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1990-05-04
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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