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Text File | 1990-05-04 | 24KB | 862 lines

P h o n e D e x The easy to use phone/address database. Version 1.1 (C) Copyright 1990, by GlennSoft. All rights reserved. by David Glenn User's Manual Introduction PhoneDex is an organization tool which employs a structured database for organizing addresses and phone numbers. PhoneDex combines a speedy, easy-to-use user interface with flexible searching and printing facilities. Some features of PhoneDex: o Uses pull-down menus and windows for a fast, flexible user interface. o Uses a B-Tree indexing method for fast index searches. o Maximum phone/address entries are limited to the size of disk storage or 128,000 records, whichever is smaller. o Allows unlimited multiple phone/address databases, thus enabling multiple users to have "private" databases. o Includes fields for country and postal codes for international addresses. o Provides printing options for mailing labels and mailings lists. o Will print mailing labels on user-selectable label sizes. o Will perform searches on all allowable fields. o Features extensive field editing options. o Provides database "recovery" option in case of drastic system failure. o Supports CGA, EGA, VGA, (43 and 50 line modes), monochrome. o Supports BIOS screen writes, Desqview buffer screen writes, and snow reduction for CGA. Distribution PhoneDex is distributed as ShareWare. You are free to copy and distribute this software freely, however, if you find it of use to you, you are encouraged to register your copy. Registering your copy of the software helps the author continue to provide professional-quality software at very reasonable prices. For the Registration fee of $15.00 you will receive the latest copy of PhoneDex, a printed manual, and product support for 1 year. The latest version will be shipped to you on 5 1/4" floppy diskettes. Non-U.S. orders need to include $5.00 extra to cover additional shipping and handling charges. Checks and money orders must be drawn on a U.S. bank. Please send all payments payable in U.S. dollars. Illinois residents must add 6.25 percent for state sales tax. David Glenn GlennSoft 5 Taylor Road Fisher, IL 61843 (217) 897-1605 Disclaimer The author of PhoneDex, David Glenn, claims no responsibility for any damages caused by the use or misuse of this product. This product is distributed "as is" with no warranty expressed or implied. The author will not be responsible for any losses incurred, either directly or indirectly, by the use of this product. Use this product entirely at your own risk. The author reserves the right to make modifications at any time. Prices are subject to change without notice. PhoneDex Registration Form NAME: ______________________________________________________ COMPANY: ______________________________________________________ ADDRESS: ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ CITY: ______________________________________________________ STATE: ________________________ ZIP CODE: _________________ PHONE: ______________________________________________________ WHERE DID YOU HERE ABOUT PHONEDEX? ____________________________ ________________________________________________________________ COMMENTS: _____________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Registration @ $15.00 $__________ Shipping outside U.S. @ $5.00 __________ (Payments MUST be in U.S. Dollars/U.S. Bank) SUBTOTAL: $__________ Illinois Residents Add 6.25% State Sales Tax __________ v1.1 TOTAL: $__________ Mail to: David Glenn GlennSoft 5 Taylor Road Fisher, IL 61843 (217) 897-1605 System Requirements PhoneDex will run on the IBM PS/2, PC/AT, PC/XT, PC, PC/Jr, and on IBM compatible computers including the Compaq, NCR, Tandy, and WYSE PC's. MINIMUM requirements are: o 128 KB of memory. o PC-DOS 2.0 or greater or MS-DOS 2.0 or greater. o One diskette drive. o Either a color or a monochrome monitor with 80-column display. Installing Phonedex The only file required to run PhoneDex is PHONEDEX.EXE. Upon creating a new phone database, PhoneDex will make two files with the phone database name you provide (Ex: yourfile.nix and yourfile.pdx). These database files as well as the PHONEDEX.EXE program can be placed anywhere you desire. PhoneDex is simple to install. First be sure to make a backup copy of the distribution diskette. Once you have made your backup copy, simply copy PHONEDEX.EXE to the disk and/or subdirectory where you would like to use it. If you are using a hard disk, then you probably want to put it somewhere that is accessible via the "path". Getting Started Running PhoneDex is simple. By typing PHONEDEX at the DOS prompt, PhoneDex will start up and autoselect an text operating mode for your particular system. There are also a number of command line switches which will force PhoneDex to use different text modes. The switches and their usage are: Syntax: PhoneDex [-switches] -c - Perform CGA snow reduction on true "slow" CGA screens. -b - Perform BIOS screen writing for some "not-so" compatibles. -m - Force monochrome text writing. -e - Set screen to EGA 43 line mode. -v - Set screen to VGA 50 line mode. -p<#> - Set up label pre-lines. -t<#> - Set up label post-lines. Using PhoneDex After PhoneDex starts up you will see a title screen with a pull-down menu bar at the top. PhoneDex's menus are quite easy to use in a variety of ways. As an example, we will select the "About Phonedex" menu choice. Method 1: o Press (down arrow) to pulldown the About menu. o Press Enter to select the highlighted item (in this case it is the only option in the menu. o The About window will open up. You can read through the About information by pressing Enter after each screen, or abort it by pressing Escape. Method 2: o Press the A key to pulldown the About menu. (The highlighted letter in a menu item is a speed key for selecting that item.) o Press the A key again to select the About menu option. o The About window will open up. You can read through the About information by pressing Enter after each screen, or abort it by pressing Escape. Method 3: o Use the hot-key for About, Alt-A. Pressing this key will bring up the about window immediately. o The About window will open up and you can read through the About information by pressing Enter after each screen, or abort it by pressing Escape. All PhoneDex menus work in a similar manner. Escape