga Enhancer (AmigaDos 1.2)! To free some memory, try closing any other windows that you have open. If it still won't run, try rebooting (hold down the CTRL, Left Amiga, and Right Amiga keys) and start again. If it still won't run, try rebooting using a copy of your original AmigaDos 1.2 Workbench disk (with nothing in RAM:). Three windows are now open: the Microfiche Magnification window in the left portion of your screen, the Fiche window in the upper right portion of your screen, and the Form List window in the lower right portion of your screen. The Magnification Window The Microfiche Magnification window (see the name at the top of the window) provides a magnified view of some of the data in your database. The Fiche Window The Fiche window contains the microfiche that is magnified in the Magnification window. The majority of the window contains the microfiche. Inside the box containing the microfiche, you will notice another box that is probably orange and black (depending on your color preferences). This box is your magnifying glass. 1. Point at the magnifying glass with the mouse, push the left mouse button, and, while holding the button down, drag the mouse. Notice that the Magnification window is magnifying the area in the microfiche corresponding to the orange and black box! Now, watch the magnifying glass in the Fiche window change its size to match the size of the Magnification window as you do the following: 1. Pull the Magnification window to the top by clicking on the "Front" gadget in the upper right corner of the Microfiche Magnification window (the Front gadget is the one on the right). This exposes the "Size" gadget in the lower right corner of the Magnification window. Now grab the Size gadget by pointing at it with the mouse and holding down the left mouse button. Make the window very small by moving the pointer towards the upper left corner of the window, then release the mouse button. 2. Change the size of the Magnification window back to approximately its previous size by grabbing the Size gadget and dragging. The Fiche window has two other features. The name of your current database is shown just above the microfiche. To the right of the microfiche is a scrollbar which you will learn to use later. The Form List Window The MFF Form List window is in the lower right portion of your screen and is partially obscured by the Magnification window right now. 1. Pull the MFF Form List window to the front by clicking on the Front gadget in the upper right corner of the MFF Form List window. The Form List window contains all of the forms that are available for viewing this database. Any time you see your data displayed whether it is in the Magnification window or in other windows (which you will encounter soon) it is always displayed using a form that you have constructed. That way, you can decide how you wish to view your own data. Forms are also used for sorting and printing your data. In the Form List window you see a number of boxes containing names. The first one which says Data Definition is special and will be dealt with later. Next, you see six boxes, each with a description to its left. These are called "slots". You will soon find that dropping a form into one of these slots causes that form to be used for a particular purpose, depending on the particular slot. The form in the Display form slot is used for displaying your data in the Magnification window, for instance. Finally, you see several additional boxes containing names. These are currently unused forms. You can select forms from this list to drop into the slots. The Display Form Notice that each entry that you can see in the Magnification window consists of simply a filename. That is not all of the information that is in the database however! Notice that the slot next to "Display form:" contains "Filename only". 1. Drag the "Number, Type, Name" form onto the Display form slot by pointing at "Number, Type, Name", holding down the left mouse button, dragging that form up onto the "Filename only" form in the "Display form:" slot (being sure that the mouse pointer actually points to "Filename only"), and releasing the mouse button. Now, your data is displayed using the "Number, Type, Name" form. You will notice that the Magnification window now contains the disk number and the file type, in addition to the filename! Simply change the Display form whenever you wish to change how the information is displayed in the Magnification window. The Sort Form Notice as you look down through the Magnification window that the filenames are all in alphabetical order. Also, notice that the slot next to "Sort form:" contains "Filename only". 1. Drag the "Number, Name" form onto the Sort form slot which is currently occupied by "Filename only". Now your data is sorted first by disk number, then by filename. Feel free to drag the magnifying glass around to verify this. The data that is displayed in the microfiche (and, of course, in the Magnification window) is always based on the current Display and Sort forms. You can change these at any time and the data is automatically sorted and redisplayed for you. The Edit Form Changing the Edit form has no immediate effect; unlike changing the Display or Sort forms. The Edit form is used when you choose to edit a record. Let's bring up a record to edit; but, we will put it away without actually editing it: 1. Locate "banner" on Fish disk 4 by dragging the magnifying glass around until "banner" shows up in the Magnification window. 2. Double-click on the record containing "banner". This brings up the record editor. Notice that the Edit form (in the Form List window) is called Edit All and, by George, all of the information (including some comments about each program) is available in the edit window, in yet another format! This is the power of forms. 