will almost always abort the operation you are performing (or attempting to perform). PhoneDex Hot Key List Alt-A - Information about PhoneDex. Alt-N - Create a New phone database. Alt-O - Open an existing database. Alt-Q - Quit PhoneDex and return to DOS. Alt-R - Reindex an existing PhoneDex phone database. Alt-C - Recover a corrupted PhoneDex phone database (one in which the index is corrupted and can't be read otherwise). Phonedex Special Features Fast list picking: When you are picking an item from a list (i.e. a file list or a state list), you can type the first letter of the item you want, and the list highlight will automatically go to the first item in the list with that first letter. Extensive field editing keys: Use these keys anytime you are entering information into a PhoneDex entry field. Keys Action LeftArrow cursor left RightArrow cursor right UpArrow cursor up DownArrow cursor down Ctrl-LeftArrow word left Ctrl-RightArrow word right Tab field right Shift-Tab field left Ctrl-Enter process all fields Home beginning of field End end of field line / end of field Ins toggle field insert mode Del delete character at cursor BackSpace delete character left Ctrl-BackSpace delete word left Ctrl-R restore field to original contents Ctrl-T delete word right Ctrl-U delete to end of field Ctrl-Y delete to end of last field Creating a PhoneDex phone database. Since you now know how to manuever among PhoneDex's menus, let's create a phone database. Go to the File menu and select the New option. The Create window will open and prompt you for a name for the database. Type in a legal DOS filename prefix (up to 8 characters long), and press Enter. PhoneDex will create the database in the current directory (database consists of the 2 files: yourfile.nix and yourfile.pdx) and open the Phone Database window. From this point you can add, change, delete, print, and otherwise manipulate the entries in the phone database. Let's add a phone record for yourself now. The prompt and cursor (inverted or colored bar with flashing cursor in it) is at the Name field. The name field is rather important because PhoneDex indexes the phone database on this field. PhoneDex imposes no restrictions on how names are entered. However you decide to enter them should probably remain consistant throughout the database, but that is up to you. You can enter the name as First Middle Last or Last, First Middle or whatever. PhoneDex willtake the name as entered, capitalize it, and use that as an index for this record. So type in your name however you choose and press Enter. Likewise, type in your address, city, state (state will be automatically capitalized), and zip, then press Enter. Press Enter, tab, or down arrow twice to skip over the Postal Code and Country fields. Now type in your Home phone number using numbers only (PhoneDex will not allow anything other than numbers, and it will also provide the parens and dashes.) Now press Enter and type your work phone. The last two fields allow you to attach a date and some comments to this particular record. When you are satisfied that the record is ready to save (you can tab around all the fields and fix anything you wish), press F2 to save the record. PhoneDex will write the record out to the phone database and you can now retrieve, delete or print the phone record as you desire. To enter another record, you will need to press F4 to clear the Phone Database entry form for a new record. This does not delete the record that is currently in the form (if you haven't saved it, PhoneDex will prompt you to do so), it just clears the form for a entry of another record. Notice that F1 will give you a quick help screen to refresh your memory of the important editing keys. As your phone database develops, you will be able to perform many operations on it. Using a PhoneDex phone database. Since Phonedex allows multiple databases, you must first open a database before you can perform any operations with it. To open a database you either create a new database, which will automatically be opened for use, or you open an existing database. File Menu options: New - Creates a new phone database and takes you to the Phone Database window (see below). Open - Pops up a list of available databases on the current drive, as well as subdirectory options. Change directories, or select a phone database in the current directory from the list. Phonedex then opens the selected database and takes you to the Phone Database window (see below). Once a database has been opened, the Phone Database window will appear. This window displays an "entry form" where existing phone database records in the current database will show up for viewing and editing. Notice that the current database file, date, and time are kept in the top portion of this screen. Following is a list of operations you can perform with the database and how to perform them. Database Movement keys: PGUP - Pressing page up on the Phone Database entry form will read the previous phone record (if any) and display it in the entry form. PGDN - Pressing page down on the Phone Database entry form will read the next phone record (if any) and display it in the entry form. CTRL-HOME - Pressing control-Home will read the first phone database entry and display it in the entry form. CTRL-END - Pressing control-End will read the last phone database entry and display it in the entry form. Database Function keys: F1 - This pops up the Quick Help window, for a reference of keys you can use on the Phone Database screen. F2 - Saves the current phone record in the Phone Database entry form. Uses the Name as the record key. F3 - Opens the display phone record options window. - The Search Field is the first option. A list of allowable fields will pop up, and you can use the arrow keys to select the field that you wish to search on. Display all does just that, it will display all records in the database. - The Search String is where you type a string that you wish to find in the search field of each record in the database. For example, if you wanted to display all records with Illinois as the State, you would type IL here. A couple of fields have special options here, they are: - If you are searching the Name field, typing a =, <, or a > as the first char of the Search String will find all records equal to, less than, or greater than the string you type. Example: Search String: <David will display all records with a key less than David. - If you are searching the Date field, type a =, <, or a > as the first char of the Search String will find all records equal to, less than, or greater than the string you type. Example: Search String: <010289 will find all dates less than 01/02/89. (Leave the slashes and dashes out of date search strings.) - The Print To field will pop up a window with the allowable outputs for the search you are performing. You can display the results on the screen, print them to a file, or print them on a printer. - The Output Type field will pop up a window with the allowable output types you may want. You can print a Phone Book type list of records with Name, City, State, and phone numbers. You can print an Address List which will print the records in address format, possibly for importing into a mail merge program. You can also print a Mailing Label, which will automatically go to the printer, using the label options you have set (described later). F4 - Clears the Phone Database entry form for entry of a new phone record. F5 - Deletes the record which is currently in the Phone Database entry form. PhoneDex will prompt you for verification on this option. F6 - This pops up the Find a Phone Record window which has two fields in which to enter search criteria. PhoneDex searches the database in two ways: - Search the index key for a partial name fragment. Enter the name or fragment in the Name field, and PhoneDex will look through all the keys for that fragment. (Remember, the name will be capitalized prior to the search, so in effect the search is case insensitive.) This search method is very fast. - Search for a particular string fragment anywhere in all of the database phone records. Enter the string or string fragment in the string field, and Phonedex will search all records for the first occurance of this string. This is handy if you want to find a record relating to something in the comments, or any other field. This search takes a little longer than the name search, as PhoneDex has to match the string against the every field in the phone record. F7 - This prompts you before printing a Mailing Label of the record currently in the Phone Database entry form. This is a quick way to get a single mailing label. F8 - This pops up a window with the Mailing Label and Printer options. The fields are: - Pre-lines: This is the number of lines PhoneDex will advance the printer before beginning to print a mailing label. This is handy for labels with pre-printed company addresses at the top. You just need to align the printhead with the top of a label, then count the number of lines until the area where the label is to be printed is under the printhead. Enter the number here. - Post-lines: This is the number of lines PhoneDex will advance the printer after printing the mailing label address. This will need to be set so that it moves the printhead to the top of the next mailing label to be printed. - Page Length: This is the number of lines of a page PhoneDex will use to print the Phone List and Address List type reports. A typical page length is 66 lines. F9 - This is a special key, available on only two fields, date and state. - When in the date field, this will place the current date in the field. - When in the state field, this will pop up a window with all 50 states. You can scroll through the list and pick a state, and the two letter abbreviation will automatically be placed in the state field. Utility Options Phonedex provides phone database utilities to help keep your databases fast and fresh, as well as provide for drastic database problems. - Reindex: PhoneDex provides an optional way to reindex the phone databases you create. If you do a lot of deletion in a database, it would greatly help to run reindex on it occasionally, to clean it up and make access into it faster. - Recover: This option is really a last ditch effort to recover any records possible from a severely damaged database. Recover completely disregards the index file (yourfile.nix) and tries to recreate a database from only the data file (yourfile.pdx). It is wise to make a backup of any damaged phone database files before trying to run recover on them. In the event that recover can't make heads or tails of a damaged data file, contact the author for possible solutions. Notes from the Author I hope you enjoy using PhoneDex as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I have tried to make it a fairly concise, useful, and bug-free product. However, as is the rule in computer software, there are most assuredly areas where I have fell short of my goals. Given this inevitable situation, I ask for your help. Any and all feedback concerning PhoneDex would be much appreciated, even if you don't want to register it (although if you use it, and I think you will, I strongly encourage you to register). Here are some areas in PhoneDex which I would like to improve. o Label generation - I would like to expand the label generating capability somewhat. PhoneDex is not meant to be an all-encompassing label generation program, but a few more label output options would certainly not overburden the program in size or speed. Any suggestions in this area would be much appreciated. o Speed of searching the whole name database for a string. This option is a little slow on 8088s, especially running from a floppy. Short of changing the type of database (it is currently done using a cached B-tree index) I use to store information, I am not sure how I intend to accomplish this. I have given thought to making the database dBase compatible, which might improve the speed somewhat. Is this something which would make PhoneDex more useful to you? o Expanded comment field. I had to compromise on the size of the comment fields in the interest of holding down the database size. I really wanted them to be a lot larger. If I switched to a dBase compatible database, I would probably change the comment fields to dBase memo fields, which would eliminate an empty comment field size penalty. Contacting the Author I would be glad to answer any questions, take suggestions and/or criticisms, or respond to almost any feedback you wish to send my way. You may contact me at the following address, phone, or Fido node. David Glenn GlennSoft 5 Taylor Road Fisher, IL 61843 (217) 897-1605 Fido node: 233/2