3. Close the record editor by clicking on the "Close" gadget in the upper left corner of the Record Editor window. Editing Forms By double-clicking on any of the forms in the Form List window you can bring up the form editor. The use of this editor will be left as an exercise for the reader...(it will be fun learning about those tiny little gadgets that show up in each field as you select it!) Selecting Records There are several good reasons to select many records at a time. You may want to copy or delete a group of records, locate a group of records, or print a group of records. 1. Choose All from the SELECT menu. All of the records in your database are now selected (as you can see, they are all highlighted). 2. Choose Display Totals on Screen from the PRINT menu. A window shows up using the Print Totals form and tells you that you have something like 360 records selected! 3. Click on the Close gadget of the Totals window. 4. Choose None from the SELECT menu. 5. Choose By Field from the SELECT menu. This brings up the Selection Editor which offers you complete flexibility in selecting records. We won't go through all of the capabilities of the Selection Editor in this Quick Tour of the Microfiche Filer DEMO. The manual that accompanies the release version of The Microfiche Filer contains a complete list of its capabilities. Using the Selection Editor you can select records based on the data in each record such as: - Records that contain the word edit in the Comments field. - Records with filenames less than G (meaning the names that occur before G in the alphabet). - Records with number fields that are equal to, greater than, or less than some number (for dates, dollars or disk numbers, for instance). - Records of demos on disks before disk 15. - Records of friends that play tennis and live in Massachusetts. - And on and on... Let's try a couple of simple selections for now. 1. Select the "File Type" field and type the word "demo". With this, you are asking the Selection Editor to find all of the demo programs, or at least all of the records in your database with the word "demo" in the "File Type" field. 2. Click on the Close gadget of the Selection Editor. You now see that a number of records have been highlighted. 3. Choose Display Totals on Screen from the PRINT menu to see how many have been selected. 4. Click on the Close gadget of the Totals window. So, you've found that there are 51 demos in the database. Let's find out how many demos are on disks 1-14. 1. Choose None from the SELECT menu. This clears the list of selected records. 2. Choose By Field from the SELECT menu. Notice that the word "demo" is still in the "File Type" field. 3. Select the "Disk Number" field and type "<15". 4. Click on the Close gadget of the Selection Editor. You have now selected all records with the word "demo" in the "File Type" field AND a number less than 15 in the "Disk Number" field. Printing It is time to print. If you don't have a printer, skip this section. You MUST have your printer installed correctly. Unfortunately, there is a bug in AmigaDos that may cause the machine to crash if you have a printer installed as CUSTOM rather than using one of the other drivers (in the Workbench Preferences). If you are not sure, go and check now by moving the MFF windows out of the way so that you can get to your Preferences icon in your system disk window. Print Options Normally, before printing you should choose how you would like your data printed. You should choose a Print Record form and maybe choose a Print Title form and a Print Totals form. Then, you may wish to choose some Print Options. The print forms are already set up so you need only choose some Print Options for now. 1. Choose Edit Print Options from the PRINT menu. 2. Click in the box that says No title. 3. Click again in the box that says No title. It has changed to say Print title on first page only. 4. Click on the Close gadget of the Print Options Editor. 5. When you are asked about saving these options, choose Save. Printing 1. Make sure your printer is turned on. 2. Choose Print from the PRINT menu. Your printer will come to life and print a list of all of the demo programs on disks 1-14! If something went wrong and your printer wasn't turned on or just won't print, don't worry. Just wait 30 seconds or so until a message comes up asking about it and choose CANCEL. Don't try printing again until you have made sure that your printer is installed correctly using the Workbench Preferences. Refer to your "Introduction to Amiga" manual about installing your printer. Summary You are now familiar with the basics of manipulating microfiche. You should have a feel for the power of the microfiche metaphor. Using it, you can simply look for a record instead of being forced to type obscure command strings to bring up your records or being forced to look at record after record, one at a time until you find the one that you are interested in. Also, you should have learned about the usefulness of practically instant sorting and displaying of your data; no hour long "indexing" operations are necessary with The Microfiche Filer! You may wish to look at and experiment with some of the other databases that are provided on this disk. They may be found in the drawers under the Microfiche directory. The picture database in the Picture drawer is a rudimentary picture database, the Amicus database can be found in the Public_Domain drawer, and an address book database can be found in the Other drawer. And, by the way, we would like to thank Jim McKenzie for the building of the Fred Fish database! Please feel free to contact us at: Software Visions, Inc. 26 Forest Road Framingham, MA 01701 800-527-7014 (in MA 617-877-1266)